Confusion

In their evidence to the Royal Commission on Local Government, the ATTI has outlined the reasons for their dissatisfaction with present boundaries and arrangements. Under three separate headings, they discuss problems of present catchment areas, the difficulties of the smaller authorities in providing a sufficiently efficient machine, and the unsuitability of present local government committee structure to the government of technical colleges. Dealing with the catchment problem, they point out that it is at present by no means unusual for a student to work in the area of one local education authority, receive his education in a second, and live in a third. Inevitably administrative and course problems arise from such a situation. Indeed, it was recently pointed out to us in Wales that a college on the western boundary of Glamorgan in fact took all but the majority of its release students from neighbouring Carmarthen. The resultant administrative confusion and delay was difficult to explain to industrialists — particularly when viewed against the efforts made to get them to release students at all.