Consultation has begun on plans for a new college to provide training and development to leaders and managers in the learning and skills sector. The aim is to raise the status of the sector and ensure that high standards of training are maintained. The first programmes for senior managers are expected to be available from April 2003.

The introduction to the consultation document states: "Raising quality and standards across the whole of education and training is at the top of the Government’s agenda and considerable resources have been allocated to meeting this priority over the last 4 years. However, increased resources alone will not deliver better results – excellent leadership and management are also vital to the process... The learning and skills sector has many excellent leaders now, but there is no strategic framework for the delivery of professional training, support and development. In some higher education institutions there are well developed approaches. In others the approach is much less formalised... This is unacceptable. Every professional should have access to high quality training and development. Management training at present often lacks coherence, direction and status. The leaders of the learning and skills and higher education sectors should have access to the same quality of training and development that other professions take for granted. There is increasing recognition that there is far too much at stake to leave these things to chance.

The consultation includes a questionnaire, with a deadline for responses of 1st May 2002. It requests responses on the range of modules the college should cover, the proposal for a new qualification for Principals, and whether the college should include programmes designed for work-based learning providers, centres of adult and community learning and providers in the voluntary sector.