House of Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee
Re-skilling for recovery: After Leitch, implementing skills and training policies
First Report of Session 2008–09
Volume II Oral and written evidence
Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 15 December 2008
HC 48-II [Incorporating 505-i–v, Session 2007–08] Published 16 January 2009 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £0.00
The Innovation, Universities, Science & Skills Committee
The Innovation, Universities, Science & Skills Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.
Current membership Mr Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough)(Chairman) Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (Labour, City of Durham) Mr Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry) Mr Ian Cawsey (Labour, Brigg & Goole) Mrs Nadine Dorries (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire) Dr Ian Gibson (Labour, Norwich North) Dr Evan Harris (Liberal Democrat, Oxford West & Abingdon) Dr Brian Iddon (Labour, Bolton South East) Mr Gordon Marsden (Labour, Blackpool South) Dr Bob Spink (UK Independence Party, Castle Point) Ian Stewart (Labour, Eccles) Graham Stringer (Labour, Manchester, Blackley) Dr Desmond Turner (Labour, Brighton Kemptown) Mr Rob Wilson (Conservative, Reading East)
Powers The Committee is one of the departmental Select Committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No.152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk
Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/ius A list of reports from the Committee in this Parliament is included at the back of this volume.
Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are: Sarah Davies (Clerk); Glenn McKee (Second Clerk); Dr Christopher Tyler (Committee Specialist); Dr Joanna Dally (Committee Specialist); Ana Ferreira (Committee Assistant); Camilla Brace (Committee Secretary); Jonathan Olivier Wright (Senior Office Clerk); and Becky Jones (Media Officer).
Staff of the Committee during the inquiry Dr Lynn Gardner (Clerk); and Dr Edward Waller (Second Clerk)
Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Innovation, Universities, Science & Skills Committee, Committee Office, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general inquiries is: 020 7219 2793; the Committee’s e-mail address is: [email protected].
Witnesses
Wednesday 14 May 2008 Page
Ms Liz Wallis, Managing Director, Digital 2010, Professor Geoff Layer, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Learning and Teaching, University of Bradford, Dr Roger Bennett, Principal, North Lindsey College, Mr Gary Williamson, Executive Director, Leeds Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Ms Linda Florance, Chief Executive, Skillsfast UK, Mr Mark Andrews, Chief Executive, NG Bailey, and Mr Tom Smith, Head of Adult, Families and Extended Learning, Barnsley Learning Net, and Ms Ruth Adams, Head of Skills, Yorkshire Forward. Ev 1
Wednesday 4 June 2008
Mick Fletcher, Educational Consultant, Professor Alison Fuller, Professor of Education and Work, School of Education University of Southampton, Professor Alison Wolf, Sir Roy Griffiths Professor of Public Sector Management, Department of Management, King’s College London, and Professor Lorna Unwin, Faculty of Policy and Society, Institute of Education, University of London Ev 15
Dr Philip Wright, Director of Science and Technology, Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, Ms Lee Hopley, Senior Economist, Engineering Employers Federation, Matthew Jaffa, Skills Policy Adviser, Federation of Small Businesses, and Graham Schuhmacher, Head of Learning Services, Rolls-Royce plc Ev 25
Wednesday 25 June 2008
Chris Humphries, Chief Executive, UK Commission for Employment and Skills, Teresa Sayers, Chief Executive, Financial Services Skills Council, Tom Bewick, Chief Executive, Creative and Cultural Skills, Frank Lord, Chair, Alliance Employment and Skills Board Ev 34
Steve Broomhead, Chief Executive, NWDA, David Cragg, National Director, Adult Learning and Employment, LSC, and David Hughes, Regional Director, LSC London Ev 46
Wednesday 9 July 2008
Dr David Collins, President of Association of Colleges and Principal of South Cheshire College, Dr Malcolm McVicar, Vice-Chancellor, University of Central Lancashire, representing Million+, Professor David Eastwood, Chief Executive, Higher Education Funding Council for England, and Professor Deian Hopkin, Vice-Chancellor, London South Bank University, representing Universities UK Ev 55
Mr Tom Wilson, Head, TUC Organisation and Services Department, TUC, Mr Wes Streeting, President, National Union of Students, Ms Anne Madden, Head of Education, Skills and Employability Policy, Equality and Human Rights Commission, and Mr Alan Tuckett, Director, National Institute of Adult Continuing Education Ev 66
Wednesday 8 October 2008
Mr David Lammy MP, Minister of State and Mr Stephen Marston, Director General of Further Education and Skills, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills Ev 76
List of written evidence
Page
1 Gordon Marsden MP Ev 93 2 Department for: Innovation, Universities and Skills; Communities and Local Government; Children, Schools and Families; Work and Pensions, and the Learning and Skills Council Ev 99, 304, 325 3 University of Sheffield Ev 114 4 Research Councils UK (RCUK) Ev 115 5 The Royal Academy of Engineering Ev 117 6 Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) Ev 118 7 Learning and Skills Council (LSC) Ev 122 8 EEF Ev 129 9 157 Group Ev 132 10 Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management Ev 135 11 Engineering Professors’ Council Ev 137 12 Skill: National Bureau for Students with Disabilities Ev 139 13 Institution of Chemical Engineers Ev 141 14 Association of Accounting Technicians Ev 143 15 Open College Network, Yorkshire and Humber Region Ev 146 16 Energy & Utility Skills Ev 147 17 City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development Ev 151 18 The Association for Nutrition Ev 155 19 Alliance Employment & Skills Board Ev 157, 295, 296 20 Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Ev 160, 291, 325 21 Ufi Ev 178 22 CRAC: The Career Development organisation Ev 180 23 Council for the Mathematical Sciences Ev 183 24 University of Hertfordshire and Oaklands College Ev 184 25 Council for Industry and Higher Education (CIHE) Ev 187 26 Humanities Subject Centres of the Higher Education Academy Ev 192 27 University of Central Lancashire Ev 193 28 YWCA England and Wales Ev 195 29 Academy for Sustainable Communities Ev 197 30 Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) Ev 200 31 Semta Ev 202 32 Open University Ev 206 33 Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association Ev 208 34 Age Concern Ev 209 35 Lifelong Learning Networks in the Yorkshire and Humber Region Ev 212 36 Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) Ev 215 37 Million+ Ev 219, 292 38 UNITE and Civil Service Pensioners’ Alliance (CSPA) Ev 223 39 GoSkills Ev 225 40 Centre for Enterprise (CFE) Ev 226
41 National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) Ev 231 42 Birkbeck College, University of London Ev 235 43 Lifelong Learning UK Ev 237 44 Association for Science Education Ev 239 45 Skillset Ev 248 46 Association of Colleges Ev 252 47 Universities UK Ev 257 48 Barry Johnson, Learning Partners Ltd Ev 260 49 Design Council Ev 261 50 ConstructionSkills Ev 263 51 Equality and Human Rights Commission Ev 267 52 Alliance of Sector Skills Councils Ev 272 53 Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) Ev 277 54 Yorkshire Forward Ev 278 55 Rolls-Royce Ev 280 56 Dr Roger Bennett, Principal, North Lindsey College Ev 281 57 TUC Ev 282 58 Unite the Union Ev 287 59 NUS Ev 289 60 Electronics Yorkshire Ev 294 61 UK Commission for Employment and Skills Ev 297 62 Letter from Lord Young of Norwood Green, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills and Apprenticeships Ev 324 63 Kevin O’Leary, Education Management Consultant Ev 337
List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament
The reference number of the Government’s response to each Report is printed in brackets after the HC printing number.
Session 2007–08 First Report UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation HC 185 (HC 459) Second Report The work and operation of the Copyright Tribunal HC 245 (HC 637) Third Report Withdrawal of funding for equivalent or lower level HC 187–I (HC 638) qualifications (ELQs) Fourth Report Science Budget Allocations HC 215 (HC 639) Fifth Report Renewable electricity-generation technologies HC 216–I (HC 1063) Sixth Report Biosecurity in UK research laboratories HC 360–I (HC 1111) Seventh Report Pre-legislative scrutiny of the Draft Apprenticeships Bill HC 1062-I First Special Report The Funding of Science and Discovery Centres: HC 214 Government Response to the Eleventh Report from the Science and Technology Committee, Session 2006–07 Second Special Report The Last Report: Government Response to the Thirteenth HC 244 Report from the Science and Technology Committee, Session 2006–07 Fourth Special Report Investigating the Oceans: Government Response to the HC 506 Science and Technology Committee’s Tenth Report of [incorporating HC Session 2006–07 469–i]
Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [SO] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 1 Oral evidence
Taken before the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee (Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Sub-Committee on After Leitch: Implementing Skills and Training Policies)
on Wednesday 14 May 2008
Members present:
Mr Phil Willis, in the Chair
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods Mr Gordon Marsden Mr Tim Boswell
Witnesses: Ms Liz Wallis, Managing Director, Digital 2010, Professor GeoV Layer, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Learning and Teaching, University of Bradford, Dr Roger Bennett, Principal, North Lindsey College, Mr Gary Williamson, Executive Director, Leeds Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ms Linda Florance, Chief Executive, Skillfast UK, Mr Mark Andrews, Chief Executive, NG Bailey, Mr Tom Smith, Head of Adult, Families and Extended Learning, Barnsley Learning Net, and Ms Ruth Adams, Head of Skills, Yorkshire Forward, gave evidence.
Q1 Chairman: Could I first of all say how delighted University of Bradford, it is good to see somebody the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Sub- from Bradford here in Leeds; Dr Roger Bennett the Committee is to be here in Leeds today and to thank Principal of North Lindsey College, Mr Gary very much indeed our witnesses for joining us this Williamson, the Executive Director of Leeds afternoon. When the Government decided that it Chamber of Trade and Commerce; Ruth Adams, was going to make changes to the structure of the Head of Skills at Yorkshire Forward; Linda government, it set up a department with Florance, the Chief Executive of Skillfast-UK; Mr “innovation” in its title and we as the Select Mark Andrews, the Chief Executive of NG Bailey; Committee shadowing that Department felt we and last but by no means least Mr Tom Smith, Head ought to have innovation as well, and actually of Adult, Families and Extended Learning of the getting the Select Committee to get out of London Barnsley Learning Net. I wondered if, Ruth, I could and come all the way on this huge journey to Leeds begin with you to ask first of all does the RDA agree has been a very innovative statement. I hope you will with the Leitch analysis of the skills needs for the appreciate it is very, very important for our region— Yorkshire region? Do you feel that in this region the and I say that as a Yorkshire MP—that we are out Government’s response to Leitch will deliver by of London and we look at how this important skills 2020 the skills the region needs? A simple question! agenda is going to impact throughout the country, Ms Adams: In terms of the analysis, yes, at every particularly of course as the Government has said level of the labour market in the region we have got that the Leitch agenda will be delivered on a regional basis, and we want to test that this afternoon. Can I the skills needs that Leitch outlined. We have got a say that one of the main emphases of this inquiry is considerably high proportion of people with basic not in fact to question the thinking of Leitch, we very skills needs going all the way through the range. We much believe as a Committee that Lord Leitch has would strongly emphasise though, if we want to get done a superb job in doing an analysis of the the economic benefits for the economy, the need for country’s skills needs between now and 2020. We do high-level skills, and we would not want to not particularly disagree either with the targets that underplay the fact that that is of considerable he has set for each of the levels from level two to level importance to this economy to really start to bring four. We would perhaps question whether it is about the changes that in many ways will drive the realistic to achieve those targets, and that is demand for skills by businesses because they are in a something that we will get on to this afternoon. Our better position, or a more productive position to main concern is that given that the Government has want people in the labour market and to skill them, accepted the Leitch proposals as they stand and has so we would not under-estimate higher level skills at now set very, very clear not only policy objectives all. Our concern is as the Leitch ambitions translate but also structural arrangements to actually deliver into measurable targets and qualifications as to that agenda, whether in fact we are on the right track whether within the economy of Yorkshire and and whether in fact we are on course to be able to Humber, within the labour market, we will have deliver this huge skills advancement by 2020. We are suYcient demand for those qualifications. We fare, delighted this afternoon for the record to have Liz I suppose, quite badly in terms of both business Wallis, the Managing Director of Digital 2010 with demand for skills as an average and also individual us, and thank you very much again for your input demand for skills, so we have quite high proportions this morning, Liz; Professor GeoV Layer, the Pro- of young people not progressing in learning; we have Vice Chancellor of Learning and Teaching at the quite high proportions of adults that do not demand Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 2 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
14 May 2008 Ms Liz Wallis, Professor Geoff Layer, Dr Roger Bennett, Mr Gary Williamson, Ms Linda Florance, Mr Mark Andrews, Mr Tom Smith and Ms Ruth Adams any skills when they enter the labour market. That is with our 1,600 employers is that the message is more a really big challenge for us whether we can bring diYcult to articulate to the SMEs than it is to the about the culture change that will enable this region larger employers. to deliver on the expectations that DIUS has of Ms Florance: I could pick up on a point there this region. because the sector which I represent—fashion and textiles—is made up of 90% of enterprises with fewer than 10 employees, so I am typically that sector, and Q2 Chairman: Yours is one of the most vibrant in terms of the Leitch recommendations, I think my chambers in the country, if I might say, (second only employers universally felt that they were the right to Harrogate!); do you buy into this Leitch agenda? things to be doing, both socially and economically Do you feel that the world has changed since Lord within the country, so there is an acknowledgement Leitch has presented his report and the Government that actually recommendations were taking us in the response and will it make a diVerence to your right direction. I would also concur with Gary in members and how? terms of the complexity of the infrastructure which Mr Williamson: We buy into the agenda. I have got is set out there for delivery. It really confuses our a long list from my Skills Board that tells me what employers; they do not understand it. Wholesale they agree with—which I will not bore you with at reform of that would take time but we welcome the the moment—it is the implementation that we find opportunity that has been presented currently to try does not always live up to the rhetoric. It is the and hide the wiring to provide a simplified forefront appropriateness of the paperwork, the for employers. Unless we have made more progress appropriateness of the people who come to see you, with issues around qualifications reform whereby the confusing changes where the government employers can actually buy into bite-size chunks for machinery has changed. Since Leitch we have got their existing workforce in a manner that enables numerous diVerent departments and new initiatives. individuals and employers to have the kind of—and It is a simple message that we should be giving to I am using these terms—“pick and mix” approach to employers of upskilling the workforce to improve career development, the right training at the right productivity and to make them more competitive. It time for the person and for the employer, then I is being there to help and tell them where they should think the whole issue of targets, targets, targets and go. There are almost as many initiatives as there are qualifications, qualifications, qualifications, which people sat round this table. Yes as a city we buy into seem to be part of the implementation plan of it and our members buy into the Leitch vision; it is Leitch, will disaVect employers. just how it is coming through slowly and in a slightly diVerent form to what we thought we had bought Q4 Chairman: But qualifications equals skills and into. skills equals productivity and productivity equals wealth. You are laughing, Mark! Ms Florance: I do not think we can debate the fact Q3 Chairman: I wonder if we can pick up on this. I that we have not got another good proxy for the am not going round the table but I really want to get measure of skills but that is all a qualification is; it is you to come in and respond. We have been talking a proxy for a measure, and one has to also look at to one of the deliverers of skills this morning and we what is happening around the UK, and diVerent have heard that it is too complicated and there is no governments have picked up the Leitch messages in joined-up thinking; what is your response? diVerent ways. I might cite Scotland which has Dr Bennett: I can see where Gary is coming from on resisted the temptation to set lots of targets at lots of initiatives. If I can talk about the FE sector at the levels because actually their workforce is more moment, I think we have suVered and are suVering qualified than the rest of the UK, but it does not with initiative overload. My college works with mean they are getting the productivity results 1,600 employers, from SMEs to large employers because for them their focus is on utilising the skills such as Corus and we have got to de-grey the they have in their workforce. I think there is a initiatives with our employers to get them on board diVerence between having the skill, and the with what it means to get upskilled, what it will mean measuring of qualifications being a proxy in that, to the local economy, what it will mean to the region, but if the qualification itself is too big a package and indeed what it will mean to their business. You can the wrong package then it is not going to achieve get the message across to the bigger employers that end result anyway. reasonably successfully but getting that message across to the small- and medium-sized enterprise is Q5 Chairman: I want to know why you were more diYcult, and it is certainly more challenging laughing, Mark! because at the level two juncture, colleges have a lot Mr Williamson: I suspect it is the same as me, it is a of people on level two programmes and our qualification issue as opposed to solutions for small employers want them skilled to level two. Level three businesses. We have almost run to the end of the costs employers and then do they have the jobs for chain with Leitch and to outcomes. Part of Leitch them? That is one thing and that will vary from was about engaging business in education and locality to locality, but I think it is about what is in training, the development of the curriculum, and by it for the small and medium-sized employer rather changing the curriculum in schools encouraging than the bigger employer. Our experience in dealing young people to stay on so that they are qualified Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 3
14 May 2008 Ms Liz Wallis, Professor Geoff Layer, Dr Roger Bennett, Mr Gary Williamson, Ms Linda Florance, Mr Mark Andrews, Mr Tom Smith and Ms Ruth Adams and skilled for life and also developing employer the system requires us by region and by sector to engagement in the work-based learning really understand what the demand for skills is, and programmes. That is the bit that is equally as yet it seems to be incredibly diYcult to get that data. complicated as how you get access to funding and that is the bit where I am sure if you can get the first Q9 Chairman: But you have got the UK part right then gradually because employers are Commission for Employment and Skills and you engaged they will recognise and understand the have got the new Skills Funding Agency, you have system because they have been involved in it, but we got employers in a demand-led system. The find at Leeds Skills Board that we are almost thrown Government cannot do more than deliver huge great changes in government structures and we everything employers have been asking for. Surely it have got to understand them before we can get is up to you now to do it? involved, and there is no consultation Mr Andrews: I am not saying that employers do not have a responsibility; what I am saying is there needs Q6 Mr Marsden: We feel the same actually! to be simplification to the system so we have got one Mr Williamson: From the business perspective they data set that is actually useful rather than 100 data ask the question why, what is the rationale, what will sets that are telling us diVerent information that we be diVerent, what will it improve, and the people are all trying to respond to. who come to tell us about that—sorry, Ruth—do not always have the answers because I suspect they Q10 Mr Boswell: Is the complexity the are down the line on where the decisions are made. organisational one; is it the qualifications one; is it the intelligence one of scoping what the need is; or is Q7 Chairman: You are an employer and NG Bailey it a bit of all of those? has always been at the lead in terms of skilling its Mr Andrews: I am a simple construction guy and for workforce. I know that as a former Leeds head me what we are talking about here is a simple three- teacher, so there is a little plug for you! dimensional spreadsheet that says this is what by Mr Andrews: I am here wearing various diVerent industry and by region we need for the various skills, hats and I think some of the points that have been and yet I have never seen that data. We have been made earlier are so important. I think there is a trying within the Yorkshire context to get some fundamental diVerence between large employers like aggregate data on that basis but it is as if each of the NG Bailey and the smaller employers. As a general diVerent agencies—the RDA, the LSC, the Sector statement, the educational system, as it was and as it Skills Councils and everybody else and his dog—has is becoming, is immensely complex, and I would got their own data set. Why do we need that? Why certainly endorse everything that Gary says, it is just can we not have one data set that gives us really supremely diYcult for large employers like us, let useful information that we can then use to drive alone for small employers, to understand what is the system? going on. I think that while there is obviously a lot of goodwill behind the changes, they still need Q11 Chairman: Let us ask Ruth why because that is considerable clarity for employers to understand your job, is it not, at the RDA, you are Head of them. From a personal standpoint I have spent my Skills? discretionary time during the past four years trying Ms Adams: Partly, yes, and working with the to understand the education system, from CBI Regional Skills Partnership we are trying to put that committees to the Apprenticeship Ambassadors together locally, and it is a point well made that Network to the Regional Skills Partnership, and I nationally we do not have that. What we have am just about able to keep up with some of the through the Sector Skills Councils is very good data acronyms and some of the changes but for the by sector nationally, but we have got to match that majority of even large employers it is virtually then with the regional economy so that we can get impossible. The other thing that I feel very strongly some really useful information out to providers of about is that to me one of the fundamental issues skills that says this is what the economy demands. with the system is that the real aggregate demand That is not in place yet but, yes, we are working on picture from employers does not seem to be it to try and put that data set together. One of the available. We have wrestled with that— issues, going back to Tim’s question earlier about where the problems lies, is I think there is a Q8 Chairman: What does that mean? fundamental problem that whilst Leitch was very Mr Andrews: I do not want to oVend any of my clear on the skills agenda—and what we have across learned colleagues around the table, but I certainly the range of government papers is Innovation have a view that in certain parts of the system we Nation, we have reports from the CBI, really have worked very hard to try to deliver courses that highlighting STEM skills for example in the students want to study rather than where there are economy and the importance for the economy— jobs. The end result of that is we see an awful lot of what that does not feed though to is any targeting people coming out of universities for example, in within the Leitch targets, so whilst innovation degrees in subjects that are, frankly, useless and they reports are saying how crucial these skills are for the end up flipping burgers or at Jobcentre Plus. At the economy what then is delivered at an same time I cannot find engineers or quantity implementation of Leitch is a very blanket surveyors for love nor money. Something says to me “wherever the eligibility is for qualification that is Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 4 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
14 May 2008 Ms Liz Wallis, Professor Geoff Layer, Dr Roger Bennett, Mr Gary Williamson, Ms Linda Florance, Mr Mark Andrews, Mr Tom Smith and Ms Ruth Adams what will be funded”, so there is a fundamental between employers and universities and higher mismatch between what innovation and what education providers in trying to deliver bespoke economy drivers are saying and then how the programmes that can be very short and can be very response to Leitch has been put in place by the then bite-sized, but there are complexities of funding that DfES, which is not to target resources at those go into that. STEM skills that are claimed to be so important. Chairman: We are going to come back to higher education and I am going to stop you there. Gordon? Q12 Dr Blackman-Woods: If we can just go back a question, I wondered whether GeoV wanted to come in and answer the question about universities and Q13 Mr Marsden: There has been a lot of debate and them just not churning out the right level four skills discussion about whether the region is in fact the because clearly Leitch’s agenda for level four is a right level on which to be concentrating the delivery very powerful one. of the Leitch agenda. I wonder, Roger Bennett, if I Professor Layer: Yes it is. You can turn Mark’s could ask you as an FE Principal, what was it they question round diVerent ways about employers said about Mexico “so far from God, so near the being specific enough about their needs in the first United States”, I wonder sometimes whether in place. I think how we try to come across this would North Lindsey people think that about places like be that in terms of what people want to study, in Leeds, and I just wonder to what extent from your terms of what people want to do, you have got this perspective in the FE sector it makes sense to be dilemma and dichotomy between what employers looking at delivering Leitch on a regional level. want, the needs that are articulated within Leitch, et Dr Bennett: First and foremost, North Lincolnshire cetera, and the fact that we are dealing with people; has to look to its local backyard. Like many local and people sometimes come at things from diVerent authorities, we court inward investment from angles. What you have seen is quite a significant employers to come and drop their manufacturing increase in the number of people—and it is units in our backyard, and we work with those. interesting to follow up that particular issue about Leeds is a long way from Scunthorpe and at the end studying STEM qualifications—coming out with of the day what happens in Leeds is very diVerent STEM qualifications from universities but you also because the dynamics of this as a city are diVerent have a context whereby people are graduating and from the dynamics of Scunthorpe, so, by definition, not necessarily going straight and directly into an the needs base of our employers is going to be area of employment that they seem to be heading somewhat diVerent, although there will be degrees of towards. For example, 50% of lawyers do not commonalty. I think we have to respond and my practise law; 50% of chemistry graduates (before college is quite responsive in terms of employer recent times) went into the City and the finance engagement. Indeed, we try to be as responsive as we sector, et cetera, so you do not have necessarily a can. I think the thing that Leitch is putting forward, match between the traditional higher education to me certainly, on the skills is let us work with the product of a degree with a vocation, and that has employers and get a really good, solid interface with been there for centuries. You just need to look at the employers, and with the help of the Sector Skills Oxbridge degrees and what people study there. It is Councils it should be demand-led. We should about equipping people with skills to be future-proof where we are going with skills, not just transferable; it is not necessarily through a direct for the local backyard, not just for the region, but for vocational route. What you then see—and I think England plc or UK plc. We should future-proof you do see it across this region, and what you do what the needs are. Going back to GeoV’s point, I have to remember is that universities are diVerent think for the individual it is a matter of choice. The from each other, they just are, and they always have qualifications are there so there is an individual been—is diVerent responses from diVerent choice point of view to take into account, and that universities at producing more and more vocational is why people do make choices. From an employer’s programmes which are delivered in partnership with point of view, my college has set up five learning employers. This is where I think I diVer from the centres in factories to actually take the training out, data issues that people have raised. This may be just and colleges in my sector are very good at that, and the level of learners that universities work with, but we do that nationally. We have set up five learning where we tend to come at it from is not the data but centres in companies and factories to reengage level it is actually what the employers are telling us. It is two but also to plant the seed for higher level skills, about working in partnership with employers. There and we are delivering level three and we are are examples in the region, for example Huddersfield delivering level four through those centres, and that University works with the West Yorkshire Police is a fantastic initiative, because we get buy-in from Authority around particular programmes to train the employer, we can explain the complexities of the and develop the staV in police forces; we work with FE and HE structures, and they will spend time with West Yorkshire Fire Service; other people work with us because it is to their advantage. the Paramedic Service; we also work with parts of the digital industry, particular programmes that Q14 Mr Marsden: I think the average model is very industry have said they want or AstraZeneca has important and, funnily enough, we were talking said it wants, et cetera. Our impression to date and about this just before we came to the meeting today. our experience to date has been about partnership Can I come back to you, Ruth, there you are Head of Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 5
14 May 2008 Ms Liz Wallis, Professor Geoff Layer, Dr Roger Bennett, Mr Gary Williamson, Ms Linda Florance, Mr Mark Andrews, Mr Tom Smith and Ms Ruth Adams
Skills, Yorkshire Forward, does it worry you that— and the digital industry, which applies to virtually and all RDAs vary in their sense of coherence, and I every sector at the moment, that is a bit of a nonsense am not going to ask you to list them in the sense of and indeed for so many of the employers, some of which one is the most coherent and which one is not which we talked to this morning, the need for small but, nevertheless, it is a fact, they are varied—in bite-sized chunks which are not part of a delivering the Leitch agenda you are focusing on qualification is what employers want and yet you regional structures? cannot deliver it. What is your response to that? Ms Adams: No, I suppose the bigger concern that I Ms Adams: The only way we can deliver it for the have that worries me is that we have very little employers you will have met this morning is through regional flexibility to determine what an appropriate discretionary funding, and that is being squeezed. funded solution could be. That part of discretionary funding is just reducing and in some ways that is no bad thing because then Q15 Chairman: What does that mean? the emphasis is to make qualifications more relevant Ms Adams: For example, it is absolutely right that so that the bite-size bits in a modular system would the Train to Gain oVer is very straightforward out, but we have not got a modular system of because it is a national oVer, but what that means is training funding so we are a long way oV that. We that you have very little flexibility then to deal with are squeezing the flow of money before we have put or to invest in issues that you may need to address, in place the system that would make this work so for example, to go back to my earlier point, based better. The diVerence for skills—and this is the bit on the CBI Survey, as an average, we start from a that concerns me—is the NVQ approach is about very low base in terms of business demand for skills accrediting the competence of the worker as it but we have the same national oVer that regions that currently is; it is not about developing skills, so have not got that issue are starting from. whilst it is the best measure of skill levels we have got, it is not the best measure of developing the skills Q16 Mr Marsden: Can I just press you on that needed to take businesses. It is about accrediting because you are making a region-by-region what people can do and how they are competent in comparison but you could equally say within your their current role, so by definition it does not lead to region there are huge disparities. You have got progression in the way that person applies their skills people in Leeds crying out for the need to get more and the qualifications are not future-proof in the skills in level three and level four; and there are other way that the NVQs are set up, and that I think is parts of the area where basic skills, particularly in going to be the stumbling block in really getting the more rural areas, are still a key issue. Are you saying benefit that Leitch wanted to see. you have not got the flexibility to do that within your V own region, to vary the o er? Q20 Chairman: Liz and Linda, I want you both to V Ms Adams: The o er in the region can be varied come in here and then I want to come to Tom because it is demand-led so if businesses in a because Barnsley has got some particular problems particular area want basic skills, and that is their which I want to discuss. On this business about bite- V biggest need, then obviously that o er can be size chunks and funding mechanism? targeted to basic skills, but what we can put on the Ms Wallis: Yes, I think the key here is the mismatch, table is only the same as what is prescribed to us. as we have already identified, that if we want to create a demand-led system then it needs to be Q17 Mr Marsden: So you cannot fiddle around demand-led, and if you make it demand-led, with funding? employers will want things that fit very specific Ms Adams: We cannot fiddle around with the purposes that are usually quite short term and do not funding. necessarily lead to qualifications, and similarly individuals themselves will be focused on acquiring Q18 Mr Boswell: It has to be a finite qualification? a skill to do a thing, and that is particularly the case Ms Adams: Yes, and it has to be a finite for small employers. I think that has been an qualification. interesting issue in the context of future-proofing. The bit where it falls down on demand-led is taking Q19 Chairman: Can we follow that through and that the views of small employers or even employers will bring us back to the regional agenda because we generally as the indicator of what we need in the are really keen and I would like to bring you and Liz future. I think there has to be an industry component in on this. The biggest complaint we have about this in the IT industry and in the media industry saying agenda so far—and I am sure we will get more in the what kind of skills and qualifications will be needed weeks to come—is this mismatch between a in five or ten years’ time because if we rely only on qualification-led skills agenda and what employers employers dictating the system then those employers appear to need in terms of improving the will have, of necessity, quite a short-term view; less competitiveness of their business through the skills so the big employers but certainly the smaller ones. of their workers. The Train to Gain scheme is aimed Ms Florance: I think that point is very important and at qualifications and unless employers pay the whole it leads back to a couple of things that we have cost, if you are going to download costings from the touched on: one is qualifications reform that is going government through Train to Gain, you have really on in parallel with the Leitch recommendations, and got to aim for full qualifications. For the IT industry the other is that old chestnut of labour market Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 6 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
14 May 2008 Ms Liz Wallis, Professor Geoff Layer, Dr Roger Bennett, Mr Gary Williamson, Ms Linda Florance, Mr Mark Andrews, Mr Tom Smith and Ms Ruth Adams intelligence and who is doing which bit of it and what Mr Smith: That is the bit, I suppose, that is weak in is it for. Leitch was very clear that the best way to this. I suppose it is the adult learning that sits engage employers, be they large or small, was in beneath that. It is the routes in; it is the personalised sectors—I stress just sectors—and by doing that you pathways; it is the IAG; it is all about that package can actually explore what are the issues for that that can support those adults, and there are sector in a global context and future-proof anything significant numbers in Barnsley, on that route that needs to be put in place for that sector. At local through to higher level skills and then to better level we then need the delivery mechanism but if employment and the whole economic agenda really. there is not a join-up between the information I think that from our perspective in Barnsley, we are coming out for the sector, and what is specifically looking at this model now, we have an infrastructure right for that sector and what is then being delivered that is within the community that is working with on the ground, or oVered on the ground or even somewhere in the region of 12,000 to 14,000 adults, understood on the ground, what you are going to get and what we are finding is routes and ways of is individual employers in small businesses not really accelerating those adults from no qualifications (and understanding that their competition is not I do not necessarily mean no skills because they Bradford and Barnsley, it is Beijing and they have to often have the skills and the abilities and what they be able to compete in that market, so the brokerage do not have is the qualifications) and, as I said, the service actually needs to be raising their aspirations biggest barrier is literacy and the numeracy. As a as well as delivering what they need to get them on way to accelerate that through, in a sense to get into the next step on the ladder in that direction. If they that whole Leitch thing really, there has been some are leading in the wrong direction, because (that is interesting work. We have been working with going to lead to business failure in the competitive Yorkshire Forward and the HE institutions on market that they are facing) then we have wasted a accelerating people through and delivering ‘year lot of public service and money along the way. zero’ courses within the community and then a supported thing through. I think there is a bit of a Q21 Chairman: Tom, I want to bring you in before mismatch, it feels, and part of that is funding I bring in Tim to deal more with the implementation because I think we need some permissions with the of training and skills in the region. Barnsley funding that we have on sub-level two in terms of traditionally has had a low-skills economy. It was moving people. Some of it is around the very focused obviously on mining and heavy qualifications framework and the progression routes industry. Does the Leitch agenda mean anything to and some of it is focusing on individuals and you? communicating to them skills opportunities, Mr Smith: Yes and I think, similar to colleagues, we employment opportunities, and that route there as applaud a lot within it. I suppose from my well. perspective where I am coming from in Barnsley, one of our issues is pre sub-level two. Q24 Mr Boswell: I would like to talk about another area of potential confusion, and maybe we will leave Q22 Chairman: Pre sub-level two? Ruth out of this first question and start with the two Mr Smith: Sub-level two and pre any level at all, if I employers in the shape of Gary and proxy of Mark. am being honest. We are just somewhere short of We are looking at the regional agenda for delivery, 50%, round about 42.3% of adults in Barnsley with which is Linda’s point. Do you think that the no qualifications at all. One of the biggest barriers priorities and approaches represented by this and blocks for our adult population is literacy and excellent panel this afternoon can align suYciently numeracy skills for life, which I will come on to later to make co-operation eVective and practical in on. 20,000 people are on incapacity benefit as well, delivering this? Firstly, would you like to work so a large part of our work at the moment is about together—and I hope the answer is yes and, targeting those people who are not anywhere near secondly, practically, given diVerent funding that level two qualification—and it was interesting streams, slightly diVerent interests and slightly talking about qualifications and qualifications diVerent requirements, can you do so? frameworks—and getting that right so that those Mr Andrews: That is a very good question. Having people can be reengaged. Some of those may well just agreed to take on the Regional Skills already be in the labour market but a lot of them are Partnership board chair in the last days, my answer outside of that and it is finding a route through, and has to be yes—and I have to say there are a lot of often it is through a community route, to get those people in industry who have told me I am absolutely people reengaged and upskilled. A lot of it is about mad to take it on—however I do think there is a real confidence and aspirations and that is not always the lack of clarity from the Government as to what the nicest thing to say, but it is, to help those people get role of the RSP is. In fact in a meeting just last week on there. For a lot of them it is a learning journey but of the Regional Skills Partnership, I have almost the end result is often employment, it is higher level taken the approach that we need to take a step back skills and benefits around that. from the morass out there and say, “We all know there are some issues in the region. Some of them are Q23 Chairman: Is that going to happen with this being adequately dealt with by other parts of the current policy agenda? system and if that is the case, let’s just monitor that Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 7
14 May 2008 Ms Liz Wallis, Professor Geoff Layer, Dr Roger Bennett, Mr Gary Williamson, Ms Linda Florance, Mr Mark Andrews, Mr Tom Smith and Ms Ruth Adams and let it carry on, but let’s also have a look to see look at the figures, we have a higher level of regional whether there are things that are falling through unemployment as a city, we have great swathes of the gaps.” our area where there is second- and third-generation unemployment, similar to you, it is just the numbers Q25 Mr Boswell: So management by exception? are diVerent (they are probably bigger given the size Mr Andrews: Absolutely and, as I say, it is very early of the city). Employers are importing labour from days in the process and literally this was a week ago across West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and North that we have just had this new meeting, but I do Yorkshire, that is why the M62 is so busy. There is believe that the partners, which is just about a recognition by all employers in Leeds that we need everybody from the skills components that exist to do something. The problem is it is the “how”, within the county, are absolutely committed which I think is what Mark was saying. There are so philosophically to making this work. What we have many agencies with so many good intentions that it got to come up with is the means to do that. One of just bamboozles us. the issues is where does the RSP stop and the work and skills boards that exist in cities start? To me again, there is no point in trying to duplicate that Q28 Mr Boswell: Can I come back to Mark on this, regionally. We have got to see whether there are and if anyone on the education side might like to join things we can do that could add value at the more in feel free, as I understand your first thoughts on local level. It is really part of the management looking at the RSP, you are talking about a network machine. Unfortunately, I do not think we have so you can share best practice around and so forth, been given any steer from government as to what the and also an ability to if not intervene at least interest role is, so we are making it up as we go along. I did yourselves in cases where there is a local deficiency. put this to the Rt Hon John Denham a week ago Mr Andrews: I think that is part of it. I think the RSP quite vociferously. Some clarity would be nice but in has struggled a bit during the last year but during the the meantime, as I say, we all know what the course of that last year we have been able to get a problems are; it is trying to find some solutions to fairly coherent view as to what the real priority issues move them forward. are on a regional basis. A lot of work was done by Ruth with colleagues in the LSC and all of the other Q26 Mr Boswell: Can I slightly pick up on a specific people involved in the partnership and now we have point and then ask Gary to come in. How do you see got this so-called “helicopter” view with five V the relationship between the city e orts, which of priorities for the region. What we are doing with course involve local government as well, and those five priorities is saying if a couple or three or Jobcentre Plus and that city strategy which four of the partners have already got that under government is moving towards with the wider V control, great, just keep us posted, but if there are regional strategy? Are there di erent sorts of needs some glaring holes in there, then flag them up and we and can you tune the band between those two sorts will try and find some resource funding, whatever, to of requirement? see if we can make a diVerence. Mr Andrews: I think they are diVerent sorts of needs. You made the comment earlier that if you look at Mr Williamson: It sounds very negative and I think there are lots of people and groups out there trying Yorkshire it is a very disparate county and the needs V within the centre of Leeds compared to the outback to make a di erence. I go back to a point I made of North or South Yorkshire are very, very diVerent. earlier on, Leitch was not just about the end game, For me I feel it is a case of trying to provide a support the qualifications and the targets, it was about mechanism, a best practice networking arrangement engaging employers in developing some of the for the work and skills boards that exist in some of qualifications and engaging the schools to improve the cities (and need to exist in some of the others the attainment level which we know in Leeds needs because they do not exist across the board) we need improving. If you build people in at the start of the to provide a learning networking arrangement for process, funnily enough, you might actually have them but then fundamentally let them get on with it, buy-in at the end of the process. We appear to be and then try and take the Regional Skills always looking at the end and what is the target; it Partnership to a level where it is looking at issues has not changed. There is almost a fear I get that cannot be addressed by competent boards that sometimes from the various groups and are already in place. organisations responsible for “education”: that for example they have got 1,600 customers, really is Q27 Mr Boswell: Gary, do you want to come in on what you are saying, or employers, but how involved that? are they in the process of what you are delivering and Mr Williamson: I think Mark is very brave and I how it is delivered? If you take in Leeds an example think his colleagues are quite right to say to him, of that, the Chamber has been working with “Goodness me, what have you let yourself in for?” educators on the new diplomas which are industry- because that is exactly the response our skills board led. Unlike a lot of the country, we have got members have had in the first 14 months since they employers enthused and engaged but we cannot get have been there trying to make an impression or the schools engaged, we cannot get the teachers to be trying to change things. We are not so diVerent in advocates for this diploma for the young people who Leeds from everywhere else in Yorkshire. If you will listen to them so there is a mismatch. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 8 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
14 May 2008 Ms Liz Wallis, Professor Geoff Layer, Dr Roger Bennett, Mr Gary Williamson, Ms Linda Florance, Mr Mark Andrews, Mr Tom Smith and Ms Ruth Adams
Q29 Chairman: Who does it? some ways were always going to be a bigger part of Mr Williamson: We cannot work that out. There is a this simply because that is where a lot of the money warehouse in Milton Keynes apparently with all the is in this part of the agenda. The LSC is obviously literature in! I am showing my age now but when coming into a period of some transition but we have Captain Kirk landed on an alien planet they all had a lot of dialogue to try to ensure that everybody spoke American because there was a universal is joined up. I have likened my own role in this to a translator, and our skills boards and employers non-executive capacity in the RSP. I am therefore as often need that universal translator to understand a non-executive not prepared to do it unless I have many of the things some of my colleagues round here got executives who have actually got the purse are trying to explain. strings and resource who are willing to work together and get on and do things. For me the Q30 Mr Boswell: I think we might be included in commitment is there and there has been a lot of that. Linda, did you want to come in on that just to dialogue with Ruth, with Ruth’s boss’s, and with make the point because I do not think Skillfast-UK, Ruth’s boss’s boss, as well as with similar people in wool, textiles, Yorkshire, are a priority. the LSC. I feel that most of the others are on board Ms Florance: No we are not but of course our philosophically but I do not believe there is anything industry uses STEM subjects and therefore as part of in the system that is really helping us. As I say, some our strategy that is really important to us, but it gets further clarity on the role of the RSPs from the sidelined because the sector is not a regional priority. Government and the points that both Linda and Where I was going to come in here is I think you have Gary made would be very helpful in this. asked quite a key question, Tim, which is the Chairman: I think we have covered that so I am interface between national, regional and local, and I going to move on to Gordon. think it is the area that perhaps Leitch made some recommendations on but when it came to world- Q32 Mr Marsden: I just want to chip away a bit more class skills, it was skirted around slightly. In thinking on the whole issue of plans and targets and if I could about the timing, there was a national sub-regional just start with you, Ruth, because you submitted a review going on with the Lyons Report at that very draft Regional Skills Partnership document to us time and actually this question was never addressed. and that included a number of targets and, as you Mark has touched on it in saying should we not just said, the scale of the challenge is significant and provide a clear remit for what should happen at many measures exceed many of our RES targets. national, what should happen at regional and what Given that and given what we have heard already should happen, where appropriate, at sub-regional about disparity and the various challenges across level. Leitch actually recommended the your region, are these Leitch targets generally establishment of employment and skills boards at a achievable in Yorkshire and Humber or they just local level where it was right to have them, but he something on a sheet of paper that we are all making also said they should be licensed by the UK aspirational? Commission for Employment and Skills, and we Ms Adams: I think they are incredibly ambitious for need to re-look at how might that infrastructure this region. really work and whether it is licensed or not, whether we have got the right remits in the right place, and whether that would that make it sensible for Q33 Mr Boswell: Is that the same as courageous? employers. Ms Adams: Courageous, yes.
