Adult Education Slashed in Liverpool

The Liverpool Echo article of 6th June 2006 quoted Council bosses as claiming that a £1.5m funding cut in the city’s adult learning service was “brought in after the standards of classes were panned by government inspectors”, and Councillor Joe Anderson as stating “I believe it was because Liverpool was not producing a quality service."

Both these statements are incorrect. Let us put the record straight.

The funding cuts originate from two sources. The major part of the funding cut represented 20% of the overall budget of £5 million. This was imposed by the government and is part of a national strategy which places little or no value on courses which don’t lead to employment. On top of this and following an unfavourable inspection report, the Learning And Skills Council (“LSC”) has penalised LALS further so that the total budget cut has increased from £1 million to £1.5 million.

Even without the penalty imposed by the LSC, we would still be facing a massive cut of £1 million due to current government cut backs in adult learning nation-wide. These cuts don’t only apply to LALS, they also apply to Liverpool Community College which is itself facing massive cuts of £1.5 million, despite having had an excellent inspection report from the Adult Learning Inspectorate (ALI). This leaves the two biggest providers of adult education in Liverpool facing combined cuts of £3 million.

We were assured by the council that there is still a policy of no compulsory redundancy but rather that it will do it’s best to redeploy employees elsewhere. We will be calling on the council to carry out an analysis of employees' transferable skills so that those who are at risk can be redeployed.

We realise that the council's decision is led by the government setting strict funding priorities in the hope of plugging the national skills gap. However, we do not believe this should be at the expense of many others adults who study a broad range of courses that fulfil their social and self development needs.

Adult learning is crucial to the regeneration of Liverpool. As we are working towards the year 2008 and our recognition as European Capital of Culture, we should be promoting and expanding adult education, especially in the 'cultural' subjects such as music, local history, languages and dance. Adult learning has always been about more than just training for work. It's been about gaining knowledge and skills that make individual lives more purposeful and communities more cohesive.

We also question why instead of relying on government funding for further education passed down through the LSC, Liverpool City Council can not put some of its own money into running its adult education service. Is adult learning to be one of the casualties of the council achieving one of the lowest council tax increases in England?

Finally we are dismayed at the LSC's decision to transfer some £600,000 of provision to Liverpool Community College. This is a divisive move which will only add to the predicament of Liverpool Adult Learning Service. Bearing in mind the unfavourable inspection report, we believe the service should be supported in order to improve before the next inspection in September 2006, not financially penalised. The 'recovery rate' for providers reinspected by the Adult Learning Inspectorate during 2003-04, before penalties and cut backs were introduced, was very high. Of the 142 learning providers fully reinspected, 127 (89 per cent) received grades of satisfactory or better. We hope to join forces with the community college to campaign together against these destructive government cuts.

Terry Clarke
UCU Branch Secretary
Liverpool Adult Learning Service