Talk:List of further education colleges in England

Schools List

Lists are a good source of information. However they may be dated and can sometimes be replaced by categories. Victuallers 09:26, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

But you can't put red links into categories. Lugnuts 10:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Rereversion of Reading College

User:Bleaney reverted my addition of Reading College with the comment It is still not an independent institution, therefore should be under Oxford & Cherwell Valley. However this assertion contradicts the references that I had cited on my original addition.

Specifically, http://www.reading-college.ac.uk/about-us/ states that:

Reading College is a new partnership between Oxford & Cherwell Valley College, an Oxfordshire based further education college, and LSN (Learning and Skills Network), a not-for-profit organisation active in improving education and training through support programmes, research, consultancy and training.

Note the word partnership. In law, a partnership is a legal person, just as a company or corporation is, and if the above cited reference is correct, then it is saying that Reading College is an independent institution. The fact that one of the partners is itself a college of further education does not change this.

Note also that the home page of the Reading College web site is copyright Reading College as opposed to Oxford & Cherwell Valley College. That statement would be meaningless if Reading College is not a legal person.

From a more pragmatic point of view, the whole point of list articles is to ease readers' navigation. So if it is generally perceived that Reading College is a college of further education, then it belongs in this list. From that perspective, I would suggest that the following facts strongly indicate such a perception:

• Reading College has its own web site
• The large signs outside the front door say 'Reading College' and make no mention of 'Oxford & Cherwell Valley College'

Now it may be that the cites that I based my edits on are wrong, and Oxford & Cherwell Valley College is making a will-full effort to impersonate Reading College. But they are reasonably authoritative cites, which means they should stand against uncited assertions. If you have some citable evidence that Reading College is merely a department of Oxford & Cherwell Valley College, then I would suggest starting by editing the Reading College article in line with that evidence, and citing it as a reference. If the usual WP crowd-sourced process accepts this, then I will remove the college's entry from this list. -- Starbois (talk) 12:21, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Further evidence that the Reading College website is telling the truth, in that this page on the LSN web site (http://www.lsnlearning.org.uk/solutions-and-services/operational-partnerships/) acknowledges their involvement in the partnership. So if Reading College is not an independent college of further education, and LSN are 'partners' (in some general sense) in its operation, that would surely lead us to the rather counter-intuitive conclusion that LSN *is* a further education college!. -- Starbois (talk) 12:42, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little confused by your claim that "In law, a partnership is a legal person", since Halsbury is quite clear that "Under English law it has long been established that a partnership or firm is not a 'person' or legal entity". In this case, though, I suspect that "partnership" is not being used in its legal sense, since the back page of the College's 2011 Full-time Prospectus includes the useful words "Reading College is a limited company registered in England and Wales / Registered address: Kings Road Reading RG1 4HJ / Registered company no.: 07253475". So it's clear that it is legally separate from O&CVC. --bjh21 (talk) 12:08, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Reading College doesn't recieve funds (directly) from the Government Agency that allocates FE cash. Lugnuts (talk) 13:31, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I have updated the lead of this article to clarify that this is a list of colleges that are publicly funded by the Skills Funding Agency, and that all subsidiaries (i.e. Colleges that do NOT recieve their funding from the Skills Funding Agency, but recieve it from a parent college that does) are listed below the parent college. Bleaney (talk) 22:19, 28 September 2011 (UTC)