“My report shows that the financial state of the sector is improving but there are still too many colleges in poor financial health. Governors and managers can make a vital contribution to their colleges’ financial condition and the best practice I have identified should help colleges with problems to overcome their difficulties effectively.”
David Melville, chief executive of the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) said:
“We welcome Sir John Bourn’s report and the recommendations for improving colleges’ financial health. We would like colleges to make more use of benchmarking comparisons to identify the means and scope for financial improvement. We will be actively promoting groups of colleges as ‘benchmarking families’ in the future. Through this initiative we will continue to put colleges into contact with others with a similar profile leading to the useful sharing of knowledge and consequent improvements in performance. However, the success of this initiative depends on reliable and prompt data from colleges.
“We will be working with Further Education Development Agency to develop a standard course-costing model together with common financial and management information systems.”