These are uncertain times for English further education. With the sector facing a 25 per cent cut in public funding over four years, the challenges are immense, but there are opportunities too, as institutions prepare for the introduction of tuition fee loans for study above Level 3 for students aged 24 and over, and ministers stress their appreciation of the wider role of colleges and pledge to free them from the target-driven, overly bureaucratic culture they say emerged under Labour. The coalition's desire to enable colleges "to be more efficient and responsive to the needs of employers, learners and their community" was one of the prompts for the Colleges in their Communities inquiry, launched jointly by NIACE, the Association of Colleges and the 157 Group at the end of last year. The inquiry is chaired by Margaret Sharp, the former Liberal Democrat further and higher education spokesperson, who was raised to the peerage, as Baroness Sharp of Guildford, in 1998. In this article, Baroness Sharp tells why she believes a wider vision of the role of colleges is needed.