The 2006 White Paper Further Education: Raising Skills, Improving Life Chances is the government’s response to the Foster review of the future role of FE colleges. It sets out a series of reforms to raise skills and qualification levels for young people and adults to world standards. Proposed changes aim to:

• offer more choice for customers
• tailor services to meet individuals’ needs
• encourage new, innovative providers to enter the market
• promote action to tackle poor quality, combined with more autonomy for the excellent.

The FE system will be more clearly focused on helping people gain the skills and qualifications needed for employment. All colleges and providers are expected to have at least one specialism and be part of new national sector-based networks led by National Skills Academies.

A broad range of provision is expected to continue alongside this core economic mission. Proposals include strengthening the range and quality of learning for personal fulfilment, civic participation and community development. This includes recreational, health-related and cultural learning funded through local Learning and Skills Council (LSC) Partnerships.

The capital programme for FE also presents opportunities for culture and sport. A fully integrated capital strategy is expected to deliver the capital vision for 14-19 year-olds across schools and the FE system in each locality. This includes the LSC’s capital programme allocating capital to support the policy of specialisation, particularly to develop National Skills Academies (such as for creative and cultural skills, and sport and active leisure), Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVEs) and sectoral networks.

An update published in July 2007 sets out progress made against the White Paper.

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