Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the decision to reduce Jisc’s funding and introduce fees for further education colleges to pay for essential IT infrastructure and technology support services on the adequacy of provision of those services.

Our assessment is that introducing a mixed funding model including an element of subscription will increase Jisc’s accountability to colleges as its customers. Over time, we expect this relationship to drive greater efficiency in the service Jisc provides, and to encourage colleges that subscribe to make full use of the services available.