Q31 Mr Boswell: The elephant in the room—sorry, Q34 Mr Marsden: Before I put you on oath, Ruth, that might sound ungracious—the one I kept out of before you go any further, I would remind you of the this was the RDA and somebody might like to lead famous TV series Yes, Minister, and when the before Ruth comes in on the relationship between Minister was told “That’s a very bold statement,” it the RSP and the RDA. If I can just wrap this up, we meant that it was all going to end in tears. Is that have got a lot of people at the party already, which what you are saying about Leitch? you have all accepted, there are large numbers of Ms Adams: I think it is going to be very diYcult for interests, but is there anybody being left out? I tend us to deliver those targets unless we can do lots of to mention the self-employed as an example; the work bringing about some quite significant culture active participation of trade unions, and not just change in the aspirations of both people and employers, and employees as opposed to proxy businesses to demand this. If I go back to Tom’s interests for them. If we are really going to throw comment in Barnsley, lots and lots of eVort and everything at it, do we need to add more people in? work is needed to bring people to the point of Two separate but related questions: who is really thinking, “Well, that actually is going to be useful taking the lead between the RSP and the RDA and for me and that is something that I aspire to have as is everybody really engaged? a qualification” and unless we can do something on Mr Andrews: We are very much wandering into new that I think it is going to be quite diYcult for some territory with the RSP, but it is my view that part of of the basic skills and lower level targets to bring that the agreement that I have got in taking on the role about. The one we are more optimistic about is the here is the absolute backing of the RDA and the LSC higher level skills. If we can really do some work with and the other partners. The RDA and the LSC in businesses there we think that is achievable. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 9
14 May 2008 Ms Liz Wallis, Professor Geoff Layer, Dr Roger Bennett, Mr Gary Williamson, Ms Linda Florance, Mr Mark Andrews, Mr Tom Smith and Ms Ruth Adams
Mr Andrews: Just a brief point, I think the other side Q39 Chairman: More confident is more confident of what Ruth said on engaging with small businesses than confident. is a particular challenge in this area as well. There are Professor Layer: More confident relative to the an awful lot of small companies. I think there was a other areas. piece of research done recently for the RDA by Leeds Met where they went around and talked to a Q40 Mr Marsden: Before we lose the point about lot of small business and, frankly, the level of interest apprenticeships, I just want to come back on a very of those businesses in getting their employees trained specific point, Ruth, and then I will ask GeoV if he was negligible. I have had personal experience in this would like to comment on this. Going back to your region of putting on open days at our apprentice document, the target for some additional 50,000 training centre to try and encourage small businesses apprenticeships which has been identified in this to come in and listen. I have done it through the IoD region; does that include adult as well as young where you can access 2,600 members, and you have apprentices? only 30 people show up. It is a monumental Ms Adams: I believe it does, yes. challenge to get both sides of this—to get to the individuals and get them more motivated to get Q41 Mr Marsden: In which case my question to higher skills and qualifications, and to get to the GeoV is a broader one. We know what is going to many, many small businesses that exist here and get happen with demography in the next few years, and them really engaged. Chris Humphries as the head of the Commission for Chairman: Could we have a brief run round the table Skills has continually harped on about this. Have we to answer your question. got in this region the focus right in terms of adult versus traditional apprenticeships and have the Q35 Mr Marsden: Is there anybody here who thinks universities begun to take this on board in terms of this is achievable? their learners and their skills? Mr Andrews: I think you have to be aspirational but Professor Layer: Just before I start that I had better I do not think any of us should under-estimate the point out that the demographic factors in Bradford magnitude of the challenge. are a bit diVerent to everybody else’s. There is a whole series of key issues around the adult trainer and the adult learner which have been aVected over Q36 Mr Marsden: So you think it is going to be the last five to six years by certain policy changes and really hard. we have debated issues around LSCs, et cetera. In Dr Bennett: I think it is beyond aspirational, and terms of the balance from the university perspective, that is only a word, because I do not think they are and I will come back to the region, in the way the achievable. I think you have to be realistic on that policy has developed, over the last few years we have and it is all about trying to motivate to achieve and been focused very much on the 18 to 30 group with some of these targets actually do not motivate the 18 to 30 target and that has been a target which employers or the colleges up and down the country, has been driven by the precursor of this I guess which are one of the engine rooms for the delivery of around full-time students engaging in skills more than qualifications. We want challenges undergraduate programmes despite some of the bits but we want challenges that we can actually achieve. at the margins that have been a real driver and a real I think it is really important that you take that on shift, and you have seen exponential growth in that. board because the way forward, if I just pick up on That has been at the cost of other forms of one of Mark’s points, is apprenticeships and it also innovation and other forms of learning and it is very goes back to Tom’s point about his position in traditional. What we have not done across the Barnsley because you have young people’s university sector generally is reflect on where adults apprenticeships and adult apprenticeships. might be coming from and diVerent types of entry routes. In my institution it is a very, very small Q37 Chairman: Does anybody disagree? Does handful of students who will progress from apprenticeships into higher education, despite many anybody think we can achieve these targets? eVorts that colleagues have engaged in there. Some Professor Layer: I am with Ruth on this in the sense of that is to do with are we sure what they are and that I think the high-level skills target— are we confident that we can take that forward, but some of it is also to do with, “I am doing an Q38 Chairman: Another 583,000 people qualified to apprenticeship, I am doing worked-base learning level four by 2020 in this region? and I want to stay in the workplace and the form of Professor Layer: I think it is the most achievable and higher education that we have got is not really right that is probably to do with the fact that a lot of what for me.” you have heard about is some of the barriers and obstacles, et cetera, and they are not necessarily the Q42 Dr Blackman-Woods: Do foundation degrees same barriers at diVerent levels, and there are not provide a possible route? diVerent ways you can work that through and there Professor Layer: Foundation degrees can provide a are diVerent ways you can open this up. I did not say potential route and then you are into a scenario I was confident—I would be more confident of about are you distinguishing between what an meeting the level four targets. apprentice can and cannot go into, and that is a key Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 10 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
14 May 2008 Ms Liz Wallis, Professor Geoff Layer, Dr Roger Bennett, Mr Gary Williamson, Ms Linda Florance, Mr Mark Andrews, Mr Tom Smith and Ms Ruth Adams issue. Also you are into the fact that it is not all right using my members to say employers do not buy universities who are major providers of foundation in but how many apprentices are there in the public degrees and you are rather limited in that area. You sector? How many do you have at Yorkshire are also into carrying on with your studies whilst Forward or at Leeds City Council’s building here, working and that is the advantage of foundation the NHS or others? They are very large employers degrees, but that is there and it is a potential route. and that is a route for them to build their own It has still got a lot of growth to achieve its goals and workforce. its aims. The issue is around what higher education Mr Andrews: I was very pleasantly encouraged at the is providing today and it has been very traditional Apprentices Ambassadors meeting that the generally. In order to meet these level four targets it Permanent Secretary of DIUS, Ian Watmore, is has got to provide something far more flexible. You going to champion apprenticeships with the public have talked very much to date about being sector. I think that is tremendous news and I wish qualifications driven. One of the advantages of the him very well with that. I would like to come in on higher education sector is that it is not qualifications the apprenticeship thing because in our company we driven in its funding methodology in the same are seeing probably about 15 people a year who have limited way that others have been talking about. It come through the apprenticeship programme going is much more open and flexible and that has to be the on to do foundation and honours degrees. Some of agenda for the next five years, essentially putting it is about the selectivity of the people that you pull that flexibility into place. In terms of the region, I in, they have to have the academic ability to do it, guess the question is about the region as well. but I do think the other issue on apprenticeships is Regional engagement is quite mixed across the there is a fundamental piece of work that has got to diVerent city regions that we have in the engagement be done in getting to parents and teachers about the of adults and the engagement of the ways they work, value of apprenticeships. Pushing more and more but I think it is quite evident that the numbers have people to university has almost worked against the remained broadly the same progressing into higher apprenticeship and it may well be working against education as adults. What we have not had is the the diploma that you touched on earlier. I feel there interaction that you have had at other age groups. is a massive task to overhaul the careers service, and this Connexions shambles has got huge fundamental Q43 Mr Marsden: Can I just come back finally then problems— to this whole issue of plans and targets. You have got all those targets, and the targets in the latest Q46 Mr Marsden: It is about how you badge them. document supersede the Regional Economic Mr Andrews: It is about how you badge them but it Strategy, and also what Gary said earlier about the also about how they are equipped. One of the STEM change of names and everything else. I am tempted skills issues—and I speak as an engineer here—is we to say that Mr Spock said, “It’s life, Captain, but not have got to get to 12-year-olds and show them that as we know it,” and that might be said about some there are interesting and attractive things you can do of these things! Do you think that your experience is with science, maths and engineering. You cannot that you have to deal with far too many documents, rely on school teachers and careers advisers to do far too many initiatives and you simply do not have that and it has got to done at a young age, so I think time properly to implement them? the whole thing with STEM skills and Ms Adams: Yes, I think that is a fair assessment. apprenticeships requires some really challenging almost advertising campaigns on a national level to Q44 Mr Marsden: Does anybody dissent from that engage teachers and parents. view around the table that you have got document Dr Bennett: Can I come in on the back of that. At my overload? college we have set up a pre- apprenticeship training Dr Bennett: Without question. scheme as part of our 14 to 16 skills centre engaging Mr Williamson: I am not so sure it is documents with schools and employers. We have attracted actually, it is committees and groups. sponsorship from employers so they are looking at year 10s and year 11s in terms of pre-apprenticeship Q45 Mr Marsden: Committees and groups produce training. We are dropping the seeds of employment documents. and workforce development and all the rest of that Mr Williamson: Can I just pick up on the and that has gone down very well in North apprenticeship. I would say that we are quite bullish Lincolnshire with our employers, and it connects in Leeds in the employers’ groups. We are a small and integrates schools, colleges and employers. employer, we employ 30 people, and we have taken apprenticeships of young people and it is a fantastic Q47 Mr Boswell: And parents? route and the momentum is building in terms of Dr Bennett: And parents. creating your own employees through that route. I Ms Florance: I agree with everything that has been think you will find not 20,000 or 30,000 in Leeds but said on apprenticeships but a point I would not wish there will be take-up from employers because they to be lost in all of this, as an example, in my own can see it as a positive route to developing some of sector between now and 2014 we need about 35,000 their own skills through day release to colleges. We people just for replacement for retirement. Actually need clarity on that. There is another group of we are not going to find all of those within the young employers that need to be convinced as well. It is all people that are going to be there, and the point for us Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 11
14 May 2008 Ms Liz Wallis, Professor Geoff Layer, Dr Roger Bennett, Mr Gary Williamson, Ms Linda Florance, Mr Mark Andrews, Mr Tom Smith and Ms Ruth Adams is more flexibility and more support to bring people colleges and schools have to work together, colleges through the basic skills route perhaps but also on and employers have to work together and schools into qualifications and apprenticeships at an older and education business partnerships have to work age because that is going to be our workforce for the together. I think the diplomas are already disrupting future and that is what is going to make us more the system, causing collaboration and we just have productive as UK plc. to hang on in there through the process of Professor Layer: Just quickly on what Mark said, discomfort which is happening at the moment and where I totally agree with him and I think it has recognise that it is a long haul job. Certainly Digital really hit the nail on the head, if we want this agenda 2010 as an initiative which is looking at the to succeed what we have to do is to create real parity improvement of digital skills in the region is of esteem across all those diVerent routes so that it is emphasising and prioritising the diplomas as a understood amongst parents as well as young Trojan horse for achieving much of that. people. In terms of documentation and policies, it seems to have increased in size since the machinery Q49 Dr Blackman-Woods: So that might solve the of government changes and with the creation of the problems of young people. What about SMEs new department of DIUS and the separation of training and upskilling their current workforce, DSFC, from our perspective, that has led to a what is going to get SMEs enthused? You are saying significant increase in policy. that this issue of them wanting these bite-sized Chairman: It is just an illusion! chunks of learning that do not actually deliver a Dr Blackman-Woods: I am glad that in the last qualification has got to be addressed. We cannot just couple of answers there was a bit of passion in it sit around and say, “That is fine, SME, you can do because I was readily falling into profound that.” How do we get them to say it is really depression, I have to tell you! My first question is important? you are the people in this region who will have to Ms Wallis: May I very briefly mention something drive forward this Leitch agenda and the upskilling that happened. A few years back there was a and reskilling agenda, so do you feel equipped to do programme in South Yorkshire that was Learning that, and how are you going to get employers and and Skills Council-funded which was about really young people and others who you have described in improving digital skills and the labour market for Barnsley engaged in this agenda if you are not the creative and digital industries. It was very passionate about it and if you are not building the successful in engaging small employers who had not capacity in order to deliver Leitch? That is to engaged with education and training before, and the anybody—anybody with passion! key to that was the flexibility of the funding. It was Chairman: We want passion for the rest of this about being able to use the funding flexibly. Also the session! other point was specialist brokers. We have talked earlier about there being too many initiatives and we Q48 Mr Boswell: That is a prequalification. need to streamline. If streamlining means you then have big organisations out there that are about Dr Bennett: I think it is about partnership and V V collaboration and I think it is about developing trust o ering a uniform business o er to businesses, we between what you can actually achieve and deliver lose the plot, because a sectoral approach is the thing on that commitment. I think any sort of region or that works and very specialist networks located sub-region, if I just touch on the Centres of locally. Yes, it is the Sector Skills Council but the Vocational Excellence (COVEs) initiative, another translation of the sector skills council expertise into initiative that we went through, which was great the very specialist business support organisation because it was about employers and it was about that exists locally—and I can name you them round trying to get employer connectivity with colleges and the region—who are the mediator, that speak the the communities, and it did deliver against agendas language and that know the very precise needs of and it did bring together employers and it did bring each area and the small businesses within them. together providers of skills training and it more or less worked. I am using that word ‘worked’ broadly Q50 Dr Blackman-Woods: So is Train to Gain a but it did. I think whatever we do has to be seen to useless structure? be achieved or be achievable and that will actually Ms Wallis: If you have Train to Gain and you also motivate a partnership. We have all sat round have specialist brokers in the mix, I believe that is the partnership committees where it has not worked or important factor. you have been loath to go to them, or whatever it Ms Florance: Building on that sectoral approach might be, because you think why are you wasting and perhaps explaining from my position—I am your time there. If that can be driven and the targets involved right across the nine regions as opposed to can be challenging but achievable I think you have just purely Yorkshire and Humberside—I have left got half a chance of delivering it. a meeting this morning where we are negotiating Ms Wallis: I do think that the diplomas, taking into with the LSC, which is potentially part of the answer account the recent publicity, oVer a valuable on this but which potentially could get lost in the opportunity for this collaboration agenda because changes that are currently occurring, and that is that they are the vehicle for mixing up schools, each sector is being asked to draw up a compact for employers, careers, those charged with enterprise, a the way in which the skills delivery system in the whole range of people. To make the diplomas work, regions (and it is at regional level) will pick up on Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 12 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
14 May 2008 Ms Liz Wallis, Professor Geoff Layer, Dr Roger Bennett, Mr Gary Williamson, Ms Linda Florance, Mr Mark Andrews, Mr Tom Smith and Ms Ruth Adams what that sector wants and needs in terms of Train companies. The second one (and for me as I say the to Gain brokerage. What the brokers need to know carrot approach) is about modifying the outlook of about how they need to approach a particular sector, both employees and customers on the issue of and what are the oVers and the products that they qualifications. I see those as two very deliberate can pick up on to support that business counts. In other words, for me if I am trying to development. My fear is—and this has been a long attract graduate engineers now and I am not drawn-out process, we are six months down the road prepared to do an indentured scheme with IET to get and I understand it will be at least September before them to be chartered, I will not get them in. You DIUS sign this oV—that in the changes that are need to get that going on all the way through the occurring there, somehow these compacts will be system so people say, “If I am not going to get a level another thing put on a shelf, and that will be tragic two apprenticeship out of this, why would I come as far as our employers are concerned, who are and work for you?” You have to create the demand making a real commitment to say, “If this is what the from the people who are going to be employees. system will do for me, I will get out of bed and I will Similarly I think that more can be done through do these things with my workforce.” If I get that supply chains, in other words, customers saying, commitment and then we are back on the shelf “We want to see that you are qualified to do that again, it is another cynicism that is going to be built job.” I look at it in my industry in big construction, into the system. if somebody is not qualified to be an electrician they Dr Bennett: Can I raise a point about Train to Gain, are not going to work on one of my sites. the brokerage has been the single worst thing about Train to Gain. In my college, and many colleges up Q51 Mr Boswell: So you would favour a licence to and down the country will tell you the same, we practise, would you? achieve Train to Gain target—in spite of the Mr Andrews: I would but it needs to be done at the brokerage and in spite of the brokerage system. I micro level because the issue is while a big contractor have got a £2.5 million contract for Train to Gain like me is going to have qualified people, the guy who and we achieve it and we will achieve it at the year any one of us might get round to do something at our end this year but we will achieve it in spite of the house, we are not going to say, “Show me your brokers. electrical apprenticeship qualification,” but maybe Professor Layer: You asked about how we will try we should. and do it and how we are up for it, et cetera and I Mr Williamson: We have been very negative and all have identified four things. I think there is a we have done is moan, especially about the targets distinction between two diVerent forms of working and the end game. All I keep on about is employer with people and planning. One is a sectoral base and engagement. It is not the targets and if you can the other is a district base or a geographical area explain the benefits in very simple language to a where it is a city region, and I think they are two very small number of employers as we have done—and diVerent things. Providers like ours and North the diplomas are fantastic because they really shake Lindsey have worked from a sectoral base and a up the educationalists because they do not like district base and you do both of those things and you employers commenting about the curriculum, they have to work with both of those things. I think the do not want employers talking about how long the crucial thing that we need to address, and we are placements should be and what they should do but addressing, is in terms of working in partnership. I gradually they can see the benefit. There is a passion made the point before about, yes, we are looking at in the groups that we have got involved in—and I labour market data but it is far more important to us can only speak for Leeds—that has stunned us to talk to specific employers and identify what the because we thought it would be more of the same. It needs are and to work through with them what they has been fantastic and there are small two- or three- are and then be able to supply them. The final thing people businesses as well as the large businesses that we need to invest in, change or develop is the within the consortium of 40 employers in each one capacity-building within the organisation to deliver and they are involved often they are parents and they to a new agenda because it is a new agenda that we do understand the systems because their kids go to need. school and they can see the problems and barriers Mr Andrews: I support all the comments that are and the opportunities. In terms of your other being made about brokerage and the mechanics and question how do you enliven small businesses to take improving the system from where it is now, but I on the current unemployed or upskill the current think that the fundamental issue of getting to SMEs workforce, that is a far more diYcult one because it is going to take more than that. This is a national is always told as a generic that training is good for problem that clearly exists in Yorkshire. I am very you or it is good for your CSR policy. Actually you strongly of the view that you have got to go back to have got to get down and talk, as Liz was saying, some basics and it takes a stick and a carrot. The specifically about the needs of that business, and it carrot has got to be fiscal support in the form of will not be unique (because everybody thinks their taxation relief to companies that are training. own problems are unique) and then sell the benefit. Without doing that, it is very diYcult to see why ten- It has got to be done face-to-face. man bands would do it. Fundamentally there has to be some kind of support that comes to the training Q52 Chairman: Very quickly, Liz, I do not want to agenda from corporate taxation relief for small stop this enthusiasm. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 13
14 May 2008 Ms Liz Wallis, Professor Geoff Layer, Dr Roger Bennett, Mr Gary Williamson, Ms Linda Florance, Mr Mark Andrews, Mr Tom Smith and Ms Ruth Adams
Ms Wallis: My point is that somewhere way back Dr Bennett: We work with our partner universities. when we mentioned young people, and they do not Most colleges will partner with their local get mentioned in this mix and yet maybe the young universities and we are no diVerent. We partner with people themselves can help to unlock the door here. a number of universities and we are working with We need to look for joins between some other things them on level four in particular on the high level that are happening because if young people are to skills because that is where the integration is. We are contribute to this debate, you have got to put them doing that and have been doing that way before in a position where at school age onwards they are Leitch. starting to contribute to how their learning is shaped and what they are participating in. We have to look Q55 Mr Marsden: Which are your universities? at some of the initiatives that are doing this at the Dr Bennett: University of Lincoln, University of moment that are looking, in the nicest possible way, Huddersfield, University of Hull and SheYeld at how you break the curriculum and how you Hallam. So we have a primary initiative with the enable young people to become more creative University of Lincoln because that is our backyard participants in that whole process of learning and university but we were on this agenda way before they will also then start to dictate how they Leitch. contribute to that skills agenda. Just to name something that I am aware of, things like Creative Q56 Chairman: But you are not bothered about the Partnerships which I know is never seen in this rest of the region? I do not mean that in a context, is all about developing creativity in schools derogative sense. and in the curriculum and also things like the local Dr Bennett: We are doing our bit sub-regionally to enterprise growth initiatives which have schools contribute to the region. programmes which are about enabling young people to be enterprising about their own futures, and there Q57 Chairman: The same with you GeoV? are young people around the country who are seizing Professor Layer: Very much so. There are now four those opportunities. lifelong learning networks in Yorkshire and Mr Smith: I am very passionate— Humber and that is a deliberate strategy about developing vocational progression routes. Q53 Dr Blackman-Woods: Good! Mr Smith:—I kind of feel I sold Barnsley a really Q58 Chairman: Whose strategy? rubbish line there at the beginning, but we have Professor Layer: The Higher Education Funding talked about engagement with businesses; it is Council for England and I suspect it is the RDA. The engagement with the community. I use that word but RDA certainly sits on the boards and the LSC sits on I do not mean community in its traditional way the boards and they are partnerships between colleges and universities that are developing because I include schools, businesses, employers and progression routes in a geographical patch, so to young people. However, I will tell you one of the speak, and they are very employer-based and things it is is about families as well and the power of employers are engaged in them and they tend to be working with families, either as adults as learners or sector-specific. children within those families, and that whole agenda. We have seen a significant shift over the last six years in Barnsley in terms of that reengagement Q59 Chairman: FE and HE is alive and kicking in and that aspirational aspect of learning which does your area? have an impact on people’s skills and qualifications Professor Layer: It is very alive and it is very but it also has a much wider impact and it takes a kicking, yes. long time. Going back to targets and in terms of Mr Williamson: In Leeds we have got the debate for what Ruth and GeoV were saying, it takes a long FE merger, as you well know, but again business has been involved. time sometimes to get people to level two and then a little bit to level three. We need to be thinking about working with our communities as well, and I think if Q60 Chairman: It has been doing that for the last 30 we can get that right—and I know we have talked a years to my knowledge. lot about cultural change, there is a cultural change Mr Williamson: I know but you have two in communities as well—then that kind of drive to universities in Leeds that work closely with the FE aspire to achieve whether it is a qualification or sector, the vocational degrees and progression. I within a work context is really important. would question whether or not the lifelong learning group is actually working because they are still talking about how many points from a Leeds Met Q54 Chairman: I am coming to you now, GeoV.We degree is equivalent to a Leeds University degree, have got five minutes each for the last two questions, and the Bradford degree is diVerent again, but they that is 10 minutes altogether. Level three! An awful are talking. lot is expected of both FE and HE in this agenda. What is happening in our region with FE colleges Q61 Mr Marsden: Can I come quickly back to you and HE institutions working together to actually because, like it or not, we do have all these new deliver this agenda? Are you aware of anything that structures and these new funding arrangements. In has happened? specific terms how is that going to aVect your ability Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 14 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
14 May 2008 Ms Liz Wallis, Professor Geoff Layer, Dr Roger Bennett, Mr Gary Williamson, Ms Linda Florance, Mr Mark Andrews, Mr Tom Smith and Ms Ruth Adams at Yorkshire Forward to deliver the skills agenda in Ms Adams: We have got lots of enthusiasm for the the region? Is it going to do it negatively or positively Advancement Service. The one caveat we would or do you simply not know? have is some concern that it is exclusively focusing Ms Adams: As a purely internal thing we are looking on the engagement point and getting careers advice at our structures to be able to deliver this. One of the for people that maybe are not in employment and it newest challenges is the idea that we will co-chair the is not so much about how we progress people group that signs oV the 14 to 19 plans. We have never through the system. One of the oVers we wanted to had a formal remit in education before and that is make to government there is we have put quite a lot quite new and that presents us with some challenges. of investment—as every region will have done—in We are taking over the skills brokerage from the graduate careers advice and postgraduate careers LSC and looking at how we integrate that with advice, and we would not want to see that lost but Business Link and these are new challenges. What perhaps we could say this is something that is we will do is look internally and we will look at what already working, it is established in every regional we need to do to deliver this. At the minute our context, can you use this service, and again going biggest “ask” would be that we have some stability back to the regional flexibility point, so that it is not with the Regional Skills Partnership through this reinvented but we can use and we can align to that process because whilst for the time being we have got service, and that is quite positive. On skills accounts, a secure future as a quango, obviously we know that I think one of the great shames was when individual the LSC are going through major structural learning accounts were stopped. They were upheaval which could disrupt the system and the obviously stopped for the right reason because there bulk of skills activity is not on our agenda to lead it, was abuse in the system, but I think it is a real positive thing when people feel that they have got a it is on the LSC, so in terms of planning and steering little bit of purchasing power, in this current climate we would really want it to say that we have lots of with what else is happening, that they can take that stability with the Regional Skills Partnership. time and spend some money on their personal development, and I think that is really positive. Q62 Mr Marsden: Can I come back very quickly to Dr Bennett: I would echo that. I think it is a good you, Mark, because you waxed lyrical earlier on, in move. It had a negative impact when it was fact I thought you were going to blow a gasket when withdrawn and coming back in this guise we are you mentioned Connexions, does it worry you that looking forward to working with it in the colleges. the bulk of information, advice, guidance, the training money and all the rest of it is going to move Q64 Dr Blackman-Woods: Have you made any assessment of the impact of the Regional Skills from the LSCs to the local authorities? Does that Partnerships on diVerent groups of learners like aVect you in terms of your visions for leading the women, ethnic minorities, part-timers? RSP? Ms Adams: No, we have not done anything Mr Andrews: For me it is a case of it being managed specifically. We are just taking a really strong, hard properly and intensively. I have not got any bias look at diversity in its widest sense within the RDA towards it being in the LSC versus the local and what that means for a whole host of things, authorities. To me I think the more of these things including the workforce, so something is going on that are joined up, the more sensible it is. that. It is a challenge for us to look at in terms of the Chairman: I am going to have stop you there. findings particularly of the Women and Work Joined-up and sensible is a good phrase to finish Commission that we want to have a look at what with. that means for the labour market and how it works, Mr Marsden: Short and sweet. and particularly if we subscribe to trying to move Chairman: Very sweet. Yorkshire and Humber towards more of a knowledge economy and what that says for the diversity of people that can engage and aspire to that Q63 Mr Marsden: At the student end of this, I have is certainly something that we are doing some work two points. Firstly, the new Adult Advancement and on with the Work Foundation. Careers Services; are you happy to work with them, Chairman: On that note, thank you all enormously and is that going to be an advance? The second one for your time. That has been a very, very quick is skills accounts, this is people doing their own thing canter around the subject and I think my colleagues rather than going through the Train to Gain would agree it has been absolutely superb. Can I mechanism; is that going to be an important thank particularly Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods counterweight to the so-called business-facing or for injecting passion into our session this afternoon! business-driven area? Thank you all very very much indeed. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 15
Wednesday 4 June 2008
Members present:
Mr Phil Willis, in the Chair
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods Mr Gordon Marsden Mr Tim Boswell Ian Stewart Dr Brian Iddon Dr Desmond Turner
Witnesses: Mick Fletcher, Educational Consultant, Professor Alison Fuller, Professor of Education and Work, School of Education University of Southampton, Professor Alison Wolf, Sir Roy GriYths, Professor of Public Sector Management, Department of Management, King’s College London, and Professor Lorna Unwin, Faculty of Policy and Society, Institute of Education, University of London, gave evidence.
Chairman: Good morning and welcome to our first Professor Wolf: I think it is the dominant thing in panel of witnesses at this the Innovation, Leitch. You are feeding me a line because obviously Universities, Science and Skills Sub-Committee I have been a critic of the Leitch report. I have been looking at “After Leitch: Implementing Skills and a critic of the Leitch report in exactly the way that I Training Policies.” This is our second oral evidence have outlined. Although it constantly talks about a session. We held our first in Leeds as we launched demand-led approach, it is actually an additional our inquiry. We are delighted to have with us this ratcheting up of what is eVectively a centrally- morning Mick Fletcher, education consultant; planned, supply-driven approach to skills. It talks Professor Alison Fuller, Head of Post-Compulsory on every second page about world-class skills and Education and Training Research Centre at the demand-led systems, but when you actually look at University of Southampton; Professor Lorna what it is proposing, what it is proposing is more Unwin, Professor of Vocational Education at the targets and additional levels of government Institute of Education; and lastly Professor Alison direction. As I said, of course you cannot have high Wolf, the Sir Roy GriYths Professor of Public productivity without skills but they have to be the Sector Management at King’s College London. right skills. I simply cannot believe that the system Mr Boswell: On a point of order, Mr Chairman, at set up by Leitch and by predecessor reports and this point could I declare to the committee my policies can possibly deliver that. interest as a member of the Skills Commission, non- remunerated, but it does mean that I know quite well as colleagues at least two of our witnesses. Mr Marsden: Mr Chairman, could I do likewise? Chairman: Are there any other declarations of Q67 Mr Boswell: As a sub-question and making it interest before we start? even more complex, and the Chairman has invited Ian Stewart: I would like to be able to say that! you to comment on skills equals productivity: what about qualifications equals skills equals productivity? Q65 Chairman: Could I start with you, Professor Professor Wolf: Yes, absolutely; though for some Wolf, and ask you this? We have heard a lot about reason, they have become adult attainments in if someone has more skills, they automatically cause Leitch rather than qualifications. I am not quite sure more productivity. What do you think the why that is. Again, the same thing; again it seems to relationship is between skills and productivity and me that we have become extraordinarily hung up on are we over-egging the pudding? qualifications. The enticing thing about Professor Wolf: I think there clearly is a relationship qualifications is that they can be counted; they are between skills and productivity but it is a really easy to count. It is really hard to count skills; misconception to believe that you can create an it is very easy to count certificates. Because of that increase in productivity by taking a supply-driven and because qualifications can have an important approach to skills development. I think that the role, they have been terrifyingly seductive I think to major problem we have had with skills policy now policy makers. They allow you to feel you have a for several decades is the continued belief that the really easily counted and scrutinisable (if that word way to develop the skill base of this economy is to exists) currency in which to deal and you have not. have a highly active government policy of feeding One of the things that we are now getting an skills in rather than having a policy that genuinely increasingly unanswerable accumulation of responds to developments in the economy and evidence on is that some qualifications do indeed makes it easy for the demand for skills to be realised. seem to increase people’s productivity, as shown by increases in their wages, and many others just do not. There may be a lot of reasons for this but it is Q66 Chairman: Is Leitch wrong then in that indubitably demonstrated that you cannot proposition? It appears to us that the dominant automatically assume that just because somebody factor within the Leitch recommendations is that has another qualification, they become more skills equals productivity. productive. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 16 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
4 June 2008 Mick Fletcher, Professor Alison Fuller, Professor Alison Wolf and Professor Lorna Unwin
Q68 Chairman: Briefly, do each of you agree that the Government has added, will we, by 2020, have analysis that Leitch has made for our skills needs by achieved our objective of being in the premier league 2020 is right? Is that challenge right and are his for productivity? solutions right, in your view, Professor Unwin? Mr Fletcher: It is a moving target, is it not? In one Professor Unwin: It is not clear what the evidence sense, the role of targets—and Leitch uses the base was for the targets. One of the problems is that word—is to set an ambition. To that extent, I am there is a separation in Leitch between the targets, generous enough to believe that although the link which are the supply side part of the report, and any between skills and productivity, or the link between analysis in terms of what is happening in real qualifications and skills, is contestable, it is relatively workplaces and whether employers will make use of harmless to set ambitions. Where I think Leitch qualifications and the connection between what is in really falls apart is on the link between those the qualifications and the skills needed in the ambitions and the mechanisms he proposes, workplace. I think there is a disconnect between the particularly in respect of the further education supply side part of Leitch and issues in the economy, sector. Although there is some contested evidence a lot of which are to do with the way in which work about skills and productivity being linked, they are is organised, the way in which businesses are run. not totally divorced, whereas the link to saying Certainly the findings from the research that Alison “therefore we need to have all further education Fuller and I, with Alan Felstead at CardiV monies for adults routed through Train to Gain and University, have been doing for the last four years skill accounts” is based, firstly, on a caricature of the across about 12 diVerent occupational sectors are existing system that it is very diYcult to recognise that what employers across the public and private and, secondly, some completely unfounded sector need is serious support with how to design assertions about the nature of these new mechanisms workforce development. That is missing from and what they will bring about. Leitch. Q72 Chairman: In terms of the targets then, Mick, Q69 Chairman: You have been mentioned in do you feel that they are appropriate and are they dispatches there, Professor Fuller. What puzzles me achievable? Y in terms of the research base for Leitch is this. Sandy Mr Fletcher: The di culty with targets is that if we Leitch did not just pick these targets oV the wall. He debate them at a strategic level, they can be quite must have had some evidence to back up the targets sensible, but down the line they tend to be abused. which we set and which the Government has There are people who believe their jobs depend on accepted with the addition of the new level 3 targets. them hitting the target, even if it means missing the Professor Fuller: I think there is evidence about what point. qualification levels exist, primarily through the Labour Force Survey, which are very well Q73 Chairman: What a cynical thing to say! There is established and there is a long track record of that this chain, is there not, which is skills equals survey being around. That then enables some cross- productivity, and we have talked about that; there is national comparisons to take place, which I think also the assumption that qualifications equals skills are often the stimulus for the setting of the higher equals productivity. Do you think that there is that targets. The motivation for the targets comes from direct link as Professor Wolf questioned between this analysis that we started oV with, which is skills qualifications and skills? equal productivity. Mr Fletcher: I share the reservations of fellow panellists on this. I think Leitch depends in many ways on over-simplifying a complex issue. If the Q70 Chairman: And in your view they do not? outcome of that is to get a sensible focus on Professor Fuller: I think the point made about increasing skills, then I think it would be better than qualifications is extremely important. If you look at harmless. The danger is that it distorts the system Scotland, for example, they have by and large a into chasing skills and chasing qualifications at the higher qualified workforce and young people and expense of improving productivity. Can I give you their productivity levels are lower. There is clearly an example of this? Take Train to Gain as an not a straightforward read-across. If we go back to example, a flagship policy. I talk, in going round the much older work which was done by the National country, to a lot of college principals and college Institute for Economic and Social Research, by Sig staV. What they say to me about Train to Gain is: V Price and colleagues, they started o talking about “There is not very much money in it, therefore the the relationship between skills and productivity and way in which we can engage is to find people who are trying to find ways of measuring it through their skilled in their jobs but lack a qualification and we research. They came up with the best estimate of a assess them.” 25 or 30% link between skills and productivity and education and productivity. There was this big gap, the sorts of things that Lorna was talking about, Q74 Mr Boswell: The lower the value added, the relating to what actually goes on in the workplace. better for them is almost what you are saying? Mr Fletcher: Yes. The system is stacked in that way, and it is worse than that. Again, college principals Q71 Chairman: If Leitch is right—and for have said to me, “What we know we have to do”, argument’s sake let us say that he is—and we meet because they are nothing if not loyal and responsive, all the targets he proposed and to which the “is to replace many of our teachers with assessors so Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 17
4 June 2008 Mick Fletcher, Professor Alison Fuller, Professor Alison Wolf and Professor Lorna Unwin that we can do this more cheaply”. At the end of the friend of mine who runs a rather successful printers day, three or four years downstream, when we have up in the north. He is about to move a great chunk found all those people who are skilled but not of his work to Poland. He said part of this is because qualified and labelled them, which may do them a of the classic cost questions but part of it is because little bit of good but not a great deal, we will find we he finds the current structure for taking on have a bigger task then of training people who need apprentices so diYcult to cope with if you are a small training, which certainly would benefit them and or medium employer that he has basically decided to benefit their employers, but we may well have give up on it. That is just one employer and one disposed of many of the teachers who would have anecdote, but it seems to me to underline the dangers done that. of this target-driven process in which if you are a hard working LSC bureaucrat, you just have to meet the targets; it is your job to do that. Q75 Chairman: This is getting more depressing by the minute! The purpose of this inquiry is really to add value to this process and to question the Q76 Ian Stewart: I need to declare an interest here, assumptions within the Leitch report that this is the Chairman, in that I was for 20 years a Transport and way forward. I think we all have an investment in General Workers’ Union full-time oYcer in the making sure that we do upskill the nation, however North West before coming here. In that role I we describe skills. I wonder if any of you could give initiated in 1990 the first European-funded social me a better measure for skills in the workplace. partnership vocational training programme in the What is a better measure other than qualifications? food industry. When we had Professor Leitch before I find it diYcult to be able to find one. us, I asked him why in the documentation the trade Professor Wolf: It is very hard to measure them unions had been almost airbrushed out. We are directly but I do think that the focus on productivity conscious that the partnership described within his is the correct one. It is nearly impossible to work is government, employers and individuals. Of disentangle things because the skills that you require course he then defended that by explaining all the are related to the investments that you are making, areas that the trade unions were involved in, but they which are related to interests in the marketplace and were not mentioned anywhere. What is your view in the products you are producing and so on. It does about that? seem to me that if you are greatly increasing your Professor Wolf: Clearly the unions are represented expenditure on skills at the expense of, say, general in varying degrees in diVerent parts of the structure. adult education and you re not getting any visible I think unions are incredibly important in workplace increase in productivity as a result, then you can training, less to do with young people because that conclude that something has gone rather wrong with comes in a sense at the juncture between school and your policy. I also think you can look—and this going on, but coming to the workplace today, that is comes back to a very particular bit of skills policy absolutely fundamental. We have been doing some which I hope you are going to pay a great deal of research—we will not report the results for a while attention to—at the skills of young people. Again, it but they are not going to conflict with anything I does seem to me that we have a good indication of have said, unfortunately—on the impact of whether we are getting education and skills policy government-funded workplace training in a range of right when look at unemployment rates among companies. We have come across companies where young people. If we are not making a big impact there were ULRs (union learning reps). I think they there and if we are continuing to find that young, are incredibly important because people who are in British or English people (I am not quite sure what employment know their union rep; it is a trusted the remit of this committee is on skills) are being intermediary. One cannot overestimate the degree to pushed out of the labour market in favour which as human beings we trust people we know. I particularly of immigrants, then there is something do not mean that we should not have on-line wrong with our skills policy. That should not be databases; I do not mean you should not have happening. In an economy like ours, we should not government advice bureaux and all the rest of it. But have large levels of youth unemployment. It should basically, you trust the people and those you know not be happening. We do know that it is skills- have your interests at heart. One of the things I related. For example, the work of Steve Nickell, who would like to praise this Government for is the union is currently Warden of NuYeld College, is really learning rep programme. Most of what I have said very convincing on this, that there really is a skills has been critical but that one is not. In a non- element in youth unemployment and in the fragility unionised company it would have to be some other of their employment. I have to say that I am less form of employee representative. I think they are friendly towards targets than Mick Fletcher. It incredibly important. Not that long ago in a seems to me that one of the places where they have previous inquiry before all the committees were done real damage interestingly is at the reorganised, in one of these rooms in a committee apprenticeship level. It means that LSCs that really they interviewed a really impressive learning rep do have to meet targets to do their job have the who I have never forgotten. I thought she was strong incentive to go towards large-scale providers fabulous. I have this depressing feeling that if she who are not really producing what I would call a real was trying to put together the programme that she apprenticeship as compared to small employers who described this year, she would find it harder than she might be able to produce one or two. If we are in had before because a lot of it would not meet the anecdote territory, I had an email yesterday from a targets. I think they are fantastically important. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 18 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
4 June 2008 Mick Fletcher, Professor Alison Fuller, Professor Alison Wolf and Professor Lorna Unwin
Q77 Ian Stewart: I want to talk now about the million, and who could be scooped into that net to responsibility for skills and the demand-led system. help reach the target. We know very little in terms of This question is to all of you. Do you agree with the qualitative research. allocation of responsibility for training between government, employers and individuals as Q79 Ian Stewart: What is it that stands in the way of expounded by Leitch? What needs to change to employers and individuals articulating their needs? make that system work? Professor Fuller: One is a willingness to listen to Professor Unwin: I thought it was interesting when what employers and adults are actually saying. We you said the trade unions have been airbrushed out have just done some recent research at Southampton of the story. The other people in a sense that have where we precisely looked at that group of adults been airbrushed out are the education and training with level 3. They say they are very interested in professionals. Social partnerships in other European learning and training, in the development of their countries would have both the trade unions and the jobs and in quality improvements that could go into education and training professionals as part of the that. They are not necessarily interested in social partnership. We need to look really closely at qualifications for their own sake. These are people that because if we only rely on employers and who are already reasonably well established in the individuals and the state agencies, then that is a labour market and are able to assess the kinds of problem. The way in which skills are developed is opportunities that might be being pushed at them. done by a much broader coalition that includes the They are not interested, quite frankly, in trainers and the people in the workplace. It is not just qualifications or credentials for their own sake. They a kind of supply/demand very technical process. We are interested in development, learning, and need to bring back the actual professional side of it. working with their employers. They would be This is another area where I think your inquiry interested in more guidance. They do not know very might want to look: we need to look very carefully at much. The adult guidance service that is suggested in the workforce development and the conditions of Leitch, which is coming on stream and in association the vocational education and training professionals with Job Centre Plus, I think is problematic because in this country. that is not coming into where those adults are and talking to them in the way that Professor Wolf described the union learning reps doing. I think Q78 Ian Stewart: There are two interesting aspects to there is a lot that could be done to develop that this. To this day there is no definition accepted in this evidence base which would be very helpful. country as to what social partnership, which is a Mr Fletcher: On the points made by the last two European concept, is. In my view, that is not too speakers about demand led, there is a very good. My second point is that there is a lack of instructive contrast between the way in which public recognition that vocational training is a bargaining policy is currently evolving in respect of higher issue in places where trade unions are recognised and education and further education. In higher they form that bridge between the employer and education, policy is about building and maintaining further and higher education. Trade unions can play strong, stable, independent institutions that are that role. What do you understand by a demand-led partners in the policy formulation process and they education and training system and to what extent is engage in a market with individuals and employers. the system currently not demand-led. If a university does not oVer courses that people Professor Fuller: There are various ways to answer want to do, then it does not stay around very long. that. One aspect of it is that if you look at the Further education used to be substantially like that. education system and universities, then they are In the name of the demand-led system, we are responding to demand from students, from moving further away from it; we are moving towards individuals, their customers. When you see a system where increasingly we design at the centre expansion of particular courses, for example, that is what it is that we think people need and we provide in response to demand from people who want to do it for them through a variety of intermediaries. The them. There are aspects of demand which come into role of providers, colleges, is downplayed; even the the system already that are not to do just with this word provider I think is instructive in this respect. notion of employers being the only people who are The model is much more like the one that obtains in allowed to be demand led. The other thing that I the world of Job Centre Plus, for instance, where we would like to say about individuals—and Leitch designed various new deals at the centre and they are particularly focuses on adults—is that we know very then delivered through a brokerage service by a little about what ordinary adults aspire to or want in range of competing and dispensable providers. I relation to training and qualifications. Until now, think that is what worries me most about what is and this is perhaps an opportunity that Leitch opens going on in respect of Leitch implementation, the up, they have not really been in the purview of public view that our provider infrastructure, and policy people who were in work, who were getting on particularly our colleges, is made up simply of with things, who are not part of disadvantaged disposable providers to be cast aside if they do not groups and so on. Leitch assumes that this group will deliver this week’s version of policy. be there to be harvested to help them meet the 40% plus target of level 4s. If we look at the labour force Q80 Chairman: That is right, is it not? Leitch has survey again, we know that there is a great pool of made it clear that it wants a demand-led system with people who already have level 3 as their highest, six employers at the centre of it; employers will decide Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 19
4 June 2008 Mick Fletcher, Professor Alison Fuller, Professor Alison Wolf and Professor Lorna Unwin what skills they will need; and colleges have either Q84 Mr Marsden: And presumably worse in SMEs? got to provide those skills in a responsive 24/7 mode Professor Fuller: Yes, by and large. or they will go elsewhere? That is right, is it not? Mr Fletcher: I think the problem is particularly Mr Fletcher: I have no problems with that and I acute in SMEs. I can give an example from an area suspect none of the colleges around the country have I have been working in closely in the last few months problems with that. The diYculty is that in the name around the delivery of Skills for Life through Train of an employer-driven system, employers can choose to Gain. The evidence suggests that you need about what they want as long as it helps meet Treasury 180 hours of study to get from one level to another targets and as long as it allies with what a sector skills under Skills for Life Literacy or Numeracy. That is council has agreed, and as long as it fits in no doubt not all teaching but if you assume it is 90 hours down-stream with some regionally based plan that teaching and 90 hours private study, it is three hours comes from an RDA or a regional employment a week for 30 weeks. If you go into an SME and you partnership. It is a heavily constrained choice. only have one employee, the Train to Gain funding allows you to give about seven or eight hours support, that is all. If you can group people into groups of 10, then that is fine; you can get up to 70 Q81 Ian Stewart: That is interesting because that or 80 hours. If you are trying to do this on an leads me nicely on to what I had in my mind, which individualised basis in an SME, the money is simply is: should the state plan and fund post-level 2 not there. I honestly cannot see how it could ever be training? there on that model. Mr Fletcher: I think the state should make clear Professor Wolf: You could give the individual the what its priorities are. At the strategic level it is very opportunity to go and spend the money where they Y di cult to fault what Government is doing. It is wanted to, which they do not have at the moment. saying that we need to place more emphasis on people who do not have their foot on the ladder rather than people who are already part-way up. I Q85 Mr Marsden: Such as a voucher system? cannot fault that at all. What is diYcult is that if you Professor Wolf: Yes, or something like that. The try to drive this thing from the centre, it simply does word voucher always immediately has these not work, as we found out in eastern Europe over the dreadful connotations. latter part of the 20th century. Central direction is not a very eYcient way of managing complex Q86 Mr Marsden: That is because of what has systems. happened to it in the past. Professor Wolf: Can I just point out that in eVect that is exactly what we operate within higher Q82 Mr Marsden: Alison Fuller, can I come back to education. The individual 18-year-old or 21-year- you? What you were saying is very interesting about old, or whoever, eVectively, if they come and apply your research and what people think about the to one of our institutions and we accept them, we impact on their jobs. I wanted to ask you this, and then receive money for them. possibly Mick might want briefly to comment on it Professor Unwin: The huge diVerence, Alison, is that as well. We have had a lot of evidence and there is a the 18 or 19-year-old applying to university will have lot of talk out there about soft skills, enabling skills, had all the guidance, will know that their call it what you like. There is also a lot of talk about qualifications are going to be accepted. The on-the-job training. Government gives a lot of universities provide lots of information, et cetera. If support to the idea of on-the-job training and a more we are talking about vouchers for adults, either in modular approach to constructing things like work or out of work, we will need a pretty good apprenticeships, et cetera. Do the frameworks that system. Many adults and young people out there do Leitch proposes in terms of demand-led give enough not know where to go because it is a complex system space for building and constructing those sorts of and in many cases their employers will not be variations? encouraging to them to seek qualifications. Professor Fuller: I think they give space but they do not actually provide support and capacity-building Q87 Chairman: The solution here is that in the mechanisms to enable them to happen. autumn in the Queen’s Speech there will be a Bill which will give employees the right to request training, and that will resolve the matter, will it not? Q83 Mr Marsden: Or cash? Professor Unwin: You are saying that with a very Professor Fuller: Yes, or cash and the resources are twinkly look in your eye! weak and need developing in a variety of ways. Professor Wolf: Can I come in here? I very rarely Many employers that Lorna Unwin and I went to in disagree strongly with Lorna but on this occasion I our Learning as Work project had either no training do. I get very angry with this assumption that adults department or a very small one and in the past had who do not have degrees are not capable of knowing had larger ones. Various aspects of the way what they want or finding it. That is essentially the businesses have evolved and the way functions have implication, that Government policy is that 18-year- been contracted out mean that that capacity is olds are able to make informed decisions and adults extremely fragmented and ageing. are not. Let me finish. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 20 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
4 June 2008 Mick Fletcher, Professor Alison Fuller, Professor Alison Wolf and Professor Lorna Unwin
Professor Unwin: The 18-year-olds are supported. changes like Train to Gain will bring about That is my point. We do not support adults in the instability, et cetera, but this is a price worth paying. way we support 18-year-olds who have A levels. We I think that tells you something. There is a do not support young people who do not have A carelessness in government policy with regard to levels in the way we support the ones with A levels. provision for, let us say, the lower 50% of the population. Q88 Dr Turner: You have torn Leitch apart fairly eVectively, but the fact is that the Government Q91 Dr Turner: Do you not feel that in fact if you left swallowed Leitch. Has it made any diVerence on the it to institutions and professions to evolve ground yet? themselves in response to changing demands, they Professor Wolf: To what—to the way that the might do better than being re-managed and re- system works? Yes, it is now gearing up to deliver the badged from the top down? Leitch target. Professor Fuller: I think that may well be true. There is still an ambiguity of purpose at the heart of this, Q89 Dr Turner: In terms of giving people skills? which has probably been well represented by the Professor Wolf: Not obviously, no. confusion about apprenticeships. Apprenticeships Mr Fletcher: There are so many changes on the at the moment are positioned, if you like, as the third ground you can see in terms of processes. As I alternative, the third route, after A levels and the mentioned before, colleges of further education are new diplomas which have been promoted very making very radical changes to their plans, more or heavily to young people. Apprenticeships are in a less willingly, to deliver programmes in the way in sense at the heart of skill formation and have been which Leitch has said. I think we will also see since skills were needed historically. If increases in the number of people who gain apprenticeships are not clearly positioned as qualifications of particular types. That then takes us desirable and well-resourced with lots of back to whether or not that will do them any good. I information and capacity around providing training have diYculty in seeing how simply labelling people and so on, then it gives the lie to the purpose of these who are skilled but not qualified is going to help things. If I were a young person trying to make them a very great deal. choices at 15 and 16, the likelihood is that I would know nothing about apprenticeship, other than it was perhaps something for people who are not going Q90 Dr Turner: Of course education and skills is not to go very far in the world. You see that through the the only area which the Government has sought to way that the equivalencies are mapped out in terms manage and government management tends to be a of the value that is ascribed to the types of succession of reforms, initiatives, et cetera, some of qualifications people get in apprenticeship. If you which conflict. Do you think that there has been too complete an advanced apprenticeship, which is much upheaval and not enough action to go; in presented as a level 3, it will not get you into a other words, as in the health service where they have bachelor’s degree, for example. hardly finished trying to suggest one reform and the Professor Fuller: The “what it is for” question I think next one is coming down the tracks? Do you think is still not clear. that it has been over-complicated? Professor Wolf: I certainly think it has been over- complicated. It is one of the great puzzles of British Q92 Dr Turner: It will get you a job as a junior history; perhaps you can say it proves that skills do technician perhaps. not matter all that much, although I think they do. Professor Unwin: I think your point about leaving it We have had a major inquiry into skills every few to the professionals is an important one. What we years since 1860 literally and we constantly reform; need to have much more of is trust in the we constantly change it. In the process, we have professionals and the institutions, many of whom, ended up with a situation where employers are particularly the further education colleges, have spending far less within further education on skills outlived initiative after initiative and have seen training than they were before all of this started. We agencies come and go. Certainly the best ones have do not seem to be making any huge progress in terms always worked locally with employers, with the of productivity; we are undermining our communities. I think the focus should be much more institutions. Having said that, I think what we have on the capacity within those institutions to work out now is not satisfactory, I can hardly say that how best at local and regional level to organise the therefore we should nonetheless leave it all alone in provision of education and training. order to have stability. Yes, we dig it up all the time. Mr Fletcher: I think it is an important distinction to Q93 Chairman: But employers know best, not make, though, in that the ferment of reform is not colleges. everywhere; it is only in certain places. If you look at Professor Unwin: Employers at local level will work the funding consultations that came out around with their colleges and employers who know best January 2007, the Government published one that that they need the professionals to work with them. said: in respect of higher education, the stability of Mr Fletcher: I do not think any of us are saying this institutional finances is a major priority. It said should be completely hands oV and the government exactly the same for schools, that stability of should walk away and it will all be marvellous. It is institutional budgets is a priority. In respect of clearly right for the Government to have priorities. further education, it said: We recognise that these At the strategic level it is very diYcult to argue with Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 21
4 June 2008 Mick Fletcher, Professor Alison Fuller, Professor Alison Wolf and Professor Lorna Unwin the priorities the Government has chosen. The implies but the diVerence is very clear. You do need problem is in the nature of the dialogue and the a funding agency and you need a funding agency nature of the control that it seeks to exercise. The partly when Government has a major priority and it system in higher education is one where the wants to change the system but you do not need the Government makes its priorities clear but when it level of micro-management, which is not sets its policy statement out to HEFCE it is management by the LSC in an independent sense; considered with the institutions. There is a dialogue the LSC is an arm of Whitehall and it does this. I do and a debate whereas within the further education not think you need it. sector, in the world of training providers, it is simply command from the centre: you shall do this. It is Q97 Chairman: Do you all agree with that statement very instructive to read the two grant letters from the that Professor Wolf has made? Secretary of State, the one that he sends to HEFCE Professor Unwin: I think I do generally agree with it. and the one that he sends to the LSC, The language I think you could do a lot more, though. I agree that will simply describe the essence of the diVerence. you do not want a whole lot of layers above the local institutional level. You could do a lot more, though, Q94 Dr Turner: Is there an element of, if you like, at local and possibly even regional level to invest in social distinction here? The Government recognises and support employer associations, group training the seniority of the status of universities so it will associations, so that it is not just the FE college as an kow-tow and recognise them, but FE colleges, oh institution but there are other institutional parts of well, they will do as they are told? Is this what you the fabric. think is happening? Mr Fletcher: I think there is a very large element of Q98 Dr Turner: Ad hoc networks? that. If you read the HEFCE letter, it says: we invite Professor Unwin: Yes, and those could be invested in you to consider this proposal. With the LSC grant to enable them to work in the partnership way we letter—they do not talk to institutions, they talk to were talking about earlier. the LSC—the LSC must, the LSC must. I think I counted 29 “musts” in four pages, and that was not Q99 Dr Turner: Do you see any role in there for counting the euphemisms. RDAs? Chairman: We have got that point. Professor Unwin: No, Professor Wolf: No. Q95 Dr Turner: Coming to my next point, what do you think is the best kind of regional level for Q100 Dr Turner: All right. We will carry on with the delivery of progress? Is that at regional or sub- demolition. Can you think of any good examples regional level? How do you think the infrastructure where attempts to put into practice the Leitch should be delivered on the ground? Have we got it agenda are actually working and where there is some right anywhere? best practice that other people can take note of? Professor Wolf: I think that the FE college is an Mr Fletcher: One of the things that question important institution and it is the level at which illustrates is our impatience to see change in things decisions should be made. I do not think you need all which take a very long time to come about. I these structures above it. Going back to the point mentioned, in response to an earlier question, that that came up before about how local colleges can what we can see on the ground are institutions talk to employers and indeed to local unions, they changing their processes and their practices. We can can and they do still when they are able to and they predict the sorts of things that will happen used to a great deal more than they do now. I do not downstream, but it is early to see an impact upon know whether you have anybody coming in front of learners and an impact on productivity from the committee who was, for example, an FE changes that Leitch stimulated only a couple of years principal 10 or 20 years ago. I hope you have because ago. In terms of positive outcomes, I am trying very if you can talk to them about it, they will be able to hard to think of any: some greater impetus towards describe to you the diVerences. I really do not think workplace delivery where appropriate, although I we need a regional level. That is just another layer of think it is over-stated, some greater emphasis on bureaucracy which is not helpful. What you want to lower level qualifications at level 2 and Skills for Life do is get down to the level where individuals are as opposed to higher level where the system might responding to the local market and making their naturally drift, but I have to say at the moment I own decisions within the context of where they live think the negative impact of the consequences and where they are operating. I think the FE college following Leitch greatly outweigh the positive ones is an important and fundamentally necessary I can see. institution for all the reasons that Mick has put up. You have got to have institutional continuity in Q101 Dr Turner: Finally, we do enjoy devolution this area. within the UK, so Leitch is not being rammed down the throats of the Scots, the Welsh or the Ulstermen. Q96 Dr Turner: You do not, for instance, really see Where do you think the skills agenda works best? a role for the LSC? Professor Wolf: I do not know enough about Wales. Professor Wolf: No, I do not actually, except in the I know they have a brand-new policy coming same sense as HEFCE. By the way, I do not think through, and it would be very interesting to find out the universities are left alone quite as much as Mick about it, and on which they did enormously Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 22 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
4 June 2008 Mick Fletcher, Professor Alison Fuller, Professor Alison Wolf and Professor Lorna Unwin thorough work. It is always hard to know whether it Professor Unwin: I would agree with that. will be as good in practice as it sounds on paper. I do know quite a lot about Scotland and they basically operate a system which is not unlike the one which Q106 Ian Stewart: Can I ask Alison Wolf this preceded our current target-driven one. It is question? I am interested in this distinction between basically a bit like the one we ran under the FEFC training for gain and learning for life. You have been to be honest. I completely agree with Alison that it doing some work around these issues. Can you tell has not delivered productivity, but that in a sense is us: in the light of your research—and I do accept it is because that is only one part of the equation and not yet fully out—can you see the programme being Scotland has other problems. I think that the way reformed or is it beyond that? they are funding FE in Scotland is perfectly sensible Professor Wolf: Obviously I need to be really and basically copied from the system we dumped. succinct here. It relates to the fact that I dumped on Mr Fletcher: I think that analysis is right. Scotland Lorna. I think that a lot of adults in the workplace is the most diVerent. It is able to be more diVerent have very clear ideas about what they want to learn and the system there is more like the one of treating and about why they want to learn it and they are not institutions as partners that I was commending particularly interested in qualifications. I think that earlier. In Wales it is very diYcult to separate this with the right structures, and that would include from English policy and the English labour market, helping to institutionalise positions in the workplace where people could go for advice and information, et cetera. I think they are attempting to modify some V of the excesses of Leitch-influenced policy. you could create a very e ective system for enabling people in the workplace to access learning and to learn the things they want to learn. Truly I do not Q102 Chairman: You just do not like change, do believe that the current system is it. What we have you? been looking at is Skills for Life that was channelled Mr Fletcher: I think change needs to be careful and in with a limit on the number of hours to get the considered rather than precipitate. certificate and now is being attached to Train to Gain. It is extraordinarily wasteful and it does not Q103 Ian Stewart: You should have said: yes, but work, but I do think that these are people who very positive change! I will need to try to run through this often do know what they want. The ones who are section relatively quickly. I apologise for that. This motivated are the ones who learn and stay with it. It is to all of you. How will the establishment of the UK means that when you go with the grain you have a Commission for Employment Skills and the break- lot of people out there who could truly benefit from up of the Learning and Skills Council system do you the vast amounts of money that in my personal think improve the relationship between employers opinion we are wasting sticking certificates on. and the education and training supply chain? Will it improve it? Professor Wolf: Who knows? Q107 Ian Stewart: That is really interesting. Do you Professor Unwin: Certainly many of the employers think there is an inherent contradiction between the that Alison Fuller and I talk to do not have a clue structures of Train to Gain and the nature of courses that some of these agencies exist anyway, so the fact and training that employers want—short, sharp that you are now about to replace them with new courses and not necessarily leading to qualifications, ones is probably irrelevant. It is quite interesting for example? when you go into lots of workplace, as we do, that Professor Wolf: Yes, I do, and there is also an you do mini tutorials, a bit like a pub quiz, to try to inherent conflict between that and what individual bring them up to date on what the latest agencies are. learners want. Can I just say one other thing that is borne out by both our research and research in the Q104 Mr Marsden: You have to be a real anorak to United States? The interesting thing is that when employers become involved in workplace learning do that! V Professor Unwin: The fact that is that the SSDA now courses as opposed to being o ered Train to Gain no longer exists and we have the UK Employment certification for nothing, they are very rarely trying and Skills Commission. A lot of people out there to fill short-term skill gaps. They are almost always would not know the diVerence. much more far-sighted themselves. They are interested in developing their workforce for the long term; they are interested in showing their workforce Q105 Ian Stewart: The answer is we do not know if that they care about them; and that they do not want it is going to improve things? to just treat them as something to be shelled oV Professor Unwin: We have no idea. It is far too early Y tomorrow. That is something that is absolutely to say. I think it is tinkering in the upstairs o ce. consistent. Mr Fletcher: Could I just put in a good word for the learning and skills councils? I think they could have done a good job had they been left alone. The Q108 Ian Stewart: Can I turn to Professors Fuller present break-up and reformulation of them will and Unwin for this question? The Government has simply impede things. It may be the inevitable placed a lot of emphasis on apprenticeships, and consequence of the machinery of government quite rightly. I am conscious, for example, Lorna, changes. There will be another period of turmoil in that you have questioned the distinction between a which they concentrate on their own reorganisation genuine apprenticeship system and placements. rather than doing the job. How hopeful are both of you that the National Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 23
4 June 2008 Mick Fletcher, Professor Alison Fuller, Professor Alison Wolf and Professor Lorna Unwin
Apprenticeship Service is going to be eVective? What trying to manage the flow of public money to other could be done to tackle gender equality issues in institutions and then they just become part of the relation to apprenticeships? bureaucratic— Professor Fuller: One of the things that Lorna and I are arguing for is a diVerent approach to managing Q110 Ian Stewart: Ministers have certainly always apprenticeship which is much less top-down and said that it is very important that there is a business based more on this apprenticeship partnership voice to articulate the needs of that particular sector. model. At the moment, essentially the new Mr Fletcher: It is diYcult to see some of them as developments around apprenticeship, which I think employer-led bodies. In a sense, a real employer-led we are very positive about in terms of the aspiration, body could not just be disbanded and reformed by are undermined by the top-down implementation. Government at will, could it? You cannot imagine The Apprenticeship Service seems to us to be a them saying, “We’re going to disband the CBI and missed opportunity for generating a shared vision the Institute of Directors because they overlap and and approach to expanding apprenticeship and we’ll reform them”, that is nonsense. making it a more meaningful part of the vocational Professor Wolf: I agree totally with the last bit of education and training system. what Mick said, but I also think the SSCs have been Professor Unwin: The Apprenticeship Service’s main a victim of what a friend of mine calls the “neatness role is yet again to deliver the starts and completions. agenda”, the idea that everything should be about If you read the government document that came out the same size and should be covered. If they were recently, the definition of quality is still around really going to reflect the structure of the economy trying to raise the number of completions. Clearly then some of them would be big and some of them you want all apprentices to complete and to gain would be small, there would be a mix and it would their qualifications but completion, again against be much more organic. highly driven targets, does not necessarily mean you drive up the quality of the learning experience of the Q111 Dr Blackman-Woods: This is a point of apprentices. We would argue that the clarification, Professor Wolf. I was not quite clear Apprenticeship Service is an opportunity if it is when you were making the point about work-based dedicated and you have people with real expertise in learning whether you were saying that people did not apprenticeship. People like Stephen Gardner at the want qualifications from the workplace in terms of LSC have been doing a great job. He is a former their learning or whether they did not like the apprentice. He understands apprenticeship. We qualifications that were on oVer. I just was not clear need a dedicated team of apprenticeship specialists what you were saying. to drive up the quality of the experience on the Professor Wolf: It could be both. It was really ground. because we have been doing some research going into a large number of workplaces and talking to Q109 Mr Boswell: We have not heard much this people who have been on government-funded morning about the sector skills councils. Is there any courses. I am certainly not saying no adults want significance in that being a dog that has not barked qualifications, it depends what they are for, but at this morning? Do they have an important role? Is the moment government funding comes with some reason for the reticence to discuss them the fact qualifications attached. Sometimes the people that they are uneven in performance and, if they are, concerned have things that they would like to learn could that be rectified? and they do not care whether they get a qualification Professor Fuller: They certainly are uneven in or not; in other cases they might want a qualification performance. The sector skills councils grew out of diVerent from the one that is being oVered and we the previous incarnation, which was based on a can go into the equivalent level qualification thing. smaller grouping of sectors. The idea was to develop Qualifications are an important part of any a stronger and more powerful agency with more education and training system but they are by no capacity for sectors which would perhaps carry more means necessary at all points in it. weight. I think that unevenness has not been dissipated by them just becoming bigger, and in Q112 Mr Marsden: Alison Wolf, two things, some ways they are perhaps weakened by the whether we like them or not. It is undoubtedly the amount of diVerent sorts of sectors that they are now case that , as a result of Leitch, the demand-led trying to represent. What happens in our experience principle will increase in higher education. It is also a is that a few employers become involved and have a fact that the teaching of higher education via further voice, but the vast majority are not engaged, education colleges is increasing and will increase. It probably do not know about them and the relevance is about 10 to 12% at the moment. Given that those to them and the ability to make a diVerence to them are facts, how is that going to aVect the relationship is not really apparent. between FE and HE? Mr Fletcher: I think Sector Skills Councils are Professor Wolf: It is very hard to know. I actually clearly variable in performance and some are not think that we should be allowing FE to do far more very well-known, but they could be of benefit if they of what community colleges in the United States do, focused on the demand side, on raising and which is to deliver HE, but not in the Leitch sense of describing demand from employers. The danger is demand-led, in my sense of demand-led. I think we that they will drift towards being part of a planning can and should see a blurring. The current complete apparatus and seeking to justify their existence by distinction between the two is wrong and hopefully Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 24 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
4 June 2008 Mick Fletcher, Professor Alison Fuller, Professor Alison Wolf and Professor Lorna Unwin not maintainable. However, if the result of that is they have come across is that in some cases there are that HE goes in the direction that FE is going at the very constructive partnerships developing between moment, that would be a complete and total FE and HE colleges in a locality and progression catastrophe. I am extremely uncertain what is going pathways being articulated and so on for top-ups in to happen about this demand-led bit of Leitch. It is higher education for courses that have started at FE true that the only source of additional funding for level. On the other hand, there are also new higher education at the moment is for degrees that competitions emerging between universities which are supposedly going to be contributed to by are competing for similar kinds of students to the FE employers, well we will see, and which are of the colleges and as the FE colleges become more Leitch description. This is very diVerent from the confident and able to deliver higher education in FE model which has been fuelling, I would have to say, and develop their reputations, they are less likely to the extraordinary success of British universities in want to let them go and see themselves moving on to the last decade. It is a completely new approach. I wanting to deliver the whole of the Bachelor’s am trying to keep an open mind, I really am. degree. There are new rivalries developing at local levels and I am not sure how helpful those are. It is an emerging picture. Q113 Mr Marsden: I am going to have to cut you oV because I want to bring Alison and Lorna in because Brian wants to ask a diVerent question from me. It could be said, unkindly, that some British universities have been much better at dealing with Q117 Dr Iddon: Why do we not just be honest with demand-led and local needs and sub-regional needs, ourselves and say that demand-led HE is really a even if you do not think that is a good structure, than polytechnic, like the technische Hochscules in others. Do you agree with what Alison has basically Germany? Why do we not create the polytechnics? I said that it is too early to tell? Are there elements of used to teach in one which became a university, and the situation that I described in terms of the increase as it became a university it gave up all the part-time in HE and FE and the increase in the demand-led teaching, the day release stuV, the evening teaching, principle in HE that concern you or worry you, or the Saturday morning teaching, and became just like you rejoice over? any other university, and we lost that ability to put Professor Unwin: I think one of the things that is people into the local firms. Why do we not just interesting about the HE sector is how return to polytechnics, is that not what you are heterogeneous it is. Part of the demand-led success arguing for? of HE has also been that we have got a huge range Professor Wolf: I do not think you can recreate of institutions that are incredibly diverse. things that have gone. The demand-led HE that I understood Mr Marsden was talking about is a very specific set of proposals which are not like the old Q114 Mr Marsden: Does that mean you are going to polytechnics because they are far more designed by get very diVerent responses and success rates in government, they come with very specific response to Leitch from them? requirements, they have got a particular bit of the Professor Unwin: Yes, indeed. It is interesting that HEFCE pot, they are very much part of Leitch. some of the post-1992 universities are responding to There are real questions to be asked about how best employer needs at a local level in some of the ways higher education in its broadest sense, and in my that we were talking about earlier that we would view that includes FE based programmes, can want to see encouraged. I think if there could be respond to the particular requirements of industry. closer partnerships with FE colleges and HE then Industry does not always want a highly specific you could really start to see the expertise of the degree, it quite often wants a general one. For better professionals in the colleges that would lift their or worse, and many other countries have not done opportunities and their capacity. this, we have now gone irretrievably for a single sector. I do not think we can recreate that binary system. Many other countries have hung on to it, but Q115 Mr Marsden: I am tempted to ask where the I do not think we can go back. Foundation Degrees come in here, but we have not got time. Professor Unwin: I think it would also be a major boost for apprenticeship, for Level 3 apprenticeship, if that was positioned at the FE/HE interface. Q118 Dr Iddon: I want to develop this argument a Professor Fuller: There is a project being led by lot, but we cannot. I must tackle Mick Fletcher. You Gareth Parry and Ann-Marie Bathmaker which is suggested that we create an Adult Skills and Higher specifically focusing on the FE/HE interface which is Education Funding Council to bring FE and HE coming out with some incredibly interesting and under one. I suggest to you that it would be a hugely rich results. bureaucratic structure. Mr Fletcher: It would be bureaucratic if it tried to do the planning role that LSC has had thrust upon it. If, Q116 Mr Marsden: Sorry, where was that? on the other hand, it undertook the much more light Professor Fuller: Gareth Parry is at University of touch funding role that HEFCE undertakes or, SheYeld and Ann-Marie Bathmaker is at the indeed, those bodies that funded the polytechnics University of West England. One of the findings that under a previous incarnation, then it would be Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 25
4 June 2008 Mick Fletcher, Professor Alison Fuller, Professor Alison Wolf and Professor Lorna Unwin manageable. The benefit is it would draw attention Q120 Dr Iddon: Do you think any government to some of the real inequities that run right through would be prepared to fund your model because I can the middle of our system that are most visible when see all the staV wanting to be paid the same, I can see you compare the treatment of FE and HE. the students wanting the same grants? Are you not dreaming a bit here? Mr Fletcher: I am not sure that would be a Q119 Dr Iddon: Are you suggesting in this model consequence. V paying all the sta on the same spine? Chairman: We will leave that hanging in the air. Can Mr Fletcher: No, I am not suggesting we get into that I just say you have been the most fantastic panel this degree of management at the centre at all. I am morning and we have thoroughly enjoyed having simply suggesting that the principles that govern the you. We have certainly overrun significantly. I know way we fund institutions and the way we give you have all been very frustrated, you have wanted financial support to individual students should be to get in on some of the questions and give us bigger thought through consistently across the piece. I answers, if there is anything you want to tell us then would not want to row back very far from the please feel free to write to us and we will be happy to independence that FE and HE institutions now receive it. Can I thank you all very, very much indeed have. for your presence this morning.
