Do more for less? Change the record, DfE

Hold my hand, ladies and gentlemen, as I take you through the mirror and down the rabbit hole and try to clarify my thoughts through this here blog post as to the skills minister’s recent proclamation at the Association of Colleges' Annual Conference that college leaders need to be able to show improvement in the sector for the Treasury to release funding.Now, forgive me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t that funding (I’m not going to call it “additional funding”, as further education has been underfunded for years – they can get knotted, using that kind of terminology) likely act as a catalyst for improvement?Basically, what we have is a situation where you can only receive funding by showing the improvement that funding would bring.Then what happens if you do show improvement? Wouldn’t that justify NOT giving the funding (the sector has shown that it can improve without the funding it needs to improve)?