Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many general further education colleges sub-contract their adult education budget; and how many adult students have been educated in this way in each year since 2010.

We are unable to provide accurate data for the total number of adult students that were educated by Further Education (FE) colleges in this way.

FE colleges have historically submitted declarations for subcontracting activities. At the time of making a declaration, each college details the maximum value of the contract they have in place with each of their adult education budget subcontractors, which is referred to as their ‘subcontracting commitments’.

We typically ask colleges (and other providers) to make their subcontractor declarations each Autumn and again each Spring. While this provides relevant data during the funding year, it does not offer the end of year figures. We are unable to ascertain from this particular data what the end of year position is for each college because some may have recruited new subcontractors after the Spring declaration. Others may have employed a subcontractor, though a learner might not of started a course. Therefore, these declarations do not provide an accurate picture of the subcontracting that took place each year.