Witnesses: Dr Philip Wright, Director of Science and Technology, Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, Ms Lee Hopley, Senior Economist, Engineering Employers Federation, Matthew JaVa, Skills Policy Adviser, Federation of Small Businesses, and Graham Schuhmacher, Head of Learning Services, Rolls-Royce plc, gave evidence.
Q121 Chairman: We welcome our second panel of employers were looking for actual graduates and today. We have Mr Graham Schuhmacher, Head of degree level candidates, but 95%1 were looking for Learning Services at Rolls-Royce plc, welcome to those softer employability skills. It is that ability to you, Graham. Dr Philip Wright, the Director of walk through the door on the first day, hit the Science and Technology at the Association of the ground running, coming in with a fresh approach, British Pharmaceutical Industry, welcome to you. looking determined, a willingness to learn that Matthew JaVa, the Policy Adviser for the employers are really looking for. Federation of Small Businesses, welcome, Matthew. Second appearance within a very short time, Lee Q123 Chairman: So Alan Sugar has got it right? Hopley, the Senior Economist at the Engineering Mr JaVa: Oh, spot on! Employers Federation. Thank you all. I am sorry for starting this session somewhat late. Starting with you, Lee, the engineering sector is a very, very big, Q124 Chairman: Graham, what is your company powerful and important sector, how would you looking for? characterise the skills challenge for your sector? Mr Schuhmacher: I think the challenges are we have got an age profile problem like most of our sector of Ms Hopley: I think it is the fact that in recent years two-thirds over 45 and one-third under 45, so the the sector really has evolved quite rapidly and that apprenticeship Level 3, Level 4, technician level, is a clearly has implications for the skills requirements of serious concern to us and the number of people the businesses within it. If you look at the change of doing STEM subjects in university and then coming the occupational profile of manufacturing over the into consultancy firms as opposed to engineering. past 10 years there has been a clear shift from low- That basic core skill and competency of a company skilled to higher skilled occupations and that trend like ours is the biggest concern with the age profile is set to continue. It has implications for how being the most worrying. intermediate and higher level skills are delivered and the level of understanding of providers as to what those skill requirements will be, not just in terms of Q125 Chairman: And pharmaceuticals? qualifications but also the softer skills the previous Dr Wright: The key for us is that historically the UK panel was talking about. has been very strong in terms of the core skills and core capability that has really allowed us to be a world leader in terms of R&D investment and Q122 Chairman: Matthew, I well remember being development of new medicines. I think it is fair to say hounded out of the conference hall at your annual that over the last four to five years our members have conference in Harrogate when I dared to suggest increasingly stated that there are real issues and that businessmen could be made rather than born skills deficits in two senses. One is around the core because I think 95% of the people thought that capabilities of school leavers, graduates and higher entrepreneurs were born like that. What are the degree level leavers in terms of their mathematics, skills needs of your sector? numeracy and practical capabilities. Secondly, there Mr JaVa: From the employability side it is the needs are core discipline deficits as well in terms of the of the softer employability skills, those life skills that capabilities, for example, of pre-clinical are absolutely critical. I do not know if it was an FSB survey but there was a survey that stated only 20% 1 Note from the witness: “90%”. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 26 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
4 June 2008 Dr Philip Wright, Ms Lee Hopley, Matthew Jaffa and Graham Schuhmacher pharmacologists, and all of those disciplines which Q128 Chairman: Matthew, do you see that there is a are absolutely essential. Basically, the skills that delivery plan? You deal with 95% of Britain’s small many universities and others are supplying to us businesses. today are not competing globally where in the past Mr JaVa: 99.3% actually. we used to compete with, and indeed exceed, many of the other skills provisions around the world. Q129 Chairman: I underestimated. Are you seeing a diVerence as a result of the early implementation of Leitch? Q126 Chairman: Leitch has got a blueprint, the Mr JaVa: We welcomed it at the time, but so far we government has accepted that blueprint, but as far as have not seen enough on the ground to give a the pharmaceutical industry is concerned is that definitive yes, it is working for our businesses. going to deliver on the skills agenda that you have just described? Are we going to get those changes? Q130 Chairman: Have you seen anything? Dr Wright: Leitch has some real positive Mr JaVa: There have definitely been some gains with opportunities. The issues for us are two-fold. One is regard to Level 2 and Level 3 training levels, there is around making sure we can impart those skills some increase there. It is on issues such as the Skills further down the track throughout the education Pledge and the new Commission for Employment system. I am not quite sure how Leitch will actually and Skills that we are working quite rigorously on. support that. However, I do think there are some We have got concerns in particular about the Skills opportunities in terms of improving local Pledge. At the moment it is a voluntary approach on connection and local responsiveness to industry small businesses but it is the compulsion, the burden, needs. I will give you a couple of examples. One is the more regulation that small businesses are wary of. We welcome that it has been moved back to 2014 around HND and HNC or BTEC provision and when that idea of compulsion could come back on Foundation Degree provision, for example in the agenda. For now, small businesses are a little bit biology and chemistry, a number of companies are concerned about the fact that they are going to be having to send their employees quite a long way out told, “You must train”, when, in fact, they are. of their own region to get the level of provision that they want. The second area is very much around Q131 Chairman: Graham, Rolls-Royce has always animal technicians. We have been working with had a terrific reputation for training its workforce other suppliers, Sector Skills Councils and others, and it has often been regarded as an exemplar for probably three to four years on this and getting training organisation. Now, as a result of Leitch, we a responsive, positive outcome from that has been have got employers right at the forefront of the new Y very di cult. We are just now beginning to see the training agenda. What more can Government can delivery of a plan that may actually start addressing do, other than to say, “It’s over to you guys”? these technical and skills capabilities, but it has Mr Schuhmacher: I think it could do more to help taken a long time. I hope that Leitch, if it has a the older people, people over 25 wanting to come positive impact, will be about local delivery and back into apprenticeships. providing greater clarity and coherence. Q132 Chairman: You are employing them. Mr Schuhmacher: The ones we employ I think we Q127 Chairman: It is not only about local delivery, look after. We have put 100 through apprenticeships is it? This is a huge, massive blueprint for skills for in the last few years. There are a great deal more the future with clear targets which are going to be people out in other companies who do not get those driven by the acquisition of qualifications. same opportunities or perhaps are doing jobs where Ms Hopley: I do not think the Leitch Review there is not an opportunity to grow. There are things necessarily was a blueprint. It was a good summary that perhaps Government could do to more equalise and analysis of the current state of aVairs in terms of the funding between the 16-18 year apprenticeships what employers, individuals, government policy and and the over-25s. There is a levelling out we could do regional policy is doing at the moment and it laid out that would help address our sector particularly with where he thought UK plc needs to be in order to that age profile problem I talked about earlier. remain a competitive economy. The targets are good in the sense that they are the direction of travel that Q133 Chairman: Philip, do these targets mean we need to be going in in order to remain anything to you and to the companies that are part competitive. We do need more highly skilled people of your organisation? with Level 4 qualifications. The focus on Dr Wright: Probably not in the sense that it actually apprenticeships was very welcome, particularly impacts upon them in their day-to-day operations. It from a manufacturing point of view. There is clearly is also worth remembering that our companies an issue with those in the workforce who did not gain already invest heavily in skills at a variety of diVerent Level 2 qualification at school and how you bring levels. We did a survey at the end of 2007 and we had 2 those people’s skill levels up. It had a lot of useful 606 PhD studentships that we share and we host things to say in that respect but it was not a blueprint 2 for reform, and that has been the challenge in how Note from the witness: “Collaborative PhD studentships with UK universities—some are wholly funded by you turn those targets and aspirations into a delivery companies, while others are jointly funded with Research plan, and that has really taken some time. Councils or other organisations” Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 27
4 June 2008 Dr Philip Wright, Ms Lee Hopley, Matthew Jaffa and Graham Schuhmacher another 430 industrial trainees during Q136 Dr Iddon: How many sheets of paper was it? undergraduate education. There was a survey by Dr Wright: It was one sheet of A4, in very small type SEMTA which estimated that companies spend £10 I have to say. Just to illustrate it, we had the Funding million on in-house training. I think that is a huge Councils we work with, three Research Councils, underestimate. In truth, the issue is our companies four Sector Skills Councils, who seem to compete are not just looking at the UK as well. The key is not with each other rather than collaborate, the RDAs, necessarily about the targets or the bums on seats or the QCA, and we also had a number of other groups the numbers going through the door, it is actually we had to work with in terms of other employers and about the quality of the skills provision and the providers at local and regional levels. It is diYcult quality of the capability of the individuals that come for us to know exactly, even as a large company who out of that process. It is fair to say most of our spend a lot of time on this, what needs to be done and member companies employ those at Levels 3, 4 and to get a response. It seems to me that there is a above, and that includes the smaller as well as the disconnect between a lot of activity and hamster larger companies. Historically, that has been a shift wheels being set in motion versus incentivising the partly because of the expansion of higher education provision that is needed either in terms of what the but also because to get some of the skills at school individual wants or what the country needs to leaving age you then had to go to a degree and for deliver the competitiveness that will allow us to those you expected at degree level you then had to go compete for the pharmaceutical investment for the to a PhD. There has been a denuding of the core future. capabilities. It is interesting now that our companies are starting to look again at employing school Q137 Dr Turner: Are you describing chaos? leavers and actually training them up in-house. That Dr Wright: I would not describe it as “chaos”, but I is an interesting trend and we are starting to look at think a “patchwork quilt” is a good way of putting the apprenticeships and how that would work. In it and I am not sure all the pieces are quite joined terms of the targets themselves, they are not hugely up yet. relevant. Mr Schuhmacher: I would agree with both comments. We did a mapping exercise a few years ago and tried to draw all the agencies we needed to V Q134 Dr Turner: I expect to get di erent answers to work with and where the flows of money came this question because you represent very diVerent through, and I shared that with Lee at one stage. It sectors. I just want to know from you how confident is really diYcult. The point I make in the written you are in knowing what is available in terms of the comments is that diYculty is okay if it stays stable, skill provision map in your respective areas. Is it but it is moving all the time, it is changing all the excessively complicated at any level, national, time, and that is hard to piece together even for regional or sub-regional? If we could start with the companies like ours where we have dedicated small businesses and then come to the big boys. resources and we open up our facilities to work with Mr JaVa: Unfortunately, to access training for small our supply chain of small companies because they do businesses is diYcult to start with. The average find it impossible to work out how to do some of business has around four employees in the these things. workforce. Getting that time oV for training is the hard part. Small businesses do not have the time that Q138 Dr Blackman-Woods: I think one of the things a large company does to try and access the right that we were expecting of Leitch was that there training for their staV, so a lot of it is done in-house. would be a more streamlined system for the planning With regard to your question, the new system and delivery of skills. Is your conclusion at the coming in, the new agencies, another Skills Funding moment that that has failed and it is not more Agency, another Youth Learning Agency, is just streamlined, or if it is it is just not streamlined another bit of bureaucracy for small businesses to enough and there are still far too many agencies and have to work through. We were just starting to see bodies involved in the delivery of skills? some gains with regard to the Learning and Skills Dr Wright: First of all, if we were starting today we Council working in our favour and doing some would not start from where we are now, I think that positive work. It is creating another two agencies is quite clear, but we are where we are and we need and only taking one away that is an issue for our to take on board the lessons that we have learned. If members. we get something out of Leitch, seeing how the Commission for Employment and Skills can work in the re-licensing of the SSCs, making them work Q135 Dr Turner: Philip and Graham, I am sure your more coherently and in a better co-ordinated way V perspectives are perhaps slightly di erent. would be very helpful. In a diVerent area, I think the Dr Wright: It is certainly true from our perspective Research Councils have done it quite well with that there is what you could call a patchwork quilt of Research Councils UK. They have started to work skills support, provision and information. As I came co-operatively together on how we can make that into this we started mapping out who we engaged co-operation more eVective rather than with and who we needed to interact with and competition. I think you will have seen the appendix influence to have an impact at the employee who we put into our submission which makes a mess of came through the door. us knowing who to go to to help us with that skills Mr Boswell: Can you share that with us? supply. The other point to make is countries, and Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 28 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
4 June 2008 Dr Philip Wright, Ms Lee Hopley, Matthew Jaffa and Graham Schuhmacher they are small countries necessarily but they are sourcing other forms of training that do not competing with us for investment, such as necessarily attract part of the funding package. In Singapore, Switzerland and other countries, are theory, that should solve one of the big diYculties, making it easier for our companies to go in and get particularly for small and medium-sized companies, the skills they need, not more complex. They are able in finding information and understanding where to to deliver the skills that they want in a more coherent go and what sort of training will fit what they are way and provide a package for investment. That is trying to achieve within their business. That is the one of the things we have got to start thinking about, element that is not working quite as well as it could how do we compete, because even the smaller at the moment. There is no reason to say, “Train to companies are being attracted to those new Gain isn’t working, let’s think of something else”. It economies and we need to be very wary in the future has not been going that long and it definitely needs here to address that. time to bed in. There probably needs to be more work done with the brokers in terms of developing Q139 Dr Turner: Do you have anything to add to their sector knowledge, and I understand that is that, Lee? starting to happen. It does need time and also better Ms Hopley: I just wanted to agree with Philip. We communication with employers because I do not are pinning quite a lot of hope on the UK think the message of what the complete oVer is is Commission, that they will look at this as an early really out there yet. priority, the simplification of the entire infrastructure out there. We understand that it is doing that but we really want to see movement on that soon. Q143 Dr Blackman-Woods: I do not know whether Q140 Dr Turner: What are your impressions about you heard the comments that were made by the eVectiveness of the RDAs in the process? Are Professor Wolf from the previous panel, but she was you at all influenced by the skills plans that they quite scathing about Train to Gain. Would you oversee? share that assessment? Would you also share the Dr Wright: It is worth noting that we see great diVerences in the approach of RDAs certainly to our assessment that people in employment are not necessarily looking for qualifications? industry and there are some very good examples of V positive relationships. Mr Ja a: Can I answer with a bit of positive and negative on the side of Train to Gain. I do not want it all to be total failure. On the negative side, we have Q141 Chairman: Such as? discussed the issue of brokerage and in certain cases Dr Wright: The north west has got a very good this honest information, diagnosis and brokerage relationship with some of the companies in that area service that Train to Gain should provide is not and has been very responsive. It is fair to say that the being totally geared towards small businesses and companies up there have taken an active and proactive approach to that relationship. There are the brokers are not going in there providing a full some others where we have seen some positive ideas, training needs assessment within the workforce, it is for example in the south east and east of England. literally a phone call whereas they should be going My slight hesitation and worry is that there is a level into the workplace and seeing things in action. On of duplication and trying to compete with each other the positive side, we have managed to see wage there as well. Somehow, what we need to do is allow contributions given through Train to Gain for those them to build on the strengths or the needs of their employers who have got 50 or less employees. We local community while also joining them up in a have worked and lobbied very hard on that and more coherent structure. Other than that, apart Train to Gain provides that facility so that you are from a few good examples, we have not been hugely compensated as a small business and you will not impressed by the RDAs. lose too much in terms of finances when your employees are on training. Q142 Dr Turner: Does everybody else concur? Yes, Ms Hopley: It is a combination of the two. There are okay. Train to Gain seems to have some problems. people who need specific technical qualifications for What is it that you find problematic? Is it what Train example, and that is important, but the other aspects to Gain has to oVer or the way in which what it has of training which do not necessarily lead to to oVer is being communicated? qualifications are equally important. There Ms Hopley: I think it is the latter. The Train to Gain sometimes seems to be this misunderstanding that model looks really good on paper from a national employers do not cough up for these kinds of things level, but it is not delivered nationally, it is delivered themselves, but they do. It is in terms of sourcing the at the sub-national level and people’s experiences of appropriate training from the right provider which it around the country will diVer. I think there is a is sometimes the diYculty that companies face. lack of understanding of what the Train to Gain Mr Schuhmacher: I think that is absolutely right. oVer now is. When it was the Employer Training The point about full qualifications is important but Pilot it was full funding for a first Level 2 bite-sized chunks are also really important for qualification. With the expansion of the brokerage personal development and equipping people for the element of the service it is a much wider oVer, so a roles they are doing today. broker should be able to work with a company in Dr Blackman-Woods: That is helpful. Thank you. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 29
4 June 2008 Dr Philip Wright, Ms Lee Hopley, Matthew Jaffa and Graham Schuhmacher
Q144 Dr Turner: Matthew, SMEs have a certain points that people have. I have not seen real evidence amount of diYculty in handling the apprenticeship to show what the gain is in making that change, system. What proportion of SMEs are interested in doing the things that we are talking about in here. apprenticeships and what particular diYculties do they experience? Q148 Mr Marsden: Lee, Graham Schuhmacher in Mr JaVa: The only particular figures we have are response to my colleague, Des Turner, has painted a from Labour Force Survey results that 69% of all picture, certainly in his sector, of something that has apprenticeships occur within small businesses. The worked very, very well and why change it and all the main problem with apprenticeships within small rest of it. It is the case, is it not, in terms of the businesses is the completion levels. In this country structure of apprenticeships that one of the there is a good take-up of apprenticeships but, problems in other sectors, particularly engineering, unfortunately, we do not see enough apprentices and Rolls-Royce may be exceptional in this respect, seeing the jobs through. From my meetings with the that one of the reasons that apprenticeships have not LSC discussing apprenticeships, they are looking at been doing the business is that in some respects the that completion issue. That is the main area for small structures of them have been too inflexible and they businesses. They want to invest time in their have not reflected the actual labour market demands employees, training is critical, but they just want to or company demands on the ground. Is it a see the completion. reasonable thing to say that apprentice structures in the future as far as your industry is concerned, or the Q145 Dr Turner: Are there any generic reasons why sectors in general, need to be more flexible? the completion rates are low? Ms Hopley: We have not picked up huge concerns Mr JaVa: From our understanding, it might be to do about the framework of engineering with the fact that you have got a percentage given at apprenticeships. There is always an argument for a the start of the course and a percentage given at the bit more flexibility but, at the same time, there needs completion of the course. If there was more geared to be certainty both for the individual and the towards the end of the course, the financial rewards employer and what they are going to get at the end coming towards the end, you might see a greater of it because chances are even if you work completion than when they are given a flat fee to somewhere like Rolls-Royce you are not going to be start with and they think, “Great, I’ve got some there forever, so your next employer needs to money”. Maybe the financial rewards should be understand what an individual is coming to them geared towards the end of the process. with. I am not sure that the framework of engineering apprenticeships is that much of an issue.
Q146 Dr Turner: Of course, Rolls-Royce has a Q149 Mr Marsden: Let me just press you a bit on slightly diVerent picture, I am sure, but you still have that. There is a situation here where you look at the concerns about the Government’s planned changes people who are engaging with apprenticeships, and towards the apprenticeship programme. Could you that is what you are talking about, but there is a huge expand on that? number of people out there who are not engaging Mr Schuhmacher: The concern is around changing currently with apprenticeships and we are trying to qualifications. Most of the concerns laid out in the uncover the reasons for that. There is certainly some paper were about the amount of change. I think I empirical evidence and certainly the Post-16 Skills have spent around 15 years getting my managers to Inquiry the predecessor select committee did understand the concept of NVQs and start to use uncover that lack of flexibility, lack of portability of that language and be able to describe roles in NVQ credits, if you like, within an apprenticeship scheme terms and the idea of now losing that and coming in does hinder people taking them up. Is that with a diVerent sort of approach makes me feel tired something you have come across? after a while of trying to gear up that language. We Ms Hopley: When you say “people”, are you talking have got a few thousand managers and trying to gear about individuals or employers? up that language and change in qualifications through to them is exhausting. I remember when I Q150 Mr Marsden: I am talking about individuals. first came into training it was getting them to move Ms Hopley: I am not sure this is that applicable to on from the pre-1964 HNDs. You go through waves. our sector. It may be an issue for other sectors but, That is really what concerns me about changing as Graham said, the engineering and manufacturing those well-known qualifications today at a point apprenticeships have been around for a while and when we want to try and expand the number. are perhaps better understood than apprenticeships in other sectors. Q147 Dr Turner: Is the concern about change itself or the nature of change? Q151 Mr Marsden: There are the three of you here Mr Schuhmacher: It is the nature of the change. I am and in your particular sectors are the concerns that not sure what we are trying to fix. In the engineering I and other people have expressed about lack of sector we have got a good apprenticeship, a long flexibility in apprenticeship structures issues for you? history of training, and known qualifications and the Dr Wright: In the pharmaceutical industry we are structures within the system are working towards a relatively small in the number of apprenticeships known framework. We are now talking about and, of course, most of those are related to the changing BTEC, NVQs, all those known reference manufacturing capability anyway and the Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 30 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
4 June 2008 Dr Philip Wright, Ms Lee Hopley, Matthew Jaffa and Graham Schuhmacher engineering side and not necessarily in R&D or longer exists. We do a lot of upskilling. Does the other areas. In truth, it is probably not a significant sector do enough? I do not think we have got that area but, having said that, with the companies message through to the sector. starting to look increasingly at taking on board more school leavers, at least dipping their toe into the water of that, it may be an opportunity to start Q154 Mr Marsden: I am asking about re-skilling as looking at it. Certainly transportability of skills for well, people in their 30s and 40s, that sort of thing. an individual is important. Mr Schuhmacher: I think that message is getting through but it is getting through slowly. I do not think it is known well enough yet. Q152 Dr Iddon: Philip, could I just ask you who trains laboratory technicians these days and is it adequate? Q155 Mr Marsden: Is that true of your sector, Lee? Dr Wright: It is probably not adequate. Who trains Ms Hopley: I think that is a fair assessment. The them? There are probably two routes by which they increase in funding for adult apprenticeships that come into this. A lot of companies actually was announced last year was a really welcome move. subcontract out their laboratory support services, so This is all about awareness and companies they are often employed from local communities, understanding that apprenticeships are not just and many of them have degrees nowadays whereas about 16-18 year-olds and there is funding available in the past perhaps they would not. Because of the if you want to take on a 30 year-old. For a small expansion of higher education there is now a pool of business that might be really attractive because they skilled people who are not necessarily going to go on need less supervision, they might have some to the higher level but it is a route into employment experience in the industry. within a company. They are probably being trained Mr Marsden: Very quickly on gender, are we doing mostly by universities with some upskilling going on enough to attract older women into apprenticeships within the companies themselves. In terms of animal and re-skilling? technicians, it is interesting because it is somewhat Chairman: Mature women. diVerent. There is an awful lot of training that goes on in our contract research organisations which then Q156 Mr Marsden: Older! provides almost a supply chain of those skills both Mr Schuhmacher: Probably not. We are working into companies, larger pharmaceutical companies, very hard to get young women coming into and other CROs. In our industry as well there is a engineering working from age five because that is level of turnover which helps feed and support, for when you need to start getting that science and example, smaller biotech companies. It is critically maths into it. It is a good point about older ladies. important that there is that turnover, that there is supply from the larger companies to the smaller companies. That is not a very easy answer, there is Q157 Mr Boswell: I would like to bundle my not a clear route. It is one of the areas where we have questions in the interests of time. This is really about been considering, for example, the promotion of the employer representation. We will discard the 14-19 Science Diploma to try and increase the remarks which were made by the earlier witnesses practical capabilities of school leavers so they can go about rationalisation of private sector bodies. It is into companies at that level. the way you input into this admittedly rather confusing system. Looking at major players, there are the SSCs, and some of you might like to Q153 Mr Marsden: I would like to ask a final comment on the relative merits or possibly the question about the issue of adult apprenticeships drivers for improvement and rationalisation in that and re-skilling in general. The new Head of the sector. There would also be the area of self- Commission for Employment and Skills, Chris financing. One could create a model saying, “We will Humphries, is on record for banging on about the take the money from the RDAs and put it into the demographic gap and how important that is going to SSCs in sectors that are important”. Would that be be. Graham, if I could just ask you this question. sensible and would that dilute the employer interest You have talked about expanding adult if you did that? Conversely, looking at the various apprenticeships and the need to change the funding sector bodies here, would it be more sensible to give schemes between the two. In your company you do you the lead role in this, as it were, as the a lot of upskilling, obviously, but, given what you representatives of the private sector in your have said about your age range and given what we industries, professional employer bodies, rather know about the demography over the next few than the SSCs? Have we got a lot of people there? years, are you and people in your sector doing There are the Employment and Skills Boards as well. enough about re-skilling? We have to start with where we are, but how should Mr Schuhmacher: There are two points. We do not we make your side of the structure simpler and better just take 16 year-olds onto apprenticeships, we take able to relate to government objectives? more and more 18 year-olds who have done A levels, Dr Wright: There is an opportunity to utilise and they are great students coming onto that employer bodies more. We have been trying it as well scheme. One of our first year apprentices is 27. The and we have produced a Sustaining the Skills idea of an apprenticeship being for 16 year-olds no Supply report. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 31
4 June 2008 Dr Philip Wright, Ms Lee Hopley, Matthew Jaffa and Graham Schuhmacher
Q158 Mr Boswell: In answering, can you also factor Q161 Mr Boswell: I would like to draw you out on in the UK Commission for Employment and Skills that because that is helpful. I read that as saying you as being possibly a driver to help you do this? need a responsible and responsive body to talk to as Dr Wright: Yes. One of the issues about this was we an employers’ body. You do not need to collapse deliberately articulated what our skills needs were their functions into you, it is better if there are two quite clearly saying what those skills were, what were bodies but they do have to have a lively relationship. the issues and what we wanted. Was it an issue about Matthew, do you want to come in on that? quality, number, future need, was it an Mr JaVa: Yes. In terms of employer representation, undergraduate, a higher degree level? We articulated we do feel that Sector Skills Councils are necessary. that very clearly and we are in the middle of updating On the make-up of the actual Sector Skills Councils that this year and we are happy to provide that to we feel that the micro-business and small business you later as it is completed. interest has not been totally seen across Sector Skills Councils. From our own research, only about five or six have micro or small business representation. Q159 Mr Boswell: That would be useful. Dr Wright: We also followed that up with a number Q162 Mr Boswell: It varies between them. of specific requests and we have had varying Mr JaVa: It does vary on the boards themselves and responses from across Government on this. We did a lot of it is secretariat run. With regards to funding, have a secondee from the then DTI working with us I disagree with the fact that we should have the on in vivo sciences in the UK. It has been extremely funding because then you get into areas such as diYcult to get responsiveness from the Research vested interests, which is wrong. We feel that Councils on this. We had one very simple organisations such as ourselves and the Chambers recommendation: that there was a particular need should not have that vested interest, it should be the for only 36 places per year for an MSc course, yet Sector Skills Councils working and the re-licensing they were not willing to ring-fence that and support should ensure that there is a small business interest what we wanted, which was a very modest amount and maybe even a 26th Sector Skills Council, a Small of investment and a very modest approach. There Business Sector Skills Council. needs to be a level of responsiveness in the groups that are out there, whether it is evolved Sector Skills Q163 Chairman: Is there not a contradiction there Councils working together in a more coherent way, because inevitably the larger companies are going to which I think would be welcome, but if we produce be ones who are going to be able to put the resources reports like this, if we do not see the in? Most of your small businesses will not be able to recommendations and impact of that going forward do that and, therefore, their voice will be totally our companies will be increasingly jaundiced even squeezed out. about feeding through us in terms of their skill Mr JaVa: That is why we would like to see areas on needs. It is getting that hook moving from us leadership and management courses, for instance. articulating it to incentivising the UK to provide That particular area is across various diVerent those skills and somehow we need to solve that Sector Skills Councils whereas it should be within problem. one. There is no need for cross-courses or cross- areas. That is why, although the rest of the panel would disagree with us, we feel a small business Q160 Mr Boswell: Thank you, that is really helpful. interest is needed within the Sector Skills Council. Ms Hopley: We feel there is a role for Sector Skills Ms Hopley: Sorry, leadership and management is Councils. The previous panel talked about their not a sector specific issue, it does not need a Sector patchy performance. I think their performance Skills Council. management was rather opaque under the Sector Skills Development Agency and that really has to Q164 Mr Boswell: It does need a solution though. change under the Commission. Certainly the re- Ms Hopley: Perhaps this is something for the licensing process that the network is due to go Commission taking the overview of these generic through next year has to be very rigorous, obviously. skills issues with Sector Skills Councils focusing on It needs to set out and give more clarity to the SSCs the genuinely sector specific issues, of which as to exactly what is expected of them because some leadership and management is not one, frankly. of them are running around doing peripheral activities. This leads on to whether or not they Q165 Mr Boswell: Graham, do you want to come in should become self-financing. The need to raise as the exemplar? revenue has been distracting for some of them and it Mr Schuhmacher: We work with SEMTA a lot and has taken them away from their core focus which is we have done so in its various forms since the 1960s. engaging with employers, understanding how the I am very aware of the small businesses because it is sector they represent is evolving and what that the small businesses that provide us with a huge means for changes in skill needs rather than the top proportion of our parts, so it is really quite level, “We need more management skills and important to us that we make sure the supply chain technical skills”. That does not really help the companies, the small companies, are thought about. provider network in terms of what they need to do We work closely with our supply chain. I do think it for employers and how they need to improve their would be better if we could get more of them into the responsiveness. SEMTA bodies but it is really hard to get that Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 32 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
4 June 2008 Dr Philip Wright, Ms Lee Hopley, Matthew Jaffa and Graham Schuhmacher representation. In a way, big companies are seen to your companies, what is the future? Is it more down be representing themselves but in reality we all take the bilateral route or a collaborative route with the view that we are completely reliant on our supply groups of universities or colleges? chains being healthy and robust to survive and, Dr Wright: You probably have to think about two therefore, it is in our interests that they get levels of skills. There is basically the vocational represented there. support and CPD ongoing development and then there is the higher level research and engineering Q166 Mr Marsden: If I can come to you, Graham, I skills that we rely upon. At that level you can start thought that last point was very interesting. In my thinking about it in two ways. One is very much the neck of the woods we have BAE Systems and they vocational technical support is a much more local always tell me for every one job directly employed at network and then the other one is you cannot deliver BAE there are two or three down the line, and I quality at high level skills on a local sub-regional assume it is a very similar thing with you and Rolls- basis, it has to be a national level at least, and many Royce. That brings me on to the whole question of our companies are looking across Europe for about the actual mechanics of the way in which those skills. If you look at it, we have mapped out companies like your own engage with higher and some of those interactions. What concerns us, and further education because I think there is a very maybe post-Leitch this will improve, is the issue specific issue here. First of all, what is your current around responsiveness of the local colleges and, I engagement in your own patch, your own catchment would say, the technical vocational universities that area? The second question is, what is the better support more regional skills. There is still an issue approach on the whole for businesses, particularly in about the lack of responsiveness there. It is the new climate of demand-led in HE? Is it going to beginning to improve. There do need to be regional be working on a bilateral basis with individual strategies, but fundamentally it is quite often a good colleges or individual universities, or is it going to be thing to have these particularly local direct looking at it from a regional cluster basis? relationships. Mr Schuhmacher: On the FE? Talking about Derby, I am a governor on our local college. Q169 Mr Marsden: It is not a question of either/or, you have got to have both? Q167 Mr Marsden: I saw that and that was one of Dr Wright: Absolutely, that is what I was trying to the reasons why I wanted to ask you the question. get to. Mr Schuhmacher: Hopefully I bring something to that college in the way of engineering and education. Q170 Chairman: I just want to ask you one very last What I have tried to do with all the colleges across question. There is an assumption that this will all the country where we operate is to bring them in as end in tears, the demand-led system, because an integrated part of our delivery team on employers quite frankly, and particularly small apprenticeships. The thing that we spotted ten years businesses, are not prepared to pay for any training. ago was that colleges and workplace training was Will it all end in tears? starting to separate as the colleges had lecturers with Ms Hopley: Hopefully not. I do not think it is that less works experience in the subjects. We brought small businesses or any other businesses are not them together into our local teams and in the last prepared to pay for training. Sometimes the problem two years we have started to create a national group is that they are not very good at articulating what bringing the colleges together nationally, and from they need and that is why Sector Skills Councils have Scotland, so across the UK, to operate one got to get better at what they do, because that is their apprenticeship. That has had the benefit for those job. If it ends in tears there will be another review! providers of getting work experience and that Dr Wright: This is a very important issue. From our relationship with us and getting placements in the perspective, industry already pays a lot in terms of company. In the FE sector we have been slower on skills. The sorts of skills they are being oVered in doing that work than we have with the higher areas like Singapore and the Far East, they are not education groups. We have very close relationships being asked to pay, they are being given those skills with universities that we are doing research work at lower cost, more competitive. The issue is not just with. We have universities we work with on about creating a demand-led system but how does recruitment and partnerships. I think we truly have the UK create the pools of talent which would make been slow doing the same in the FE sector. us attractive and competitive in the future in terms of attracting investment, retaining investment and Q168 Mr Marsden: Philip, in the pharmaceutical growing the smaller firms. Unless we have that sector, I was very interested in your response earlier investment, and not just demand-led, we need to to my colleague’s question about RDAs and you have some sort strategic perspective, we talk about highlighted the north west RDA which, as a biosciences but we do not invest significantly in Blackpool MP, I am very familiar with. It is also not quality skills in those areas and we need to do that. without note in the north west that universities have worked quite closely together on a whole range of Q171 Chairman: You have got the last word, economic strategies. I put the question to you again, Matthew! not just in terms of the north west but your industry Mr JaVa: I would disagree that small businesses do as a whole. Assuming that there is going to be much not train. We can remain optimistic. It can work, it more demand-led in HE with employers, such as is the fact that small businesses do not want to be Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 33
4 June 2008 Dr Philip Wright, Ms Lee Hopley, Matthew Jaffa and Graham Schuhmacher there to be the ones who pick up the shortfall in the Chairman: On that really positive note, and we do education system. If employers are training at Level not want another report, Lee, other than ours of 3 and Level 4 then they will provide the funding course, can I thank you all very much indeed for very happily. coming this morning. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 34 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Wednesday 25 June 2008
Members present:
Mr Phil Willis, in the Chair
Mr Ian Cawsey Ian Stewart Dr Brian Iddon Dr Desmond Turner Mr Gordon Marsden
Witnesses: Chris Humphries, Chief Executive, UK Commission for Employment and Skills, Teresa Sayers, Chief Executive, Financial Services Skills Council, Tom Bewick, Chief Executive, Creative and Cultural Skills, and Frank Lord, Chair, Alliance Employment and Skills Board, gave evidence.
