Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that staff and trade unions will be effectively consulted at each stage during the process of further education bodies becoming subsidiaries to higher education institutions.

In order to become a subsidiary company of a higher education institution, a further education corporation would have to dissolve and the corporation would be required to consult publicly on proposals for dissolution and to take account of the views of those consulted.[1]

It would be for the individual corporations involved to satisfy themselves as to whether TUPE might apply where staff were transferring from a college to a subsidiary company and if so, to comply with the relevant requirements including those in respect of consultation with staff representatives.[2]

[1] Section 27 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/13/section/27 and regulations 3 and 4 of the Further Education Corporations (Publication of Proposals) (England) Regulations 2012 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/1157/regulation/3/made

[2] TUPE guidance is at http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1655