based training and employability programmes were both funded
and planned by over 70 local Training and Enterprise Councils
(TECs) and under the New Deal, respectively. At the end of the
1990s, under the influence of government policy guiding the
delivery of public services generally, further education, work-based
learning, employability programmes (now funded by Jobcentre
Plus) and community education came together as the Learning and
Skills Sector. The prevailing philosophy was that it was the quality
of public provision which mattered most, not who owned the
provider. The Learning and Skills Act, 2000, brought public, private
and charitable providers together for the first time, under a powerful
new national funding and planning agency, the Learning and Skills
Council (LSC). Following the reorganisation of government
departments in 2007, the whole of the learning and skills sector
gradually became known as further education. Whilst there is no
settled consensus about its name today, the most widely used term
is the ‘Further Education and Skills sector’.