Q172 Chairman: May I welcome our first panel of for our learning programmes to lose their currency witnesses to our inquiry entitled “After Leitch: and their fitness for purpose in a world in which Implementing skills and training policies”. We have change through globalisation, as we all know, is Chris Humphries, the Chief Executive of UKCES, dramatic and rapid. That is why almost every Teresa Sayers, the Chief Executive of the Financial country in the OECD is undertaking a review Services Skills Council, Tom Bewick, the Chief programme at the moment, to try and understand Executive of Creative and Cultural Skills, and last how to ensure that their education and training but by no means least, Frank Lord, the Chair of the system keeps pace with the rate of industry change in Alliance Employment and Skills Board. Welcome to order to ensure their competitiveness. That is what you all and thank you very much indeed for giving people are concerned about, the extent to which the evidence to us this morning. The whole of the Leitch system in its design and approach has fit for purpose report is peppered with a theme about demand-led training programmes available within it, ones that education and training. What does that mean to meet the requirements of employers as they are you? What is your understanding of that, Chris? changing over time and are responsive to Chris Humphries: To me demand-led refers to the tomorrow’s industry needs as well as today’s. need to ensure our employment and skills system understands and is responsive to employment needs. Q174 Chairman: In Lord Leitch’s report the To me that comes from an understanding of what we demand-led system equates to employers who think the likely direction of travel for sectors and actually create the demand when in reality what is employers is, where the priority skills requirements actually happening is it is the government rather are going to be in the future and aligning that to the than employers that is deciding which areas you can capabilities, needs, skills and requirements of an train in and where they will get the funding from. economic area and the people who live in it. It is This is really the government being the demand-led about creating a system that is responsive on a rather than the employers. number of dimensions. It can never be as simple as Teresa Sayers: I think the creation of sector skills saying, “Let us meet employer demand”. It has to councils and allowing sectors to have a vehicle bring together employer demand, local and regional through which to channel the needs of their priorities and individual capability and opportunity individual sectors has been a significant and create a system that is more responsive to all improvement over the past years. With all sectors those priorities. For me it focuses around the area of there is an element of what is called generic or employment. My remit as an employment and skills employability skills that employers are looking for organisation is to focus on the extent to which the and inevitably there is an element of sector specific system meets the needs for economic skills that employers are looking for. I truly believe competitiveness and increased employment. that employers now have a better opportunity to shape the delivery and the content so it is more Q173 Chairman: The previous systems have been tailored to meet both the generic needs and the demand-led. Unless somebody applies for the sector requirements as well. training then it does not happen. What is the diVerence? Q175 Chairman: I would expect you to say that as Chris Humphries: There is a diVerence here between you represent a sector skills council. Is that what whether or not the individual is able to enter a course employers are actually telling you, that the they think they want and whether or not the packaging of the training programmes is in fact what outcomes at the end of that programme both for the they want because we are getting evidence which is employer who hires them and the individual who to the contrary? wants it are what they were expecting and hoping Teresa Sayers: Certainly the evidence from our for. There is significant evidence to show that many consultation with the employers and our research to of our learning programmes are out of touch with date is saying that many employers are, and continue modern industry developments, that education and to be, dissatisfied with the quality of new recruits training is finding it hard to keep pace with the pace into the market and they are looking for the of change in many industries, not just in the educational system to fix what is wrong because they technology-based industries, and that it is too easy feel slightly disappointed that they have to do that Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 35
25 June 2008 Chris Humphries, Teresa Sayers, Tom Bewick and Frank Lord when young people come into the marketplace. Students are very attracted to the creative industries Certainly in the sector that I represent the vast and that is probably driven by Saturday night shows majority of employers are very reliant upon like The X Factor, but nevertheless they demand a professional qualifications and they have been for place. well over 100 years. I think they feel that through Ian Stewart: What is that? that mechanism they have a greater opportunity to shape the content and the quality of that. Q179 Chairman: They do not have it in Scotland! Tom Bewick: In terms of this issue about state Q176 Chairman: We have a huge amount of planning, the state has a role in setting the strategic national, sectoral, regional, subregional, framework for skills, for economic performance and occupational-led targets and initiatives. This smacks in particular for productivity. In a sense why the of a control system rather than a demand-led system. sector skills councils are such an important How can you have a purely demand-led system when innovation since 2001 is that what they provide is you have so many organisations with a finger in the that reality check on whether or not the state’s pie organising it for everybody? strategic aims and objectives are really in tune with Frank Lord: It is extremely confusing for the both the short- and long-term economic needs of the business community. We could learn lessons from country. That is why all sector skills councils have at large organisations like Toyota who have a global their heart, as industry-led and industry owned strategic plan that will go on for decades. That is organisations, credible and senior employers who probably why they are so successful as an can provide that reality check on government policy. organisation worldwide. With employment and skills within the business sector there have been so Q180 Chairman: Teresa, the whole agenda appears many changes that have happened, from TECs to to be driven by achieving the Leitch targets, but do LSCs, to the Skills Funding Agency and the changes you feel that they are owned by the employers or is with the National Apprenticeship Service, that it is that purely a government mechanism? Y very, very di cult for the employer to understand, Teresa Sayers: I would say that employers take little particularly the small employer. notice of targets that are set by government. If those targets happen to relate to what drives economic Q177 Chairman: But they are in charge of all this. performance in their sector then that is great. Quite Frank Lord: Most small employers still go to their often the diYculty is that targets do not relate to accountants as the first port of call for assistance. what drives economic performance and financial The latest survey of the Small Business Federation services. What employers are principally concerned showed that over 50% still go to their accountants. with in financial services is how they meet the Most employers are micro or small businesses and regulatory requirements, how they drive providers normally chase the targets of the larger performance by having higher level skills in IT, organisations. If we are going to get to the Leitch maths and mathematical analysis, those kinds of targets, which are very, very stretching, we will really things. That is what drives them and what concerns have to make sure at a subregional level the business them. I think they actually have little concern or voice is heard. That is my main concern with regard for government targets. employment and skills boards and education business link organisations, that with the new Q181 Chairman: Do you think the Leitch targets, changes in the framework to local authority and which the government has accepted plus an unitary services the business voice is being diluted additional one for Level 3, have any relevance for the and not heard. people you represent? Frank Lord: No. If you did a survey of the employers Q178 Chairman: We will come back to some of those you would find that still the issues for employers are issues in a second. Tom, at what point do you think around the basic skills of numeracy and literacy that the state should plan the skills agenda? Should it be they wish their employees to have. If you look at the at Level 1 or 2 or should it be at Level 3 or 4? Where surveys that are carried out, that always comes out is the point at which the state should plan that as one of the top answers. Also, in terms of attitudes because it is a common good and where should towards work and aspiration levels of people in employers take over? businesses, it is something in surveys that always Tom Bewick: Perhaps I could answer that by comes out that needs to be improved. It is all very referring back to the question about demand-led well having these targets that we have set that are because I think therein lies the answer. In answering aspirational, but to engage people in learning in the that question I think we need to ask the question workplace you have to look at how you can reach “Whose demand are we talking about?”. I would them to get them to begin to learn. It is diYcult to argue that we have a demand-led system. It is a see how things like bite-size learning and the kind of system that is led in part by Government, but the support that has been there in the past fits in with the vast majority is led by parents and by students. For new structures. Employee development centres, for example, in the creative and cultural industries we example, within clusters of small enterprises could have as many people right now on 180,000 courses be a very good vehicle to engage adult learning as we do in the workforce, that is approximately half which would then be demand-led because they a million in the further and higher education system. would take that back into the learning place to You could argue that is a demand-led system. encourage their employers. We have got to have Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 36 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
25 June 2008 Chris Humphries, Teresa Sayers, Tom Bewick and Frank Lord many approaches as to how we get a change in addressed, we need employability skills addressed, culture. For a change in culture you have to take but we also need higher level skills because there is people with you. You cannot take change and not enough of a focus on the skills that are going to implant it on them. drive us up the productivity ladder. By the way, we are likely to want more people at Level 4 and higher Q182 Chairman: Frank, you will not get any funding as well because that is where the economic challenges for the model you have described. of the next 10 years are coming from. They may not Frank Lord: I would campaign for it because that is reflect numbers in the way that Sandy Leitch’s where change happens, at the coal face, with real targets reflected numbers but they hit all the same people learning more about themselves and about buttons. The messages for employers about what the how to work as a team. Just having faith in learning big skills challenges are today are actually consistent in general without targets is very, very important. with the issues, priorities and gaps that Sandy That is how you get cultural change. identified, but business will never know those targets. Why should they? What would it take and Q183 Ian Stewart: This is very interesting to me what would the value be of them knowing what the personally. If that cultural change that you are target would be? What they want to see is the system talking about is to take place then surely that will changed to deliver the skills the employers need, and need the providers, FE and private providers, to go that is where your rate of progress question is to the workplaces and deliver the training more than completely valid. The latest evidence from the they do now. OECD is that both in terms of the proportion of our Frank Lord: Yes. adult population that have got secondary education and in terms of the proportion that have got tertiary education we are going backwards compared to our Q184 Ian Stewart: And that would be welcome? major competitors in the OECD, not forwards and Frank Lord: Yes, and a follow-up to it would be I think there is a real need for a sense of urgency welcomed as well. If you are in a service industry around this. now you will get a text message or a phone call the next day asking you what the service was like. Do we do that with the provision that we provide? Do we Q187 Dr Turner: You have already alluded to the ring learners up the next day? Do we ask them what number of people with fingers in the pie. Is it indeed their experience was? Do we take that feedback on reasonable to describe the thing as a system anyway? board in that kind of real-time environment or do we It does not seem to be terribly coherent. Has it wait for years for reports to come out to assess become too complex? Have there been too many things? We are just not flexible enough and quick changes? The government is still spewing out policy enough oV the mark to help to engage the changes papers at the rate of one a month or even more that are needed, it is far too bureaucratic. If we lose frequently. Is there not a need for some the local input, the strategic and the sub-regions, simplification so that people can see an obvious way then I am very keen to see how employment and through the system before we get results? skills boards can link in to the Commission for Chris Humphries: Given that simplification is one of Employment and Skills and how ESBs and our the explicit remits of the Commission I guess my EBLOs can link into that. I believe that the voice of answer to that must be yes! I think you are absolutely the employer is being lost in these new structures. right. The system has got more complex over the last You can now go to employment and skills boards six months, not less with the changes in the that would not even have an employer representative machinery of government, the splitting of the on them from the private sector. To me that speaks departments, the move to devolve part of 14-19 to volumes. the level that 19! is operating at. All of those things have brought more organisations and Q185 Chairman: Can you give me an example of one interrelationships and partnerships and co- of those? ordination roles into greater demand. What is Frank Lord: Yes, Derbyshire Employment and certainly true today is that I do not think there is an Skills Board would be an example. I think they are employer in the land who understands what the still seeking to get an employer on their board. elements of the new system are, particularly pre-19. Undoubtedly complexity is a big issue. On top of Q186 Chairman: Are you content with the rate of that, employers report that it is incredibly hard to get progress to achieve the Leitch targets? Do you think the answer you want out of the system because so we will be there by 2020? many organisations are actually remitted to create a Chris Humphries: No, I am certainly not satisfied public and visible brand for themselves and so every with the rate of progress at the moment, but we will organisation is actually challenged to make sure issue a formal report on that in March next year, it employers have heard of them and each time they do is a part of our remit. The whole thing about the that and each time another letter arrives from yet targets is that they are quite consciously structured another organisation on employers’ desks, they as a way of measuring the behaviour of the supply want to disengage. Sir Mike Rake said it when he side. Frank is right in saying employers do not care was first appointed that something like 67 about them but actually most employers do not organisations with skills in their remit wrote to him know about them. What they will tell you very to tell him it was essential that the Commission clearly is we need basic skills and key skills worked with that organisation because they were the Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 37
25 June 2008 Chris Humphries, Teresa Sayers, Tom Bewick and Frank Lord heart of skills development in that particular sector those things that are best done regionally or on a or area and Mike had not heard of any of them until country basis and those things that are best done that point. Are there too many organisations? locally. I do not think we have got that clarity of Probably. Do we make it harder for employers to framework yet. find a way round it by requiring each of them to present themselves separately and independently? Q190 Dr Turner: I was going to ask you at what sort Not only do we have complex wiring on our circuit of regional level you think these issues are best board but we publicise each part of the wiring rather addressed. You have obviously got diVerent than trying to hide it so the employers and problems in diVerent areas and if you do sector individuals get it simplified. analyses you will come up with diVerent answers in diVerent regions. Who do you think is best placed to Q188 Dr Turner: It sounds a bit like a job creation do this work and lead this work? Do you think we scheme for administrators. have got the balance right between the Chris Humphries: Education is complex. It always responsibilities of the sector skills councils and the has been and it always will be. Anybody who thinks RDAs for instance? Should we be thinking of it is going to be a simple matter just needs to look at shifting resources towards the RDAs rather than the the diVerent functions that an educational system skills councils? What do you think are the answers? has to perform to understand that it will have a Chris Humphries: The skills councils do not have degree of complexity. To me it is about whether you anything like the level of resources of the RDAs. design the system to make it easy and simple to They are short by a factor of at least four. I do not access or whether the way you set it up works against think there is an answer there. The fact is that there that goal. I think we have started to work against our is far more resource at a regional level than there is goal of simplification and I think it is a big challenge. at a sectoral level. The biggest request we get from major employers is to simplify the system so employers can find their Q191 Chairman: Are you suggesting that we should way to the right place and get the right person as and change those resource allocations? It is all right when they need it. making a comment about it— Chris Humphries: It was just because the suggestion Q189 Dr Turner: These are devolved matters across was that there was an argument for moving it. I do the country and yet your organisation is a UK-wide not think there is quite enough investment into the organisation. How do you mesh in with the devolved sectoral side of things. I think we are asking SSCs to authorities? do more than we are resourcing them to do, but I do Chris Humphries: I think it provides a great not think it is a major big issue and I would not be opportunity. We know there is a diVerent pattern of suggesting moving the delivery of resource, which is employment, unemployment, social inclusion and what I think should be going down on a devolved exclusion, productivity and competitiveness in basis, back up to the national level. I think the diVerent parts of the UK. There is not a common sectors play a critical role in helping us to UK economic structure or economic situation, understand those things that are common across things vary by geography. One of the things the four sectors and industries and understanding global nation approach of the Commission oVers us is the trends, understanding what our nation’s businesses ability to monitor and learn from a number of have to do to keep pace with the world and keep diVerent laboratories in which diVerent things are competitive. You then need to look at and act at a being tried in order to get the system right. I do not sub-national level and I think there are some big believe there is a country in the world today who unanswered questions around that. We have a very would say they have the perfect system post-school. confused system. We have RDAs, we have regional In fact, most countries are asking radical questions skills partnerships, we have employment and skills about how to change them. The first value to me is boards that are operating at a sub-regional level and that we have a chance to learn from each other. The we have multi-area agreements that are operating at second one is to say there may be a need to look at another level. We have not yet anchored on an the lessons of areas of the country with 3/4/5 million appropriate sub-national structure and we are in a people in as a model for running the system. There process of change. I think the concern people have is are many observers. For example, the World Bank that they are not sure where the end destination is on in a seminar last week commented that one of the all of this. Again the view would be that if you are things they are beginning to believe is that running going to use employment and skills problems to an education system in population groups of 3-7 solve social exclusion and productivity problems million may be the way to ensure quality, progress then you have to work in sensible economic areas, and eVective operations. They were asking me as a you have to work in labour market areas, rather representative of the Commission whether we had a than either artificial regional boundaries or view yet on that issue. I think there is a real individual local authority boundaries where those opportunity to learn from the ways in which organisations are part of a bigger economic unit. diVerent parts of the country respond to the diVerent The move at the moment is towards trying to service challenges they have when using employment and economic units. We are seeing city regions increasing skills as drivers to get the whole system to perform their approach because they make up more coherent better, but we have to find a way of doing those economic areas than the current regions as we have things that should be done nationally at a high level, structured them. Even in places like Scotland, Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 38 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
25 June 2008 Chris Humphries, Teresa Sayers, Tom Bewick and Frank Lord
Northern Ireland and Wales there is a recognition and we are able to involve the commissioning of that they may have to behave diVerently for certain things across areas where employers work. We seem parts of their country than in other parts of their to be moving away from that and relying on the country. They have a sub-national approach as well. RDAs now linking through to the local authorities. What I think we are working out at the moment is I feel that the business voice in this is beginning to get the right form, but we need to get on with it because lost and I am very, very concerned about it. It was at the moment most employers are very confused much stronger before with the LSCs. about what the spatial operator levels and requirements are. Q194 Dr Turner: If you look at the educational Teresa Sayers: I would agree with a lot that Chris institutions that used to be involved, it is within my has said. Employers are not just confused but lifetime that there were polytechnics which were run extremely frustrated. If you consider firms which by local authorities, which delivered an awful lot of operate in a global context, the complexity of the training that we are talking about. They are out operating within a UK context is absolutely mind of the picture now because they have been taken blowing for them. Sometimes they may latch onto an away from local authorities. Most of them have been initiative. For example, many of our employers like transmogrified into universities and they do not the skills academy that we have created. Why do we want to know. Is that where it started to go wrong? not have one in Scotland? It is a diVerent policy Frank Lord: I do not know. I went to a polytechnic context that we are operating in there. myself. I am not sure where things started to go wrong. Change for change sake is not healthy and Q192 Dr Turner: How have we got into this transformational change in itself is not always a situation? We do seem to have a national talent for good thing. We should be thinking about how we over-administrating things to the point of can take things forward incrementally and design complexity where they do not work. It is not just things from within what we have to take it forward. your sector of education where this applies. How did As long as we have knowledge and an understanding we get here? of what it should look like and we can move towards Tom Bewick: I think we have a national obsession in that then you should work with what you have got this country with structural reform—I have to plead because employers just get confused. I tried to do a guilty myself as someone who is a former ministerial mapping exercise last night of the changes and it was adviser—and responding inside the policy absolutely mind boggling when I looked at how framework for a new organisation or a new simple it was before and how it is now. structure. The truth is, when you look abroad at other complex employment skills systems what you Q195 Chairman: The record shows a mind do see are very complex and at times controversial boggling chart! debates about how best to serve the population in Frank Lord: We have had the RDAs, business terms of employment and skills but you also see far support, the Skills Funding Agency for adults and more across-party consensus. It is not the skills post-19, then the National Apprentice Service, institutions that need to change, it is the behaviour, the National Employee Service, the Adult it is the attitudes and it is the outcomes that need to Advancement and Career Service, the link with FE change as a result of shifts in technology, shifts in and providers, then to the LAs for the 14-19 employment and other changes in society. My first entitlement, the Young People’s Learning Agency job was for this man, Mr Humphries, here at the for the 16-19 provision, the 14 to 19— TEC National Council 12 years ago. During that period I have worked for the national training Q196 Chairman: Enough! organisations and I have worked for the Learning Frank Lord: Exactly. and Skills Council. You could say I just cannot keep a job down, but I have been in my current role for Q197 Dr Turner: Do you think there is a case for nearly four years now! There is an obsession with tearing it all up and starting with a clean sheet of this structural reform. The former Secretary of State paper, if you could do that? Mr Blunkett said in 1998 that the system was like a Frank Lord: What we have was just beginning to Soviet warehousing operation and, I have to say, work. There were signs coming through. you could still level that accusation at the system today. Q198 Dr Turner: It was just beginning to work? Frank Lord: Yes, I think it was just beginning to Q193 Chairman: Do you agree with that? work. Frank Lord: Yes. I do not think we are going as far forward as we think, we are going backwards Q199 Dr Turner: But that has now past. because the sub-national review, rather than Frank Lord: Never say never! necessarily getting down at sub-regional level, is moving towards local authorities and unitary Q200 Dr Turner: A lot of people have suggested that arrangements. The things that were working on a there should be more of an interface between sector sub-regional basis were working across boundaries skills councils and RDAs. Do you think the RDAs local authority areas. That is where our Alliance and have the capacity within themselves to make a useful Skills Board has had the most impact. There is not a contribution? It does not seem to me to be their duplication of resources, there is joined-up thinking prime role. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 39
25 June 2008 Chris Humphries, Teresa Sayers, Tom Bewick and Frank Lord
Frank Lord: I think the RDAs do have a role to play, sector skills councils are an appropriate policy particularly around business support and business response to a need for any education and training development. It is important that the RDAs are able system these days to be able to keep pace with the to link in to what is happening at the sub-regional rate of occupation and industry change. I would level. In the East Midlands that was through the think that because it was a recommendation of the SSPs, the Sub-regional Strategic Partnerships. That Skills Task Force which I chaired for the bit worked quite well. government from 1998–2000, so I admit my conflict Teresa Sayers: One of the keys to solving this of interest and bias here! Equally, it is a concept that problem is around clarity with regards to the remit is increasingly being brought into play across if these organisations are very clear with regard to countries all over the world. Both the OECD and the what their remit is and we can avoid duplication and World Bank’s biggest sets of enquiries at the the repetition of activities. From an employer point moment are about how to maximise employer of view, there is more than a degree of fatigue on engagement in our education and training system in their part at constantly being bombarded with order to ensure that it is more responsive to future requests from a whole array of organisations. In our and evolving need. I think there is a great sense in experience employers just want eVectively a one- having an eVective vehicle through which you can stop shop where they can channel their requests and get a better understanding of the way in which information and then get through to the appropriate industry and sectors are evolving. The system will organisations because they are fatigued by being never be perfect because industry changes on a inundated with requests. regular basis, the boundaries between traditional industries become fuzzier and so the system will have Q201 Chairman: Tom, how about another job move to evolve over time. Biotechnology was not and we get rid of the sector skills councils and put it something that existed ten years ago. It is now one of all in the RDAs? Is that a sensible way forward? the most important evolving, leading edge business Tom Bewick: I would not like to start and write a sectors of tomorrow. Those things will mean that new policy here in front of the Committee. I do feel our system will always have to evolve and change, it that in the end it is not the multi-agency world that will always have to work in a way that is responsive is really the problem. It is a complex world out there. to industry change. Their point is really to do two I think it is about who is purchasing training and things: one, to bring a stronger sectoral development employment and skills support. At the moment we voice into the state and to help the state understand are trying to purchase apprenticeships through the how to ensure that its institutions and organisations National Apprenticeship Service, bespoke business respond more to it; and secondly, to face out to support through the regional development agencies employers and encourage the employers to and all those purchasers are people like me in the understand the value that can be gained by them sense that they are administrators. They are proxy from developing the skills of their workforce; in other words, to face in both directions and to consumers if you like. They are second-guessing V what the market needs on behalf of the client, in this encourage more e ective co-operation between the case the state. I think we have got to go with an old two. idea which is starting to come back, which was around in the late 1990s with the Individual Learning Account concept and that is the idea of putting purchasing power in the hands of the individual. I would go a step further and say maybe Q203 Ian Stewart: Earlier on you highlighted the we should think about employer company-wide tensions between a demand-led system and strategy. learning accounts as well. If we had that sort of Are you sure that the Commission and all the system where in the end employers and individuals structures will be flexible enough to deal with real were driving the system with good information, demand-led situations? advice and guidance around it then I suspect a lot of Chris Humphries: I think there is always going to be the institutions we currently have would either have a need for a bit of a dynamic equilibrium between to change or respond to that new market demand or industry as a representation of some of the would wither away and we do not have that at the important demand and the supply side in terms of a moment. set of organisations and people that have to respond to a whole variety of diVerent agendas. If that is not Q202 Ian Stewart: I am interested in the constantly in dynamic change then the system is Commission itself, in re-licensing sector skills probably locking itself into the past. Am I confident councils and regional representation. Chris, how will you need both? Absolutely. All the evidence is that the establishment of this Commission improve the economic development best results from an eVective relationship between employers and the education/ integration of spatial and sectoral activity. Almost training supply chain? By the way, what does this all of the work from Michael Porter onwards on Commission bring that its predecessors did not building successful and competitive economies is have? based upon getting an appropriate mix between the Chris Humphries: This Commission has a very needs of a region or area and the sectors that are diVerent remit to the Sector Skills Development most appropriate for the development of that area. Agency and I think it is worth touching on that, but I think SSCs are one important part of a long-term I will focus initially on the SSCs. I believe that the strategic process which we need to get right. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 40 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
25 June 2008 Chris Humphries, Teresa Sayers, Tom Bewick and Frank Lord
Q204 Ian Stewart: Let us now move on to the re- ago. The old National Training Organisation licensing of sector skills councils. How do you see Network represented at that time a quadrupling of that supporting the Leitch agenda? resources to the new sectoral network. What we are Chris Humphries: I think it is a critical part of it. If seeing this time round is a re-licensing process that a sectoral dimension is one part of an integrated is expecting more of sector skills councils but on, in approach to economic and social improvement then eVect, less money. you need to have a strong and eVective sectoral organisation to do these things as far as I am Q206 Mr Marsden: Teresa, in response to an earlier concerned: to have the confidence, approval and answer you used the word “mind blowing” about the support of principal employers in this sector, to have attitude of some of the big employers in financial very good leadership and management which services to the layers and complexities. Have we got ensures that they are eYcient and eVective in the way the right sorts of actual employers, successful, dare in which they capture and work with and respond to I say, employers on sector skills councils as opposed the changing needs of their sector, and thirdly, to to people who are slightly out of touch and maybe demonstrate that they have had a major impact to slightly over the hill? the benefit of both the skills within and the Teresa Sayers: Certainly from the industry that I productivity and performance of its sector. Those represent, we are coming from a starting place where are the criteria which are built into the new re- they have not necessarily engaged with initiatives licensing process and that means the Commission that come from government. They tend to do their taking some tough judgments if needs be about own thing, think that they can do their own thing organisations that we do not think are up to the job. and have done so for many, many years, so actually If we do that then we can bring forward to get them to a position where they are looking to recommendations for change. Equally, even where engage more with government initiatives, I certainly we see SSCs performing well we need to try and set think that that is the case we are getting now. a forward agenda for them or help them agree a forward agenda which builds them towards Q207 Mr Marsden: So you have not got the right becoming world-class organisations. sort of people involved? Teresa Sayers: No. I would say we are certainly Q205 Ian Stewart: Do employers feel happy with building momentum now and we are now able to this? attract more and more of the big players, the high- Chris Humphries: I was not sure about that. street players who now are beginning to understand Frank Lord: The sector skills councils are really better the opportunity that the sector skills council under-resourced. In the employment and skills brings them in terms of influence, so they are board that I chair we have tried to do work with becoming more engaged. sector skills councils. We have undertaken all the work within the logistics area ourselves and we Q208 Mr Marsden: So you are getting there. Tom, found that there was very little input from the sector can I just hone that in a bit particularly with your skills councils. Through the EBLO we have had sector, and you may want to answer that direct some sector skill involvement around Semta on the question or not. Have we got the right sort of SMEs engineering side of things. I am really concerned involved in sector skills councils, and I say this with about the link sector skills councils will have with the particular relevance to yours because of course the Skills Funding Agency, particularly around area that you represent is 90–95%, or whatever the apprenticeships and in looking at what employers percentage is, SMEs, is it not? want from apprenticeships and how the sector skill Tom Bewick: The figure, Mr Marsden, is that 95% of councils make sure that from a curriculum point of our employers employ less than 10 people. There are view those things are brought together. 62,000 businesses across the sectors that we Teresa Sayers: Certainly our experience is that our represent. employers and indeed the employee representation on our board feel frustrated about what appears to Q209 Mr Marsden: So how do you persuade some of be yet another hurdle that we have to go through. those really big, dynamic micro-businesses to spend They struggle at times to understand the time sitting on your sector skills council or putting environment in which we are operating. The input into it? landscape is constantly changing. They are looking Tom Bewick: Well, let me come back to that because for a degree of stability and an opportunity to build I actually do not think the measure of success for on what has been developed and take that forward. I engagement with small firms is sitting on a sector think there could potentially be a loss of momentum. skills council. When my Board first came into being, Tom Bewick: I think my employers see re-licensing and we are in some ways one of the few examples of as an opportunity. We are into year three of a five- a sector skills council that is an organisation that has year licence and over the next year now with the UK been built from scratch, not built on any predecessor Commission we will go through this new process. body, what was priority number one, I think, for our What is really important is that the Committee sector skills council was to get the National Trust on understands that the level of resource that sector our Board, was to get the Royal Opera House, EMI skills councils are expected to deliver in this newly Records and M&C Saatchi, one of the world’s reformed and re-licensed system is static compared largest advertising agencies, because what those to where it was when SSCs came about a few years employers do that I work with, all of whom are at Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 41
25 June 2008 Chris Humphries, Teresa Sayers, Tom Bewick and Frank Lord chief executive or managing director level, is that Mr Marsden: Good. they provide the strategic leadership for the sector, but in the end what they also understand as being the measure of success for us as a sector skills council is: Q213 Ian Stewart: When we look at your remit as a commission, employer-led, responsive to employers, from this September, does every theatre, does every employer demand, in that system government has a arts organisation have the opportunity of voice, employers have a voice, but how do the participating in a creative apprenticeship and do individuals have a voice? these small organisations have the opportunity of Chris Humphries: It is a concern that I share as well. being a part of our National Skills Academy to plug We have three good, very strong trade union reps on the skill shortage in back-stage skills? In a sense, we the Commission. We have Brendan Barber, Dave need to separate, I think, the strategic leadership role Prentice and Graham Smith from Scotland TUC. of sector skills councils from what Chris was, I think, We have a very strong piece of work being referring to as a third element of a relicensed SSC, undertaken with the support of all members of the the impact they are having on those actually Commission, employer and trade union, into what working or running a creative business. are the barriers to employee engagement and employee demand, and we are very keen to make sure that we understand the customer journey, the Q210 Mr Marsden: Are you saying then that it does individual journey in all of this so that the individual not matter that you have not necessarily got a voice gets reflected into the system as well. number of people on your council from the SMEs because the leadership which is overall given by the people that you have benefits the sector overall? Is Q214 Ian Stewart: That is fairly similar to what Lord that what you are saying? Leitch said when I asked him the same question. Tom Bewick: The Charities Commission will tell you Why is it, in your view, that there is little or no that the ideal size of a board is 15 places. There are mention of trade unions in the literature? 62,000 businesses, the vast majority of whom are Chris Humphries: I think there is a danger of not small firms, so I think— giving enough recognition to the need to have an agreement, a compact here between the individual, who is working for the employer, and the employer, Q211 Mr Marsden: Is that a yes? who is seeking to give them work, and of course we Tom Bewick: Yes, it is a yes. I think it is important have to recognise the individual in all of that. We to get the leadership right. know trade unions can play a key role in that, and there are enough examples of good practice over the last decade in all of this to know that, when working Q212 Mr Marsden: Chris, can I just come back to in partnership, they can really bring change in the you and come back to some of the things that Frank skills arena. I am very much supportive of getting and other people have been saying about strong trade union engagement in this, but also we employability. The UK Commission for have to recognise that significant parts of the Employment and Skills, presumably a key aspect of workforce are not participating in a trade union, so it is employability and skills, and a lot of things have we have to give the individual voice recognition too. been said, not least in previous sessions by people like Alison Wolf and others, about the way in which Q215 Ian Stewart: Getting that balance right. there is a danger with all the targets that pieces of Frank, what can the ESBs add to the value and to the paper qualifications become proxies for actual delivery of the Skills Agenda and are they an employability or the acquisition of skills. Is that an employer body too far? argument or is that a danger that you recognise? Frank Lord: Too far? Chris Humphries: There is no doubt that employers are looking for both, and Teresa said it. They are looking for both the appropriate technical skills and Q216 Ian Stewart: Do we actually need you? the right attitudes, behaviours and talents that are Frank Lord: Absolutely, you need us, very much you actually appropriate for being able to work in a 21st- need us because what will be important is that the Century organisation. I think what we have failed to employment and skills boards can feed back, and it do is address enough how to build those is looking at what those mechanisms are for feeding employability skills into the work of developing back now because it is less clear how they will feed back, but, if they do feed back and they need to feed technical skills by the way we teach and help them back, what they will be able to do is to pick up on a learn. These skills are about the way people do local basis exactly what kind of skills are needed, things, not about knowledge, and you can easily what the demands are for skills in those areas and integrate those developments within our existing help to influence. qualifications and learning programme structures, and actually that is the work of the Commission on this. Our first output will be a report on how to Q217 Ian Stewart: But are the employers making a embed employability skills into the way in which good enough contribution to this and, by the way, people are taught and learn their technical skills, so who is monitoring what the employers do with the we do both at once. money? Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 42 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
25 June 2008 Chris Humphries, Teresa Sayers, Tom Bewick and Frank Lord
Frank Lord: Well, the partners around the board are develop a plan to invest in the training of their made up from Jobcentre Plus, from the RDA, from people, then just getting them to sign up to a pledge all the voluntary sectors as well as all the agencies, so is not necessarily going to make it happen. It is what it really is a meeting of minds with business partners happens after that, and what is important is how this around that board. links in with business advisers in the local business support services, and how they engage employers in Q218 Ian Stewart: Is that robust enough? that Skills Pledge is going to be very, very important Frank Lord: It is because the actual delivery and and critical, but it is confusing at the moment for commissioning of the work then is joined up through employers with Skills Pledge, with Investors in the agencies and the commissioning bodies People and Train to Gain; they all seem to merge represented on the board, and there are executive together. groups of that that go away and report on those activities and those outputs. Q227 Dr Iddon: The Government is going to expect a legal right for employees to have time oV to go and Q219 Dr Iddon: Let me stay with you, Frank, and get some training. Is that going to have a significant put it to you that the Government is going to expect impact on the expansion of training, do you think, employers to co-fund quite a significant expansion or are employers going to react against that? of Level 3 and Level 4 activity. Frank Lord: I think there will be a reaction to that Frank Lord: Yes. from employers because what employers want in terms of time oV, businesses will be looking for some Q220 Dr Iddon: In your view, are they prepared to kind of compensation for that or some kind of do that? Will it work? incentive. If you want to create this kind of change, Frank Lord: I think that, for that, you have to unless you are going to legislate for it and make engage them in the whole field of learning and, for training compulsory, which might be the case in me, that comes back to engaging individual adults terms of the Leitch targets and achieving them, I through employer development centres, as I gave an think that debate will go on, and at what point you example earlier, through to making it easier for might need to enforce something, I am not sure. employers not to be confused, as there is confusion now between Skills Pledge, Investors in People and Q228 Dr Iddon: Let me ask other members of the between Train to Gain; these are all confusing things panel. Tom? for employers. Tom Bewick: I have not obviously seen the detail of Chairman: You have not answered the question. the legislation, but, if it is anything like the legislation already in place, for example, for Q221 Dr Iddon: Are they prepared to put real money employees to request flexible working and family- in to get their employees trained? That is the basic friendly working, then of course I think this is a question, is it not? really positive move, and actually good employers, Frank Lord: I think that is the real, big question. certainly the employers that I work with, do this already. What I would just say about any sort of Q222 Chairman: What is the answer? system that gives, in a sense, the employee the right Frank Lord: I think the question is more interesting to request, the employee himself has still got to be than the answer. I do not know what the answer is motivated enough to want to demand the training, to that, but I would be quite happy to— so I think there is still that question about how do we, in the workforce development and lifelong Q223 Chairman: They are not going to? learning system in this country, suYciently motivate Frank Lord: Well, I do not know. I am quite happy demand at the level of the workplace to take up to reflect on that and put a note to you on that. training. In my own organisation, and obviously, being a sector skills council, we want to lead by Q224 Dr Iddon: If they do not, Level 3 and Level 4 example, we allow all employees to take up to five provision will not expand, as the Government is learning days a year in addition to any annual leave expecting, will it? entitlement. I think it is very, very revealing, those Frank Lord: No. employees that take up that entitlement within my particular organisation and those that do not, so I Q225 Dr Iddon: The Skills Pledge, McDonalds and do not think the right to request in itself is really the a few well-known employers have signed up to it, but whole answer to generating more demand at the it has not been very successful so far, has it? workplace level. Frank Lord: No, it has not. Q229 Chairman: Teresa, do you have a comment Q226 Dr Iddon: What do we have to do to get more on that? employers to sign up to the Skills Pledge? Teresa Sayers: I would simply add that financial Frank Lord: Well, I think there needs to be some services is a sector that does do a tremendous clarity around what is behind the Skills Pledge for amount of training. The challenge that we have here employers and to actually understand that we have is to encourage employers to do things wider than Investors in People as well as the Skills Pledge and simply meeting regulatory requirements, that it is we have to understand what we are trying to achieve about the development of other skills. I completely with the Skills Pledge. If it is to engage employers to agree with Tom in that the demand also has to come Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 43
25 June 2008 Chris Humphries, Teresa Sayers, Tom Bewick and Frank Lord from the individuals and, if it is an individual that in my sector, for example, we are looking at works in an environment where they have to already qualifications reform from the point of view of undertake a lot of training simply to meet a informing the consumer who goes on, for example, regulatory requirement, there is a tendency to not one of these 180,000 courses predominantly in FE want to go forward and do any more. and HE with market intelligence about the Frank Lord: Just going back to that question, in the employment rates and the pay rates and whether or East Midlands 99% of employers are small not there is demand for those particular courses and businesses employing less than 50 people and, of qualifications, so we are not going down this sort of those, 95% are micro-businesses employing less than Ofsted-style route of saying that it is about having 10, so I think we have to take the points that are the resource to send people into colleges with being made within that context, and it is important clipboards and to check whether or not a to bring the learning into the workplace for those qualification is fit for purpose. However, having said businesses to enable that to happen. that, there are other sectors where a licence to practise operates where actually that sort of Q230 Dr Iddon: I think we have got that message approach is needed, so I think we need to look at the quite clearly from you, Frank, this morning. resource quite intelligently. Chris Humphries: If I may, I completely agree with Frank about the need to capture SMEs and I Q233 Dr Iddon: My final question concerns the completely agree about the idea of employee interface between FE and HE. It is beginning to get development centres in business parks and industrial blurred with foundation degrees at one end, and I centres where they cluster, but, remember, it is still think we have heard throughout this inquiry that true that 73% of the UK workforce works in firms, there is a diYculty there with that interface. Have 34,000 firms, with more than 50 employees. If we you anything to add to what we have heard have to actually have strategies that reach the bulk previously about those diYculties? Do you see that of the workforce who are in our larger firms, the 50- there are diYculties or not? plus, and strategies to develop to reach the other Tom Bewick: Well, diYculties or challenges, I think 28%, the other quarter of the workforce that are in we just need to be realistic that the higher education SMEs, that probably means doing these things system in this country historically has been diYcult diVerently. It probably means treating the larger and to engage with because of the special status, the the smaller firms in diVerent ways, it certainly means autonomous status that higher education reaching the SMEs through clusters, but it does also institutions have in terms of their own awarding mean recognising that 34,000 firms employ almost powers, et cetera. It is very interesting that the UK three-quarters of the UK workforce, and we also, Commission’s remit of course, and this is to be therefore, have to have strategies that work for the welcomed, covers higher education, but I do think it big national employers and the big companies who is going to be an uphill challenge to persuade, not all span the whole of the UK. elements of higher education, but certain elements of higher education to really take up this challenge. Q231 Dr Iddon: We have heard that the SSCs are not You are seeing it around the diplomas and well-resourced and yet, Tom and Teresa, you are recognition of the new diplomas in England and you expected now to play a new role in qualifications and are certainly seeing it around recognition of accreditation of the qualifications. If you have not apprenticeships as a passport and a progression already got the resources to do what you are already route on to university degrees. doing, are you going to be able to do that as well? Teresa Sayers: I would certainly add that employers Teresa Sayers: It certainly will be a challenge. It is in our sector have already voiced their concerns over about, firstly, understanding what is going to be the responsiveness of the higher education system required of us in the new world, and it will be a case through the Chancellor’s high-level group that was of prioritisation about where we put our resources to convened to look at competitiveness in the financial first meet those requirements of the SSC licence services, so we have developed a sub-group working undoubtedly. both with employers and universities, so there is now increasingly a willingness to sit round the same table, Q232 Dr Iddon: Tom, in your sector, do you think to understand the language that both sides are you can cope with this new role? talking and to bring about some real results and Tom Bewick: In short, no, in terms of the current improvements in the system. envelope of resource. The core resource, on average, to a sector skills council is between £1.5 to just over Q234 Dr Iddon: Are the universities being responsive £2 million a year. We are expected to operate across enough in this Skills Agenda? the nations and regions of the United Kingdom, we Chris Humphries: No, I do not think they are. I think are expected obviously to collect world-class labour they have only just very reluctantly and very recently market intelligence, and we are expected of course to understood the need to sort of have a better focus on raise employer ambition and ensure that there is real this. I think the other area we have to look at is the impact on the ground in terms of the skills and poor levels of progression that operate between FE workforce development profile. Therefore, the short and HE. If you look at Canada and America, the answer, just doing the sums, is no, but what I would progression between community colleges and say, and this, in a sense, is where the sectoral universities is part of the system designed in and we response will diVer and where it will come in, is that have not got that yet. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:01 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 44 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
25 June 2008 Chris Humphries, Teresa Sayers, Tom Bewick and Frank Lord
Q235 Dr Iddon: Are you in favour of one funding lifelong learning, about life chances and council, Chris? opportunity, the talk around town is one of, “Well, Chris Humphries: I think there is an argument for what job have you got?” or “Where are you going to exploring tertiary education in concept and in be in the structure?” and that is what keeps on operation. happening at the moment. Every few years, as we Chairman: Thank you, Sir Humphrey! move around the deckchairs, we change the plaque on the wall and the debate becomes internalised Q236 Mr Cawsey: I want to ask a bit about about the system rather than about actually the government agencies and programmes. We have skills agenda. spoken a lot already about how many there have been and how they have changed over the years, and, Q240MrCawsey:IwanttomoveontoTraintoGain, Frank, you mentioned the fact that you thought which obviously you will be very well aware of, and there were signs that the system was just beginning wehavehadwrittensubmissionsaboutthediYculties to work in and we are going to change it all again. with that scheme. What do you think are the key How do you think employers feel about the diYculties of Train to Gain, are they repairable or is abolition of the LSC and its replacement by the that yet another one where we need to go back to the Skills Funding Council? Do you think they welcome drawing board and think again? that or do you think that they think it is a backward Frank Lord: There just seems to be a little bit of a fuzz step, or do you think they are just trying to run their between brokers and providers around Train to Gain businesses and there is just general apathy to what where you will have some providers that maybe have happens at that sort of level? got targets to meet, so they are going very, very Frank Lord: Apathy and it hacks them oV,tobe specifically to look at what outputs they need to meet, honest, the changes, because they get involved, as I and you have got brokers that are going in to signpost say, with the employment and skills boards, they just employers to where they should go for the training get involved with them and things are moving and then those follow-ups from that provider can be forward, they get involved with education and quite patchy and selective, and I think there are issues business links and the whole scenery then begins to around that. change and there is uncertainty about the future, and Chris Humphries: I think Train to Gain was an idea that really hacks employers oV, so it does not designed to try and address some of the demand-led engage them. issueswhicharestillactuallygettingbetter.Ithinkthe new sector compacts, as they are described, do Q237 Mr Cawsey: Is that the general view from the provide a more responsive package of opportunities, employers that you talk to? but, if you were going to ask me, I would think there is Chris Humphries: Very much so. Even many of my yet more to be done in the extent to which Train to commissioners have been meeting with ministers, Gain actually responds to a coherent training plan saying, “You have just made far more complex a from the organisation and oVers a tailored response system that you have asked the Commission to try rather than operating on very rigid rules about and simplify, and that is going to pose real qualification levels which just too often do not align challenges”. with what the employers’ real strategic, long-term needs are. I donot think it is a badidea in concept, but Q238 Mr Cawsey: I was going to go on to ask how I think we actually could do a lot more to develop its is it going to aVect your organisations, but you eVectiveness and its value and return. would say that it is going to make it more complex? Chris Humphries: This is now one of the biggest Q241 Mr Cawsey: We have already had some discussions going on around the Commission table, evidence that compacts are just going to be another how we oVer proposals on simplification in a system thing that is going to make no diVerence and end up which has suddenly got more complex. being put onthe shelf. Is thata fear that youhave and, I suppose from that, what diVerence do you think Q239 Mr Cawsey: And how is it going to aVect your they are going to make? organisation, Teresa? Chris Humphries: I think the concept behind sector Teresa Sayers: I would agree. I tend to think that compacts is to try and give employers a better choice, employers, on the whole, simply do not care about a better way in which to link their strategic needs with what the landscape looks like and all they simply their training requirements with the system. I think want is that it is going to work for them and be the weakness at the moment is that it still does not try responsive and deliver what is needed, so that is my to start from the needs of the business in relation to comment with regards to that; I think it has become strategy and skills and, if it did and what we designed overly complex. was a response that met their needs, but tariVed in Tom Bewick: I must be clear, that many of the same such a way that it gave meaning to Brian’s suggestion people end up, because of employment, being earlier about getting employers to pay for those transferred to these new organisations, so there is higher-level skills that they get most return from, in not always as much of a hiatus as people make out, other words, if you had a tariV and a tripartite but I think what does happen, and I see this now with responsibility built into the funding regime around a all the changes and machinery of government training plan from the company, you could create changes going on, is that the talk around town is not something that still sticks to many of the concerns anymore about the agenda, about skills and about about basic skills and moving up the higher-level Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 45
25 June 2008 Chris Humphries, Teresa Sayers, Tom Bewick and Frank Lord skills ladder, but does it in a way that is responsive to Q244 Mr Cawsey: This is to Tom and Teresa really, it and, therefore, produces a better impact on the the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils has expressed business. particular concerns about programme-led apprenticeships. What are those concerns and what should be the priorities for changes in the apprenticeship scheme? Q242 Chairman: Is this the honest truth, that you Tom Bewick: My short response to that is that they cannot give away money, as far as Train to Gain is should not exist really. They do not in Germany and concerned, that you cannot give it away, and that othercountries.Thewholepointofanapprenticeship sectorcompactsisjustanotherideaoftryingtogetrid is that it is an employer and an employee, albeit an of the money? employee who is at the start of their career, who is Chris Humphries:No, Ithink itis aslightly biggerand going to learn on the job or partly oV the job in a diVerent problem. I think we have designed a system particular occupation or area. The idea of putting with too many rules, that the employer experience people into sort of cold storage for 12 or 24 months startswiththebrokerwhoisincentivisedongettingto and calling that an apprenticeship, I do not see the the next stage, so could exaggerate what is on oVer sense in that, personally. and the employer then finds from the provider that Teresa Sayers: I would absolutely agree with that. I actually what is on oVer does not quite meet the think the value that an apprenticeship scheme can employer’s needs, and we do not have a system that bring is taking the technical knowledge and applying oVers an all-through service. that in a workplace context, and that cannot be done unless the individual is actually in that workplace context. Chris Humphries: I would say that any Q243 Mr Cawsey: So what would be the measure of apprenticeship is good, so I would not draw the the eVectiveness of the compacts? How are you going distinction against programme-led. What we need to to be able to show in the future that they actually integrate within them are personal learning skills, made a diVerence? thinking and creative skills and self-management Chris Humphries: As long as the operation of the skills, and we need to include them in the new compact is based around responding to a strategic qualifications and credit framework, particularly on plan and looking at the skillsets, you can actually the 14 to 19 Diploma to count and vice versa so that look at it both in terms of the achievement of the they are integrated, and, as far as HE is concerned, individual and you could even relate it, over time, to accredited for UCAS points. They are the things I the return to the business of that activity. You cannot would say. do thatwith Train to Gainin its current form,but you Q245 Mr Marsden: Chris, with hundreds of can do it in a system that is designed to buy a training thousands of fewer young people in the next ten to 15 plan and fund on the basis of a shared responsibility years and an emphasis on reskilling of the adult between the State, the individual and the employer, workforce, have we yet reflected that in the priorities and I think you could create a much more eVective for the National Apprenticeship Service and, if we system. havenot,whatisyourCommissiongoingtobeableto Tom Bewick: You asked the question about the do about it? measure and, obviously knowing that the Committee Chris Humphries: We are undertaking some work istakinganinterestinTraintoGain,itisworthsaying looking at apprenticeships as part of our year one that 30% of our workforce currently are below Level workprogramme.Youareright,Ithinkthatthereare 2, and it was very diYcult actually getting some real issues around the demographics challenge information from the system about our sector and over the next 10 years. It does not mean that we where we were in terms of broker referrals and should reduce opportunitiesfor UK apprenticeships, actually numbers of people who benefited from Train but what it does mean, I think, is that we have to to Gain. I was astonished at the figure across the recognise that we are going to be more dependent broader creative industry, and I should qualify that, than ever before on drawing adults of working age not currently in work into the workforce, and we do not just those covered by creative and cultural skills, V but it would include media and publishing, there are not yet have a coherent o er to service that group of currently only 100 people who have benefited from people who will need significant updating in modern work skills and requirements and, equally, Train to Gain across those broad industries, which traditionally have a poorer learning record and represent,by theway,8% ofour economy.Therefore, academic success record and, therefore, are harder to I think if you have got 30% already under-qualified train. My big concern is that this big decline starts in below Level 2 and there is an ambitious Leitch target two years’ time and runs for the whole of the next around Level 2, then we have got a serious issue here decade, if the ONS is right, and we do not have yet which we need to address, so I am looking forward to policies that really seek to address that directly. the discussions with the Learning and Skills Council Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. Chris about the sector compact because one of the things I Humphries, Teresa Sayers, Tom Bewick and Frank will want to say to them is, “How do we go from 100 Lord, you have been a splendid panel this morning. peopleto afigure thatisfar morerepresentative ofthe Sorrywehaveoverrunonyoursection,butthankyou scale of the challenge for Level 2 within our sector?” very, very much indeed. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 46 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Witnesses: Steve Broomhead, Chief Executive, NWDA, David Cragg, National Director, Adult Learning and Employment, LSC, and David Hughes, Regional Director, LSC London, gave evidence.
