Meet the bureaucracy buster

Sir George Sweeney has been given the task of ridding the further education sector of red tape. He has some radical plans to address the causes of bureaucracy rather than its symptoms. He talks to Caroline Haydon

Can you ever get rid of bureaucracy? Britain's 400 further education colleges, suffering the dead weight of red tape, white and green papers, and any number of rainbow-hued bright new "initiatives", might be forgiven for thinking the answer is no.

Now, however, a sector used to being seen in the background is suddenly in the vanguard of an ambitious new attempt to do just that. The man in charge, Knowsley college principal Sir George Sweeney, is a northerner who is realistic about the challenge. Support for his plan, he says, has been "tinged with a hint of scepticism – for many colleagues seeing will be believing".

His ideas have, say insiders, caught the sector off guard. Expecting a long-ish list of bureaucratic procedures to be cut, they were faced with a radical reappraisal of the relationships that dictate the way the system runs. While most were pleasantly surprised, there was apprehension in some quarters. Innocuously entitled "Trust in the Future", the report that launched Sir George's plan of action was delivered late last year. He has a new mandate to oversee the implementation of the recommendations in that document and to chair the workings of a second, new bureaucracy task force.

"Trust in the Future" sounds mawkish but encapsulates the idea at the heart of it all. Opting, he says, to treat the cause not the symptoms of the malaise, Sir George has gone for the jugular, positing the need for a "new and quite different relationship" between the FE funding body the Learning and Skills Council, nationally and locally, and providers. "It's a conceptual step change in how we think about accountability, auditing and monitoring," says Nadine Cartner, head of policy at the Association for College Management. "It's fresh and forward looking, and innovative thinking".

And as the title implies, the important idea is trust, particularly the trust of the funder in the provider. If that is freely given, the real business of the college – teaching – is not hamstrung by unnecessary and time-consuming auditing.

A previous lack of trust between the LSC or its forerunners and the colleges is indeed one of the reasons for the burgeoning of bureaucratic processes, acknowledges Peter Pendle, ACM's chief executive. Politicians' overreaction to the failure of some colleges and an over-pessimistic view of the ability of further education to deliver a trained workforce hasn't helped, he says. "But now with extra money coming in, and the taskforce, the sector has an opportunity."

Taskforce member and head of education policy at the Local Government Association, Neil Fletcher, agrees that the role of the LSC is central. "You cannot prescribe from the centre," he says. "You have to dismantle the rules. The LSC, nationally and locally, must try and dismantle those rules which say 'do this and do it in triplicate'. Let's get rid of them, devolve, and work on good practice and trust."

The simple act of collecting data for government gets in the way of running a service, he believes. "By all means let's have indicators and keep an eye on outcomes, but don't let's make it so burdensome."

Sir George doesn't like recounting horror stories, but his own report cites one northern college principal who spoke of receiving around a million pounds in funding (in addition to the base budget) from 30 different funding strands, all needing separate monitoring and administration.

His own college, Knowsley, is, he says, already benefiting from the attempt to hack away at this sort of structure. Seven different sources of funding have been rolled into one. "That has freed up lots of resources I can use more productively," he says.

The process will continue, with the LSC about to announce the names of 20 "pathfinder" colleges where it is hoped to pioneer a single planning and funding process, with another 100 following next year, bringing nearly a quarter of the sector under simpler, less bureaucratic procedures.

Inside the business Sir George is known for his long experience and political ability, as well as for his sense of humour, and he does see the joke in the fact that he has to set up new documentation and a scrutiny group to make all this happen. But that isn't new bureaucracy, he insists, just proper management and a means of watching that more paperwork doesn't keep popping up.

Another member of the task force and director of FE development at the Association of Colleges, Dr John Brennan, warns against the gradual re-encroachment of the bureaucratic tide. "If all this can be implemented in full it will make quite a difference," he says. "The danger is that when one level of bureaucracy disappears, another takes its place. Now, for example, the Government's 'Success for All' policy initiative will add to the administrative burden."

Sir George disagrees. "These targets go to the heart of what colleges are about – they ask what your place is in the community, how successful you are, whether you are engaging with industry," he says. "These are all questions I'd have to be answering anyway, so if I'm to be measured doing it I'd welcome that. We have to be accountable and this is the proper form of accountability." His view is that the LSC should feel pleased, that this is a serious attempt to address the problem. "This is an iterative process – we have to keep at it," he says. "It will work."

Sir George Sweeney: a life in brief

1990-present: principal of Knowsley Community College, Merseyside, where he feels right at home, being Knowsley born and bred

Before that: taught in various colleges (his subject is politics and public administration), but never further south than Crewe

Education: studied history and politics at Hull. Then, as a lecturer, spent the evenings on a MA thesis about Singaporean politics circa 1950

Gongs etc: knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours list of 2000; chair of the Further Education National Training Organisation; board member of the University for Industry; council member of both the Further Education Funding Council and the Learning and Skills Council

Miscellany: Everton Supporter, keen gardener, kind to children

Grace McCann