The Further Education Funding Council should be abolished in favour of a single post-16 funding and strategy agency, according to the training and enterprise councils.

The TEC National Council said that a single framework should be set up to roll together existing TEC, FEFC and local authority funding for post-16 education, excluding higher education.

In its submission to the government's review of lifelong learning, the national council called for a national organisation that would "oversee a single coherent framework of strategy and funding".

The national body's functions should include drawing up a national lifelong learning, skills and workforce development strategy and the administration of individual learning accounts, the council said.

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The Further Education Development Agency, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and the National Advisory Council for Education and Training Targets should all be incorporated into the new body.

Other recommendations include a new qualifications framework allowing people to mix academic, applied and vocational units.

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Education secretary David Blunkett has called for a lifelong learning review to give greater coherence to the complex post-16 funding and qualifications structures. Today is the deadline for submissions. Proposals are expected in the summer.

* A submission by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education raises many similar points, including a national lifelong learning planning council and a reconstituted National Council for Further Education and Training, to deliver the bulk of post-16 funding.