Q246 Chairman: Apologies for starting this session Q250 Mr Marsden: That absolutely sounds late, but we welcome our second group of witnesses: wonderful, but I am just slightly curious, Chairman, Steve Broomhead, the Chief Executive of the North if it is so wonderful, why it was that, when we had West Development Agency; David Cragg, the Professors Unwin and Wolf before the Committee National Director of Adult Learning and and they were asked what role had the RDAs had in Employment at the Learning and Skills Council; and the Skills Strategy, they said there was none, which, David Hughes, the Regional Director of the I think, surprised some of us. I do not know whether Learning and Skills Council London. If I could you feel there is a mismatch between your perception begin really with you, David Hughes, RDAs have a of what you are all doing and the perception central role in implementing the Leitch Agenda, but certainly of commentators in the outside world, but are they up for it? could I ask, on the back of that, is it appropriate that David Hughes: Yes, I think they are. We, in London, every region should be trying to address all the issues are very fortunate because we have got the Mayor. in its Skills Strategy for Leitch, or in fact is it more appropriate that there should be a sort of informal Q247 Chairman: You are very fortunate? divvying up of championship of key areas? Steve, I V David Hughes: Yes, Ken to Boris has been quite an do not know if you want to start o on that. interesting experience, but what we have had Steven Broomhead: Well, I cannot comment on why throughout the last 18 months is the London academics do not recognise actually what is going Employment and Skills Board, led by the Mayor, out on the ground in terms of RDA involvement in but very much business-dominated. That Board is the shaping of policy and the delivery of skills, now about to publish its strategy which is due to particularly around employability and economic come out in a couple of weeks’ time, and the growth; I think that is plain for all to see. In answer fantastic news is that there is enormous continuity in to your question, I think all the RDAs share the thinking about what is needed for London between Leitch ambition and Leitch Agenda about demand- the old Mayor and the new Mayor, and what we are led, and that is demand-led from employers, but able to do, because of that, is get the LDA, the also, I think, demand-led from individuals, and London Development Agency, working with us on sometimes that whole area is not given enough a proper joint investment plan. importance, particularly in the workforce development and the very important role that trade unions play in that particular area, so we share the Q248 Chairman: But the RDAs have a clear role, in ambition, I think, for the nine RDAs. What, I think, your view? is diVerent, RDA and region by region, is that we David Hughes: Yes, absolutely a clear role. have diVerent sectors which will produce economic growth, so in the North East it is diVerent from the Q249 Chairman: The same with you, Steve? North West, and perhaps our relationships with Steven Broomhead: Yes, absolutely. Since 1999, we those sectoral organisations needs to be are probably one of the most stable organisations diVerentiated. For instance, we are making a great around in a sea of change. We have ensured that deal of eVort in the North West to ensure, around skills is an integrated part of regional economic the creative digital industries which are going to be strategies, it has been given focus and priority, we very important to both Manchester and Liverpool have linked skills to competitiveness and and will have a ripple eVect out across the north of productivity, but, not only have we done that policy England, that we have got a real focus around that work, we have also taken some specific action on the particular area with that particular sector skills ground, which perhaps I will talk about later on, council, so I think it is sector by sector, but also Chair. increasingly, because of SNR, it is place by place. We David Cragg: Just to add a little to this just so I do have got to diVerentiate the sorts of skills not mislead you at the start, I am taking on a dual developments we want to see in certain places role at the moment. My normal day job has been as compared to others, so it is a diVerentiated the Regional Director for the West Midlands and I approach, it seems to work well and I think we have am, 50% of my time currently, overseeing the got coverage across the 23/24 SSCs that exist. transition to the Skills Funding Agency within the national operation, which is why you have got a national badge on me. Can I say, with my West Q251 Mr Marsden: David Cragg, perhaps I could Midlands hat on, that I think that not only is the put that question to you. It is interesting, we have relationship with RDAs working well, but we have three RDAs here this morning that are actually made enormous strides in recent times. If I look at fairly tightly focused— that through my own kind of prism of the West David Cragg: No, one RDA and two from the Midlands, we have now got a fully integrated Learning and Skills Council. approach with skills embedded firmly through a really profoundly and collectively developed Q252 Mr Marsden: Yes, but the West Midlands, Regional Skills Action Plan embedded firmly within London, the North West are quite strong, coherent, the Regional Economic Strategy; it represents the identified regions and other regions are not the same. best step forward we have seen since the RDAs were How do you deal with regions that do not have that established. coherence in terms of an LSC strategy? Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 47
25 June 2008 Steve Broomhead, David Cragg and David Hughes
David Cragg: I think the point you make is a very will be jobs at all levels that are required and there fair one, but surely the whole basis of having a will be skills shortages at all levels, so the system regional approach is the absolute necessity to needs to respond to that. In London, we have got all diVerentiate local context and local circumstance. I of the business organisations, the CBI, London First would take you back to some of the earlier and the chambers of commerce, working with us discussions you have had this morning. I think the with employers. We have got Jobcentre Plus, LSC, most important work we have done in the region in the Regional Development Agency and local developing this joint Skills Action Plan, forget the authorities working on the other side putting mechanics of all of that, was that actually it defined together that opportunity with the barriers that are roles and responsibilities for all the organisations, stopping people getting those jobs, and the barriers not just the Regional Development Agency and the are not just about skills, they are about childcare, Learning and Skills Council, it positioned sector they are about transport, they are about housing skills councils very helpfully as supporting all the costs, they are about all sorts of issues and you need qualifications reform, the introduction of much a partnership approach to that, so you need to do greater flexibility, it positioned the spatial that through a systematic approach and you need to dimensions sub-regionally, so it had the full support pull people together in the right geography. If you go of local authorities and the Local Government back to the earlier question, it is probably more Association, it had the support overwhelmingly of important in the South West that you get that the employer organisations, so, as part of the process geography right to get the systems of people coming of developing that, we had a new partnership around together than it is in London because London is employer engagement. You have talked a lot about broadly one labour market with a massive number the confusion for employers and I can tell you that of people, in excess of one million people, not all— accessing it.
Q253 Chairman: Sorry, can I just stop you there Q255 Mr Marsden: Steve, can I just take you back to because the question you were asked was not about the North West for the moment and, if you want to your region which is successful and which is clearly comment more widely outside the North West, identifiable, but it was about those regions that do please do, but how are you coping, as an RDA in the not have that clear identity, so have you anything to North West, between the tension of doing those two say about those? things, hitting the higher-level skills, and obviously David Cragg: Fine, I take the point, Chairman. I you have got a good relationship with the HE sector would say, if you get clarity of roles and in the North West which works well together, but responsibilities in a region, if you have a very clear also some very fundamental and alarming skills gaps shared intelligence base within a region, which are still right at the Level 2, particularly in places like common features, and if you look at the spatial Merseyside and other parts of the region? economic geography of a region, all those Steven Broomhead: I think, as you quite rightly say, components will give you the opportunity to address we have forged broad enabling links with the 15 the very specific employment and skills needs and higher education institutions that are in the North the contribution they need to make to the regional West, not just on issues around the economy, but economy. That is my point and forgive me, issues around research and development and the Chairman, if I went into too much detail about my Science and Innovation Agenda. What is important, own region. I think, is the third leg in terms of the universities Chairman: I think we were thinking of the South outward-facing in terms of providing support for the West. development of small businesses, and I think we have done that. How have we done that? I think we Q254 Mr Marsden: I was thinking of one or two have done it by a process of continuous dialogue and other areas actually, Chairman, but you are being reflective about each other’s needs and making absolutely right to make that point. David Hughes, sure that the universities were taking account of if I can hone it on London for the moment, yes, we changing circumstances and, in particular, account know that the circumstances and the structure are of the Lambert Review, which is only three years exceptional in terms of the way in which these things old, which encouraged universities to make sure they are delivered, and we are also aware, in terms of were facing up to the real issues, so we do have that. what witnesses said earlier, that within London you We have also, I think, developed a policy of working have the whole gamut of needing to address higher- particularly with local authorities in sub-regional level skills as opposed to some very basic literacy and partnerships to ensure that we have got policies numeracy-level skills. Now, how can that be around social inclusion and community cohesion, so delivered best in a London context or indeed in other we are emphasising that skills is about Level 1 and contexts? Is it best done on a sectoral basis or is it Level 2 employability, and indeed it is only recently best done on a geographical basis? that the Government, through DIUS and DCSF, David Hughes: It is both, is it not? You talked earlier ensured that we could actually perhaps move away about systems and what we want to try and create is entirely from Level 2 to Level 3. We have always a system where we have got clear economic wanted to be about Level 3 actually because Level 3 opportunities, so in London we have got some is about basically ensuring that you grow your massive opportunities around the Olympics and economy and those are the skills for improving Crossrail, for instance, and around that level there productivity, so our arrangements, I think, have Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 48 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
25 June 2008 Steve Broomhead, David Cragg and David Hughes worked well. We have had a very strong universities David Cragg: Well, simplistically, if you will forgive association, we have got strong enabling me for putting it that way, I would probably agree relationships with our 46 local authorities through with you, and I would say, if, for example, business sub-regional partnerships, and the development of a support is through a single route, and we have been regional skills partnership, which is again inclusive very, very clear with our RDA that we want to of all parts of my region, has helped in that way. accelerate the whole process of creating a single focus for business support, I think that is right. If the Q256 Dr Turner: We seem to have a whole lot of commissioning of certainly all skills training, people falling over themselves to plan for this area, especially workforce and workplace training, is done and it includes the RDAs, regional economic through one agency, which, frankly, it strategies, sub-regional plans, local area agreements, overwhelmingly is currently through the Learning MAAs, ESP plans, sector skills agreements. What and Skills Council, I think that is a benefit and I does all this planning lead to? What is the outcome think you then start to get a clarity of the route into and is it not all just too complicated? the system. I would add one other thing. If we are David Cragg: I think you have had the debate going to engage employers, we have, I think, very earlier. I think complexity is something which foolishly overlooked the legitimate representative certainly is inherent in the system. If you accept that bodies for employers. The best benefit and the best we have inherited a relatively complex system, and step forward I have seen in recent times is the level we may be about to make it more complex, I think of engagement we have secured recently with the absolute essential point of that is to be clear chambers, the CBI and the Employers’ Federation about roles of individual organisations and and even the Federation of Small Businesses especially to be clear about, I think as Chris because, if you can get a route to market and use the Humphries said to you earlier, what needs to be natural representative bodies which work with done nationally, what needs to be done regionally employers as opposed to, arguably, artificially and what needs to be done locally. One of the great created and created by the public sector, which, you benefits, I think, we have had working regionally is, might argue, sector skills councils have been, I think for example, we have had one place where everybody you will be in a better place. has eVectively co-commissioned or pooled their analytical and research capacity. I think that is a Q258 Dr Turner: You mentioned your Learning and sensible joining up of how things work. For Skills Council, but there is a big question mark over example, again if you look, and I am not mentioning the future of the learning and skills councils, so there the West Midlands, Chairman, but perhaps at is more upheaval to come, is there not? another area, if you look at the work in Greater David Cragg: There is more upheaval to come and Manchester, which Steve would point to, in the I have got either the enviable or unenviable task of creation of a multi-area agreement, I think the roles steering through our side of the work on the and responsibilities of individual agencies in a single transition to the Skills Funding Agency. We do seem coherent approach to employment and skills is a to be very preoccupied with structural change in this genuine benefit. Ultimately, accepting that country and it seems to be a phenomenon. What I complexity is probably excessive or probably would say, and I would say very loudly to you, is that unquestionably excessive, the problem really occurs the key thing we should all be fixated on is that we if there is a lack of clarity as to what the roles and have got again a proper alignment of whatever we do responsibilities of individual organisations are. If we on 14 to 19 and with whatever we do on 19-plus and, suddenly think, for example, that we want a local most importantly, if we are changing some of the authority to start taking on a commissioning role in bigger geography, especially around the role of the training and skills, is that a good idea? That should RDAs, then we have got to see where this fits with not be a product, for example, of local area the Sub-National Review because there is no point agreements or multi-area agreements. If we can get having a silo over here which looks at economic that clarity and especially if we can get a layering, so, development and regeneration and another silo over to come back to your debate about sector skills here which looks at 19-plus working-age skills and councils, I would contend that the primary role of another silo over here on 14 to 19. Therefore, I sector skills councils is at a national level and to be would say I am back to the same slightly cracked able to articulate the overall sectoral needs, skills record, Chairman, which is that, unless you have got needs, of employers in that sector and to support the a clarity of roles and responsibilities and, most development of the right qualifications framework. importantly, locally and regionally a spatial Any role at a regional level will be about mediating alignment, then you will get it wrong. that in a regional context, not duplicating, for Steven Broomhead: On your first question, I think we example, employer engagement as that would seem, have a very complex duplicating mess at national, frankly, a very, very serious waste of public resource regional and sub-regional levels at the moment in and a huge confusion to employers. terms of planning, and what we should have is evidence-based prioritisation and inclusivity about Q257 Dr Turner: Would it not be better if there were what those policies are at a regional level, and we do just one clearly identified body in each region or sub- not have that and it is likely to get worse. The region that co-ordinated all of the activity so that an Government’s consultation period on Raising employer knows exactly where to go to and a would- Expectations, changing the machinery of be student knows exactly who to go to? government, has just closed, so obviously Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 49
25 June 2008 Steve Broomhead, David Cragg and David Hughes consideration must be given to what is going to be not need that. Employers do not need that, learners said, but I very much regret the fact that the LSC is do not need it, colleges and training providers do not actually going to disappear by the end of 2010. need it when we have gone through a process of Through the change agenda that the LSC has gone enormous change with the LSC, which has been through in the last few years, I think they have very, very positive over the last two years. moved much more away from national targets, but Dr Turner: It is a typically British process and it does keeping national targets at the forefront, to regional not just happen in the education sphere. employment and economic issues, they have put the right structures in place, they have got the right Q260 Ian Stewart: We have moved now from the alignments in place, they have got the right enabling structural stuV to the fact that there are plans. Could structures in place, they have got relationships now you tell me what powers do RDAs or other regional quite well-established around local authorities and partnerships have to actually implement those plans particularly around the sixth form funding of capital and ensure their success? schemes, and yet all that is to go in the air to be Steven Broomhead: In terms of the RDAs, we create replaced by two separate agencies, two diVerent V the Regional Economic Strategy and we do that with types in two di erent departments which are new partners, we do not do it ourselves, it is an evidence and the communication structures between those based and now I think all RESs reflect the diVerent two departments are not always as good as perhaps needs and opportunities of each region, and the LSC they should be. Employers are hardly mentioned in and the universities are very engaged in the the Raising Expectations document and employers development of that process. We do not necessarily cannot believe what is going on. They do get determine the corporate priorities of the Learning involved in the wiring and it would have been quite and Skills Council and we certainly do not determine simple, if you wanted to empower local authorities the priorities of a university because, as has been said and devolve resources and planning and earlier, the universities are very autonomous and commissioning to local authorities on a sub-regional there is no planning that goes on in higher education, or even on a local level, you could have done that it is simply funding against agreed objectives. through the existing arrangements of the LSC. You However, what we do have with these existing do not need this enormous upheaval which is going arrangements which are about to be torn up, and I to be very costly at a time when the public purse is am trying to keep emphasising this, we do have under enormous pressure, so, if that is my ‘Save the significant interface with and influence over those LSC’ speech to you, Chairman, that is it. We do like policies and those priorities and it is beginning to to do continuous upheaval, particularly in the skills work well. We work very closely, to give you a classic area actually, and, certainly from my employers who example here, with the LSC around capital funding. do sit agog with amazement that all this is now There will be some capital funding schemes for changing yet again. You are creating an LSC Board colleges and other providers where the college at a regional level which will probably last actually cannot quite raise the cash in order to benefit six or seven months, but those structures should learners in its community, and we have entered, actually be nurtured and developed and we should certainly my Agency and the same is so for many go with what we have got rather than change it in a other RDAs, into a number of projects where we wholesale way. have gap-funded those provisions, so it is not just about the arrangements about policy, it is about also Q259 Dr Turner: One of our previous panel of impact on the ground. witnesses commented that this is starting to begin to work and it is now going to be torn up and turned Q261 Ian Stewart: You have actually told us about over again, so, if the learning and skills councils, as the limitations of the ability to plan, but that you are you suggest, have finally started to shake down into quite positive in what has happened in the last few a role and started to deliver, it would seem that they years. How does that fit in with a demand-led have a role to deliver, so something very like them provision? There seems to be a lack of confidence in will be needed in the future. What is your reaction the planning approach and then the intention of to that? Leitch is that it should be employer-led, that there Steven Broomhead: My point is that, for whatever should be flexibility and that it should be demand- reason that these arrangements through the led. How, with that lack of confidence in a planning consultation document have come forward, there is system, can you do both, or can you do both? no need actually to change the role and the function Steven Broomhead: I think you can do both. Clearly of the LSC. You can adapt it to diVerent conditions changes in the funding arrangements, the resourcing and you can particularly adapt it to ensuring that arrangements for colleges and training providers, there is more of a local approach to the 14 to 19 need to be switched and indeed they are being commissioning and planning and you do not switched under Train to Gain where more and more necessarily need two new agencies, one of which will of the LSC resources are being moved towards the be very centrally determined and will probably not demand-led agenda and the needs of individual recognise regional objectives and regional economic employers. I very much regret that employers never issues, that is the adult skills, the Skills Funding really seem to get involved in the detail of the Agency, so why are we going through all these planning arrangements. I have seen lots of them turn changes? I predict that, if you set these two up by up over my career, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, at 2011, by 2013 you will be thinking again, and we do planning meetings at a local level, regional level and Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 50 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
25 June 2008 Steve Broomhead, David Cragg and David Hughes sometimes even at a national level, only to find that David Hughes: There is a shift, is there not, and some the wiring, the bureaucracy and the dead hand of people within the LSC will work for the Skills even the conversations around policy planning Funding Agency, some for the Young People’s frighten them away rather quickly, so I think we Learning Agency, some for the local authorities, and have got to think about, and perhaps we do it we have got to get that balance right, we have got to through the national commission, perhaps they get the functions right, we have got to understand think we do it through the new sector skills councils, what the roles are, we have got to understand what how we can eVectively get the voice of employers to the roles are vis-a`-vis RDAs, Jobcentre Plus, local be engaged in those policy debates. What is the voice authorities and we have got to make that clear, and of the employer? Is it the sector skills councils, is it there is an opportunity within the change. There are bodies like the British Chambers of Commerce or all sorts of dangers and risks, but the opportunity is the CBI? I think there needs to be some fundamental that we get that demarcation right for change and we discussion about that because currently there is really understand the role of each of the agencies. rather a confused picture about how employers do get involved and how they see their involvement V Q264 Chairman: Where is the advantage? making a di erence. David Hughes: There is always going to be change, is there not, and we have got to find the advantage, Q262 Mr Cawsey: We heard a lot from Steve there but there are risks and there are opportunities. about the LSC and what is happening and, David David Cragg: To answer your question about where Hughes, I am quite interested to hear what you think is the advantage, whichever way you look at it, there about why the LSC is being abolished and whether is always more than one way of skinning a cat. There you think what is replacing it will be better and more will be benefits if we get this right as a system as a coherent and will anybody notice? whole on the work with young people, especially David Hughes: I think people will notice. It is lovely around the whole of the 14 to 19 structure where it for Steve to say those things, is it not? It is a bit like is arguable that the division currently of an obituary and you just want to be able to read it, responsibilities between local authorities and the do you not, before you die! It is interesting that the LSC needed fixing. Whether you needed structural local authorities are saying the same things. In change is another matter, but one thing you can be London, the local London councils have said exactly sure of is that we could be doing, for example, far, the same thing and there is a danger that we are far more on capital and infrastructure to have a going to lose some of that sensitivity to place and coherent approach across Building Schools for the some of that understanding of local labour markets. Future and what you invest in further education. I think it is incumbent upon us to make sure that that Providing that we do not see a completely diVerent does not get lost, that through the change we make geography for the Skills Funding Agency, there is sure that there is the ability to work locally with the absolutely no reason why, within the framework of right agencies, and that has to be with the RDAs, it what local authorities do locally and sub-regionally, has to be with Jobcentre Plus, it has to be with local we cannot embed the role of the Skills Funding authorities principally, to make sure that we are Agency, but, if you want an absolutely straight reacting and responding to the labour market, to the answer to your question, the crucial thing which economic development opportunities and getting you, as a committee, should reflect upon is the risk of the planning right so that we are accessing the taking away local presence or sub-regional presence communities who are not accessing the skills which is currently essential to delivery on the ground opportunities and who are not able to get into those under some illusion that a kind of simple funding jobs. It is not that a plan-led approach is right or a agency model takes away any need to plan, to demand-led approach is right, but it is actually both, organise and to deliver locally. is it not? To get the system to work for the 30% of Londoners who are workless, we need to do a bit of Q265 Mr Cawsey: I want to move away from planning and intervention because the market will structures into programmes really, as indeed I said not deliver to them. They are not out there to the first panel. On Train to Gain, is there demanding and they are not going to get into the deadweight in that as a programme? By that, has the labour market because the jobs are at Level 3 and government money, in labelling the skills that people above and 600,000 of them have got no already have, more than moved them on to the skills qualifications. There has to be intervention, there that they need for the future? has to be somebody working and some of that has to David Cragg: By the nature of the simplicity of the be happening sub-regionally. What you need oVer, there will be some deadweight. I think there is regionally is the framework within which you less and less deadweight and more and more operate, the direction it sets for the colleges, the evidence of genuine added value, and I think that providers, the employers, the people on the ground comes through all the satisfaction surveys from who are acting within that system. You need all of employers themselves and from individuals taking that, so it is a balance, it is a fudge that we need part in Train to Gain, and we do not say enough rather than going from one extreme to the other. about that, and, if you look at the scale of take-up tackling some of the fundamental issues of low- Q263 Mr Cawsey: But what is going to happen to skilled people in the workforce, in particular, then regional LSCs under the new arrangement? Are they the numbers are now starting to be very just simply going to go? encouraging. It is too patchy, we would say, which Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 51
25 June 2008 Steve Broomhead, David Cragg and David Hughes is why we set about really addressing performance specific and diVerentiated, but it is another bit of the issues region by region because that kind of toolkit, it is not an either/or, it is an added-value variability is unacceptable, but, where it is working element which we can bring in, if we work eVectively. well and it is increasingly working well across the Steven Broomhead: There is just one other element in country, it is really making a major impact, terms of your point about deadweight. All of the especially on low skills. The long-term issue will be RDAs, under the guidance of DIUS and DBERR, whether we can see more and more co-investment as are moving towards now integrating the skills opposed to the employer investment being over here, brokerage arrangements for Train to Gain with not integrated with the public purse, and whether we business support, so there are a number of RDAs can see more and more co-investment, especially at now where you ring one number and you get one Level 3 and at Level 4 because, ultimately, that service, whether you are asking about issues about would be the litmus test as to whether it works. VAT or you are asking about Train to Gain. Now, David Hughes: I would just add a couple of things, why do I think that is important? If you are going to and one is that it is still a fairly new programme, it move away from the deadweight training, it is very is less than two years old, and the system has been important that you get to small to medium struggling to work out how to make it work. Where enterprises, who have no culture of providing that it works well, the employer gets a proper needs sort of training. If we can just encourage them to analysis of its business and it gets a way of working come to one place, I think we will start to move that out how to be more productive, and that is fantastic deadweight issue forward quite rapidly. and that is why the employers are saying they like it. I think there are two changes which will be absolutely necessary for it to be successful. One is Q267 Mr Cawsey: You all heard from the first panel what is happening with the compacts where it is not some sort of fairly withering comments about just first Level 2 that is going to be funded, so that programme-led apprenticeships, and presumably retraining that Chris Humphries talked about this one of the reasons we need programme-led morning, the need for people to be able to reinvent apprenticeships is because we cannot get small themselves is what a lot of employers want. The employers typically to take on actual other is about the fullness of the qualifications, and apprenticeships, so what are you doing, firstly, we are seeing again with the compacts an about dealing with the criticism about the whole opportunity to deliver smaller qualifications that are programme-led apprenticeship scheme and what are meeting exactly what the employers are saying they you doing about engaging more employers, want, so the qualification reform in all of this is an particularly small ones, to take on apprentices? essential component. David Cragg: First of all, I think the language is so unhelpful and it creates what is largely a red herring. Q266 Mr Cawsey: It is interesting that you We need a pre-apprenticeship programme, there is mentioned the compacts there because there have absolutely no question about it. There is not, for been comments about the brokerage service and also many young people, a progression route into this perception that it is a Level 2 system, so it is a apprenticeship. Apprenticeship is 100% in most general view that the compacts are the way to sectors, for structural reasons in a couple not, but it actually push that on. is 100% employment and that is what we want to see. David Cragg: It is a new and important bit of However, it is clear, looking at a lot of young people, eVective market segmentation, is it not? If I gave you particularly young people in the so-called NEET a kind of illustration of what I would expect in the group, that you need a progression route into compact, we have been working with SEMTA employment and, we hope, employment with nationally and regionally, for example, science and training with a full apprenticeship. I think we are at engineering, on looking at supply chains and the an interesting point in the whole cycle on kind of impact you can have on, especially, the apprenticeship in that we have seen a decline in automotive and vehicle manufacturing supply apprenticeship numbers in the last three years until chain. That is really exciting work. We are looking at 2007–08 and in 2007–08 you have seen a levelling oV Caterpillar, we are looking at two major aerospace of 16 to 18 apprenticeship against a background of businesses, Goodrich being one of them, driving increased participation in full-time further down into their supply chain, using the kind of education and schools, but the most interesting qualifications, knowledge and skills and the national thing is that we have seen a very substantial increase role of the sector skills councils, a well-established this year, in the last 12 months, in 19–plus one, to actually embed, for example, Level 2 as a apprenticeships and especially in people over the age minimum employability standard in preferred of 25. It is the most encouraging sign on supplier status. That is the kind of work which we apprenticeships which we will have seen probably in want sector skills councils to do. That requires some the last five years and there is no sign that that is just detailed design work and that is actually where the a short-term phenomenon. One of the things we compacts can play a really important role. We could definitely do need is mechanisms for pre- look at health, for example, and the work we have apprenticeship for people who are not in work which done in the health sector where we have worked with give them stepping stones to prepare them properly strategic health authorities and the sector skills for work, and that needs to be part of a broader and council usually at regional level to again look at joint much more integrated approach. It is the forgotten investment approaches, something which is very bit of Leitch, frankly, and we need to be doing far Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 52 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
25 June 2008 Steve Broomhead, David Cragg and David Hughes more on integrating employment and skills Q271 Mr Marsden: I did use the word advisedly. interventions and that is where pre-apprenticeship Steven Broomhead: —and what it actually means in ought to sit. output in public policy, but certainly pushing hard around hard-to-reach groups to present apprenticeships in a positive way, I think we have a Q268 Mr Marsden: Perhaps I could go to David lot of work to do there. Hughes and Steve and pick up on the implications of what David has just said. Clearly, as Chris Q272 Dr Iddon: Steve, how diYcult is it for you to Humphries said in the previous session, engage with both FE and HE? Is it easier to engage apprenticeships need to change rapidly with with one or other or are they just diVerent demographic change, et cetera, but do we need to engagements? have, dare I use the word, targets? Do we need to Steven Broomhead: As I am here on behalf of all the have targets in what we do on apprenticeships for RDAs here, I think it is a mixed picture around groups like older workers, women, in particular, and England. Certainly my own experience is that those indeed ethnic minorities because these are all groups engagements are strong and constructive through which, up to now, have not been well-represented? representative bodies, such as in the North West David Hughes: I am not sure you need targets. I Universities Association, and there are similar think that the nature of the labour market means structures in many other regions, but also through that employers are going to find it harder and harder the Association of Colleges and other bodies, to employ young people because there are not as particularly the Association of Learning Providers. many coming through, as I think you said earlier, so Therefore, it is easier for us to engage around policy Y they are going to find it more di cult to recruit from issues, to get them involved in debates about some of the normal pool of people they recruit from. That the things we have been discussing today, to get means they will start to look more broadly and views on Leitch, to get views on the changes in the I think that is when you start to need the pre- machinery of government, which, incidentally, both apprenticeship bit to get people ready to be the professional groups I have just mentioned do not employed within those organisations. support, so I think it is about your attitude and your approach to this. You have to be proactive about this, you have to show that you have got real priority Q269 Mr Marsden: So you think the problem is for this in terms of your policy and, as I said, in each going to solve itself without targets, do you? of the RDAs now they have put both higher-level David Hughes: Targets can help sometimes and skills and skills very much strongly into the RES. sometimes they can hinder. I am just saying I think there is a natural shift anyway. If we can get people to be employed in those sectors where there is Q273 Dr Iddon: What are the main stumbling blocks growth, we can get them on that track of learning. for the RDAs in bringing employers together with The problem we have had in the past is that you HE and/or FE? either have a Jobcentre Plus approach, which is Steven Broomhead: I am not so certain there are Y about job first and job only, or you have a skills di culties in bringing people together, it is approach, which is qualification first and organising what that conversation will then be and qualification only. What we are trying to do is put it what then comes from it. For instance, the CBI has together and say that it does not really matter when extremely strong links with the universities you get the qualification, but the qualification is throughout the whole, I think, of England for the really important, a big impact on individuals in nine regions and at regional level, so there are terms of their pay and progression and their certainly strong debates about the importance of progression in learning, so let us get an integrated higher-level skills, the research and development system where we are saying that actually they are on agenda, science, innovation,. I think it has become probably more diYcult for FE, although all good FE a skills journey which takes them into work at the colleges have their own groups of employers and are earliest opportunity, but the skills journey interlinked into local chambers of commerce to continues. The apprenticeship can kick in when they make sure there is that informal and formal link and are in the workplace. of course the push on Train to Gain in terms of policy priority, but of course in terms of the resources and making colleges much more flexible Q270 Mr Marsden: Steve, your thoughts on those and responsible about how they adapt to these new particular groups I mentioned? conditions, and that brings them into even greater Steven Broomhead: I think it is about the contact with employers than they have probably presentation, and the nature, of the careers guidance ever had before. advice that is available to present the apprenticeship options to the groups you said. Obviously, coming on stream soon is the new Adult Guidance Service Q274 Dr Iddon: Could I perhaps pose those two and I think that is probably where that debate needs questions to the learning and skills councils as well, to be had, but I would like to see, I do not know first of all, the interaction with FE and HE and the whether it is targets, I have a bit of an anathema on stumbling blocks being in place together with those targets actually— two organisations. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 53
25 June 2008 Steve Broomhead, David Cragg and David Hughes
David Cragg: Certainly obviously it is our core not made that shift, and I think we have got to get business to work with FE colleges and I think those that level of change and I think they need a bit of relationships in all regions are very well-structured. pressure to make that. There will be sometimes the kind of tensions of purchaser/provider, you know, if we have not got Q275 Dr Iddon: Well, would it help if the Skills enough money or are perceived not to have enough Funding Agency and HEFCE, the other funding money, but I am delighted with certainly the work agency, were brought together? there, and especially if you extend that out to the David Hughes: Well, it is an interesting thought, is it relationship with employers, I think we have got an not, and some of us who might be around in the enormously responsive FE system nationally and future might quite like it, but I just wonder how certainly that is my experience regionally. I would much the HEIs would dominate that discussion. echo what Steve said, which is that Train to Gain is They are diYcult to work with for government, they really shaping very diVerent and new business are a powerful lobby and there might be a diYculty models. I could show you a small college on my in getting that organisation to work eVectively patch, Telford College, which is now operating and across its whole remit if it were dominated by HE, doing brilliant work throughout the country but it is an interesting thought. operating in nine regions as a Train to Gain provider, with a fantastic success rate and with Q276 Dr Iddon: Any advantage, David, in bringing phenomenal employer satisfaction rates. That is not those two agencies together? an isolated phenomenon. It is fair to say that some David Cragg: Well, I suppose I will not be here, that of FE still has not woken up to the reality and the is for sure, but I suppose my private betting would be challenge of a flexible system and, as far as HE is that the next cycle will seriously look at that. What I concerned, I think the key issue, for me, is how much have not looked at personally, I have to say, is how can we bring, given the demographics which you it has worked in Scotland, but I see a huge attraction have already discussed this morning, a real demand in having a coherent approach. The bits in the UK, drive into our HE system. I think we have got good or in England especially, which need fixing from an relationships jointly with the RDA and the LSC in economic perspective are at the top and the bottom. most regions again for work with HE, but, if you are We are not doing anything like enough to equip looking then at one of the big questions for Train to people who are not in the workplace, especially low- Gain and for business support, if the request from skilled workers, adults, to get into work, which is the employer is for a Level 4 or, more importantly, why the big drive on integration of employment a Level 4 equivalent programme, how do we get HE skills and that is right, but we are not doing anything to respond to all of that? I think the other thing from like enough at the top end. The Leitch killer fact was a regional economic perspective, I hope Steve would that 70% of the workforce at 2020 has already left agree, is that this is not just about our current statutory education and, if we are not really graduate population or people taking part in higher refocusing on a workplace and work-related education within regions, but higher-level skills is a approach to higher-level skills, we will not have got massive employment issue. We have got this huge it right economically. drift to London and the South East, which the North West experiences, West Midlands, the northern Q277 Mr Marsden: Just on that point, and maybe, regions generally experience, and we have got to do Steve, you would like to come in on that and where far more, from a business perspective, to join up that we are going, we know at the moment that 12% of relationship. Again, I think the CBI and the HE is now being delivered by our FE colleges, not chambers are doing a very good job in starting to least in my own neck of the woods in the Blackpool tackle that. and The Fylde College. Is there a role for the RDAs David Hughes: Perhaps I can just add that I think it and the LSCs as well to encourage and to accelerate is instructive to look at how changes happen. If you that process, given the point that David has just look at Train to Gain in FE, there was a shift of made about this need for seamless progression? resource and it required FE colleges to change what Steven Broomhead: Yes, and we are doing. We are they did and they had to start delivering in the encouraging certainly a dialogue between workplace a completely diVerent product in a universities and the FE colleges around foundation diVerent way and they had to engage with employers degrees and Level 4 and above. There is no reason to do that. In HE, that has not happened in the same why Level 4 and above cannot be delivered in FE way, so lots of HEIs can carry on doing what they colleges. have been doing, fantastic work sometimes, but there has not been that same pressure on them to Q278 Mr Marsden: When you say “they”, is that the shift the resource and to change what they deliver, so North West or just generally? they still deliver foundation degrees in a fairly Steven Broomhead: Certainly it is region by region, traditional way, they do not deliver them in the but certainly in my own region that is a very strong workplace, they do not make them look like Level 4 dialogue. Where the delivery takes place is apprenticeships, which is where we would like to get irrelevant. I think it is fair to say that universities to so that you can get progression, even if you go were somewhat reluctant to see the FE colleges being into work at 16, through the apprenticeship able to accredit their own foundation degrees, and programme all the way to degree level. They have that led to some interesting discussions, but also to Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 54 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
25 June 2008 Steve Broomhead, David Cragg and David Hughes make sure that we are making the appropriate Chairman: On that note, I am going to call this investments as an RDA, to ensure that a quality session to a halt. Could we, first of all, apologise that learning experience takes place and to upgrade the it has been a very fast canter through a lot of the facilities that sometimes are actually very poor in the issues. We did not quite realise, when we began this FE sector, and there are examples, such as in inquiry, that it was going to be quite so heated and Burnley where we are doing this, in Macclesfield controversial, but we are grateful for your evidence where we are doing this and indeed in Blackpool this morning, Steve Broomhead, David Cragg and where we are doing this. David Hughes, and thank you very much indeed. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 55
Wednesday 9 July 2008
Members present:
Mr Phil Willis, in the Chair
Mr Tim Boswell Dr Brian Iddon Mr Ian Cawsey Mr Gordon Marsden Dr Ian Gibson Ian Stewart Dr Evan Harris Dr Desmond Turner
Witnesses: Dr David Collins, President of Association of Colleges and Principal of South Cheshire College, Dr Malcolm McVicar, Vice-Chancellor, University of Central Lancashire, representing Million!, Professor David Eastwood, Chief Executive, Higher Education Funding Council for England, and Professor Deian Hopkin, Vice-Chancellor, London South Bank University, representing Universities UK, gave evidence.
Chairman: Good morning to everyone and could I we write another report that says, “Woe is us . . . ” welcome our first panel of witnesses this morning. Surely Leitch is just one of those, is it not, it is just a This is the fourth evidence session we have had in passing fancy? After Leitch: Implementing Skills and Training Dr Collins: I think it has given an emphasis on the Policies. It is the last session before we have the skills agenda and certainly we would not be arguing Minister to respond to the evidence so far. We are that more skills were not a good thing. Our problem delighted to have before us this morning Dr David is whether that will achieve the Leitch objectives of Collins, the President of the Association of Colleges competitiveness and profitability, and I think there and Principal of South Cheshire College—welcome are serious questions over whether that link between to you, David, and Dr Malcolm McVicar, the Vice skills and profitability is as tight as Leitch would Chancellor of the University of Central Lancashire suggest. representing Million!—welcome to you, Malcolm. Central Lancashire is here every day at the moment. Q281 Chairman: Dr McVicar, are they the right Dr Iddon: Why not! targets? Leitch has done his analysis and there seems Ian Stewart: Quite rightly! to be relative agreement on the analysis but are the targets he has set, which the Government of course Q279 Chairman: We have also got Professor David have added to with the Level 3 target, the right ones? Eastwood, the Chief Executive of HEFCE— Dr McVicar: I am not too worried about the welcome to you David once again, and last, but by numerical targets but I think the direction of travel no means least, a regular visitor to the House, you are going is really important. Leitch is saying Professor Deian Hopkin, Vice-Chancellor of you have got to upskill the UK workforce and you London South Bank University, representing have got to do it quite significantly, so whether it is Universities UK. Welcome to you all. I wonder if I a particular percentage, you know there is quite long could start with you, Professor Eastwood. Lord way to go and you know the timescale that you have Leitch said that without increased skills we would got to work in, so I think the agenda is right. condemn ourselves to a lingering decline in competitiveness, diminishing economic growth and Q282 Chairman: But you are delivering a bleaker future for all. Do you agree with his qualifications; you are not delivering skills. analysis that our skills deficit is so dire? Dr McVicar: You are delivering both actually. For Professor Eastwood: We agree with Lord Leitch that example, we have opened up the first new dental the skills challenge is a very significant and serious school for 100 years in the UK. When eventually you one and we also agree with the central thrust of the go to be seen by one of our dental graduates you Leitch analysis that policy now needs to be geared want them to be skilled as well as qualified, so I think very much towards the next decade. We could have the two go together. You also need to address the a discussion, and perhaps we will, around whether or vocational and non-vocational distinction which is not the 2020 targets are spot-on but from the point not always very helpful. Medical education is a of view of the Funding Council there is no doubt prime example of both medical education and that we need both to raise the level of skills at Level training but some people would not describe it as 4 and above and deliver higher education both in vocational education. You have to take a fairly traditional and in novel ways to meet those broad approach to what skills are. Also you have to challenges. remember that the young people who will graduate from my university next week will still be working in 2050. With what is happening to demographics and Q280 Chairman: We are looking specifically at Level pensions they might well be working beyond that. It 3 and 4 skills really and that link between FE and is very diYcult to predict what skills you need next HE. Dr Collins, I have been in education all my life year let alone in 40 years’ time, so a very flexible and it seems to be every ten years this comes up and approach is required. It is very, very diYcult to somebody writes a report and says, “Woe is us; the predict what employers will need in the medium- world is coming to an end,” and then ten years later term future. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 56 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
9 July 2008 Dr David Collins, Dr Malcolm McVicar, Professor David Eastwood and Professor Deian Hopkin
Q283 Chairman: Let me stick on this point, Q286 Chairman: David, you must answer this Professor Hopkin, on this business of whether question: I am right, am I not? qualifications equals skills. Do you buy into that? Dr Collins: I think we have been delivering skills Professor Hopkin: I do not think you can actually within qualifications for probably 160 years in South separate them. I also think you have to define what Cheshire according to local demand from employers you mean by qualification—qualification for and community groups and individuals, and we will what?—and I think you also have to ask what is a continue to do so. Where we are talking at the skill? moment it is about the closeness that we can get the qualifications to reflecting the skills that are contained within them. Most of our post-16 Q284 Chairman: That is not what Leitch is talking about, he is talking about the skills needs of the qualifications, in particular, do have a high skill nation, not the qualifications needs of the nation. element. Professor Hopkin: Let me take you back to the beginning of your first question, Lord Leitch does Q287 Ian Stewart: In my own experience, there is a not do anything we did not already know, and if you diVerence between some professors in making a looked around the data and the evidence it has been distinction between education, training and skills. It pretty obvious for a long time, but he brings it all was good to hear, Deian, your analysis and also the together into much sharper focus. That is what is comments that you have just made, David, but does important about it. Not so much that it is some kind the school system with education and business skills of tablet from the mountain telling us what we separate not militate against the concept of bringing should do but something that actually captures some together education, skills and training? of the real issues. One of the big issues is the pace of Dr Collins: I do not think it does in the 16 to 19 change in the economy globally and the way in market. I think we have got a good combination which expectations of skills are changing. Indeed, there of qualifications and skills through the BTECs what it does is try to bring into alignment those who and the NVQs that we deliver. provide education and training and those who Professor Hopkin: You might expect me to be very require it the other side. Qualification is a measure, positive on this because one of my roles is to it is a way of demonstrating how far you have got. champion the new 14 to 19 diplomas. I believe that One of the problems we have had in the past is we need to break down the boundary between people who have got skills cannot demonstrate what academic and vocational descriptors because I think those skills amount to. I think what we need to do they are becoming increasingly irrelevant. You with the qualifications framework is actually capture asked the question what do we do in institutions. 114 skills that people have got, maybe acquired in their years ago my institution was founded in order to give workplace or whatever, and bring them together. people skills and qualification from the age of 16 Trying to make a formula out of it is probably much upwards and has been operating in the borough— more diYcult. London South Bank nowadays—and the fact is the world has changed but the requirement to give Q285 Chairman: Professor Eastwood, universities people the opportunity to work within the economy, and to an even larger extent the FE sector will deliver to demonstrate how they can do that is critical. The whatever the Government says they have to deliver. problem is that we partitioned people and we said If it is qualifications, they will deliver them. Whether you can do that over here, while somebody else can in fact they actually upskill the nation and increase do this over here, and bringing them together is the productivity is a by-product rather than the driving best opportunity we have to become competitive; force, is it not? but that is a personal position. Professor Eastwood: I think universities will deliver the priorities of the day and more, and I think the “and more” is quite important. If you look at the Q288 Mr Boswell: A couple of points really way in which the Funding Council is responding to prompted by the two Professors but maybe the Leitch and if you look at the way in which the higher others would want to join in. On David Eastwood’s education sector is responding to Leitch, we are point, it is very good to hear him acknowledge the engaged in some important experiments around co- importance of CPD for example. Perhaps he can say funding between HE and employers, around new a little bit more about the relationship between kinds of relationship between HE and employers in qualifications and the funding mechanism because programme design, but we are also working with clearly if you are doing CPD in a higher education employers around CPD, around short course institution which is paying for that, that is very provision, about upskilling in and around the diVerent from if it is a classic student award formula workplace. Although I think the qualifications issue or a post-graduate funding system. The second is an important one, and I think you are right to point, really picking up on what Deian said about focus on that, that is certainly not the totality of the pace of change, is it not rather important to move what higher education is doing. We see a very real away from what you might call a linear model where increase in CPD and other similar kinds of activities persons progressed, went through HE, slammed the and that kind of interface with employers. That does door on it, forgot about it and went into their work, of course have quite a swift feedback loop into the to a much more protean model where people are skill base of the workforce. moving into HE when it suits them, maybe doing FE Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 57
9 July 2008 Dr David Collins, Dr Malcolm McVicar, Professor David Eastwood and Professor Deian Hopkin as a subqualification or as reinforcement of other employment and employers and their needs. The skills and so forth? Perhaps members of the panel two do not always go together because individuals might like to open out on those two thoughts. might think, “I have got another 20 years . . . ” Professor Eastwood: I think what we are beginning to see is a new kind of flexibility, both flexibility in Q292 Chairman: With the greatest respect—which learning and reskilling and flexibility in funding. means I do not agree—where is the evidence because You are quite right to say that the bulk of the Leitch did not provide any evidence that individuals funding goes into the funding of more traditional were actually banging on your door and on the door kinds of programmes but I think I would argue that of the universities and colleges saying, “I want to be that has also built an infrastructure in higher upskilled”? education from which higher education can trade Dr McVicar: We have a large number of part-time and CPD is delivered oV some of those sorts of students who come every year for that reason. I can platforms, so there is an indirect funding only talk for my university obviously, I cannot talk relationship there. That said, I think it is appropriate for the whole sector but there no shortage. with CPD that the employer bears a substantial proportion of the cost. Q293 Chairman: But you have to increase it exponentially beyond that between now and 2020. Q289 Mr Boswell: And sometimes the employee Dr McVicar: I think the real challenge is how do you does. provide funding for that, who is going to pay, who Professor Eastwood: Sometimes the employee does is in the driving seat and how do we meet the and I think, in that context, what you are seeing is demands from individuals and from employers. increased responsiveness on the parts of higher education institutions to the requirements of Q294 Chairman: Employers are going to pay. employers and to the requirements of employees. Dr McVicar: I think you can expect employers to The other thing I would instance in terms of new make a contribution. It has not always been easy in kinds of flexibility is if you look at the advent of the the past to extract funding from employers. foundation degree, the foundation degree is often seen as a stepping stone perhaps from a foundation Q295 Chairman: David, this is fantasy land is it not, degree to a qualification that then will then be employers have never banged down the doors of topped up into a traditional degree, but we are now universities or FE colleges with cheque books? beginning to see some graduates doing foundation Dr Collins: Can I make a point in relation to FE. degrees, either investing themselves or with the support of their employers, because the foundation Q296 Chairman: I am coming to you, you are not left degree is the relevant qualification for the new kinds out, but just in terms of that model, where is the of skills that they wish to acquire at that stage. evidence that there are these extra students because it is the extra students rather than the ones that are Q290 Chairman: I am going to leave that because I in the system. Where is the evidence that employers think the comments you have made are broad. I are going to fund them? want to get one or two questions in before I bring in Professor Eastwood: 15 months ago we were given my colleagues. Could I ask you specifically, Dr what was widely thought to be a hospital pass, that McVicar, are you confident that in terms of the is to say we were to develop employer co-funded targets at Level 4 which Leitch set and which the provision and the target was that there would be Government have accepted that you can deliver on some 20,000 students on employer co-funded those? Where are those students going to come programmes by 2010-11. Not only are we on target from? to reach that, we are on target probably to exceed Dr McVicar: There is no shortage of potential that. We have got some 34 higher education students. I think the number of people who are institutions engaged in programmes so far. The currently at work, the majority of people who will average level of co-funding is some 30% of the cost need to be qualified by 2020 are already in the of the programme, so we have moved quite a long workforce. The potential demand there for way in a short period of time. Where what we have upskilling, changing skills and changing direction is is high-quality provision delivered flexibly in a way tremendous. You have to deliver that on a more which employers see as bespoke and relevant, there flexible part-time basis. The demand is there. The is demand from employers. I think we can parallel changes in the economy of which we are all aware that by an increasing emphasis, if you take for make individuals very concerned about their future example foundation degrees, we have moved from qualifications and their future employability, so I zero to over 70,000 learners on foundation degree think individuals are concerned about making sure programmes in a period of just over five years. they have got the right skills and qualifications for the future. Q297 Chairman: So you are confident, David, of reaching the Leitch target by 2020? Q291 Chairman: Where is the evidence for that? Professor Eastwood: I am confident that if we have Dr McVicar: If you talk to people, if you interact the right kind of programmes there is genuine with groups of employees, they are concerned. There demand in the workplace. But, going back to one of is a distinction between individuals thinking about your earlier questions Chairman, I do think, as we their own careers and their own security of develop our response, we need to think carefully Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 58 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
9 July 2008 Dr David Collins, Dr Malcolm McVicar, Professor David Eastwood and Professor Deian Hopkin about where qualifications are relevant and where employees educated in their interests. Is that what other forms of engagement in higher education are Leitch is all about? Is the demand coming from relevant. One of the attractions of qualifications is employers in both further and higher education? that they enable us to measure and to set targets, but Dr McVicar: Chairman, I do not think it can just be I think all of us in higher education know that for that model for Leitch because, in my experience, many learners the qualification does matter; but for employer-demand is very important but it tends to some others and for some other forms of be medium term, and individuals, as I said earlier, engagement a CPD model, a more flexible model is have got decades. The people qualifying and leaving appropriate to their skills. university now to work have to think about their qualifications long term, not just in the next five Q298 Chairman: What changes have you actually years. Somehow we have to make sure that the seen in the FE sector that have been as a result of the individuals are flexible but for example a couple of Leitch inquiry and the Government acceptance of years ago if we were trying to meet the demand for the Leitch targets? the economy in 2008, who would have predicted the Dr Collins: I think you could probably say that the economy would be in the shape it is now, how would number of skills being followed by adults in total has you predict what has happened in the construction gone down because essentially the Train to Gain industry or the house-building industry or whatever. focus on employer-led provision, which has not been It is very, very diYcult to hit a short-term target in fully taken up in the sense that there is more money terms of the economy. You have to take a longer unspent in that budget each year than has been term view than that and that is why flexibility is allocated to it, has been at the cost of individuals crucial. themselves pursuing qualifications outside of their Professor Hopkin: I think there is an issue about employer-driven framework. We had a period of latent demand as well. You asked the question are considerable growth in adult numbers supported by these people actually out there knocking on the government funding on capital between 1993 and door? I have to say many of them do not realise they the Leitch Train to Gain changes. Since then, I ought to be knocking on the door or maybe they are believe that you will find that the totality of skills not prepared to be in a position in order to do that. provision has probably diminished. I think one of the problems we have comes much Chairman: We are going to follow that up later but earlier than universities. If we do not get the business we will come on to Ian Gibson. right much earlier on, we will not have a business, and so therefore we need to be looking at raising Q299 Dr Gibson: There are several phrases that are aspirations amongst young people and particularly often run around in higher education and in many explaining to them that this is something for them other parts of the world. For example, on Radio and not for somebody else. Far too many of our Four you will hear every second person going young people are switched oV and that is why things forward in their speech. This phrase “going like Aimhigher are trying to raise participation, forward” suddenly emerged from some kind of particularly in communities where there is no great courses they went on. “Polyclinics” is also a word tradition of this. I think if you do all of that maybe that is used and it really debases the argument about then you will get nearer the target. what is trying to be done. Is not “demand led” the same kind of thing? What does demand led mean, for goodness’ sake? Q302 Dr Gibson: Then you could argue that the Dr McVicar: If I could answer that, I think it means demand would be a consortium between people at what you want it to mean! diVerent levels of education working together in partnership to excite and enthuse people either Q300 Dr Gibson: It is Radio Four material! through university for university’s sake, just to Dr McVicar: I think it is Radio Four material. The learn, or for a job, as the case may be. argument that higher education and further Professor Hopkin: I am tempted to say that is what education have not been demand-led is fallacious. we have been trying to do for the last 100 years. We respond to demand and if we did not supply courses that people want to come on, we cannot run Q303 Dr Gibson: I always knew you were a Left- those courses and eventually we go bankrupt. I think winger really! it is whose demand are we responding to. We have Professor Hopkin: Gosh! to respond to students’ demands, and increasingly students of course are significant contributors to the cost of their higher education. You also have to be Q304 Ian Stewart: I am with Ian Gibson on this able to respond to employer demand as well so I education/jobs analysis point. We as politicians have think there are lots of diVerent demands. There is to look at helping to create decent jobs, which is not not a simplistic demand-led model. necessarily your area of responsibility. Leitch tries to promote the concept of partnership, and on each Q301 Dr Gibson: I have always believed that occasion that I have been asking questions to panels education in this country is about jobs. That is the on the Leitch Report I have asked them what has basic Marxist philosophy. You can have all kinds of been left out. For example, if the Leitch Report education at all levels and at the end of the day it is proposes partnership between government, the employers who control the planet who want the individuals and employers, where do education Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 59
9 July 2008 Dr David Collins, Dr Malcolm McVicar, Professor David Eastwood and Professor Deian Hopkin providers fit into that? In your opinion, why are in the National Health Service and other social care trade unions not mentioned anywhere in the agencies, and that is a part of our provision where literature? there is a very, very close relationship between the Dr Collins: I think the educationalists have a employer and the provider. As you will know, it has considerable role to play in helping employers to not always been an easy relationship because you define their needs to start with, and we have certainly have a workforce planning model which is diYcult found that employers are not able automatically to to sustain in a changing environment but that has assess their needs demands without some assistance also been subject to short-term changes because of from outside. I also would like to make the point financial cutbacks which in the end were not that if you want to increase demand for education necessary. That did cause tremendous and training and link it more closely to jobs, maybe destabilisation and job losses and the curtailment of you should go so far as making it a right for capacity, which we know will have an adverse employees to access training, certainly up to Level 2, impact in five years’ time. Although that model is rather than being able to request it as they are at the very important and the Government through the moment. If indeed the argument is true that more NHS is buying considerable capacity and skills equals more productivity equals more profit supporting those students, it is a model where you do then employers should welcome that right because it have to be quite careful to protect it and not let it be should be adding to their bottom line. My view is aVected by short-term factors. If you have a whole that there are various ways in which we can help sector which is dependent on that sort of monopoly employers see the value of what training means for or a series of large-scale oligopolistic purchasers, it them and also to help them assess the training needs could be very destabilised. that they have got. Q309 Mr Marsden: So the answer is just to accept Q305 Ian Stewart: David, when you put that that these things will happen from time to time in analysis forward, we now know that there will be government and spread the diVerent pots in your significantly fewer unskilled jobs in this country in basket? the future? Dr McVicar: You certainly have to diversify. Dr Collins: Yes. Professor Hopkin: I was going to say, I think universities have become a mixed economy in a far Q306 Ian Stewart: Is there not a role therefore greater way than they were in the past. Certainly, I between further and higher education and directly have to confess I have been 41 years in higher with workers, not just leaving it to the employers? education and I have seen it all and the cycles come Dr Collins: I could not agree more. and go. What has changed has been the responsiveness of universities which are far more Q307 Ian Stewart: Because workers perhaps do not responsive now in recognising that policy will understand that they will not have the jobs that they change, things will happen, and you will come across are doing currently. things that you do not expect. What you have to do Dr Collins: I could not agree more. I think the is to build an enterprise which enables you to problem at the moment is that the funding has respond in diVerent ways. That is why the swung rather too far towards the employers universities are so keen on for example lifelong determining what is available. learning because that is potentially a far more Ian Stewart: That is what I wanted to hear. sustainable business in many respects than Mr Marsden: Malcolm, I wonder if I could come depending on core 14 to 18 year olds which will be back to what you said about whose demands diminishing in the next 10 years. We are very aware. because of course very few people want to be tagged Yesterday Universities UK launched a very with the image of some Marxist—sorry Ian— important document on the future shape of higher monolith imposing targets from below— education. We cannot predict that but what we have Ian Stewart: You cannot call him a monolith! to do is prepare ourselves for it.
