Where Is The Money Coming From?
The financial pressures are not all negative. The funding bodies in both FE and HE are making significant sums available.
In England, these funds come from a variety of sources that include tuition fee income and specific HEFCE investment projects like the Centres for Excellence in Learning and Teaching.
The Scottish Funding Council has made £207.9 million additional capital available for estates projects over the years from 2006 to 2008 some of which will inevitably fund new or refurbished learning spaces.
The Learning and Skills Council is also making efforts to facilitate a building boom in English FE Colleges with the aim of replacing the entire estate by 2013.
'The LSC is therefore developing proposals that, if agreed by Government, would materially accelerate the capital driven modernisation process so that the whole estate could be substantially renewed and modernised by 2013'
The Learning And Skills Council3
Sentiments from the LSC not only commit to funding, but see estates developments as having broad institutional, and ultimately sectoral, benefits. Indeed the LSC commitment is to not merely continue to provide financial support for estates developments in FE but to increase the rate at which this happens.
Against the often articulated fear that such investment seeks unrealistic improvement for the funds available the LSC, commenting on value for money, states: 'value for money' should not be equated with 'cheap and cheerful'. 3
John Wheatley CollegeWhilst capital injection of funds is no replacement for increased annual revenues it is possible, and important, to use such funding imaginatively to develop estates for the future which improve the learning, teaching and services of institutions without increasing revenue costs. An approach that synthesises efforts for improvement in key areas of human activity, application of technology, and improvement in estates is most likely to get the best from all three areas. But, inevitably - and this is the biggest issue that has to be faced in all of our institutions - this will require significant change. We consider this further in the following section and we recommend that you also look at the infoKit on Change Management.
Some universities and colleges are engaging in partnerships outside the sector or finding innovative ways of raising additional funding. John Wheatley College in Glasgow had a major new library development funded by the local authority and the council provides staffing for the library as a resource shared between the college and the local community. The same college has raised significant funding for a new build by engaging heavily in the environmental sustainability agenda.
