Everyone must have real skills, not phoney bits of paper. Further education must address those who slip through the net. So the morale of teachers must be high, and this means paying them. We must have people of the highest standard in education, and we must keep them in education. Resourcing is vital, and for this we must be prepared to tax.
Otherwise proposals are so much hot air.
The local tier should be strengthened, and its funding made more responsive to local demand. But regional bodies are no solution. Power and funding should be decentralised to the elected local education authorities. Herts County Council had its own bureaucracy, and adding a few county councillors to the FEFC structure would not increase accountability. The new system frees colleges to run their own affairs, but the jury is still out on the FEFC system.