Q308 Mr Marsden: But the fact of the matter is that Q310 Mr Marsden: Can I come quickly to you, particularly for universities like your own and other David Eastwood, because again a crucial question is universities in the North West of which I am aware about how much the HE system is going to be able there is an element of dependence on “plan and to deliver responsively to the level of workplace provide” in terms of government spending. You skills. We have got Malcolm there representing a lot have mentioned the dental school for example. You of the universities that are already very well engaged do a lot of other important stuV in terms of health in that sector, but I think it is fair to say that others workers and health degrees. How does that push/ are not—or at least not yet. What is your pull factor aVect you? Is it something that aVects responsibility as HEFCE to knock a few heads individual universities or across region? around and make sure that universities who are not Dr McVicar: I think if you are talking about the knocking on the doors of employers and who are not relationship between higher education and the NHS operating within their region and sub-regional as a monopoly purchaser of a significant proportion factors actually do so? of our output—I think our NHS contract is about 20 Professor Eastwood: We see employer engagement or 25% of our total university—it is very important, as operating across a broad front. I think that is with a large number of people joining the workforce important. Our latest survey of income to the sector Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 60 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
9 July 2008 Dr David Collins, Dr Malcolm McVicar, Professor David Eastwood and Professor Deian Hopkin from employers suggests that £1.5 billion has come exceed the 20,000 target and we are getting an into the sector in 2005-06 from employer-related average of at least 30% employer co-funding, so that activities. That can be CPD, it can be knowledge is real money and that is real investment and that sits transfer, it can be short course provision. alongside the shift as a result of fees back in 2006. I think the other thing which is interesting and is Q311 Chairman: Is that an additional 1.5 billion or sometimes forgotten in the debate about the is that 1.5 billion in total? investment that employers make is that they still pay Professor Eastwood: That is 1.5 billion in total from a premium for graduates, in the case of the industries business, as it were, buying services, knowledge, to which you refer a very substantial premium; and partnerships with universities. we could see that too if we were thinking about the premia for mathematicians in the City. Employers Q312 Mr Boswell: Including increasingly SMEs or clearly place a high market value on graduates who not? for other purposes might look like very traditional Professor Eastwood: Including increasing graduates—mathematicians, physicists and so forth. engagement with SMEs. Obviously there is a lag I think we see abundant evidence, in employers’ there and there is a challenge there. willingness to co-fund and in the premia they are prepared to pay for graduates, that they are making a contribution to the overall cost of delivering higher Q313 Chairman: It would be good if you could let us education. have a note just to say what that trend is. Professor Eastwood: We have trend data going back to the beginning of the century and we will happily Q316 Dr Gibson: Professor Hopkin, do you see that give that. I make the response in answer to Mr picture emerging in your 41 years of sweat and toil Marsden’s question because I think we do see at the coalface? diVerent universities having diVerent kinds of Professor Hopkin: I am glad you put it that way. engagement and that is quite important, not least in terms of what you might describe as market-making Q317 Chairman: Surely you began as a ten year old? and that where universities are oVering knowledge Professor Hopkin: You are very kind! I think we are transfer, where they are oVering CPD and where on a your journey here, if I can take another Radio they are oVering co-funded programmes, they are Four phrase. I do not think we know the answer, to developing a diVerent and much more wide-ranging be absolutely frank. What we have to do is really test engagement with employers and that I think is the market with some real propositions. Very often starting to unlock new kinds of demand and a new there is a strange lack of synchronism between kind of understanding of what HE can deliver to employers spending a lot of money retraining people employers and also what HE needs to deliver given and what they are prepared to pay upfront. I think the employer demand. part of the equation is to actually help employers understand that if they take part in developing the Q314 Mr Marsden: I understand that you are curriculum—and by the way none of us is saying that moving on to be Vice-Chancellor of Birmingham this is a one-size-fits-all, it has to be a much more University in due course. Which of those models do diverse educational system to respond to diVerent you think are going to be applicable to Birmingham? needs—employers might actually see some very Professor Eastwood: All of my waking hours and great advantage if they are able to diminish some of some of my sleeping hours are currently devoted to the later costs of retraining and the rest of it in the the Higher Education Funding Council. I will early stages if they get people who are prepared happily share my thoughts in due course. better at the point at which they arrive. That said, I Chairman: I think that is a very diplomatic answer. think employers also have to understand that this is Back to you Dr Gibson. not something which stops after they employ someone; it continues. I think helping employers to Q315 Dr Gibson: Can I return to financial support. understand what their future training needs are I find it rather ironic because when I argued with my going to be rather than simply reacting to what their old sparring partner David on the issue of top-up present day needs are is something that universities fees, I argued vehemently that industry should be do particularly well. That is what we are engaged in. putting money into universities instead of charging That is what you have been engaged in, Dr Gibson, students exorbitant debts to carry throughout their yourself in the past, looking forward and trying to lives, and I suspect we will return to that issue in a anticipate. I think we can help employers in that few years again. I just wondered what evidence you respect. really do have that industry—the pharmaceutical industry for example—is prepared to put money into Q318 Dr Gibson: Have you an estimate of how much courses, laboratories and so on rather than giving money might be contributed by industry? Have you money for consultancies, undeclared consultancies I an El Dorado figure or a guestimate of what could might add, just as an aside, by academics, it does not come in if everything went right? Are we talking appear in the register of interests like the very honest billions, millions or what? You named some figures; MPs that are around this table. could that be improved? Professor Eastwood: I would oVer two thoughts. Professor Eastwood: The contribution from One is the evidence from the development of co- businesses will continue to grow and all the trend funded programmes. We are on course to meet or data suggests that it will continue to grow. I think Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 61
9 July 2008 Dr David Collins, Dr Malcolm McVicar, Professor David Eastwood and Professor Deian Hopkin though you ask a challenging question. Certainly mechanism to capture the range of skills and our view, if you look at for example co-funded qualities that students have. That is an interface provision, what we are investing in we believe is of between HE and employers, and indeed graduates high quality, relevant and sustainable. How themselves, that we can and should enhance. How scaleable this is, I think is a question that we will not we describe the qualifications is important. Also we have a strong answer to probably for another 18 to are embarked on a process, at Level 2, Level 3 and 24 months. at Level 4 and above of bringing some clarity to the landscape that you describe and I think we are all Q319 Dr Gibson: Lastly, in terms of other countries signed up to do that. and what they are doing, is there anything we can learn from any country or countries to reach the 40% Q322 Dr Gibson: I would agree that the American target that Leitch has pointed out for Level 4. Could system of assessment of students is better than the we learn from America, Estonia? silly First, 2:1, 2:2, Third and Fail classifications, Professor Eastwood: I think one of the things we which I have always been against and as somebody could learn and are learning from America is that it who marked thousands of papers, I could not tell the is important that as we grow provision and as we diVerence between 68% and 70% but this is the first continue to grow the sector, we maintain quality. time I have ever been honest about it! One of the things which characterises the American Professor Eastwood: What I am doing is putting system is higher volumes of entrants to higher some flesh on the bones of a comment that Deian education but a much higher drop-out rate. If we are made about the kinds of skills that students acquire. providing forms of engagement with higher We need to have ways of making sure that they are education, which do not lead to completion then we clear about the skills that they have achieved at the are not delivering to students, we are not delivering end of their programme and that employers are. It is to the taxpayer and we are not delivering to clear at the moment that employers value the current employers. I agree with Deian’s point of a moment system of degree classification so, as Burgess said, ago that what we need is varied and appropriate there is no incompatibility between retaining degree provision and what we need is high-quality classification and developing a richer methodology provision. for describing student skills. Dr Gibson: But are teachers in higher education and Q320 Dr Turner: In the best British traditions we like further education trained to mark examination to make things fairly complex and we have an scripts? I never was, ever, you are just thrown into increasingly complex pattern of qualifications the job and you are expected to know it; it kind of available which may or may not be terribly relevant. accumulates around you. I would just like to know what your view is from your diVerent perspectives and whether you think Q323 Chairman: These are revelations which are we have now made the present system of coming out; it is a good job nobody is listening! qualifications for skills and training too Deian, do you want to comment very, very briefly? complicated? Professor Hopkin: Avoiding the temptation to go for Dr Collins: I think there are something like 22,000 69 in between 68 and 70, which we usually did, the qualifications at the moment on oVer and hopefully reality is that we need two things to meet the the UK Commission on Education Employment complexity. It is very likely that we need to and Skills will begin to simplify that framework and decomplexify—if I can use another phrase—but make them more relevant. What is important to our more importantly I think we need to ensure proper sector is that the credit-based accumulation system progression from diVerent qualifications so that is brought in so that people can acquire people are not locked into cul-de-sacs. Secondly, qualifications in smaller chunks over a period of that then requires very robust advice and guidance. time and that in my view at the moment seems to be I think that is the critical requirement in all this. No painfully slow in progress. If we do want to get matter what system you have, if you cannot give the people involved, they do not always want to sign up right advice to the right people to go on the right for a very long qualification, they want to get them course, then you really are sunk. I think we have to in in suitable steps and indeed employers are much invest far far more in giving advice not simply to more interested in buying chunks than whole young people but I think particularly to adults. qualifications from my experience Dr McVicar: The answer to your question is yes. It is Q324 Dr Turner: Who is there out there to give that not just the qualifications framework which is quite advice? I certainly do not think it is available in complex, it is also the structural arrangements for schools and colleges through careers advisers, unless delivering the skills; they are over-complex as well. they have come on in leaps and bounds. Dr Collins: I need to correct you there. Certainly Q321 Dr Turner: I was coming to that! colleges will have careers advisers in them who are Professor Eastwood: Can I make two comments. professionally trained careers people. For the adult The first is that I think there is a challenge to higher Careers Service there are proposals in Leitch that education in how we describe students’ should be more fully implemented and this is a key achievements and I think here the work of the part of making sure the skills targets can be Burgess Group is important, looking for a way of delivered. Nobody has actually said how that is using transcripts or other kind of reporting going to be paid for and one of our suggestions Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 62 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
9 July 2008 Dr David Collins, Dr Malcolm McVicar, Professor David Eastwood and Professor Deian Hopkin would be maybe the brokerage system for Train to Dr Collins: They are probably in a better position Gain which costs £40 million a year might be a useful than subregional partnerships of local authorities. source of a place to look. At the moment the LSC has gone down a regional structure which is beginning to work and, arguably, the helicopter view of the RDAs is more likely to Q325 Dr Turner: We not only have a complex V produce sensible policies on skills development for picture of di erent qualifications but we are getting an area than small sub-groupings of local an increasingly complicated structure to manage the authorities. whole system. The Learning and Skills Council is going to be replaced by the Skills Funding Agency which will not be a single entity; there are four bits Q330 Dr Turner: Do you think they have the of it. Do you see any advantage in this? knowledge base within them? Dr McVicar: I cannot comment on the transfer from Dr Collins: I think they will have to acquire that the LSC to the Skills Funding Agency. I think the knowledge base because I think there is going to be whole pattern of the structure of delivering the skills quite a gap in the market when the LSC disappears. agenda is over complex. If you sit down and try to map it, it is very diYcult. I regard myself as Q331 Dr Turner: So there could be quite a long reasonably intelligent and I find the whole plethora period before the new system, for want of a better of bodies which is delivering the skills agenda almost description, starts to function well? incomprehensible. Dr Collins: I think it is ambitious that it is actually going to be functioning fully by 2010. Dr McVicar: From a higher education perspective, I Q326 Dr Turner: Will you honestly know to whom think RDAs can be useful allies but universities do you are accountable? not operate just in a region, they are national and Dr McVicar: I am accountable to David! international, and I certainly would not want RDAs to have any role terms of funding or planning. I Q327 Chairman: You are accountable to the LSC. think that would be entirely inappropriate. I would Dr Collins: There is a general view at the moment like to echo David’s point, the funding regime that that the new arrangements are either a pig’s ear or a operates through HEFCE is entirely appropriate for dog’s breakfast and need to be sorted out with a the future of higher education and, arguably, would degree of operational clarity to make sure that we do be appropriate for FE as well, if I may say so. not lose the progress that the Learning and Skills Council has made over the last six or seven years. Q332 Chairman: So you would have a single funding? Dr McVicar: I certainly would. Q328 Dr Turner: Would you say that we are repeating a particularly British administrative Q333 Dr Turner: How do you relate to the sector mistake which we do over and over again with V skills councils because they almost cut across the di erent institutions—and it is FE and HE’s turn for new structure? Do you think there are too many it—of we carry out a great reform, set up an representative bodies for employers? organisation and ten years later come along and say, Professor Hopkin: Can I first of all declare an “Let’s do it all over again,” and we repeat the same interest as a member of the Sector and Skills Council mistakes over and over again? Skills for Health but also the LSC as well by the way, Dr Collins: I think the interesting thing is that in the and that is why I was very quiet! I think the sector White Paper the Learning and Skills Council is skills councils have built up a very strong and accredited with considerable progress and being a developing partnership, not only individual ones but great success, so it does seem rather strange to be collectively with universities, through partnership taking it apart at this time. with Universities UK. We recognise the need to Professor Eastwood: In terms of higher education, work with consortia, particularly where in some we are not seeing that kind of perturbation at the cases they represent very important areas like e- moment. The Higher Education Funding Council V skills, creative and media, where we need to has in e ect has been here since 1919 in one form or understand what the industry is looking to in the another. I think that kind of stability has real future, and so for us the sector and skills councils in advantage, just as the fact that the majority of our recent years, particularly in the last couple of years, funding reaches institutions as block grant gives have been an asset in our forward thinking. That them real flexibility. I think one of the things that is said, like my colleagues, we are very concerned that transparently valuable in higher education is the we do not get destabilisation of the system when block grant and reasonable stability of funding to diVerent organisations are created so we have to gear institutions so they themselves can be responsive, ourselves up always to meet the turbulence of because in many cases it is higher education organisational change. institutions themselves who are best-placed to make those sorts of judgments. Q334 Dr Turner: Is part of that turbulence and churning that can occur related to the funding Q329 Dr Turner: How useful do you think the RDAs structures? are going to be in this structure? Do you feel they are Professor Hopkin: We are very content with the way equipped to take on a role in skills partnerships? in which the funding structure works for us. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 63
9 July 2008 Dr David Collins, Dr Malcolm McVicar, Professor David Eastwood and Professor Deian Hopkin
Q335 Dr Turner: Universities maybe but you are not divisions between higher and further education, the only part of the structure. which have been unhelpful in the past, have started Professor Hopkin: As I said earlier, I think we have to blur. learned to develop economies which do not depend Professor Hopkin: There is a very quick point on on one stream or another. We have to be much more partnership which we may be in danger of missing. responsive. That is why we work with regional, local Leitch is about the UK, the Commission is about the and national government inter alia. UK; the cross-border issue is also critically Chairman: I am going to move on, Des, because I am important, how you create partnerships. Companies very tight on time. Tim? work cross-border in the devolved administrations Mr Boswell: I think the members who are giving us and we have systems which sometimes militate helpful evidence will be aware that I have a certain against that. I think we have to find ways where we history in both FE and HE, and we seem to be encourage cross-border partnerships too because parading our radical criteria and qualifications at that is in the interests of people who are migrating, the moment. are moving around and collecting qualifications Ian Stewart: A Marxist Conservative! across the piece. I do not think we have done enough to understand the dynamics of that. Q336 Mr Boswell: I did not go that far but do not press me! As you look across this—and we have Q339 Mr Boswell: Just really picking up David’s already had some helpful input from David—how point: one funding agency in the future? What is the are the structures within this room, as it were, FE point of more than one, bearing in mind also that of and HE, going to have a change to reach the Leitch course there is a separate stream now for pre-19 agenda? There could be a tendency to stuV it all oV funding which is going to be assigned? Is there a tidy onto UKCES or somebody else and say they have to way of dealing with this or is there some justification sort it out, but bilaterally and, as it were, for plurality? representationally how are we going to get these two Dr Collins: What we would prefer in FE, in the same major interests to work more closely together? way as HE has, is the ability locally to interpret the Dr Collins: The college sector is working very closely needs of the area and to be able to respond to them with many universities at the moment on foundation without being put under artificial constraints. We do degrees and franchise work, et cetera, so certainly feel at the moment constrained by some of the over the last five or six years there has been a coming particular funding streams such as Train to Gain for together of work at Level 4 in most areas. not being able to move into other areas where there Dr McVicar: We certainly have a very large is demand. We are not forgetting that skills are very partnership network with a range of further important to the economy and upskilling the nation, education colleges and the university. That but they are also important to social cohesion and partnership based on collaboration works well. mobility and equality of opportunities, and some of What would not work well is if there was an those elements have been a little bit lost in the encouragement to competition between FE and HE, discussion about skills and moving the employer I think that would be negative and dysfunctional. needs forward. Q340 Dr Iddon: Is not the consequence, gentlemen, Q337 Mr Boswell: When you say collaboration do of having a single funding council that you have to you mean self-generated collaboration rather than look at whether FE students should receive grants as imposed planning? do HE students and would not the staV in FE Dr McVicar: It is certainly self-generated. It works colleges want to be on the same salary spine as staV on the business of the two networks of institutions in HE? Can any government of whatever political working together; that is not planned or imposed, it complexion aVord that? is self-generated. Dr McVicar: Although FE and HE need to work Professor Eastwood: We are currently taking together to collaborate, they are diVerent sectors, forward a new approach to HE/FE collaboration and I think you need two funding councils. I entirely which is to invite FE colleges that deliver higher understand what David is saying and I sympathise education to have strategic statements which with him. I think the current system works well in capture the kinds of collaborations that they have higher education. The role of HEFCE is very and the kinds of progression arrangements that they important. Some of the initiatives like the co- have developed. funding with employers have been very successful and I would not want that to change, and there is a Q338 Mr Boswell: When you say available, will there danger— be some kind of inducement or mechanism? Professor Eastwood: We will fund HE in FE Q341 Chairman: Because you get significantly more Colleges where they have those strategic statements. money than FE. The other thing which is quite interesting on the way Dr Collins: You might have something called the in which collaboration develops is we have funded Further Education Funding Council, for example! an employer engagement initiative at Harper Adams University College which has some 30 partners Q342 Dr Iddon: David, what is your view on this? (other HEIs and a large number of FE partners) and Would you welcome the route that some people like I think that demonstrates the way in which the David Collins and others want to take? Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 64 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
9 July 2008 Dr David Collins, Dr Malcolm McVicar, Professor David Eastwood and Professor Deian Hopkin
Professor Eastwood: I think I am in a similar arrangements, and I think it is axiomatic that we position to Malcolm that there are two sectors and continue to move forward as quickly as we can; I we need to encourage real collaboration between share your concern. those two sectors. I think higher education does benefit from stability, but if you look at the range of Q345 Mr Marsden: Deian, do you see that up-lift for what the Higher Education Funding Council does you in your neck of the woods for you and in we have only been talking this morning about one Universities UK generally? aspect of our responsibility and one aspect of our Professor Hopkin: I think there is every prospect of funding, and we could talk about skills at a much improving the quality and level of educational higher level, we could talk about post-graduate attainment in this country if we look more radically funding, we could talk about research funding and at what we are doing. What I think the university so forth. We do have to look at fitness for purpose in sector has been doing in recent years particularly, as the way in which we determine our funding and we become more sensitive to the changing economy, regulatory bodies, but I think we do need, given the is to recognise that unless we actually work in challenges of the agendas we face going forward, partnership with schools and employers, we will not structures which give stability, which give create the market for our own business in the future, reasonable predictability of funding, and which and I think that is why we take it so seriously. ensure that we can be responsive not just to the needs of today but the needs of the day after tomorrow, Q346 Mr Marsden: What about the people who are and I think there are areas in the funding landscape left out in the gaps? What about the women which are probably too unstable at the moment. returners who want to return to education? What about the people with disabilities who want to carry on? You—and when I say you I am talking about Q343 Dr Iddon: I am opening a 14-19 year old sixth universities as a whole not your institution—are form college which is an amalgamation of a sixth doing very little for them at the moment, are you? form college and 14 to 19 training this Friday in my Professor Hopkin: I do not think I would agree constituency. Do you think the HE sector is catching entirely with that. If you look at the proportion of up with the changes down at pre-19 level? people with disability coming into higher education, Professor Hopkin: I have spent half my life on this— that has increased tremendously. The proportion of outside of running my institution, I should stress— women, for example, in programmes such as because I think it is critical. I think the 14 to 19 Working for Women which is coming into agenda is the one way we have (and earlier by the engineering, and the London Engineering way) to unlock that lost talent from all those people Programme is looking specifically at that. I agree we we are not retained in the system, and if we can need to do a great deal more but that is moving into stimulate people who just do not want to carry on an area where traditionally we may not have been— after 16, that will help to meet some of the targets that we have talked about. Universities are very, Q347 Mr Marsden: Okay, but do you agree with me very engaged and over 100 universities have now that you need more flexible and portable structures said they will accept the 14-19 Diploma as a to address those groups of people? qualification. There are universities involved in all Professor Hopkin: I think we all recognise the model 17 lines of learning. In fact, many of us are very itself needs to be looked at in order to respond to actively involved in helping to raise the game. What very diVerent markets. Not everybody will want to we really want, however, to come back to the big come to a nine to five lecture-based environment. issue, is to get employers to understand the We will have to respond and we will. importance of all of this so we have a real Dr McVicar: The part of the sector that I am partnership at work and sometimes one does wonder representing this morning, the million plus whether their voice is loud enough in support of the institutions are right at the forefront of this and that great work that is going on in education. model of nine to five is not one that we would recognise.
Q344 Mr Marsden: David Eastwood, Burgess has Q348 Mr Cawsey: I want to go particularly to you, been mentioned, the need for a proper credit David, although if the other people want to chip in framework, accumulation, and all the rest of it, and please feel free to do so. David, we have heard a few various people have talked about moving forward, if comments this morning about your views on the way I can use that term, but we are not moving forward some of this is going but how do you think the sector fast enough, are we? In terms of the recirculation is coping with Train to Gain and how do you think between FE and HE—which has been described, I it needs to change to make it work for employers, for think rightly, as you do a course and shut the door— colleges and for the wider skills agenda? you are still not beyond the lower slopes, are you? Dr Collins: I think we are working very hard to make Professor Eastwood: We are changing the way in it work. There is a question though about whether which we fund teaching from 2009-10 to give more the demand is there for training at this stage in the flexibility around the funding of credits and flexible economic cycle from SMEs and although getting big learning, so there is a funding response coming into employers on track is not too diYcult, it is those the system very swiftly. I think the sector is making smaller employers employing five, six or seven very substantial progress around credit transfer people that at the present time are really not as Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 65
9 July 2008 Dr David Collins, Dr Malcolm McVicar, Professor David Eastwood and Professor Deian Hopkin interested in training as they might otherwise be, so Q353 Mr Cawsey: But when you get a time when it is a challenge. I think my main concern is if the industry—construction being a good example—is money for Train to Gain is not spent, there are other going through a very poor period and therefore is demands in the adult sector that could be met from unlikely to be thinking about take-up of that money. At the moment the mechanisms are not apprenticeships, frankly, do you think that the there for the transferability that I would like to see. programme-led approach should be expanded at a time like this? Q349 Mr Cawsey: So where would you like to see it Dr Collins: I think it will need to be because if we are transferred to? going to have increasing unemployment or Dr Collins: I would like to see it going back into decreasing employability then that is going to be adult responsiveness growth for individuals who very important. want to develop their careers or develop other skills Professor Hopkin: I think Train to Gain has outside of their immediate employment prospects. I improved tremendously in some regions in the last would like to give the colleges the freedom to spend year. London, for example, from a slow start has that money where it will make best impact in the seen quite a significant growth. Interest in the higher local community, and that may be for more social education world is of course in the experiments in cohesion, the development of ESL work for people Train to Gain Level 4 because here in some of the who have moved into the area, et cetera. more important innovative industries, the ones we need to look at and help build partnerships, Train to Gain is being trialled in three areas to see whether in Q350 Mr Cawsey: Are you saying that just because fact at Level 4 it might be more attractive still to of where the economy has ended up at this point in certain kinds of industries. We are looking forward time or do you think that is how it should be with interest to see the outcome of that because that anyway? may be a model for certain parts of employer Dr Collins: I think it should be like that anyway. I engagement in the future. think the pendulum has swung a little too far towards the employer-driven agenda because the employers do not always know what they want and, Q354 Mr Cawsey: Does anybody think that the similarly, as I said at the very beginning, if you look brokership for apprenticeships and Train to Gain at the relationship between improving skills and should be separate? In other words, should they be productivity and profitability, you really are brought into one set of brokers? forgetting about the importance of credit, the Dr Collins: We find in further education that brokers importance of capital investment, of technological are not having the impact that perhaps was advancement and all of those impacts. Skills are envisaged for them in the original proposals, and important but they are not the be all and end all and indeed most of the leads that we have for Train to in some ways the Leitch Report almost gives the Gain are ones that we have generated ourselves. The impression: sort the skills out and the economy will question is whether that money is money best spent be wonderful and we will be greatly successful. You in that way. My suggestion, as I think I said earlier, can see from what is happening at the moment. was perhaps developing the adult Careers Service Nobody is saying that our current downturn or might achieve somewhat more. potential downturn is because the skills are not there; there are lots of other factors at play. Q355 Mr Cawsey: Somebody described it as a complete shambles and a waste of public money. Q351 Mr Cawsey: Although you need the skills to Dr Collins: It was not me! attract inward investment sometimes? Dr Collins: You do and I am very much in favour of the skills agenda and pushing it forward. I am saying Q356 Mr Cawsey: But you would recognise that though we should be cautious about the impact that description? that is going to have on profitability. Dr Collins: I would recognise that description.
Q352 Mr Cawsey: Given the fact that companies Q357 Mr Cawsey: What was the experience of FE in may be where they are at the moment, who is going working with the Sector and Skills Councils of to train the programme-led apprentices and how is qualifications reform development and what that going to be developed? concerns do you have about this programme? Dr Collins: I think colleges are fairly heavily Dr Collins: I think it is beginning to work quite well. involved in this at the moment and indeed in many The AoC has a number of skills champions that areas the skills that are being developed in catering mirror the sector skills councils and are working or engineering or motor vehicle work, et cetera, and closely with them. I think you do need that construction perhaps in particular, can be developed combination of the deliverers with the people who and delivered in a college environment. Indeed, an are designing the qualifications to make sure that area such as construction would not actually want to what they are coming up with is going to be put somebody out on a site unless they had had a operationally sound. I think that is working very significant amount of training in health and safety well. I have got great hopes for the Sector Skills and basic skills, so I think there is a role for colleges Council and the UK Commission in sorting out in programme-led apprenticeships. what is a little bit of a mess. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 66 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
9 July 2008 Dr David Collins, Dr Malcolm McVicar, Professor David Eastwood and Professor Deian Hopkin
Professor Hopkin: I think the future is something and higher education. Is this to be welcomed? that we are all trying to move forward to, as they say. Should it be encouraged? Also there was a pilot I think the reality is that we do not have a barometer project in the 1990s where the concept of trade union which tells us what is coming up and this last six learning reps came from but the other aspect of that months in the construction industry is an example of project was training the learning reps to work with that. I think the answer is to respond in a very professional training monitors to deliver vocational positive way at a time when things look hard. Now training. Should that be encouraged? is the time to take on apprenticeships for example in Professor Hopkin: Could I answer that quickly and universities. Many of us are looking at say many of us are looking at accrediting the work apprenticeship systems for higher education in the of union learning. We think it is absolutely critical services we have. We also have an opportunity to because that way we reach a new audience that we bring in people from industry to help train. One of have not actually reached. That is the actual answer. the problems we have had is getting enough trainers. Professor Eastwood: Yes, yes and yes. At a time of boom you cannot get them. Now maybe Dr McVicar: Yes. is a great opportunity to actually do that and so we Dr Collins: Yes. have to invest at this time. I think we would welcome Ian Stewart: Four yeses. That is 35 years’ worth of the opportunity to help the economy back up again. work to get three yeses! Q360 Chairman: We have had an incredibly swift Q358 Mr Cawsey: I met a constituent at the weekend canter through some of this. Can I thank you all who is a bricklayer and he said he was unemployed enormously for being such a lively and responsive for the first time in 30-something years. Perhaps it is panel this morning. Could we in particular thank a good time for him to be teaching younger people you very much, Professor David Eastwood, for all how to be bricklayers. the help that you have given to various committees Professor Hopkin: That is exactly the point. That during your time as Chief Executive of HEFCE. It might actually beat some of the skills shortages we has been enormously valued not only by this have. committee but by other committees too and we wish you every success with your role at Birmingham Q359 Ian Stewart: To all of you, we have seen the University, where I was once a very proud student. development of 20,000 trade union learning reps and Professor Eastwood: Thank you very much but I they clearly are making a bridge directly between suspect you might call me in again between now workers and employers in bargaining and further and then.
Witnesses: Mr Tom Wilson, Head, TUC Organisation and Services Department, TUC, Mr Wes Streeting, President, National Union of Students, Ms Anne Madden, Head of Education, Skills and Employability Policy, Equality and Human Rights Commission, and Mr Alan Tuckett, Director, National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, gave evidence.
Q361 Chairman: Could I welcome our second panel often about finding the space to fit learning into your before us this morning and apologise that we are life. That is why unitisation is really important and running somewhat over time. Tom Wilson, the Head critical and once that is there, but if those targets are of the TUC’s Organisation and Services Department to be addressed seriously it is important that we do at the TUC (I am pretty sure you were very happy to it episodically a little bit at a time and not in the “big hear the last comments); Wes Streeting, the bang” numbers that we seem to be forcing ourselves President of the NUS, welcome to you; Anne to do at the moment. Madden from the Equality and Human Rights Commission; and last, but by no means least, an old friend of various committees, Alan Tuckett, the Director of NIACE. I wonder if I could start with Q362 Chairman: Anne, the same question to you: are you, Alan, and ask do you feel that the Leitch targets they meaningful to the individual, because this are actually meaningful for individuals, particularly session is about individual workers and students older workers returning, women workers returning, rather than the other organisations? perhaps ethnic minorities with particular cultural Anne Madden: I think it is very important to say that issues to be addressed? Are the Leitch targets useful? the aspirations, the targets, are tremendous and have Mr Tuckett: I think the Leitch analysis was useful. I the potential to do a great deal for individuals, but think the problem with the targets is that they bleach the problem rests with the fact that basically they are down into a very narrow set of measures ways of large volumes of numbers and they are not about reaching goals which everybody could sign up to, so people. I think what we would have liked to have that for people who are adults who study part time, seen were some indicators below the target which if they have the confidence to join in in the first place, was about disaggregating them down for diVerent what a full-fat Level 2 does is to force you to commit groups, and that just does not exist, it is not there. yourself for a long time. It does not fit in with the All the points Alan makes about how people like to way you fit learning around your family. For the learn actually are lost in the way that the people you illustrated, Chairman, the issues are implementation arrangements are at the moment. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 67
9 July 2008 Mr Tom Wilson, Mr Wes Streeting, Ms Anne Madden and Mr Alan Tuckett
They are very single focused basically. Yes, I think this is now at the forefront of students’ minds and there are some issues there potentially, yes, but they are constantly thinking throughout their course actually at the moment potentially, no. about how they get extra skills to beef up their CVs is a really interesting development. Q363 Chairman: Tom, who do you think is left out here? Who is left out of this target-led agenda? Q365 Chairman: Can I just say, the points that Alan, Everyone seems to be nodding to those comments. Anne and Tom made about groups who are not Tom Wilson: I think there are two main groups who touched by the Leitch agenda, are the NUS are left out really. The first group is the millions of conscious of that? One of the great failures over the people who are not in the labour market at all and if last ten years, perhaps, of higher education has the whole system is employer-led, who is speaking been—and this is not a party political point, I think up for them. The other group is the 40% or so of all of us are struggling—how do you get these under- employees who work for employers who frankly do represented groups to engage with what is on oVer? not do very much training at all. In a sense the Does Leitch solve those problems? problem with the Leitch agenda, which we broadly Wes Streeting: The benefit of Leitch is that once supported, was that it assumed that all employers again it has reinforced the importance and principles were basically benign and keen on training and, which lie behind getting more people active in frankly, our experience is very much that is not the education and receiving the skills and training they case. We do not really think that Leitch paid need to succeed in a workplace, and again anything like enough attention to the people who are underlining not just the social case for expansion of either not in the labour market at all or are churning higher education and widening parts of post-16 around, in and out. In some ways, just to echo what education more broadly, but the economic case for Anne was saying, if there had been a bit more that too. I think there are problems in the delivery, analysis and discussion of the equalities and the emphasis on delivery through employers and diversity dimension of the labour market and the employers as the gatekeeper, I certainly agree with real diYculties that many, many disadvantaged Tom is a significant issue. For us, I think we have an groups have—women, Bangladeshis, single-parents, increasing challenge as a result of expansion about the unskilled, the older workers over 50—whether how, as the National Union but also students union they are employed or not, many of those simply do locally, we represent the interests of a very diverse not get the chance to have any experience of training group of learners. Whilst there have been significant at all. steps forward, and there are some excellent models of good practice amongst our membership, we still Q364 Chairman: Tom, obviously your organisation have some way to go in that. Certainly for us is involved with students throughout, not just simply reaching out and engaging part-time students, mature students and work-based learners is higher education students. We heard earlier from the Y Vice Chancellors representing the higher education incredibly di cult. It is something we are very sector that there was evidence that literally millions actively looking at, but at the moment there are no of people wanted to have the skills. Where is the magic solutions, I think, for NUS and students evidence from the NUS’s point of view that there are unions in the medium term, it remains a really millions of potential students knocking on the doors significant strategic challenge if we are going to be of universities and colleges and other training the legitimate and representative voice of all providers? Do you have any? students in the UK. Wes Streeting: I am not quite sure it is the right emphasis to say that there are literally people Q366 Chairman: There is obviously a lot of support knocking on the door, if anything we are desperately for your comments across the whole of the panel, but trying to get out there and explain why this agenda I am going to come back to you, Alan. The Leitch is so important, why skills for life is becoming so agenda is very much focused about upskilling. critical and if that is not the case why on earth are we NIACE is an organisation that is very, very spending so much money on publicising the fact that concerned with lifelong learning, making sure that is the skills agenda is so important. Clearly there are embedded into the schools agenda. Is it possible to people out there who have a need and a potential to have those two separate targets brought together succeed if they gain those skills, but I think the and, if Leitch is not the answer, what is the answer? emphasis at the moment is still so much on Alan Tuckett: If you do not have a participation explaining the pathways that are available and target as well as qualifications targets, you do not explaining the benefits. Certainly for students who notice who is paying the price. What we have got are already in education we are seeing now more and currently is a small number of people increasingly more emphasis on employability and certainly getting qualifications through the Train to Gain students in higher education are becoming a lot programme but our survey this year shows a more savvy about employability. I was quite taken dramatic drop for all the core groups that aback when the Department for Innovation, government is after. Never mind the marginalised Universities and Skills undertook their citizens’ groups who you probably started with Full-time juries at the extent to which employability was one employees, 7% fewer of them saying they have been of the key issues that came out in that. We are aware involved with learning over the last three years since that students are keen to get jobs when they two years ago; part-time workers the same; C2s, a graduate, of course they are, but the extent to which key group for government thinking, 8% down; DEs Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 68 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
9 July 2008 Mr Tom Wilson, Mr Wes Streeting, Ms Anne Madden and Mr Alan Tuckett have not shifted in ten years; 25 to 34 year olds 7% help the employer to see that, then where it works down. Now if you were to describe a demographic, well employers do work with brokers and drawdown and we are attempting to engage with the principle Train to Gain funding and work in that way. I think that learning is what matters, you would be worried as the previous witnesses were saying that is very to see such a dramatic drop. At the heart of that is a patchy. What is interesting about Train to Gain is belief government seems to have that short courses that in some regions it is working quite well, in are of no intrinsic value in themselves. To go back to others much less well, from which you would deduce the question you were asking Wes, if you do not it is the delivery of it rather than the original concept motivate people, if you do not give them the chance which is the problem. I think that is what we find in to put their toe in the water and do something that some ways because where it has been loosened to be they feel some agency over, they do not sign up with able to work more flexibly with what employers need a passion to the long full-fat qualification. I think the so that, for example, this notion that if you originally diYculty is not the aspiration, it is the view that had a level 2, that is it, you are never entitled to get qualifications are the only way to get there when one again, where they can begin to chip away at that they really work for labour market entrants, they a bit and meet people’s needs a bit more openly and really work for young people but they do not work flexibly is far better. The other thing I would say is like that for most adults in the economy in the same that part of the problem that Alan rightly identifies way at all, and we have a one-size-fits-all big boot to about the over-emphasis on qualifications is because attempt to make it work and those people are paying the current qualification system is too cumbersome, the price. too big, it needs to be broken down, modularised in the way that has been discussed and were that to Q367 Chairman: Anne, you were nodding there, do happen—and we would very much like to see that you want to briefly say something? speeded up—that could help enormously. What we Anne Madden: I agree with that. I think one of the find with our union members is that they do value issues for Leitch was about trying to increase qualifications enormously, but the problem is this productivity through putting more skills into the notion of a full-fat level 2 or nothing. There is an labour market, but in order to do that we need to awful lot that needs to be done to make it work well. move more people through the diVerent levels. What We would take issue with the notion that Train to we are not doing, what is not there, is any real focus Gain is inherently flawed, it is more to do with the on progression. There is a lot of progression in way it has been delivered and some of that is principle, but in practice in terms of implementation improving. there is no real methodology built in to achieve that. It would have been great to have had some Q369 Mr Marsden: Anne Madden, one of the issues progression targets. It would have taken cleverer you always come across in these sorts of inquiries is civil servants than me to create them, I am sure, but, the eVects of unintended consequences. When the nevertheless, I think that is what this whole agenda Government issued its Raising Expectations paper at is about, it is about taking people from there and the beginning of the year there was a lot of discussion moving them up there. That is how we are going to around it, but I think there is some concern that one get the high level skills that the economy needs and of the unintended consequences of it may be to make that is what individuals need. If I can just say, what the situation for adult learners in particular worse. I we do not have in the entitlements is any focus on just want to bounce oV you—given your position at renewable skills or renewing skills so, in fact, people EHRC—a quote from the submission from NIACE could achieve a level 2 and sit with a level 2 forever to the Government on this. They said that: “ . . . if you are of a certain age because there is no NIACE was both surprised and shocked that entitlement to be retrained in something which is Raising Expectations did not appear to assess the economically viable and which is going to get you a impact of change upon the Government’s agendas good job. I think there are a lot of barriers in there for fairness and equality”. Is that a concern that which we need to address if we are going to make the you share? system work. Anne Madden: It is absolutely, yes. There was an assessment of the original skills strategy, an equality Q368 Chairman: Tom, I just want to return to this impact assessment, looking at the impact on a whole point, and then I will bring in my colleague, Gordon range of groups in the community. We would have Marsden. This issue of reskilling has come out time expected the Raising Expectations consultation and time again during this inquiry. How do you, as similarly to have done that exercise. I think I am the TUC, and how do the unions actually approach right in saying we searched high and low but we this with employers to say what actually matters is could not find that assessment. I do not know if any people in jobs which are going nowhere gaining the of the other witnesses were able to do that. I think it skills to move on to go somewhere else? There is no goes back to my original point that that absolutely incentive for employers to engage with that agenda, should have happened because, you are right, there is there, or do you think there is? How could it be? are unintended consequences. The consequences are Tom Wilson: I think Train to Gain is trying to create that large numbers of people, and in fact those who those sorts of incentives and where it works well and are most in need often of acquiring the sorts of skills a Train to Gain broker can identify the skill set of the that this agenda is about, are left out of the workforce is no longer relevant and they need to arrangements for delivering them. Yes, I think you upskill and retrain and so on, and the broker can are absolutely right. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 69
9 July 2008 Mr Tom Wilson, Mr Wes Streeting, Ms Anne Madden and Mr Alan Tuckett
Q370 Mr Marsden: Okay. Nevertheless, it is the case footprints there might be agreed criteria about the that the Government’s strategy at the moment is way in which Train to Gain could be flexed within very much about investing large sums in specific skill that particular footprint”, there are all sorts of ways trajectories. The Government would argue as well in which, as Alan says, you could then begin to build that they in any case, and of course they have an up a much more flexible way of using Train to Gain. informal learning consultation out, are doing quite Many employers say this too, they say what they find a lot on learning for its own sake. I wonder if I could is that Train to Gain is far too rigid and is not flexing come to you, Alan, because you have said again that in the way it was originally intended to do. I think if some of the informal learning things are not being you couple that with a much more flexible approach captured in the way that those programmes are to qualifications, and I do repeat our members do being done. We talk a lot about enabling skills, soft want qualifications but, exactly, as Alan says, of skills, the Government talks a lot about enabling those kind of bite-sized chunks that you can put skills and soft skills. Is there not a way in which their together and employers are not necessarily opposed imperative to follow the Leitch agenda and to get to that, what they are concerned about is getting the people with qualifications and enabling skills and skills they need and if they can be accredited, fine. your agenda, which is to get people back on to the The problem from an employer’s point of view is ladder of learning through the short confidence that often it is only the whole thing or nothing. building informal thing, can be matched? Alan Tuckett: I thought that used to be called other further education. Huge amounts of qualifications Q372 Mr Marsden: Finally, on that point, because I of the kind that Tom was talking about, unitised think you were here for the previous session and you programmes, often accredited by the open college heard what the FE/HE representatives were saying. network, demonstrated that people were picking up Do you think FE and HE are doing enough yet to soft skills, engagement with other people, picking a meet the bite-sized vision that is the future that you portfolio that fitted their own lives en route to are putting forward? mapping that against what employers would want in Tom Wilson: In a word, no. terms of career chances for them. That is the provision that has paid the price from the narrowing Q373 Ian Stewart: A general point: 1972 UNESCO to the targets. You will see this most dramatically, 4 Report Learning To Be said that lifelong learning the problem about the big full fat qualifications and should be the core of education. Have we achieved their diYculty of fit for people acquiring skills, when that? Does Leitch help or are we going backwards? you look in the Skills for Life area which is a terrifically successful programme for Government. Alan Tuckett: We have gone on an extraordinary It has helped millions of people improve reading, journey in the last ten years. We looked like we really writing and language skills, however the target in had the aspiration to do both things, the economy tightening budgets with a tougher CSR round, and the richer citizenship development side of privilege people with the shortest journeys to things. We then got panicked, as we periodically do, qualification who can progress quickly and yet we by industrial competitiveness internationally and know poverty is most powerful at entry level 2 and narrowed it to a bleak utilitarianism which has below and gets replicated inter-generationally. That undone pretty much all the good we did in the first is really where the diYculty is, it is the tweaks that years, I am afraid. That would be my summary of allow us to learn as we go along. Tom is right, Train how we are doing towards the wider agenda. The to Gain has— pity of that is that hurts industry as well as the other agenda. The separation of learning for social cohesion and personal enrichment and learning for Q371 Mr Marsden: Can I briefly bring Tom in on work is unhelpful for they interplay with one that point. We are talking very structurally here another. If you have got the confidence to learn in about how you can chase them. Union Learning one place it leaks across to another area and that is Reps, great success, the Government is listening to something we seem to have lost: the confidence to you and wants to expand the role. Is there a way in trust people to get it right. You expect Government which you could, via the Union Learning Reps to set targets but they should be modest ones, leave system, intervene more actively to get that sort of people the chance to do what you were saying, a little unitisation away from the full-fat system which bit around the edges so they can make it fit for would enable both the Government to meet its purpose. targets and you to meet your aspirations? Tom Wilson: Absolutely. What we would very much like to do is work towards a system where Union Q374 Mr Marsden: I want to move on to ask some Learning Reps were working very closely and questions around skills accounts and where they are actively with the brokers so that together they could taking us. We all know the previous history of a go to the employer and say, “Look, maybe if you good idea, hell among thorns or thieves or however were to flex the Train to Gain funding rules in these you want to describe it. This is ILA accounts mark sorts of ways, for example to drawdown additional 2 in some ways, is it not, but we still have very little funding where people had had a level 2 but some flesh on the bones as to how they are going to time ago, where there was a need for upskilling that operate, in my view. Tom Wilson, is that a fair view was clearly identified in that workplace, where, for and, if it is, have you got any proposals to put any example, within particular Sector Skills Council flesh on them? Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 70 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
9 July 2008 Mr Tom Wilson, Mr Wes Streeting, Ms Anne Madden and Mr Alan Tuckett
Tom Wilson: I think there is a lot of discussion going envelope of funding and support for training for on but I think you are dead right, I do not think post-25s. Of course, Government is responding in people have yet got to a clear concept of what a new terms of IAG with the Adult Advancement and skills account might look like. For us, the key Careers Service. What is your view at the moment as features would be, firstly, that the range of kinds of to how far that is likely to do the sorts of jobs that qualifications or training or opportunities that they you have been describing? Perhaps you would like to could pay for would be as wide as possible, and not, say a bit more about the National Learning as Alan was saying, some rather narrow utilitarian Outreach Service? approach that was just very tightly focused. Alan Tuckett: It is very hard, as with the skills Secondly, I think they were collectivisable and there accounts, to see quite where the developments of the is this interesting concept, the collective learning Adult Advancement and Careers Service are really funds, which we pushed for and secured inclusion of fleshing at the moment. Learn Direct’s telephone in the previous FE White Paper where there are line and on-line advice service over the last ten years some pilots being explored now in the East Midlands has shown terrific development. How do you and the North West. The idea is there that workers integrate that locally with labour market could pool their learning accounts working with information, with the kinds of choices and Train to Gain, perhaps, with employer funding too, knowledge about the complexity of the system you create a collective pot and in that way get far more have been hearing before? You will not get that out than the sum of its parts because training, generally, of aggregating JobCentre Plus advisers and the bits most employers would, I think, prefer to do in a of the Careers Service relating to adults which systematic way with a group of workers rather than surround that service, you will not quite get the just one-by-one. coherent picture that Tom was pointing to. Whereas I think Union Learning Reps, learning champions Q375 Mr Marsden: Wes Streeting, forgive me for where we have seen them, point towards something saying so, I have sat on other education select that is, at least at the moment, missing from the committees and it has become an annual ritual when discussion, which is the need for people who have V the NUS turn up before select committees to say that been turned o education and training to have they are moving on, if I can put it that way, to look people who go out and negotiate the possibilities at the issues in respect of adult learners and getting with them. So that as well as the more passive, involved with more older students and all the rest of reflective advice and guidance service being it. On this particular area of skills accounts, what available to people I think you have to go thoughts have the NUS got? proactively, and that is what I see the great strength Wes Streeting: I think certainly funding is an of the Union Learning movement. important part of the dimension, but for us it is also about empowering individuals to make informed Q378 Mr Marsden: Finally, can I come to you, choices in a system now that is increasingly diverse Anne, because in response to my earlier question and oVering a very diverse range of qualifications. you said that the Commission had been concerned My concern is Dearing said that it is all very well about the lack of that equality check, if you like. On having a whole series of pathways but you need the principle of once bitten twice shy, what are you signposts to guide people on the way— going to be able to do practically to have your voice heard on those issues when it comes to the roll-out Q376 Mr Marsden: That is all very general. You sat of the skills accounts and it comes to the Adult on the Burgess Inquiry, have you got any specific Advancement and Careers Service? thoughts? Anne Madden: We are already talking to oYcials Wes Streeting: Certainly for information, advice about how those initiatives are shaping up. We do and guidance in terms of adult learners I think there have some ideas about Outreach, particularly with is a massive gap in provision and lots of emphasis on the Careers Advancement Service. giving information, advice and guidance to young people. Even at the moment there are very welcome Q379 Mr Marsden: Ministers? developments coming forward from Government Anne Madden: Of course we should be talking to and ministers and both departments talking about a ministers and I hope we will be. We are a new renewed push on information, advice and guidance, organisation and we are putting our programmes in particularly in light of the 14 to 19 agenda. Again, place at the moment. What I would say is this is a this is taking place exclusively around young very important agenda for the Equality and Human people’s interests and we are not talking enough Rights Commission. There is the whole issue about about adult learners too. I think in terms of making enabling people to acquire skills and progress and V a real di erence to people and getting people also to use them, because what we have not talked knocking at the door, first of all you need the about here is underuse of skills in the economy, and signpost to point them in the right direction. that is massive too, particularly for women who have been out and for older learners. There are some very Q377 Mr Marsden: Alan, I heard last night at real issues. What we do not want to be is an another occasion Baroness Sharpe, who of course organisation which just raises the problems and sits for the Lib Dems in the Lords, talking very points to the fact that there are not equality impact eloquently about how it really would not be very assessments but which also helps to develop some of problematical for the Government to push the the solutions. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 71
9 July 2008 Mr Tom Wilson, Mr Wes Streeting, Ms Anne Madden and Mr Alan Tuckett
Q380 Mr Marsden: We have had a very welcome— would very much like to have the right to collectively at least I think it is very welcome—commitment bargain on training included in the statutory list of from the Government in the Equalities Bill to widen issues along with pensions. You would expect me to it to include age discrimination. Is age say that! discrimination in the provision of education and skills and training something that you might take Q384 Dr Turner: It is a very valid point. up? Alan Tuckett: I think the way we have structured Anne Madden: I think very much so. Alan and I have Train to Gain makes it very diYcult for it to be been talking along the same lines today and we are uniformly beneficial everywhere. You get a very conscious of the disadvantage that the Leitch relatively small amount of money as a provider if implementation arrangements have, particularly for you are running a Train to Gain operation because older learners so, yes, that is an agenda which we will often you are dealing with small numbers of workers be taking very seriously. and only one site for it, so the temptation is to go as much as possible to assess existing skills—assess, Q381 Mr Marsden: Perhaps it might also be worth assess, assess—rather than to address Leitch’s real adding to them that there are ageing academics and agenda which is helping the country learn more to be part-time lecturers in various institutions who would more fit for the skills challenges of the future. We be grateful not to be fobbed oV with retirement at have seen a rounding down or up of what constitutes too early an age! a full-fat level 2 now towards somewhere around 130 Anne Madden: We will do what we can about that. hours of study which is the equivalent, is it, of five A- C GCSEs over years for young people. The Q382 Dr Turner: We have not looked at the content redescriptions that go on in the running of the Y of the programmes on oVer to see whether they are programme make it very di cult to answer your appropriate. Does the quality appropriateness of the question stably and sensibly across all the sectors programme content have any eVect on the uptake of where it might apply, but what I think we mostly things like Train to Gain? Tom? need to do is be sure that this programme is working Tom Wilson: Very much so. One of the things that well before we triple the size of it and close down we would very much like to see is a far stronger right other routes to learning. I think Train to Gain is a for there to be collective bargaining on training really good addition, but it is a small addition to a where ULRs would sit down with employers and portfolio of responses to learning, not the thing that talk about not just how much training was provided should wipe everything else out. but also the kind of training and the quality and content of the curriculum that was oVered. What we Q385 Dr Turner: No-one has said anything about find very often is that ULRs will talk to their the quality of the trainers. members at the workplace, their members will say, Alan Tuckett: Frankly, if I was a principal, apart “Well I went on that course last week and frankly it from thinking 14 to 19s is a much safer area to be in, wasn’t much good, it wasn’t quite right for me”. The as many of them have been doing, moving out of the employer does not hear that, for all sorts of reasons, adult market, I would say that it is much cheaper to but ULRs do and ULRs can sit down with the have an assessor doing a good deal of this work. training manager, whoever it is in a company, and Whilst we are picking up people who are in the start talking about, “Maybe we could change that workplace, skilled but not yet qualified, then what course or get a better course or a diVerent course” happens when you need to train people down the and that is exactly the kind of thing that they do. If road? Soft structures do not lead you towards there was a lot more of that and a lot more sense of sensible outcomes for people. the learners, the workers, being involved in the kind of course and the course content and so on, I think Q386 Ian Stewart: Do you support the you would see a far greater uptake and continuation Government’s plans for the expansion of of progression. apprenticeships and are they suitable for everybody? Anne Madden: If I can come in on that. I think the Q383 Dr Turner: What kinds of reforms would you expansion of apprenticeships is a good idea, but at like to see to Train to Gain to meet individual needs the moment there is so much inequality within the so they do not go away thinking, “I didn’t learn apprenticeship system that there has to be some anything from that”? focus on getting that right before we roll it out in Tom Wilson: One very simple thing would be a massive numbers. It is a good scheme and I would be requirement that brokers should sit down and talk to in favour of brokering apprenticeships through ULRs. At the moment they are supposedly strongly Train to Gain. I do think that we have to recognise encouraged to do that but our experience on that is that the apprenticeship scheme as it is at the moment pretty patchy, some brokers do and some do not. If has flaws, if I can put it that way, and those all brokers knew they had to do that and to do that absolutely need to be rectified, particularly as it is both with the employer and without the employer in now one of the three staying on route ways. I think the room, brokers might get a rather more rounded the suggestion is that the biggest increase in numbers picture about what really were the training needs of will go through that apprenticeship route way. It is that particular workplace and of the kind of nature a good scheme but I think really it is not quite fit-for- of the demand as well. That is one thing. One other purpose on the equality front at all yet. There are thing, briefly, nothing to do with Train to Gain, is we major issues around gender segregation. The gender Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 72 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
