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"Reckless" behaviour by civil servants has left London's further education colleges at risk of being unable to carry out more than £300million of desperately needed refurbishment, a report said today.
It lays bare the fiasco at the Learning and Skills Council, which - in just over a year - approved projects costing £2.7billion more than it could afford.
These included Lambeth College's £50million technology centre in Brixton. The project is stuck in limbo, with the college struggling for money after the LSC failed to honour its promises.
The report, from the Commons public accounts committee, said the LSC, which is due to be abolished next year, was guilty of a "very serious failure" in a £2billion programme to refurbish tertiary colleges across the UK.
Lambeth College was able to build a sixth-form centre in Clapham with £5million from the LSC. But there was no sign of the LSC's promised £50million for the project to rebuild its base in Brixton Hill. The site would have housed construction, engineering, electronics, media and computer-aided design facilities and increased the college's student roll from 7,000 to 8,000.
Peter Doble, Lambeth College's vice-principal for finance and planning, said the LSC encouraged it to demolish and rebuild the Brixton Hill site rather than opt for a cheaper refurbishment.
"There has been no prioritising of the capital spending [by the LSC]. It's been first come, first served," he said.
"We spent what spare resources we did have. We are now stuck with buildings which, in the case of Brixton, are virtually falling down. Had we known how it was going to pan out, we would have come up with different plans."
The public accounts committee found that colleges in London bidded for a total of £760million at the end of last year, but that the LSC could only afford £446million. There are 53 further education colleges in London and about 450 nationally.
Edward Leigh, the Conservative chairman of the committee, said: "The Learning and Skills Council has been guilty of a very serious failure in its management of the programme to refurbish and rebuild further education college buildings.
"The council behaved recklessly by approving too many projects and allowing colleges' expectations of financial support to outstrip what it could afford by nearly £2.7billion."
Business minister Pat McFadden said: "Since 2001 our building programme has rebuilt or renewed more than half the further education estate."
Reader views (6)
More incompetence from an expensive Quango.
Get rid of them all and stop Central Government interference in Local matters.
- Cap, London
Will anything happen to those responsible for this fiasco, or will they simply get away with it and go on to commit further such offences?
- C.Nichol, London
The LSC's budget is approved by ministers. If civil servants have made such funding pledges, it is because the incompetent profligates of NuLiebour gave them the impression that this money was available.
This debacle has Gormless McClown written all over it.
- Keith Lonsdale, Doncaster
Mo,
Its clear from this article that the LSC over-subscribed, not that it was under-funded or caught on the back foot by a withdrawal of funding that the Government had pledged. Insofar as Gordon Brown is responsible for everything, I can see the validity of your vitriolic attack on him. But, in more objective terms, he is not actually the cause of this situation. Might you reflect a little and aim your hostilities at the right parties (the anonymous civil servants who doubtless remain on the payroll)?
- Prototypical Englishman, Wormwood Scrubs
It's not only colleges and schools that are losing out, we run small training company with a small contract with the LSC to fund NVQ's mostly for people who have been made redundant. Our budget has been cut by two thirds and we were told a lot of money has been clawed back by the government for the Olympic games, so good old Gordon does not lose face with the rest of the world. God forbid that Gordon or the other greedy members of this government are seen in a bad light!!!!!
- Mo, hants
No!!!! Incompetence from the civil service, I don't believe it. Next I suppose you'll be saying that all MP's are inept fiddling thieves????
- Bob, Cheam
