STATES funding of the three colleges – a £4.88m. subsidy however you look at it – is a perennially controversial topic and, whatever individual views are on the latest proposals to reduce it, the Policy Council should be congratulated for trying to de-politicise the issue.

By taking control of implementing the Financial Transformation Programme initiative, the council has made it a purely financial matter, divorced it from arguments about the 11-plus and selection and enabled it to say that this ‘is not a report on secondary education policy’.

And in concentrating solely on cash, the council has been able to propose a £1.11m. saving, representing a 25% cut in funding, that has been endorsed by the colleges, Education and Treasury and Resources.

The reality is that the package probably does not please anyone.

It does not go far enough for critics of the colleges or those who view it as a taxpayer subsidy for elitism and Education is clearly in a huff that things were taken out of its hands.

For the colleges, the grant reductions are real, painful and will impose extra pressure on parents, most of whom already make sacrifices to pay the fees.

Yet since the proposals are in a zone of bare acceptability, they should also be more palatable to the Assembly as a whole as a compromise deal that not only delivers significant – and overdue – FTP progress but also lays the foundation for more detailed work on the whole funding issue.

If endorsed, the proposals will trigger an annual reporting and review cycle led by Treasury and Resources, which will include monitoring against a set of agreed key performance indicators and open inspection of the colleges’ accounts.

Unlike the bus subsidy currently in the hands of Environment, under the council’s recommendations islanders will be able to see what they get from the colleges for their money and how it is spent.

That level of transparency might initially be uncomfortable for the three schools but, no matter how good a job they may do, receipt of public funds demands a high level of transparency.