The Department allocates funds for education and training in the post-16 learning and skills sector to the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). The LSC was established in 2001 bringing the planning and funding of post-16 education together under one body.
In 2001-02 the Learning and Skills Council spent £2,236 million on adult programmes including FE, Work-Based Learning, Adult and Community Learning and other programmes. This increased to £2,427 million in 2002-03, £2,866 million in 2003-04, £2,999 million in 2004-05 and £3,264 million for 2005-06. Adult funding for Shropshire has increased from £24.99 million in 2003-04 to £28.55 million in 2004-05 and £30.56 million in 2005-06. Due to changes in the collection of information local figures for earlier years are not available. Figures for adult education for the period 1997-2001 are not comparable as the budget was split between a range of different organisations.