Brief Guides from LSIS
Posted: 27 September 2009
The Brief Guides which LSIS have released over the summer are now available here for download. Thanks to Ben Margulies for providing these.
A Brief Guide to Recession and Recovery, a report by the Work Foundation on the responses cities are making to the economic crisis. The report notes that, almost without exception, cities with higher skills levels tend to suffer less severely in recessions. It therefore supports the case for investment in further education and skills and it also provides interesting examples of innovative practice:
Download the Brief Guide to Recession and Recovery [323kB Word document]
A social mobility paper, Unleashing aspiration, contains recommendations on how to recruit professionals from a wider socio-economic basis, and puts a lot of emphasis on vocational education and further education in general. In particular, LSIS would welcome your views on how the FE and skills sector should begin to prepare for the likely legislation that will make tackling socio-economic disadvantage and narrowing gaps in outcomes a core function of public services:
Download the Brief Guide to the Unleashing aspiration [276kB Word document]
The guide entitled Review of current debates and developments in English higher education provides an overview of major issues affecting HE. As higher and further education have come under the jurisdiction of a single department, the HE world is likely to become increasingly relevant to FE and skills leaders and policy development and dialogue across the FE/HE divide could increase. This review aims to support FE and skills colleagues in such dialogue, by outlining the policy context facing HE Many of them closely parallel the challenges facing FE - the recession, rapidly diminishing public spending and community cohesion. Link:
Download Review of current debates and developments in English higher education [101kB PDF]
The Brief Guide to the Demos paper Getting More for Less, suggests strategies for making more efficient and effective use of public monies in a straitened fiscal climate. The proposals focuses on collaboration, personalisation and preventive services, and call for reforms to the way we calculate value for money. It's a good read (also available for download as a free pamphlet from Demos itself - there's a link in the paper):
Download Brief guide to Getting More for Less [267kB Word document]
A Brief Guide on the subject of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)'s new intervention policy for higher education provision. It applies to FE colleges which deliver HE:
Download Brief guide to HEFCE's intervention policy [252kB Word document]