9 July 2008 Mr Tom Wilson, Mr Wes Streeting, Ms Anne Madden and Mr Alan Tuckett pay gap is higher in the apprenticeship scheme than need far more older apprenticeships and we need it is in the labour market and that cannot be right for apprenticeships that are not so gender segregated, as young people entering the labour market or work- Anne rightly says, but the answer lies with employers based training. There are issues for us, certainly. and so far they are singularly failing to step up to the mark. You would expect the TUC to place the blame squarely with employers, and we do, but this is Q387 Chairman: Wes? absolutely a clear example, you could not find a Wes Streeting: If I can add to that. Certainly we clearer example. Were we to have, for example, a strongly support the expansion of the numbers of right to paid time oV or a right to collectively bargain apprenticeships. I think that is absolutely the right on training, those are the sorts of levers we could use way forward. I think areas to watch or areas that to push employers to do what they ought to be ought to be of concern as they move forward on doing. apprenticeships are, first of all, the emphasis on volume should not distract from getting the right people matched to the right apprenticeships for Q388 Ian Stewart: Let me widen this out to the them and I think there is a risk there if we are not whole Leitch agenda. There are some unarticulated careful about how people are linked up to aspects of training like the Manchester University appropriate apprenticeships. The development of tutor, Etienne Wenger, who has developed this public sector apprenticeships is something the concept of communities of practice. What that Government should look very carefully at because it means is in his work relating to apprenticeships is, would expand options and routes for people looking apart from the formal training, when apprentices sit to undertake apprenticeships. A couple of other together, they talk to each other and raise their own issues that we have raised: obviously the exemption level of consciousness about their jobs. Does Leitch of very young workers from the national minimum allow for flexible learning and workplace learning? wage on apprenticeships is a contributor to non- Is there enough emphasis on it in the Leitch agenda? completion rates which damages not just individuals Alan Tuckett: That is what I said at the beginning and wastes money but also damages the perception about the diVerence in the analysis in Leitch and the of successful apprenticeships as well, so that is prescription. The analysis is all about how we have something to look out for. We welcome the fact that to create learning cultures in the workplace. The the Government has asked the Low Pay prescription is qualifications which have a dodgy Commission to look specifically at this issue and relationship with productivity on their own, as hope that we see progress in this area. Finally, people have said. However, there is lots of evidence another area in which we have seen significant that workers like to learn by doing things, from progress made by the Government is in the area of talking to one another, from working convivially in learner involvement and that was certainly the way you describe. In communities, in practice, reinforced by the Further Education and Training courses are a late decision because people want the Act. The LSC are currently researching learner qualifications but actually they want more to know involvement strategies and how successful they have how to do things well. Knowing how to do things been across the sector. I would certainly like to see well, and thinking how we would do it diVerently the outcomes of that research in regard to tomorrow was really what the Leitch analysis was apprenticeships as well and the extent to which about. We need to be a confident country at people on apprenticeships are being involved in learning, and the tools for getting there include shaping their learning opportunities and directing qualifications but they are not by any means limited their progress through apprenticeships. to that. Alan Tuckett: We would like to see a much bigger adult apprenticeship programme, in part to help Q389 Chairman: Any other comments on that or do remind employers of the size and scale of the need to you all agree? recruit qualified adults to meet the labour needs of Tom Wilson: If I could just add. I could not agree the next 20 years. When the first four sector skills more with Alan but, in a sense, you need a culture agreements involved recruiting twice as many young which embeds from top to bottom that notion that people as there are you have a sense of how some of training is itself a collective enterprise. If you look at the common sense in the employment market is not our European competitors, particularly Germany quite attuned to the importance of oVering adult but also France, where they have a clear social routes back. Whilst we have seen some expansion of partnership model of training, where the two sides adult apprenticeships I do not think there is enough get together and it is conceived of very much as a focus on them. joint responsibility, that does translate all the way Tom Wilson: The problem here is employers. If you down to the shop floor where people naturally get take the London Olympics as one example where together and talk amongst themselves about what is there are now several thousand people working on the best way to do it. construction of various kinds, there is a tiny handful of apprentices down there. If you talk to the big construction employers you will get a string of Q390 Ian Stewart: Absolutely. You will be well excuses. “It is all the subcontractor” and the aware, Tom, that there have always been aspects of subcontractor blames the sub-subcontractor and so trade union training that have been unarticulated. on. The Government target now, absolutely right, For example, although trade unions do not train yes we do need a doubling of apprenticeships and we members to become local government councillors or Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 73
9 July 2008 Mr Tom Wilson, Mr Wes Streeting, Ms Anne Madden and Mr Alan Tuckett school governors the training that the trade unions can give a voice to the people you are talking about do fits those people well for those roles and that is and we need to do a lot more to join them into the unarticulated. arrangements, I think. Tom Wilson: Exactly. Q393 Dr Iddon: Alan? Alan Tuckett: It is what my organisation spends its Q391 Ian Stewart: Let me put to you the question I life doing. It is trying to open spaces for people’s put to Lord Leitch himself. Why do you think that in voices to be heard. You were asking the previous all the literature, the reports, trade unions have been panel about structures. It does seem to me if you are almost airbrushed out when each and every a long way from involvement in learning, to have commentator, each and every witness we have had, structures as destabilised as the further education says trade unions play a full and active partnership and skills structure is disabling in itself. If I get into role in all this? a taxi and talk to people about what I do, if you say Tom Wilson: Let me go first. I am not sure it is you do night school, which we have not had since entirely true. It is partly not true because we have 1923, they know exactly what you are talking about. often seen the first draft of something and gone back If I say, adult learning, they have gone to sleep. If to the civil servants and argued like hell to get a bit you think of that as how would you get your voice more mention of Union Learning Reps and so on, heard in a students debate, unlike the kind of but I agree with you that it is an uphill struggle, it stability we were seeing celebrated by HE before or really is. I think there is a bit of a mindset that in schools where we have stability plus for dealing training is not something that workers should be with these changes, in the further education and bothering themselves with. This is a kind of an skills area we have got complete instability in expert thing, you leave it to the professionals. The prospect. I do not see where as a learner you would training manager in a company very often is deeply go to wave the flag and say, “I’m not satisfied” reluctant to expose themselves to a discussion about because there is such instability you do not really training and, bizarrely, when they do they are often know how to do it. If you have a trades union, if you pleasantly surprised and quite keen to carry on the are working in a unionised environment, that is a discussion because they find it very useful. I do think positive thing. If you are a signed up student the there is that kind of mindset that somehow or other NUS helps, but for the vast majority of people who this is something that workers need not bother are outside the system, first you do not know what it themselves with. It is so diVerent on the Continent, V is about, second, you have probably had a bad this social partnership approach is so di erent. We experience when you previously engaged with it and, are making some headway. I do think that the third, there are no mechanisms for listening to you. current Secretary of State, John Denham, has been It is a big agenda to address. particularly helpful on this and he has made some serious eVorts to write the unions back into the script, but we have got a long way to go. Q394 Dr Iddon: There used to be an organisation Chairman: I am going to leave that there. Thank you called, I think, the Workers Education Association. very much for that. Ian has followed this theme— Alan Tuckett: Yes. Ian Stewart: —doggedly! Chairman: Yes, the TUC would be very proud of Q395 Dr Iddon: In all of these interviews we have him. Brian. had on the Leitch agenda not one person on any panel has mentioned the WEA. Does that surprise you? Q392 Dr Iddon: My question follows on from that. Alan Tuckett: They are very productive members If we look at the structures that are expected to and providers of education and training. They are deliver the Leitch agenda, who represents the voice members of our organisation. They do oVer the sorts of those who are going to benefit the employees or of things Ian was talking about around informal the learner or the individual in these structures? education and citizenship and management as well Anne Madden: I think that is a very good question. as the detail of what is oVered by people, but then so We identified something like four million people do other organisations. who are not in work and who are not on welfare and who are out there somewhere. I think those are the Q396 Dr Iddon: Is their voice heard in this people who we need to give a voice to. At the discussion? moment it is not clear where that voice will come Tom Wilson: Yes I think so. I used to work for the from. It will have to come through the arrangements WEA many, many years ago and I am a strong for skills accounts and careers advancement supporter. They work very closely with unionlearn, agencies, I think. We need to do a lot more to give they help us to deliver training in the workplace. those people a voice and how we go about that is They do a much, much wider job, as Alan said. quite a challenge really. We need to be looking a lot There are a whole range of institutions out there. more into community provision, using voluntary Ruskin College is another, perhaps, which has a long organisations and community groups. You are and proud history. Unionlearn, our organisation, in talking about people who do not appear within the a way attempts to knit all that together a bit and documentation. Those are the sorts of groups who work very much in partnership with NIACE, do not get a good airing in implementation Ruskin, WEA and be the voice of those kinds of arrangements but, in fact, those are the people who working people. As Alan rightly says the problem is, Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 74 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
9 July 2008 Mr Tom Wilson, Mr Wes Streeting, Ms Anne Madden and Mr Alan Tuckett sadly, that we only organise in around a third of the beginning when policy is being developed, economy, the other two-thirds does not have such particularly when funding streams are being a voice. designed.
Q397 Dr Iddon: One final question, Tom, perhaps Q400 Mr Cawsey: Wes? starting with you on this question. Are there too Wes Streeting: I endorse much of that. I agree many organisations representing the employers’ certainly with the assertion that the employer voice Y voice, that is the opposite side of the previous has a disproportionate influence and the di culty question? Is the employers’ voice too strong with that is very often that leads to a very short- compared with the beneficiaries’ voice? termist approach to decision-making. A statistic Tom Wilson: I am reluctant to intrude on private that always struck me was a finding by the Scottish grief sometimes because I think the employers are Institute for Enterprise which said that over the course of their lifetime an average graduate will very much at sixes and sevens. If you look at the CBI V recently with its complete volte-face on diplomas undertake around seven di erent careers, three of which came out of a clear blue sky and were which have yet to be invented. The idea that probably contradicted by other employer employers come in and say, “These are the needs for organisations like the EEF and so on, you get the today” has a detrimental impact on meeting the British Chamber of Commerce with a diVerent view skills needs for tomorrow which is why, again, the again. I think one of the problems we have in this lifelong learning structures and giving people the country is the employer voice is fragmented, it is not inability to dip in and out of education becomes so representative and it is not a voice that is important. Certainly there is something of a comfortable with working with organisations like renaissance taking place as far as the learner voice is concerned and on that I very much congratulate the ours and that is part of our problem about social Government for taking a real moral lead because partnership, they need to get their act together. this has had such a real impact on sector agencies and institutions in both further and higher education Q398 Dr Iddon: Too many organisations? who are now far more meaningfully beginning to Tom Wilson: I do not know whether it is too many, engage the voice of learners. The challenge for us is but they do not do a good job. that for organisations both locally and nationally that have championed the widening participation agenda for a long time we have been really slow to Q399 Mr Cawsey: Tom, I was going to ask you catch up. Certainly as I begin my first few weeks as about an expanding role for unionlearn but you NUS president it strikes me that a lot of these covered that earlier, unless there is anything you learners are really diYcult parts to reach, but that want to add to that. Something for you, and perhaps does not mean that we ought to be doing more or we for Wes as well, is that it seems to me that unions are can be complacent about it. Certainly in terms of the having a role in terms of the actual decisions that are central challenge of capturing those people who made about what we are going to go on to do and the currently are not benefitting there is a lot more that right training decisions for them, but to a certain we can do in partnership with trade unions and extent that is the back end of the system, is it not? Union Learning Reps in particular to make sure we What is more important in many respects is are representing learners and also the people we influence in what the policy and the system is in the want to see engaged in learning. I think that is going first place. Do you think you are getting a big to keep me busy for the next year or two. enough say in all that? Chairman: Ian Stewart was very much behind this Tom Wilson: I think it was Samuel Gompers who session so I will give him the very last word before we once said, “What do you want, you just want more”. go and pray. In a sense we would always want more, and we do. It is interesting we have a voice on the LSC, we have Q401 Ian Stewart: Bearing in mind the statements quite a strong voice on the Commission for made earlier about trade unions not being organised Education, Employment and Skills, but it is nothing in the majority of companies in this country, the like as strong as the employer voice. To go back to potential expansion of the concept of trade union the social partnership model, which is very much a learning reps, is there a role, for example, in trade kind of equality, that is what we would strive for and union learning reps not only being involved in the that is what we think would work well. I also think devising of the training materials but in the delivery? that where we do have a voice sometimes in RDAs Secondly, you will be aware, Tom, of the concept of or regional LSCs, some SSCs, we are ignored, roving health and safety reps who are allowed to go frankly, we are treated as fairly tokenistic. You get into companies that are not trade union organised, one or two trade union people who are not given could there be such a potential future role for anything like the space and time they should have, learning reps? but not always, I hasten to add. Quite often we find Tom Wilson: Very much so. It is something we have the chief executive rings us up and is pleasantly been pressing for for quite a while. Interestingly, surprised to say, after a few meetings, “Actually most employers we talk to would support that your people are pretty good, they do a pretty good because what they want is a level playing field. What input”, but we would like much more. We would like they are concerned about is if they are investing in a far stronger say and, as you say, right at the very training they want to make sure the company down Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 75
9 July 2008 Mr Tom Wilson, Mr Wes Streeting, Ms Anne Madden and Mr Alan Tuckett the road is investing in training. If they are investing particular role for ULRs like that, but they could in training because they have a union organisation also be the roving ULRs who could help spread the and ULRs and so on are active, they are more than word and spread the benefits of unionisation, of happy for their ULRs to go and preach the gospel course, beyond that third. down the road. We have strong support for that. Chairman: It is a pity Ian Gibson has left because One way in which we could help to answer that idea that would have been music to his ears as well. Could is through the notion of a super ULR, the next stage I thank you very much indeed Tom Wilson, Wes up. It might perhaps need a little bit more training. Streeting, Anne Madden and Alan Tuckett. Thank They could certainly do the IAG role through the you very much for your presence this morning. My advancement agency, there might well be a thanks to my colleagues. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 76 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Wednesday 8 October 2008
Members present:
Mr Phil Willis, in the Chair
Mr Tim Boswell Mr Gordon Marsden Dr Ian Gibson Ian Stewart Dr Evan Harris Dr Desmond Turner Dr Brian Iddon
Witnesses: Mr David Lammy MP, Minister of State, and Mr Stephen Marston, Director General of Further Education and Skills, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, gave evidence.
Q402 Chairman: Good morning, everyone. Good with former workers from the Rover plant in the morning to you, Minister. Can we say how delighted Midlands a few weeks ago, I think of those men and we are that you are with us this morning, we did not women in a global downturn market with lower quite know whether you would be here. Thank you skills, but I also think of the 2.28 million people who and congratulations on your new post looking after now have literacy and numeracy as a consequence of higher education. Can I, on behalf of our Skills for Life. This is absolutely the right direction Committee, formally thank you for the work you of travel. have done on skills. Mr Lammy: Thank you. Q404 Chairman: I think we would agree as a Committee that the Leitch analysis was a very, very Q403 Chairman: That is appreciated, even though good piece of work. Given the seriousness of it, and we are going to give you a hard time this morning! the fact that by 2020 our competitors will also be Can I welcome also Stephen Marston, the Director upskilling at the same time, they are not going to General for Further Education and Skills at DIUS. stand still while we move upwards, the general Welcome to you, Stephen, I think it is the first time opinion seems to be that if we meet Leitch’s targets you have been before our Committee but we are we will just be where we are now in 2020 compared particularly grateful to see you. Minister, when Lord with our international competitors, whether that is Leitch produced his report I think there was a fairly right or wrong. Given the urgency of the matter, and sharp intake of breath in that the picture that Lord we have counted something like 13 diVerent Leitch painted about UK skills was pretty dire. Do initiatives have come out of the government over you agree with his analysis and his predictions of roughly the last 12 months, consultation papers, what would happen if, in fact, we do not step up to white papers, consultations with employers, where is the plate? the roadmap for all this? Where is the sense of Mr Lammy: Phil, I think it is right to say that for the direction? fifth largest economy in the world it is completely Mr Lammy: The roadmap was our response to unacceptable that there are just under seven million Leitch and we have got a lot to do. No-one would people who have the numeracy skills of round about suggest— an 11 year-old and there are still five million people in Britain who would struggle to get a grade G in Q405 Chairman: With respect, Minister, your GCSE English. I think we all know the historical response to Leitch was to accept his targets. What we reasons for that. Britain has been a country that has are trying to examine is how you are going to meet been able to survive with a small proportion of the those targets. There seems to have been a plethora of country going to universities, having higher skills. reports rather than a real sense of action. You think There have been many low-skilled jobs in the that is unfair? economy, particularly in the north of England with Mr Lammy: I think that is unfair. I will bring a strong manufacturing base and former industries. Stephen in in a minute because, as you can see, I am We are in that position and we are not going to be in itching to answer this. I think it is absolutely unfair that position for 2020. I think the important thing to suggest that the action we are taking on that I took from Leitch when I started in the job, and apprenticeships, the growth we have seen and what obviously it came in as we did our response to we want to see is just a report; it is not just a report, Leitch, was that this was a target that at that point you just have to speak to the young men and women was 13 years away, at this point is 12 years away, so doing apprenticeships to know that. It is absolutely that is a long trajectory of travel. We absolutely have unfair to suggest that the key critical work to Leitch to deal with those people. Today I am even more that we are doing, joining up my Department, DWP, convinced by his analysis and the reason I am more ensuring the Jobcentre is not just about getting a job convinced is because, of course, the economic but also about progression and skills as well, dealing conditions have changed in the period in which I with the 16-hour rule, dealing with single mums, is have been Minister for Skills. When I think of the just a report and not action. Of course, that is action. factories I have been to over the course of this last We are moving this system, and remember we are year in the north-east, the north-west, and I was up moving this system in response not just to Leitch but Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 77
8 October 2008 Mr David Lammy MP and Mr Stephen Marston also to Foster, to make the system more demand-led Q408 Dr Gibson: Kind of league tables, is it? and, therefore, Train to Gain, where we are putting Mr Marston: There is a very strong theme of our money, that billion pounds of spending up to international comparison in it. That was one of the 2011, that is action and you can see that action on most important bits. The wake-up call from Lord factory floors across the country. The extra money Leitch, in a sense, was for years we had been looking we are giving to Unionlearn is action. I do not accept internally at our own national position and that was that somehow we are navel gazing and producing the first time when a really rigorous comparison had reports. This is absolutely about action on the been done internationally across all members of the ground to deliver against what we know we have got OECD. That was the wake-up call. We are way to do. behind, we are not narrowing the gap, other countries have a much better skills base, and if we do Q406 Chairman: You have mentioned there were not do something dramatic about it we will not be two areas of risk to the execution of the post-Leitch economically competitive. That international agenda. One was engagement with employers, trying benchmarking, combined with targets that over the to make sure that employers actually took it up, and next 12 years will get us to that OECD upper today you have got one in 10 employers who are quartile, is a key way in which we can track whether actually involved with apprenticeships. The second we are getting there or not. was to get individual workers, either in work or out of work, to engage with that. That was the other big Q409 Chairman: Are we on target at the moment? danger. Do you feel the strategies you have got in Mr Marston: We have met our interim targets so far, place are actually coping with those dangers or are yes, but some of these trajectories—forgive me if I they still real dangers in terms of the success of this get a bit technical—are not flat lined, they pick up in agenda? the later part of the period. Although we are meeting Mr Lammy: I would say in a measured way that our interims so far, and David referred to the Skills Train to Gain is two years old. It came into shape in for Life success, 2.28 million adults and the Level 2, April 2006, really got going in September 2006, and we are on track for those, it gets steeper and harder that was a wholesale transformation in meeting that from here so there is a lot to do to keep meeting concern that you know employers have had, “The those targets. colleges are not running the courses we want, it is not responsive to what we need”, there is a disconnect Q410 Mr Boswell: Obviously I am aware from my between the local college and what the employer previous experience of the intractability of all of this really needs. We also want Skills Accounts and we and I just happened to fish out for idle curiosity the are piloting and moving to Skills Accounts. We also national targets for 2000, which I have carried ever want an adult careers service and we are piloting and since I was a minister. It is not easy, as we all know, moving to an adult careers service. I do not want to although it is entirely worthwhile. Something you say that the demand-led landscape is completely said, Minister, that was interesting was you were finished, it is not, we are on a journey, and Train to talking about the diYculty of getting employers to Gain is a big part of that journey. It is only two years engage with colleges directly, and clearly that has old as a programme but in those two years it has been uneven and is part of Leitch’s concern. Your achieved a lot. suggestion was that you needed an intermediary in the shape of Train to Gain to do that. Also, through Q407 Dr Gibson: I was going to ask Stephen, how the decisions which are coming through now, for will you know when it is working? Vision is one example the aftermath of the LSC, you are creating thing, strategy and priorities, all that stuV is very a number of other additional bodies. Are you admirable and great, but how do you know when it sensitive at the same time to the problem about is working because many great schemes just stutter proliferation and confusion and clear pathways for to a halt and have not been picked up early enough? the employer faced with all of these bodies, most of We are talking in generalities. How will you know which I cannot remember what they are and they are whether it is working or not? When will you hit the not experts on it, particularly if they are SMEs, to try button if things are going wrong? What would make and find out the path whereby they can help you that happen? contribute to the targets? Mr Marston: There are two ways in which we will Mr Lammy: Tim, as I would expect, there are quite know. The first is that one of the most important a number of issues to unpack in your comments. I things about the Leitch Report was that it had think the first thing to emphasise is what guarantees quantification in it, it set targets. To pick up one have we put into the system for employers over the thing the Chairman said, Lord Leitch absolutely did last short period that perhaps did not exist in your not recommend that we carry on as we are and period in your time. We have got the new remain middle of the pack. One of the most Commission, of course, and you have heard from important things he said was that is not good enough Chris Humphries. Have you heard from Sir Mike and we need to get into the OECD upper quartile, Rake as well in relation to that? eighth best in the world. We have got targets that track year by year by year through to 2020 on what Q411 Chairman: Yes. we need to do if that is what we are going to achieve, Mr Lammy: That is an independent voice in the so we know whether it is working in terms of whether system representing employers at the top table and we are on track to achieve those targets. unions are on board with them in the Commission to Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 78 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
8 October 2008 Mr David Lammy MP and Mr Stephen Marston keep us real to what we say we need to do in terms Mr Lammy: Do you mean in terms of the teachers of Leitch. That is the first thing. The second thing of— that has changed dramatically since your period is that you would have presided over 100 national Q418 Dr Turner: The students. training organisations and there was an unbelievable Mr Lammy: I do not quite understand the question. amount of fragmentation in that period, I think, that we were coming out of and we now have 25 Sector Skills Councils. They are only five years old. In a Q419 Chairman: The people, either the students sense, it is easy for us around this table sitting here coming out of schools to be skilled or people already nationally in Whitehall, but there are two in the workplace, where are they going to come dimensions to what we are saying that are really from? important. One is to say that some sectors are Mr Lammy: That is happening. In relation to the stronger at qualifications and skills than others. young people, we have a big commitment to apprenticeships and there is an appetite there. It fits with what we and colleagues are doing in the Q412 Mr Boswell: Yes. Department for Children, Schools and Families in Mr Lammy: If I go to some of the motor relation to their diplomas, and that is happening, the manufacturers within manufacturing, they have a appetite is there. In relation to adults, you just have strong history of investment in this area. If I am to look at the success of Unionlearn, you just have talking to the IT sector, they are doing fairly well. e- to look at the numbers who have grabbed the Skills are doing very well in this area. Other sectors opportunity presented by Skills for Life, the success traditionally have not been investing and part of of advertising campaigns that we have run around getting them into the Sector Skills Council arena is the gremlins and now “skills: it’s in our hands”. The to say, “This is serious. You have got to get serious appetite is there, adults are coming forward and about this”. I am talking about areas like logistics. I taking up these courses and there is this rejuvenation have had conversations recently in terms of the of training in the workforce, so in that sense I have railways and some of the investment that we need in to be optimistic because I have seen the results of it. terms of staV there. DiVerences between sectors is the other thing. I also want to say there are big diVerences regionally. I go up to— Q420 Dr Turner: That is very pleasing, but if there are any diYculties who is actually taking responsibility for owning these targets and who is Q413 Chairman: Yorkshire? accountable for making sure that they are actually Mr Lammy: I was going to say the north-east. There achieved? Is it yourself? are quite deep connections between industry that is Mr Lammy: Yes, we are accountable. The there and local people and schools and we are seeing Government is accountable and DIUS is bigger take-up within Train to Gain. I then come to accountable. We set the targets and we are London or go down to the south-east and there is accountable to the public and yourselves, but much more fragmentation, coastal towns, a very obviously we are partners in this enterprise. The diVerent picture indeed. That employer engagement Commission is a partner with us, the Learning and looks diVerent in diVerent parts of the country, it Skills Council in a sense has been a success, it has looks diVerent across diVerent sectors, but the met the targets we have asked it to meet, but we are important thing is to put the money in that place, to moving into a diVerent horizon. Just to touch on the have brokers who are independent negotiating with other aspect of Tim’s question, that diVerent companies, to have unions driving this agenda. It is horizon is a horizon where the Bill I took through hugely important to have that voice in the system. It with Jim Knight was about raising the leaving age in is all of that that gets us to where we want to be. terms of young people in employment or training up Chairman: We will explore some of those issues as we to 18. That is a new horizon and that is why it is right go through. to put local authorities in the driving seat of these arrangements, but also moving to a more slim-line Q414 Dr Turner: Do you think the UK is going to system building on the success of Train to Gain, so meet the Leitch targets? we have got a new funding agency, more Mr Lammy: As I leave this post, yes, I do. streamlined, more attuned to the needs of business and, therefore, ensuring the money gets to places Q415 Dr Turner: Can you back that positive quickly and can drive up those skill levels. statement up with some evidence and tell us where the students are going to come from to meet these Q421 Dr Turner: How do you address the question targets? of skills as against qualifications because they are Mr Lammy: The students? not necessarily the same thing? Mr Lammy: Yes. Q416 Dr Turner: Where are you going to get them from? Q422 Dr Turner: You can have highly skilled people Mr Lammy: I am sorry, I am not with you on that. who do not have any paper qualifications and people with the highest paper qualifications in the world Q417 Dr Turner: How are you going to recruit the who have no practical skills. How are you students to train to meet the targets? addressing this? Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 79
8 October 2008 Mr David Lammy MP and Mr Stephen Marston
Mr Lammy: I am really passionate about this their employer. We know that it makes you more question. I want to put my terms in complete politics productive, of course it does. Clearly if you can now here. I want to ask the Committee not to unpick the read, write and add-up, when you could not, and if good work that Leitch has done and the consensus you can now pursue something at Level 2 or, indeed, that we reached on this. All of us in this room have Level 3 within your company then it is a success. If qualifications. If we lose our seats at the next election you speak to someone like Neil Scales at we will present our CVs, we will have our Merseytravel he will say the qualifications that his qualifications and we will move on and hopefully get employees have been able to do have transformed another job. I am absolutely committed here that business. He will also say it is not easy, they are politically that we must not deny those millions of now more demanding and more challenging of him people I talked about previously who do not have as the director of that company. I think that is the qualifications. Let us go back before Leitch. In the measure of success. end what Leitch was challenging was short courses where you got nothing at the end to show for what Q424 Dr Turner: In addition to Train to Gain you had done. What he was challenging and trying employees, and that is clearly understood, do you to balance was purely the individual business think there is any further need for training and interest of doing something but not actually being development of attitudes of employers? able to measure what you have done. This is not just Mr Lammy: Yes, there absolutely is. There are two about the Government saying qualifications for sides to that. One is the new Commission, and qualifications’ sake, it is not just about saying we clearly the leadership role the new Commission has. have got to have a benchmark and proxy by which Two is the role of Sector Skills Councils, the re- we can see against other countries where we are in licensing, refocusing of their activity understanding the system, it is about understanding that if you look that it is still patchy in certain sectors. I do just want at those people within Train to Gain in the to put this fundamental point on the table before workforce who have taken up courses, they largely Phil comes back in because I can see he is itching to come from social economic groups D and E. These come back in on this. Let us remember that our are the poorest people in the country. I absolutely business industry organisations spend £38 billion on stand by qualifications because my attitude is very training every year in this country and we as a much that if it is good enough for us, it is good Government spend round about £4 billion, so the enough for everybody else. issue is not us saying that we are the biggest player Mr Marston: Earlier in the year we published some on training and skills, it is saying we have this £4 research evaluation of the impact of Train to Gain billion, how best should we use it to lever in change to both learners and employers. When we asked the in the system. It is our judgment post-Leitch that the learners in Train to Gain what they saw as the most best way to use that spend is on low skills, to change important benefit for them, 93% of them said it was the system to be more demand-led. That demand-led about gaining a qualification. From the learner’s does not just mean employer-led or we would not be point of view the qualification is immensely giving the money we are giving through Unionlearn important and, as David said, is most important for to our unions. That is how we should be using those the people who have no qualifications yet. The boost limited funds, taxpayers’ money, in the areas where to confidence, to motivation, to self-esteem is very, we think employers would not put it, to change the very powerful from getting a qualification and you system. do not achieve that if you only get the skills and they are not badged and certificated and recognised through a qualification. Just as importantly, when Q425 Dr Turner: How well-informed and accurate you ask employers what do they see as the benefit, do you think the information is concerning both the they are also seeing the benefit in their own current skills picture and future skills needs? Who is companies from employees getting qualifications responsible for obtaining and collating this because it changes the motivation, the commitment information? to the company, the sense that the employer is Mr Lammy: Clearly the Learning and Skills Council willing to invest in their own employees and they are has had an important role in this area. We have not demonstrating it through giving the opportunity to yet mentioned the role of Regional Development achieve qualifications. There is a very powerful Agencies who are key partners regionally and synergy and joint benefit if skills are certificated perform key assessments of both skills gaps and through qualifications. skills priorities in their regions that we are responsive Chairman: We need to challenge you on that one. We to. We have now Multi-Area Agreements. In simply cannot let you get away with that! Manchester they are taking skills very seriously, and in Birmingham in terms of their Local Area Agreement they are taking skills very seriously. The Q423 Dr Turner: Are you happy that given you system is responsive to those priorities and gaps as achieve both skills and qualifications in the same and when they emerge. I do want to say to you in the person those skills are then being put to best use? global downturn that we are seeing that of course Mr Lammy: In the end what I think we are trying to you would expect us to say that we want to make do is make the funding available and the system sure that the taxpayers’ money we have is there conducive to people coming forward who have low working alongside colleagues in DWP. Should skills but no qualifications to be able to do that. The people be laid oV, should there be redundancies, measure of success is a trade-oV between them and should there be re-skilling, we want to make sure the Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 80 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
8 October 2008 Mr David Lammy MP and Mr Stephen Marston systems are in the right place for them. We will be between how much time you are spending in the doing all we can and we are sitting round the board workplace and how much time you are spending in of the National Economic Council to make sure that college, but absolutely you are spending time in the skills training and money is there and responsive to workplace. The other thing to say is if we want to see those needs. more small businesses do apprenticeships then Mr Marsden: I wonder if I could just come back to inevitably the apprenticeship contract will you on this vexed issue of skills and qualifications sometimes sit with a group training association, if because I entirely agree with everything you have you like, or a college provider structure because the said, that it is not a question of qualifications for small business has not got the wherewithal, frankly, some of us and vague skills for the rest of us, I to take on all of that. Then you get some of our absolutely agree with that. I am talking now from opposition colleagues suggesting that is not an having met a group of north-west providers and FE apprenticeship, but, of course, it is an college heads last week who are deeply concerned apprenticeship. It is simply understanding that this that what is going on at the moment with this process small 15 man business in Derby needs to be in a real is that providers are, to a large extent, certificating partnership with the local college in order to put on skills that already exist in the workplace, and that is this apprenticeship and have a model where small valuable, but they are not adding to it. There is also businesses can partake. That is the second point. The some evidence that the target driven nature of Train third thing to say is that of course we acknowledge to Gain is making one or two providers cut corners. there are programme-led apprenticeships. They are I heard one example of an NVQ being delivered in a not counted in the figures but there are programme- day, which I thought was horrifying if it is true. How led apprenticeships where young people who are not do we move beyond the valuable activity of yet ready for an apprenticeship—young people who certificating by qualifications skills that are already there to actually developing further skills which, are being supported by the Prince’s Trust, by indeed, in due course may lead to qualifications? Fairbridge or by the YWCA, young people who have drug issues or have had crime issues—are based in the college, of course, in transition to an Q426 Chairman: Before you answer, can I just add apprenticeship. We must not somehow throw these to that. We heard on Monday, for instance, in our young people aside and say this is not an important look at the draft Apprenticeship Bill that most stepping stone to doing an apprenticeship. Many of apprentices are already in work and what is happening is that those skills and training which these young people are in constituencies like mine, so they are receiving in work, somebody is now coming I feel very passionately about this, but they are not in to assess that and moves them on to an in the figures. There absolutely is a work-based apprenticeship, but there is no gain as far as the component to being on an apprenticeship. It is not a employer is concerned in terms of skills because they bean counting exercise, this is a real, real exercise. are already delivering them and all this is really just a Chairman: Very briefly, Stephen, because we must bean counting exercise to meet government targets. move on. Will you wrap all that together? Mr Lammy: I will wrap all that together. Phil, who suggested that on Monday? I did not read Q430 Mr Marsden: Chairman, I would like to Monday’s papers. respond very briefly. Mr Marston: I just wanted to pick up Mr Marsden’s Q427 Chairman: Our witness. You can read the question is there a risk that this is simply a way of transcript. badging skills we already have. In the main we are Mr Lammy: It is complete nonsense. pretty confident that is not what is happening, there is real skills development going on here and this is Q428 Chairman: Will you confirm that the majority not just about badging the skills people already of apprenticeships are actually delivered in the have, they are training and getting new skills. The workplace with existing employees? evidence we have got for that comes from the surveys Mr Lammy: Of course they are. we have done of both learners and employers where, Mr Marston: That does not mean there is no skills of the learners through Train to Gain, 81% said, development. “The Train to Gain training has given me skills to do Mr Lammy: It is total and utter nonsense. a better job in the future”, 73% said, “Train to Gain has given me skills to do my current job better”, 43% Q429 Chairman: I am talking about value-added. are getting better pay out of it, 30% got promotion. We are paying taxpayers’ money to improve the If there is no skills gain going on, why would the skills base. recipients, the trainees, say, “I am getting new skills Mr Lammy: Phil, please, let me just finish on this. I for this job, for a future job. My employer thinks it feel so strongly about this. In the Apprenticeship Bill is worth paying me more. My employer is willing to we are seeking to make absolutely legislatively clear promote me”? All of that is evidence that there is a the quality we believe an apprenticeship has to be. genuine gain of skills that is making people more The first thing to say is that apprenticeships are now productive and able to do their jobs better. This is operating across many, many more sectors of the not just about badging skills they already have, it is economy and, depending on the kind of giving them new skills and the data is showing that. apprenticeship you do, there is a diVerent balance Chairman: It is important we put that on the record. Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 81
8 October 2008 Mr David Lammy MP and Mr Stephen Marston
Q431 Ian Stewart: Firstly, your assertion that all them and take their employees with them. The politicians in the room have qualifications is not evidence was coming through that that was the correct. However, I wholeheartedly agree with your case. We increased that amount to get owners statement that we should be promoting the themselves on that journey. opportunity for everyone. By the way, I also think that should apply to MPs, that we should have the opportunity to train and learn in this place and we Q432 Ian Stewart: I think we can all support the do not currently have that. In relation to two of the enthusiasm that you personally have and the aims key issues of the Government’s strategy, employer- of the Government in enthusing people to train and led and demand-led, we interviewed and questioned gain skills, but the commitment of employers is not the CBI, British Chambers of Commerce and the unquestioned. Some academic researchers are Federation of Small Businesses earlier this week actually questioning what is being presented as and certainly my personal view is There is no employer-led equalling employer commitment, uniform employer as is, their views about the both commitment to the strategy and financial Government strategy and what their requirements commitment. There are questions about that. What and demands are diVerent from the diVerent evidence have you got that employers will play their organisations representing diVerent types of part financially? Are the CBI, the British Chambers employer. I was left with concerns about whether of Commerce and the Federation of Small the small business sector really wants qualifications Businesses fully signed up to the Government’s at all and really wants training and qualifications implementation of Leitch? that are transferable. My understanding from Mr Lammy: That is a fair question. Ian, one, I say Monday’s session was that at the smaller end of the it is a 2020 vision. Two, the spend that employers scale particularly they just want the employee to be are putting into training is going upwards at the able to do the job that they want them to do at that moment, it is going in the right direction. Three, point in time. First of all, can you define for me we as a Government, you are right—let us get to “demand-led”? Secondly, how do you balance the the heart of the politics of this—in the absence of demands of individuals, employers and national levies, because that is the politics of it, let us be policy? Should this vary between skills level or clear about it, it is the elephant in the room that has sectors? not been put on the table yet, are putting drivers in Mr Lammy: My definition of “demand-led” is the the system to encourage those employers who have Leitch definition. It is a definition that challenges been more reluctant. That is what the right to suppliers to be more responsive to both individuals request time for training is about. In the same way and employers. Inevitably, we are concentrating in that people have requested flexible working, it is this session at this time on employers and that is putting the power in the hands of the individual to largely because of Train to Gain. In a couple of say to their employer, “I would like to do some years we will be talking more about individuals training”. We are doing that. We are giving people because of the individual Skills Accounts that will individual Skills Accounts so they can see the be there for people and because of the adult careers quality of learning and have a portfolio of learning service. Demand, in a sense, is coming from the that is in their name. We are giving them an adult people themselves, whether it is people within the careers service so that in a market in which jobs workforce or people simply wanting to go into may well come and go people can see and hear and colleges, but moving colleges from where they are get that information and guidance that has not at. I come back to the point I made earlier, and it been in the system. At the same time, we are is to agree with you. £38 billion is being spent by working with our unions through Unionlearn to be business and industry organisations on skills, but a on the factory floor, to not have government third of UK business is spending nothing at all on ministers proselytising about learning, but to have skills. There is a tension in many, many businesses your colleague nudging you saying, “I did it, you of self-interest, narrow interest, short-term interest, can do it”. This is not some sort of top-down Train which can be about just the skills you need for their to Gain, this is lots of activity within that. business. There are some other things I need to put on the table here. One is the simplification of the system in relation to our further qualification and Q433 Ian Stewart: Let me just press you on that. curriculum reform moving to a more modular We had Lord Leitch before us and I pressed him system, the QCF piloting, that gives that mobility as to the role of trade unions, for example, and he and transparency we need in the system. Two is to was eVusive, he said they play an absolutely key emphasise the point that I made previously about and fundamental role. Then I asked him why then qualifications. The first thing I did when I came was there little or no mention of trade union into post was to increase the amount of money for involvement and commitment within the Leitch leadership and management for particularly the Report itself. I pointed out to him that the TUC owners of small businesses. I took the view that was mentioned on about the second to last page. increasing that spend was important because if the David, how do you square your unprompted owners themselves have gone on a course, and we mention of trade unions and their involvement and are fairly flexible about what they think they need where do education providers and trade unions fit as a owner, there is quite a lot of flexibility about into this triangle? It is now being articulated by that, they get the bug, they realise what it did for you, but why is it not in the written material? Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 82 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
8 October 2008 Mr David Lammy MP and Mr Stephen Marston
Mr Lammy: As you know, I have tried to increased and (b), perhaps more importantly, that emphasise always the work of trade unions. Spend it will increase. Perhaps, David, that is where I has gone up in relation to the money that we are come to you. You have rightly mentioned about the giving to trade unions. Trade unions are critical to downturn situation and we are planning for the this discussion as far as I am concerned, absolutely long-term, but there is a short-term, medium-term critical, and will remain critical over the next 12 problem with employers, is there not, in that it is years it seems to me. I was in the Boots going to be very diYcult to get them to put the sort Distribution Centre in south-east London, which is of increased investment that you want to see, which a centre that is going to be closing down, and we all want to see, in the next couple of years given unions have played a critical role in giving those the economic downturn. If that is the case, what folk skills training that many of those people flexibility, and this has been suggested to me by a thought they would never be able to do. I have got number of people, has the Government got for to go back to Foster. Foster said in his report: doing some sort of deal with them where it says, “There are highly conflicting needs and interests in “We’ll do a bit of funding in the first year but you the sector between employers, learners and have really got to plough in in years two and government, all and none of them are being met”. three”? He questioned the rationale of those courses Mr Lammy: There are two questions there. The without their apparent connection to employers. first is when you mentioned providers, college Now, go back to 2005 before we had Train to Gain. principals, and there is deep scepticism, I have got We are pushing providers to move in a particular to say I would be surprised if there was not some direction and I do not want to see us go back to deep scepticism from providers and suppliers the picture that Foster painted. I say that Train to because we are forcing them to be more responsive Gain is critical, Unionlearn is critical, the to employers who were grumbling previously that individual learner and their empowerment, whether they were not doing the courses that were necessary it is through the right to request time to train or in the workplace. That is what politics is about, it the Skills Account, is critical. is that people are going to be a little bit sceptical of the direction of travel because the pendulum in Q434 Ian Stewart: Can I stop you there and pose politics always wants to swing back to the status the question again. At the outset I said that some quo and the status quo was what Foster and Leitch researchers are questioning the commitment of were writing about. employers within an employer-led system and employers’ commitment financially as well. The Q436 Mr Marsden: Forgive me, David, I am not concern they seem to have is that the employer going to completely let you get away with that. commitment is not stabilised, is not growing, it may Mr Lammy: It is true though. even go backwards and the Government may end up increasing its financial commitment to make Q437 Mr Marsden: A lot of the college principals, sure all this works. How do you ensure that does and particularly the north-west we are talking not happen? about, are people who have engaged very strongly Mr Marston: I do not think the data bear that out. with employers in the past. They are not saying Every couple of years we do a national employers’ they are not engaging with them, they are merely skills survey and, as David mentioned, employers’ saying they are sceptical either about their own money investment is going up, it has gone up willingness or their ability, which is perhaps more from about £33 billion to £38 billion now, and an important in the present circumstances, to put increasing proportion of employers have training more money in. plans, an increasing proportion of employers have Mr Lammy: Okay. On that second point, both to training budgets. There is a lot more to do. It is a the point that Ian and yourself were making big mountain we are trying to climb, but we are passionately, I am not sitting here saying all going in the right direction. We are confident that employers are playing ball, I am not sitting here the more we can show to employers that we are saying all employers are investing in skills and serious about meeting their needs, we are not just training of their employees, I am not saying that. foisting on them things that we think are good for I am saying I am trying to better the system, we them and they do not agree, we are trying to do are putting in levers and those levers do stop short things, training, skills, qualifications, that have real of levies for employers. We have been absolutely value and merit for them, and if they believe that clear on that, but also said we will revisit that at then more and more of them will be willing to the appropriate point. engage in that. Q438 Mr Boswell: That is the nuclear deterrent, Q435 Mr Marsden: On that point, could I just say is it? to Mr Marston that I think it would be extremely Mr Lammy: No, because that brings with it other helpful if you could provide the Committee with arguments about does that really work and you can factual detailed analysis of how those figures were then get into arguments about employers becoming obtained. I can only say, and I think I probably complacent about skills because there is a pot of speak for other colleagues, there is a deep, deep money over here. That is another future discussion scepticism out there among training providers, FE that the Committee may want to explore. In the principals and many other people (a) that that has absence of that I am trying to indicate to you that Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 83
8 October 2008 Mr David Lammy MP and Mr Stephen Marston we are applying pressure in lots of diVerent places. Committee we cannot see where the commitment is In relation to what you are saying about this global from people to invest (a) in individuals where there downturn, of course it is right to say that there are is no real benefit to their business or (b) why they some sectors that will be aVected by this and would invest in higher education because there is certainly I have had representations from not all no evidence to say that would happen. Where is but parts of the construction sector. I have had your evidence that this is all going to happen? Do representations from parts of the retail sector. you appreciate the point I am making? There are other sectors—IT—where growth is Mr Lammy: I do appreciate the point you are expected to continue, for example, and there are making. I suppose I am prompting you to look strong parts of our manufacturing base because it further because I am saying that clearly you have to is in the high skilled technology area where also look at the Skills Accounts that we are piloting and growth is expected. Across 25 sectors of the you will want to take an interest in that. economy you would not expect it to be uniform. Indeed, someone said to me the other day, “This Q440 Chairman: I accept that. must mean that apprenticeships are not going to Mr Lammy: Clearly you will want to have a look at arise”. Do not forget, for example, with the careers and advancement service that is critical apprenticeships we are also saying that we as the to people’s empowerment to take up skills and drive Government and the public sector need to pull our the system and drive demand. Clearly you will want weight, so we have got to see huge growth in public to ensure what we are doing in joining up Jobcentre sector apprenticeships and I do not think the V Plus and the Next Steps service is removing the economic downturn should really be a ecting that. incentives, if you like, that have existed in Jobcentre Flexibility was behind your question and you are Plus to focus too narrowly on just getting someone absolutely right, there has to be flexibility. We are into a job. We have all seen someone who has a job moving in that direction with the compacts that we for two or three months and they come back to us, are signing with individual Sector Skills Councils they have lost the job because they have not got the where we are getting into the nitty-gritty of what skills progression. Clearly the integration of is required in your particular sector that is relevant employment and skills is critical, goes to the heart of for your particular sector. There are some sectors what you are saying, and we will want to ensure that where they want to place the emphasis, for over the next few years we really see that join-up and example, on higher skills and we are responsive people really experience that join-up on the ground. there with Level 3. There are some sectors where I think the second part of your question comes back there is a quid pro quo on apprenticeships, and we to the point that I made previously, and that is where are willing to do that. We must always keep in should Government best spend its money. We have mind, of course, the taxpayers’ priority in this taken the view that we are happy to subsidise young discussion and, broadly speaking, as I say, they adults up to the age of 25 at Level 3, but at Level 3 were underlining and support Leitch. and beyond we think the balance has got to be a partnership between us and business, that it should Q439 Chairman: Can I just ask you one thing, not be Government subsidising in entirety Level 3, David. We have spent nearly an hour on these first Level 4 skills, it has got to be a partnership between three questions and we have a lot to go through, us and industry, therefore we have got foundation so if we can all speed up. That is not a criticism degrees and that is hugely important for people because we are enjoying very much the discussion progressing. Absolutely we want to see co-funding. with you. My concern about this whole agenda, I am really excited about my new job because I think and Des, Tim, Gordon and Ian have raised it, is in one of the central issues in my job with higher terms of the Leitch agenda he was looking ahead education is that conversation between universities to 2020 and the sorts of skill levels that we will need and employers and making sure there is a strong in order to be able to compete in an economy in cadre of courses and partnerships for adults. 2020 and we do not know it will look like. We have really got to up the skill level. He also made the Q441 Chairman: Nobody would disagree with your point that 70% of the 2020 workforce has already aspirations, David, but where is the evidence that left school and is actually in the workplace or in anybody is going to do it? Which other country in some employment. Whilst the whole business of the world has employers investing in undergraduate Skills for Life is making sure people with no qualifications for the sake of undergraduate qualifications get those, nobody around this table qualifications? I do not see it. Stephen, you have the would disagree with you, the real challenge is what evidence, do you? do we do for those people who are in work who Mr Marston: Can I oVer some pointers at least want and need the skills of tomorrow but the because you are absolutely right, this is hugely employer does not see those as relevant to his ambitious. Millions of people need to be motivated business? How do we incentivise those? How do we to get qualifications they do not currently have, and get the people with Level 3 skills to actually re-skill are we going to get there is absolutely the right in areas where the Government says, “Our policy question. But we can take some comfort from what says first we will fund Level 3, but we will not fund has been achieved so far. One of the hardest things to anything else”? How do you ensure these 20,000 motivate people to do is if you cannot read and you degrees that are going to be co-funded by cannot write and you cannot add up, what is going employers? Where is that coming from? As a to cause you to want to enrol on a programme to do Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 84 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
8 October 2008 Mr David Lammy MP and Mr Stephen Marston that, and yet two and a quarter million people have even he, a professional in the field, had packed up. been motivated to do that. At level 2, 1.8 million How can you convince the people in this policy area people who did not have a level 2 qualification have that the figures are going to get better? come forward since 2001 and they have said, “Yes, Mr Lammy: By telling them that government has that is for me, I want to do it.” Apprenticeships, asked the UK Commission, which is driven by which cover level 2 and level 3, we have doubled the employers themselves, to help us further simplify the number of people starting apprenticeships over the system. It does not get more convincing than that, last 10 years. At higher education, despite all of the really. We recognise that the system needs further changes to the student support system, enrolment simplification. Then you get to the second question: remains very buoyant. If you look at what happened what do you get rid of? Do you get rid of some of the over the past few years we are, bit by bit, Sector Skills Councils, who in a sense can complicate encouraging more people to get more qualifications. the system depending on the sector that they are in? Can we not take some confidence from that, Do you get rid of the mechanism by which to get therefore, that we do know something about how to money to colleges and employers, which is where the enthuse, how to motivate, how to encourage people? Learning and Skills Council has been and where the We have to make it clear to them that it is worth new body will sit? Do you say, “We do not want a investing their time, their money, their eVort, but in Careers and Advancement Service”? Do you say, increasing numbers they are seeing that case and “We do not want an apprenticeship service”? Once they are coming forward and they are enrolling. you get to “we need to simplify the system” you then get to the hard issues, which is what do you want to get rid of, and people start to go quite mute on that. Q442 Chairman: You cannot point to a single So we have asked the UK Commission for country where employers are investing significantly Employment and Skills to look at this, and broadly in undergraduate qualifications upon which you are speaking what they are saying is, “Look, this is modelling your aspirations for the first 20,000 co- about hiding the wiring; and this is about us making funded higher education degrees. Can you or can it as simple as you can for your average small you not, Stephen? business in the middle of England to understand Mr Lammy: I was in one last week. how they can access skills training and equality”. And there we are currently doing things like the Q443 Chairman: Which one? Train to Gain brokerage and the joining up with Mr Lammy: Germany is investing a lot of money Business Link to ensure that there is a one-stop shop and employers are right at the heart of that system. really for that advice for the local employer, and that is a huge and important move in the right direction. But broadly speaking we will take up advice and Q444 Chairman: In undergraduate qualifications— challenge from the UK Commission to move level 4 qualifications? forward in a way that is responsive to business. I Mr Lammy: With the greatest of respect, Phil, I accept that the system needs further simplification. would not use the badge “undergraduate” The question is how we do it and we have asked qualifications. business and industry to lead on that for us.
