I attended my first meeting of the LSIS (Learning & Skills Improvement Service) Council on 15th October in London. Ruth Silver and Graham Hoyle led the meeting and the new LSIS Chief Executive, David Collins, outlined some of the new direction for the organisation.
LSIS has been given a much reduced budget but, within that, there was good news that, soon, the resource for providers will be allocated into Provider Accounts according to the number of Full Time Equivalent learners they have. This will mean the WEA can access some support resources without the tiresome explanations of why we're not like an FE college. In addition, the services to providers look clearer and you can rate each of them through the website. The Leadership toolkits, including Adult & Community Learning are now free and providers can have free quality 'health checks' two years after inspection from LSIS nine Regional Development Partners. The online Safeguarding Training was presented and several members of the Council indicated that this is a welcome resource.
All these seemed an improvement on what we'd seen earlier when I feared LSIS was captured by General FE and Workbased Learning providers. Finally, the new (elected) Council will be different for LSIS management to work with as the end of the session indicated when a number of people on the Council insisted that sessions need to involve them more in the discussion and less in receiving information.
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