ABSTRACT
This chapter describes major factors in the development of the environment of the Liverpool Further Education (FE) Colleges. These factors, which emerged during the four-year period of the research, indicate an increasing tendency to turbulence. On 7th August 1987, the Department of Education and Science issued a Green Consultative Paper indicating that the Government intended to in-elude, in a forthcoming Education Bill, provisions on maintained further education. The Education Reform Act of 1988 and the requirements of the Joint Efficiency Study constituted major environmental changes for FE Colleges. In addition to programme planning, the determination and allocation of the federal and the Colleges’ budgets and the establishment of management information systems, the Colleges collaborated very closely on numerous matters including staff development. The amount of planning and preparatory work the Colleges then had to undertake in conjunction with the Authority meant that the ‘federal’ pressures on management were significantly increased.
