FE News speaks to Nick Linford about his new guide on post-16 funding

Nick Linford, the director of Planning and Performance at Lewisham College, has unveiled a new handbook to simplify changes to the Learning and Skills Council’s (LSC) funding system.

The hands-on guide to post-16 learning, published in partnership with Edexcel, explains the LSC’s new funding formula and methodology, which is a significantly differently way of calculating funding in 2008/09 for further education colleges, training providers and school sixth forms.

It is designed to introduce complex funding processes in plain English, and can also be used as key reference material.

Speaking to FE News at the Association of Learning Provider’s autumn conference last week, Mr Linford said: "A lot of people are saying they are buying one or two – evaluating it – and then buying maybe 20 or 30 for all their senior managers and their governors, so I think it’s going well. It’s targeted right across training providers, colleges and school sixth forms because it all relates to them now. So it’s a big market and hopefully will be really helpful to them moving forward in quite a new world on funding."