Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of funding for further education institutions.

We have protected the base rate of funding for 16 to 19 year olds for all types of providers until the end of the current spending review period in 2020. We have been allocated £1.5 billion for the Adult Education Budget for each year of the 2015 Spending Review period to engage adults to participate and develop the skills and learning they need up to level 3 to equip them for work, an apprenticeship or further learning.

We are actively exploring the efficiency and resilience of further education and will be assessing how far existing and forecast funding and regulatory structures enable high quality provision. This work will align closely with the Post-18 Funding Review in particular, to ensure a coherent vision for further and higher education. As with other areas of departmental spending, further education funding from 2020 onwards will be considered as part of the next spending review.