Q445 Chairman: Level 4 then. Q447 Dr Iddon: Let us look at the Learning and Mr Lammy: Level 4, yes, in the sense that—let us be Skills Council. You must be aware that there is quite clear on this—you can do an apprenticeship that a resistance actually to breaking up the Learning and moves, and we not just talking about level 2 Skills Council, which has taken a long time to settle apprenticeships here—level 3 and beyond and down and it has changed its modus operandi, but at Foundation Degrees are all about that investment. least it is beginning to perform now obviously to Chairman: David, could I just say that it would be employers and employees’ satisfaction. Yet the useful if we could have a brief note to say where in Association of Colleges, for example, are critical fact you have your evidence from that this will work that by 2010 what the Learning and Skills Council is in the UK. That would be useful to put in the report. doing now will be done by four more separate units by the end of that decade. Why are you so keen to Q446 Dr Iddon: Good morning, David. I have loads press ahead with disbanding the Learning and of quotes here taken from diVerent witnesses who Skills Council? indicate the high complexity of the present system of Mr Lammy: It is not actually four more, it is two delivering skills and training and these same more. The Learning and Skills Council has been witnesses are not convinced that the new system will successful in meeting the targets that the government be any less complicated or more responsive and has set it but the landscape has changed, it has flexible to the needs of both employees and moved on. There are new and urgent priorities in employers. I think you have a huge hurdle to relation to young people. We want to bear down overcome to convince these people, professionals in much further on the issue of NEETs and raising the the field, that what you are trying to deliver achieves leaving age to 18 is critical in that. We believe and are that. Even one witness, who sat where you are sat committed to a rebalancing of work-based now, a few months ago held up a paper where on the qualification and learning, also practical learning as train he tried to write down all the organisations well as the academic. That leads us then to responsible for delivering skills and training and apprenticeships alongside the new diplomas. That Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 85
8 October 2008 Mr David Lammy MP and Mr Stephen Marston does require change in the system. Then we have this tension there, do you think, between what the other change that we have obviously spent an hour Regional Development Agencies do and what the on this morning, which are the demand-led changes Sector Skills Councils do? in the system. So it has been clear to us that we do Mr Marston: There can be but we recognised some need a locally responsive system, hence the changes years ago that we need to have a way of bringing up to 19, that really in a sense builds on the progress together a regionally-based assessment of skills of the Learning and Skills Council but accepts that needs with a sector-based assessment of skills needs. that local ownership of issues like NEETs, that local The way we do that is through Regional Skills relationship with diplomas, that local relationship Partnerships, which bring together the Sector Skills with employers and apprenticeships is necessary Councils, the RDA, the Learning and Skills Council going forward. Then on our side if you like, the and Jobcentre Plus, so that they are combining the DIUS side of the fence, a streamlined system that assessment of the region and the assessment of the gets the money out to employers and has the sector needs. That then gives the LSC the basis for national apprenticeship service and the new deciding what to commission from colleges and advancement service—and I think that is how you providers in that region. get to four but actually they sit under the new single funding agency. I do not know if you want to come Q451 Dr Iddon: There is a plethora, is there not, of in on that, Stephen. some regional, very local planning bodies? It is so Mr Marston: That is right. In one real sense what is complicated and such a—I think one of our driving this is a commitment to simplification witnesses described it as a bit of a “pig’s ear”, of a because at present for 16 to 19 year olds there is a mess. How are you going to simplify all that? fragmented set of responsibilities where local Mr Lammy: Let me just do this from a constituency authorities do some bits, the LSC does some bits. point of view. Is it a good thing for me as the MP for One of the major drivers to the changes we have is to Tottenham, for the London Borough of Haringey, simplify by putting the local authority in the lead in to be preoccupied with skills, thinking about the making sure that all of the services and all of the strategy it needs on the ground for young, inner-city programmes for young people are strategically led kids in my constituency to get the skills and for their by the local authority for that area. That inevitably parents, many of whom in this context speak English has knock-on consequences for the LSC and it does as a second language and have some real challenges? mean that we are going to need to make a split at age Of course it is. Is it important for the Mayor and the 19, but we should have a clearer, simpler, more London Development Agency to get employers coherent approach that brings together all the around the table, local authorities around the table, services that young people need up to the age of 19. the LSC around the table to have this as one of the Post-19, then, we will focus on delivering for central priorities for London? It was under the last employers through the Skills Funding Agency—and Mayor and it looks like it might be under this new it is just one agency that will do all of our post-19 Mayor—thank God for that. Is it then really skills training work. important for me in London that the public sector steps up to the plate to oVer apprenticeships? Of Q448 Dr Iddon: It is a Skills Funding Agency. course it is because it is unacceptable that there are Mr Marston: Correct. around about 200 apprenticeships in the London Borough of Haringey available for the young people of my constituency. So you get back to this thing: Q449 Dr Iddon: But will that agency also be involved what bits should we stop? This is all about success; in developing future strategy, or is it just going to be this is all about the success of people understanding a funding agency? how important skills and training is, and we have to Mr Marston: It is going to be primarily a funding be absolutely robust about that. That is what is agency but of course to decide what you want to happening at local level across the country. So of fund you have to have some sense of priorities, course there is a tension there between local and objectives and purpose. One role of the UK regional sometimes and certainly sector-led pushes, Commission for Employment and Skills is to be but it is all necessary to get us to the right place. saying on behalf of employers on the demand side, Mr Marston: If I may just come in briefly because “What are the future skills that we need that will take there are two things we are trying to do. Firstly, it is us towards that competitive skills base that Sandy to engage all of those people who want to be engaged Leitch sets out?” That, if you like, sets out the in being able to say, “What skills do you need?” So, demand need and then the Skills Funding Agency as David says, at regional level, sector skills level, will be responsible for picking that up and funding multi-area agreement level, local level, all of that is colleges and training providers to meet those needs. good—we want people to engage in identifying their own skills needs. That is very diVerent from providing a simple, clear, easy to use service for a Q450 Dr Iddon: I want to look next at the levels of small business or the individual learner, and Train to planning for delivery of the new services. Obviously Gain is absolutely trying to do that. It is hiding the the Regional Development Agencies play an wiring, it is making sure that any business can go to important part in this agenda and so do the Sector a single service, with a single brand working Skills Training Councils, which are probably more nationally and say, “These are my needs, please help responsive to the local level of delivery. Is there some me meet them.” If we can make the service simple Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 86 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
8 October 2008 Mr David Lammy MP and Mr Stephen Marston then actually it does not matter that we have lots and Q454 Mr Boswell: How representative are they at the lots of organisations helping us to identify their skills minute, in your judgment; and is there any needs. But getting the service simple is what we are correlation between the level of their being really focusing on with the Commission. representative and their relative success; or is that Chairman: Can I ask my colleagues to be as brief as something you are going to defer for UKCES on you can now, please, because I am very conscious which to advise you? that we only have 35 minutes left. Mr Lammy: Frankly, that could be the subject of a whole inquiry to talk about the diVerent sectors and where they are at because there are regional Q452 Mr Boswell: If we can come back to the variations, there are big historic variations; there is institutions and come to a diVerent tack, mainly rapid progress in some over a short period of time; about UKCES and the SSCs themselves. Very there are communication issues across diVerent simply, Minister, we are wrestling with deadweight sectors. So that is just too complex an issue for me to and value added in these concepts. What is going to answer in a short sound bite. come out of the creation of UKCES that was not Mr Marston: But in every case the re-licensing available previously? criteria will look at how well does this Sector Skills Mr Lammy: On the simplification issue that has just Council work with its employers; what is the level of been raised I think we did need UKCES to help us satisfaction and engagement of the employers in its with that leadership in those areas. I think it was sector, and that will form a critical part of the right that there was an independent voice that assessment of re-licensing. challenged government in this area, and of course we get that independence from UKCES. I emphasise Q455 Mr Boswell: That is very helpful. But we all that UKCES is not just employers, there is also trade know and acknowledge that there are complex union representation on the board as well, as well as structural issues, some of which the Minister has small business and larger organisations like Charlie referred to. There are also questions we have had in Mayfield from John Lewis, for example. So there is evidence here and indeed in other inquiries about the an important voice there in the system that has not number of SSCs that may be stakeholders in a existed before to do the pieces of work that make this particular issue, for example nuclear engineering. system stronger; to balance the hard political things Will the UKCES study and the re-licensing criteria that exist there—regional and sectoral; further cater for these issues like, for example, should we simplification; strategy and delivery. That, I think, is have an SSC for small businesses; should we deal what UKCES can do. with professional issues like accountancy across SSC rather than by silo; and would there be some things that UKCES or somebody else—yet another Q453 Mr Boswell: That is helpful. Can we then apply body—should take in-house on behalf of the whole this to the discussion of the current issue about the interest? re-licensing of Sector Skills Councils? You indicated Mr Lammy: Absolutely and I have spoken to Chris earlier that some are better than others—or some are Humphries about some of these cross-cutting issues; more advanced than others, perhaps it is fair to say. I have spoken to him about leadership and What is the re-licensing process meant to achieve? management, about small business issues, and about Will it lead, for example, to some rationalisation? some of the other trade bodies that exist outside of And how are you going to engage employers Sector Skills Councils and they are absolutely collectively in that process of determining the best something that we have asked them to determine in course forward? this process. Mr Lammy: I do not think it is for me to engage employers in that process; I think this is a process that has been led by the UKCES in its relationship Q456 Mr Boswell: Can I just ask quickly on with Sector Skills Councils themselves. They have qualifications, are they going to be up to the job of asked the National Audit OYce—which I think is doing this, or that will be part of the re-licensing very rigorous—to do the assessment; and we publish criteria? And I suppose I ought to declare an interest the criteria against which Sector Skills Councils will as a Fellow of City and Guilds. Is this at least be judged. I think it is fair to say that there has been possible to consider if they are going to draw up the progress over the five years. We have to accept that spec for awards, qualifications, that they might diVerent sectors start in diVerent places. I do not subcontract this or outsource this to awarding want to prejudge the outcome of that process. I want bodies? to emphasise not just the re-licensing but the re- Mr Lammy: They have to be in partnership with focusing so that there is a very clear mission for awarding bodies to get this right. But what you want Sector Skills Councils in what they are trying to do, them to do is to be in determination about what remembering that we are giving them more power in qualifications are necessary in their sector. There is a sense; we are giving them more power over a lot of duplication in some sectors—unnecessary qualifications and the qualifications that they think qualifications that really do need to be streamlined. their sectors require. We are giving them more There is a really important conversation that leverage over their employers. So it is against that employers must have amongst themselves about backdrop that the process is taking place. what is necessary; but they have to be in partnership Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 87
8 October 2008 Mr David Lammy MP and Mr Stephen Marston with awarding bodies on that—that is the way we are The Foundation Degree is really important. Your framing it—and I think that Sector Skills Councils question suggests is there more work to do—yes, are in a good position to move forward on that basis. there is.
Q457 Mr Boswell: Final question: communications Q461 Mr Marsden: That is interesting and I would and representations. What is going to be the most agree with you with what needs to be going on. eVective medium for this to work? There was some “Patchy” is perhaps the wrong word, but it is suggestion in the past that there were bodies, a big diVerential country-wide and that relates to how representative organisation like the CBI, who could regionally organised particular HE university make representations, but in a sense UKCES has groups are. In the northwest, for example, I think it come on to take on that role. How is it going to play is particularly good. Perhaps a more penetrating in terms of getting your ear, Minister, or your point though is where HEFCE sits in all of this successor, in terms of major employer interest? How because HEFCE obviously has a critical role in best are they channelled and represented to you? terms of encouraging the troops, engaging and Mr Lammy: Major employer interest is represented taking those things on board, yet HEFCE have on the board of the UKCES. funding streams but have no regional structure themselves and this is something that has been Q458 Mr Boswell: Small business? remarked on to me and I think to other members of Mr Lammy: Small business is represented on the the Committee from time to time. Is that a problem; board of UKCES. The interests of Scotland, that actually we have an organisation like HEFCE Northern Ireland and Wales are represented on the which really has to run very fast to cope with this UKCES, as is the voluntary sector represented on new regional skills agenda? the board of UKCES. We have put a lot of eVort Mr Lammy: I think two days into the job I will have into getting everyone around the table and that is to park that question. why we think the organisation has the clout to Mr Marston: HEFCE does have regional challenge us where necessary but also to help us consultants; there is a team for each region. move forward. Mr Marston: The Commission also includes the Q462 Mr Marsden: But they do not have a regional Director General of the CBI and the General structure. Secretary of the TUC; so we have a very Mr Marston: Correct, they do not have a distributed representative group of all the major partners. regional structure but there is a higher education regional association in every case and the regional Q459 Mr Marsden: I would like to move on to the consultant works with that regional association of area of higher and further education and the way in HE. So I think we can say that HE is well linked into which they collaborate with each other, and also the regional discussion about skills and training with the way in which that is going to aVect employers’ RDA and the other regional players. engagement. David, I think it is particularly appropriate, in view of your new responsibilities, for Q463 Mr Marsden: David, I accept that you want to me to ask you this question to start oV with: how do park any comments on HEFCE. you think the structures of FE and HE are going to Mr Lammy: Start reforming HEFCE! have to change over the next few years if they are going to adequately address the Leitch agenda? Q464 Mr Marsden: That is a subject for another Mr Lammy: I think the direction of travel that we set inquiry, but I will come on to something for which out in our Higher Skills Strategy is sympathetic to you certainly have responsibility at the moment and greater partnerships with Sector Skills Councils and indeed we have had conversations about it in the universities. Obviously we will want to do further past, and that is the extent to which the structures in work on pathways to higher education across the HE and FE—and I am talking about core structures sweep—within apprenticeships, certainly. In coming now—are suitable and consistent with what you back from Germany last week that is something at want to do in terms of the skills agenda. I say that the forefront of my mind. I think it is important to again because the feedback we get—certainly the put on record that there are lots of good things that feedback I got in the northwest last week—is that are happening in higher education institutions and there continues to be frustration among employers the relationships and partnerships they have with and among learners that a lot of the courses in HE industry. All of the work that has gone on around and FE are not bite-size and are not portable enough technology, much of the innovation that we are and are not compatible enough. Do you think that seeing in manufacturing, a lot of this is sitting in we are making suYcient progress in that area for universities. We were with one of the retailers—I those sorts of courses to meet the needs of learners forget which one it is, so I had not better not mention and also to meet the skills agenda? it—one of the big supermarket chains that is doing Mr Lammy: I think you have to unpack that. The a lot of work with Manchester University— first thing to say is that it is very easy, is it not, to talk about HE and not bring out the vast range that exists Q460 Mr Marsden: I think you will find it is Tesco. within higher education in this country; the huge Mr Lammy: . . . on climate change. So these diVerences between institutions; the diVerent relationships are there, and one of the jobs that I mission of institutions, the fact that our higher have to do is to really articulate that to the country. education institutions are independent and all have Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 88 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
8 October 2008 Mr David Lammy MP and Mr Stephen Marston diVerent missions and play diVerent roles. Some put Q467 Dr Gibson: What do you say in terms of in a tremendous eVort into research and flexibility to the fact that many young people now development; others tremendous eVorts into move jobs, as you will know yourself—you have teaching, all with critical relationships that they have moved jobs; that it is not one job for life any more, to have with the outside world because they are as it was in my day—but not now. Can we keep up preparing in the end our population to go into the with that? How do we handle that situation when outside world. So there is a range issue there. It is new skills are necessary for the new jobs? right to say, of course, that there are big structural Mr Lammy: I think the key component of that is the diVerences between further education and higher Adult Advancement and Careers Service; it is education; that is true. I am very much looking quality information advice and guidance. It is the forward to taking my knowledge of the skills context further steps that we are taking and have to take in into this new job in discussion with universities that direction, to equip people with the information, about what they are doing—and I think they are the knowledge and the support that they may not doing a tremendous amount—and about what more have had in the past to make those decisions. But I we can do. think you are absolutely right. Mr Marston: About FE and HE it is just worth Mr Marston: I think there is another component of saying that in FE the qualifications and credit that which is integral to the qualification reform, framework will from 2010 unitise all the vocational that we are putting a lot of emphasis on generic qualifications, so unit-based qualifications will then transferable skills, so we are not just oVering be universal. qualifications and training programmes that are Mr Marsden: That is absolutely true but with about today’s jobs. Woven into each of these new Bologna and various other initiatives, my view is— qualifications are generic and transferable skills that and the Minister may share it but may not wish to are portable in a number of diVerent jobs comment at this stage—that they have a hell of a throughout your career. long way to go in that respect in HE. Chairman: We have quite a long way to go as well. Q468 Dr Gibson: One thing I am surprised about is that the small businesses do not seem to be happy Q465 Mr Marsden: One final point, if I may? The big about apprenticeships. Do we just say, “Get on with issue, if we are going to get people to step up to the it” or do they have a point? SME companies, for plate on the vocational route at level 3, is whether example, do not seem to be as enthusiastic as I think those qualifications are actually going to be accepted they ought to be. by a broad range of HE providers at level 4. HEPI Mr Marston: I think they have got a point in the has just produced a pamphlet which suggests that sense that if you are an SME providing the full that again has some way to go. What thoughts do bandwidth training programme for an you have in that area as to how we can stimulate a apprenticeship it is quite a demanding thing to do. greater acceptance in the HE area of vocational We did set up an apprenticeships review and we qualifications? thought there was an important role for group Mr Lammy: I read the pamphlet and Phil and I were training associations in the way in which we can help with them earlier on this week. Again, I am sorry to SMEs come together so that they do not have to take say this, but I wanted to emphasise partnership and on the full responsibility for the whole cooperation in my first contribution. These are apprenticeship programme, but none the less they issues that I want to explore further over the coming can be closely involved in providing components of weeks and months and I am reluctant to get into training in partnership with other SMEs in the area. them in the first few days of the job. Q469 Dr Gibson: Are there diVerent brokerships for Q466 Dr Gibson: With Train to Gain you are always Train to Gain and apprenticeships and would it not going to get customer satisfaction and be better to have one group that handles both? dissatisfaction and my attitude to that, I guess, is just Mr Marston: It is a single set of brokers for Train to get on with it and shut up really. But does Train to Gain. We have said that within the National Gain need any adaptations, from your experience Apprenticeship Service we want a field force that can so far? back up and reinforce the frontline brokerage Mr Lammy: Yes, it did. I published Plan for Growth system so that where an employer says, “Yes, within V now last November, which was a few months after I my overall training programme I want to o er some had been in the job, to indicate flexibilities. It is only more apprenticeship places” there are experts whose two years’ old and those sorts of big spend schemes specialism is getting apprenticeships set up. What we have to be flexible and have to move to meet needs as do not want is competing and conflicting brokerage demand changes. The compacts that we are striking systems running around knocking on doors without with Sector Skills Councils are a further innovation communicating with each other. in the system, so absolutely it has to be a responsive system not a big bureaucratic state-down one and I Q470 Dr Gibson: Where do you get these people am open in that. Indeed, I want to indicate, without from? How do you recruit them? Do you put an tying the hands of my successor, that again we want advert in the daily press, or what? How do you find to make sure that what we set up is absolutely as these trainers, these stimulators, these navigators— responsive as it can be in the context of a global whatever you want to call them—on which the economic downturn. whole thing depends, really? Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 89
8 October 2008 Mr David Lammy MP and Mr Stephen Marston
Mr Marston: It does. The way we have done it so they could do about training; to put that on the far is by letting contracts; in other words, we have table, to require employers to think about it gone out with an advertisement saying that we seriously. That is definite progress and actually it want this service of brokerage. That contract has has been welcomed because it is progress and we been won by diVerent people in diVerent places. were in a lot of discussion, particularly with the For example, in the northwest the RDA-managed TUC, when we came up with the right to request Business Link won the contract also to be the skills time to train. We have said that we will look down broker, which was a good way of getting tight the line at the legal requirement and that is a whole integration between skills brokerage and the RDA. other set of issues and I respect those issues on both sides. Q471 Dr Gibson: And the contract is for how long? Mr Marston: I think they were initially let for two Q476 Chairman: Can I just ask one question about or three years. the skills accounts? If I currently have a level 3 Dr Gibson: And now they are reviewing it and up qualification do I have an automatic access to a again for grabs. Thank you. skills account, which would allow me then, for instance, to do a foundation degree? Q472 Ian Stewart: How can demand for training Mr Marston: The skills account does not guarantee from employees be increased? And how easy is it you any given level of funding; the account itself is for individuals to understand the type of training just a way of bringing together— that is available? Mr Lammy: I think I probably touched on demand Q477 Chairman: What I am really asking is does before in relation to the Skills Account, particularly everybody get a skills account? the Advancement Service and the right to request Mr Marston: Everybody gets a skills account in the time to train. Those are the key things that I put sense that they have an individual learner number, on the table to try and help with that. an account that records their own learning history and entitlements that they have, but what you are Q473 Ian Stewart: What is your view, David, with entitled to in terms of further public subsidy will regard to the TUC suggestion that there could be vary depending on your previous qualifications and collective learning accounts—the sum is more than what you now want to do. You ask about a the individual? foundation degree; you would still have to meet the Mr Lammy: I think I would be open to a further entry requirements for a foundation degree— discussion with the TUC on that, certainly. Q478 Chairman: I would have if I got to level 3, Q474 Ian Stewart: Has there been any assessment would I not? of whether there are suYcient suitable courses Mr Marston: You probably would have but of available in all regions to ensure that the skills course foundation degrees are oVered by accounts can work eVectively? universities in the main and they remain entitled to Mr Lammy: That is why we are piloting at the set their own entry requirements. moment and it is too early to say how that pans out, to make sure that we have the right system. Q479 Mr Boswell: So it is not a funding guarantee Mr Marston: It is an important role, I think, of the as such? It is a statement of where you are and then Adult Advancement and Careers Service that will something may be derived from that, but it is not be our national service that tells people what is a guarantee. available in every area and how you access it. It Mr Marston: But there will be guarantees of is meant to be a simple one-stop shop for all the entitlement for some groups. For example, if you information you need to know what is available to do not have a level 2 and you want to get a level you, how you get it and what forms of support are 2 you will be guaranteed free training to get your there. Whether the right qualifications and level 2 and that will go into your account. programmes will be there is partly what we are asking Sector Skills Councils and the Commission Q480 Chairman: Stephen, it will be really useful to to advise on, so that we are constantly reviewing have a note on what is involved with those because are there gaps in this market, are there new training I think we are a little confused about what the programmes that need to be developed, new entitlement actually entitles you to. qualifications that need to be developed, picking up Mr Marston: Yes. on what employers are saying about the skills gaps they are experiencing and developing new Q481 Mr Marsden: David, through the course of programmes to meet those. this inquiry—and, as you are aware, this is the final oral evidence session—we have had concerns Q475 Ian Stewart: What do you say to those that expressed from a number of witnesses, not critical, say that the proposed right to time oV to train is I would say on the whole, on the overall direction a significant step backwards from previous threats of travel of the government skills agenda—that to employers of a legal right to workplace training? certain groups at the moment may not be getting Mr Lammy: Let us see how it works. I think it is a fair crack of the whip. It has been quite a broad a step forward to empower people to have a range. The Association of Accounting Technicians, conversation that they may not have felt otherwise for example, was concerned that the emphasis on Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Ev 90 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
8 October 2008 Mr David Lammy MP and Mr Stephen Marston level 2 meant that mature people in their fifties who where we talked about lone parents; where we needed retraining would not necessarily have that talked about the work that we had to do with those access. More broadly, Age Concern have said—and with disabilities; and the reforms that we have to I quote—“ The government is currently promoting make in the system to make it more responsive to training which is not always appropriate for many their needs. This work is now being piloted with adults over 50, for whom achieving a full level 2 roll-outs across the country and diVerent Jobcentre qualification is not the best or most cost-eVective Plus areas linking Jobcentre Plus and the Learning way of improving employability.” I want to be very and Skills Council having to work more closely clear on that—we are not getting into the broad than they have ever worked before. And I expect debate about informal learning, I am talking about that there will have to be further work over the very specifically—are we doing enough under the months and years ahead. skills agenda at the moment to address the needs of employability of people in that forties and Q484 Mr Marsden: A final question, if I may—and increasingly over fifties’ market? again this is based on concerns that the witnesses Mr Lammy: We have not perhaps talked this have brought to us—does it worry you that there morning in great detail about the work that goes was no specific equality benchmark in the Leitch on jointly between us and our colleagues in the Report? That is a specific issue that the Equalities Department for Work and Pensions and the and Human Rights Commission raised with us integrating with employment and skills agenda. when they came to give their evidence. If you are There we are funding employability; we have local not concerned about the fact that there was no employment partnerships that absolutely go up to formal acknowledgement of the need for an people beyond their fifties—because in the end the equalities agenda as part of Leitch, what do we whole point of them are for gathering up people need to do informally to address those issues more who have been very far from the labour market concretely? previously, who were working with very large Mr Lammy: I absolutely believe that equality issues companies, organisations, some of our large lie at the heart of many of these issues. retailers—to get people into the job market. The work we are doing on the next step— Q485 Mr Marsden: Does it worry you that Leitch did not deal with it? Q482 Mr Marsden: I am sorry to interrupt you. Mr Lammy: Leitch was set a particular job in Just on that issue that you have been describing, relation to productivity and the relationship of are DIUS the lead ministry or DWP? skills within that, and I think he did a good report Mr Lammy: Clearly because in the end the cohort on the back of that. You then have policy that of people that we are really worried about are those comes as a consequence of that. We have a single in receipt of benefit DWP is in the lead with us. I equalities scheme in the Department that was met with Stephen Timms monthly. We were published very recently. The LSC is absolutely together, I think it was three weeks ago, in engaged on those agendas. Much of the DWP’s Birmingham looking at this whole issue and how work is with a cohort of people who have been what we are doing together is working on the subject to discrimination or challenge as a result of ground. So there is a whole agenda there where that disability, ethnicity or gender. So of course that is is important. We have a balance; there is a balance critical in this discussion and in terms of tangibly between where we should deploy taxpayers’ money, what do we then do we said, for example, at the as I said previously, so we do not renege from lower apprenticeship review that we wanted critical mass skills and level 2, because I do think it is right to pilots, that we wanted mentors. We piloted work say that business and industry should be investing with women on gender issues in relation to some in skills at the higher level. We have also been clear of those issues even previous to that, so I am very in some of the compacts we have struck with sympathetic and open to what you are saying. The particular sectors that we have been responsive and proof then is in the pudding and the policies that flexible to some of the issues that come up within come behind that. particular sectors.
Q486 Mr Marsden: For your information the Q483 Mr Marsden: But given the demographic National Skills Forum—and I think you may be changes of which we are all aware, it is true, is it aware of this—are currently doing a big inquiry on not, that we are not going to meet some of Leitch’s the whole issue of women and skills. targets unless we manage to bring back into Mr Lammy: I welcome that. retraining not just the sort of people you have been Mr Marston: We did publish the Equalities Impact talking about but a large number of people with Assessment with our own response to Leitch, so we disabilities and also of course people who have have gone through all the recommendations in been out of the labour market for other reasons for Leitch. significant periods of time. What do you still need to do to finesse the approach for them? Mr Lammy: I was accused previously of publishing Q487 Chairman: On that note could I thank you too much, but of course we published two pieces very much indeed, Stephen Marston and Mr David of work on the integration of employment and Lammy. We have asked for a number of pieces of skills where we talked about the 16-hour rule, information and we would like to write to you on Processed: 11-12-2008 21:26:02 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 407521 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 91
8 October 2008 Mr David Lammy MP and Mr Stephen Marston one or two other elements. Could I ask you finally, Chairman: We have a formal announcement; thank Minister, who in fact is going to take over the skills you very much indeed. We wish you well; thank brief in DIUS? you very much indeed for your cooperation this Mr Lammy: Lord Young will be taking over the morning. And thank you very much indeed, skills brief. Stephen. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [SO] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 93 Written evidence
Memorandum 1
Note of meeting held by Gordon Marsden MP
REPORT BY GORDON MARSDEN MP ON SATELITE MEETING IN WARRINGTON IUSSC 3 OCTOBER 2008 “AFTER LEITCH”
WARRINGTON BUSINESS SCHOOL PRESENT: Gordon Marsden MP (GM) Chris Webb—OYce of Gordon Marsden Alison Hill—Minute-taker WITNESSES: — Dr Lis Smith—North West Development Agency — Kevin Bonnett—Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Manchester Metropolitan University — Keith Burnley—Executive Director, North West Universities Association — Tricia Hartley—Director, Campaign for Learning — David Brennan—LSC, Regional Skills Director — Jaine Chisholm Caunt—Stakeholder & Policy Director, Cogent Sector Skills Council — Pat Bacon—Principal, St Helens College — Moira Tattersall—Principal, Carlisle College — Susannah Tyson—Assistant Principal, Warrington Business School — Mark Currie—Managing Director, Manchester Training
Introduction Gordon Marsden welcomed everyone to the IUSSC Session The first evidence session of the After Leitch Inquiry was launched in Leeds on 14 May 2008—with a range of regional contributions from Yorkshire and Humberside—members had agreed that this regional input had been very informative and to take views from other regions before the final evidence Select Committee on Wednesday 8 October 2008. This North-West session was designed to facilitate this.
First Session
1. Developments in the Skills Agenda in the NW Gordon Marsden opened, outlining some key findings of Leitch: — 95% of adults to achieve basic skills of functional literacy and numeracy. — Shifting the balance of intermediate skills from Level 2 to Level 3. — Exceeding 40% of adults qualified to Level 4 and above, with a commitment to continue progression. GM then asked—what has changed since the interim of Leitch in the planning and delivery of skills in this region? David Brennan commented on the process changes: — Planning is more about an eYciency to respond to employer demand. — In practice, there has been a large shift in the delivery at level 2 and first full level 2 qualifications. — Provider base has a good record of engaging with employers, this is in part due to the Employer Training Pilots in Lancashire and Manchester. — North-West region has highest numbers of traditional apprenticeships. — Train to Gain (T2G) came in part to build on the above. Mark Currie: — Huge targets set for T2G—with no real chance of reaching it. — T2G target will not be met this year. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 94 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
— In the last round a lot of new providers with no experience of delivering NVQs—this is “diluting the quality”. Susannah Tyson queried: — How are providers getting away with this, as the level of audit is extremely high? Mark Currie: — “There is evidence of one provider delivering an NVQ in a day”—are such deliveries only about recognising skills already in the workplace. — 2003—40% of providers achieved Grade 4. — To achieve targets LSC is under pressure to increase provider base. Pat Bacon: — Leitch was about improving learning, not providing them with a certificate for something that they already have. — Need to better address the balance of the individual’s need. — A best practice example is The SkillWorks Programme (funded through ESF) delivered in Merseyside oVering independent advice and guidance on training interventions that address a company’s training needs and helps to find the most appropriate provider. There’s up to 60% funding towards the training costs. — We are in danger of losing the balance between skills and qualifications. Tricia Hartley: — We have to distinguish between skills and qualifications and clarify what the individual wants. Lis Smith: — Leitch talks about levels with a broad vision—“but the PSA targets that civil servants have drafted are too mechanistic”. — PSA targets have got translated into qualifications as they are measurable. — How do we measure skills in a robust and consistent way. Moira Tattershall: — “I am not so worried about variation across private providers…” — Poor Providers will be exposed eventually. — Evidence that NVQs are being operated as a tick box activity by some providers and employers being oVered financial reward/incentives. GM asked about Skills Infrastructure—Is it too complicated? Do we need a regional dimension. Lis Smith: — We have to diVerentiate between economic demand and Social Inclusion. — The Regional Employment Strategy provides a clear strategy to grow the regional economy. — Loss of a regional influence would remove the key drivers for Innovation and Enterprise. — Important to have a clear understanding of the diVerence between delivery and strategic influence—“do local labour markets see the big picture.” Pat Bacon: — NW has a strong purpose of place and of the need to raise our game over skills training. — Basic skills—best place for delivery is community/local/workplace. — Intermediate skills—11% of the HE places delivered in FE working with HE partners in and out of the region, including international ones. — International—there is interest in the internationally competency based system delivered through NVQs. Jaine Chisholm Caunt: — Leitch is a UK challenge not just an England challenge. How do we deliver at a UK level for employers? — Cogent SSC has to operate across all the nations and regions—“this is an incredibly complicated landscape”. — Do all the priorities across the nine regions add up to the England priorities? Mark Currie: — “In the logistics sector, where I specialise we plan on a regional basis, using local providers.” — Good connectivity with Trade Associations, SSC and RDA for planning on a regional basis. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 95
Keith Burley: — The key question is how and where do we turn strategy into delivery? Dave Brennan: — Regional Skills and Employment Board would talk about linking need and opportunity and linking to the worklessness agenda. — “What is the reality on the ground?” — “Sub-regional approaches can be appropriate as they often mirror travel to work areas”. Pat Bacon: — Some issues such as NEET hotspots and graduate retention are local issues for Merseyside but may not be priorities for the region. — Geographical areas—we at St. Helens attract students from a wider area than the sub region, in which location, reputation and travel time play a key part. Moira Tattershall: — Discussion over Regional Assemblies caused much adverse discussion and debate in Cumbria but the regional structure of skills has worked well for Cumbria and has made a big diVerence—“We now see ourselves as part of a bigger pattern”.
2. Co-operation in the Northwest GM asked—Are there too many bodies involved? Are the under employed under represented? How will the new sub-regional bodies on Employment and skills fit into the picture? Lis Smith: — Skills and Employment Boards—at sub regional they are there for a variety of reasons. Liverpool and Manchester are built on the City Employment Strategies which have a emphasis to get individuals into employment supporting worklessness—“it is very much a bottom-up approach.” — Cheshire and Warrington SEB is an Economic Alliance. — In the region we have five diVerence models, which demonstrates that one model does not work for all circumstances. — SEBs must address Innovation, Enterprise and Social Inclusion. — The sub regional SEBs have a connection to the RSEB. — How do they fit with the Commission? — Limited information has been circulated about the Skills Funding Agency and the implications at regional level. There is a feeling that this is being worked up behind closed doors. What is the outcome? Drive up— Innovation Enterprise Social Capital Kevin Bonnett: — We do find ways to co-operate, in Greater Manchester is this done through the Greater Manchester Strategic Alliance. — Challenge for us all is “learning needs to be flexible”. — Lifelong professional learning, must be responsive to employers needs. — A warning—“How many jobless people may come into the highly qualified skills/qualifications area post-credit crunch”. Tricia Hartley: — Some individuals may be excited by provision at level 3/4, rather than assuming a start at level 1 how we engage? — Linking funding pots together is really important and is starting to work—and is getting people into work, time must allowed for this to embed. — Leitch has to keep a strong social inclusion focus. Jaine Chisholm Caunt: — Alliance for SSC working closely with RDA and LSC and will play an important role. — There is a tendency to see learners in groups such as NEET, 14–19 rather than looking to individual needs—concerns about how the National Apprenticeship Service will work in the regions. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 96 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
3. Plans, Targets & Apprenticeships
GM asked if Leitch targets are achievable in the North West? Dave Brennan: — Level 2 targets are achievable. — Level 4 targets are very challenging, HE will need to develop diVerent ways of engaging with those in the workplace, but “Leitch is consistent with NWDA projections”. On Volume of Apprenticeships — The demand from individuals is in line with Leitch, but demand from employers is not consistent with Leitch targets. GM asked, how do we drive up demand from employers? Mark Currie: — Its always diYcult to recruit good employers, this is becoming more diYcult in the current climate—“especially on 16–18 apprenticeships”. — No problem recruiting learners. Moira Tattershall: — New Apprenticeship Bill—states that the LSC will provide a place for all apprenticeships—“But the LSC simply can’t ensure that every apprentice will have an employer.” Pat Bacon: — “My college at St. Helens is a big deliverer of apprenticeships—600 a year”. — The NHS Cadet programme provides a structured NVQ training along with a series of high quality work placements under an Apprenticeship Framework. It is great that the NHS and Social Care Sectors work to provide practical learning for young people, the programme piloted in the northwest is to become a national model. Students either progress into HE or into the workplace. — Money cannot be vired across the age groups so if a student, for example, transfers from apprenticeship to FE this is recorded as a failure, even though the individual may succeed on the diVerent route. Jaine Chisholm Caunt: — On Cogent Apprenticeship’s—in the past the large companies within the Cogent footprint have taken on large numbers of apprenticeships. Cogent have developed a community based apprenticeship programme by bringing together smaller employers together. The LSC has been very supportive and flexible with the funding which has helped this happen. GM asked about sectors not identified as a priority—are they disadvantaged from accessing the system? What is the diVerence between up-skilling and re-skilling and how do we prioritise. Lis Smith: — Sectors are important to economic growth for diVerent reasons, priority sectors because of their contribution to GVA and the high employment sectors helping people into jobs. — Where should RDAs intervene? RDA funding should be focused where there is currently no other public money. Re-skilling/Upskilling—Lack of understanding of what is meant by the terms—eg L2/L3 qualifications and definitions. 1st NVQ—more flexibility but a balance between 1st NVQ or re-skilling—very complicated. Culture has shifted. Some individuals want to upskill and some adults are doing this but are not telling their employers as they are scared they will lose their jobs. If serious about reskilling at higher level—funding for pt students. Pat Bacon: — “There is now greater flexibility on re-skilling funding.” Kevin Bonnett: — “There remain substantial issues around re-skilling—ELQs could hobble this.” Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 97
Second Session
4. Employer Engagement GM asked, SMEs—are they diYcult to engage with? How are you trying to reach employers not already involved on the skills agenda? Mark Currie: — Family owned transport businesses are very open to bringing in young people into the sector, which often is not the case with larger companies, Mark believed that for logistics sector, SMEs were easy to engage with. — “But other SMEs could find it too diYcult—no economies of scale.” — Warehousing companies—more diYcult to engage with, getting employers to engage with apprenticeship is diYcult and secondly expensive. Jaine Chisholm Caunt: — SMEs are generally more diYcult to engage—often to do with turnover, size of business, and engaging with them to invest in skills needs is more resource intensive. — Cogent works with employers through National Skills Academies. The nuclear sector tends to be large business and engagement is excellent. The Process industries sector is made up of smaller companies but the NSA also has excellent engagement from business. — The Community based apprenticeship has been welcomed by the small businesses but it is resource intensive. Susannah Tyson: — SMEs engage with T2G, more diYcult to engage with small employers—not eYcient for General FE colleges to engage with small numbers. Economies of scale—eg United Utilities, provision delivered in the workplace. — Process to gain accreditation is long winded and time consuming. — L&M qualifications currently deliver NVQ 4 and 5 but employers want short, sharp sessions— “Soft skills rather than a full NVQ.” — Soft skills enabling skills. More flexibility in funding, not enough money in T2G—“there ahs been a big issue for colleges with this”. — T2G does allow flexible delivery, over arching course delivered with additional short accredited programmes Mark Currie: — How about an option on apprenticeships where Government might fund a first year’s wages with the employer taking over in years 2 or 3.” — In this current diYcult climate more flexibility, funding of learners wages in year 1 with employers funding future years. Pat Bacon: — We can provider tailor-made programmes for employer’s but employers’ money will not substitute public monies—“our market in St Helens has been muddied by previous Objective 1 and free training money. I see no evidence employers will do more co-funding.” — Colleges are involved in curriculum building, for example an NVQ for management for change, qualification written by St Helens for Jaguar, becomes available for others to use. GM asked about take up of Skills Pledge in the region? David Brennan: — Estimated that the employers covered by Skills Pledges in the region equates to one in eight employers in the Northwest which equates to half a million employees. — “But the pledge is seen by employers as only matching Level 2 standards and often a PSA by other means.” Lis Smith: — There have been lost opportunities—is a public Pledge from employers committing to the development of their staV? It has been interpreted as up-skilling employees to level 2 to meet PSA targets rather than exploring the individual’s needs. — Missed opportunity, the SSCs have consulted with employers in the development of their Sector Skills Agreements and the Skills Pledge has not featured in the action plans. Mark Currie: — The Skills Pledge is a great opportunity to reach public sector employers as they have made a public commitment to training employees. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 98 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
— Providers could specialise as Skills Pledge Brokers. — Link Skills Pledge to other awards such at IiP.
5. Higher Education—Further Education GM asked about how well HE and FE in the North-West interacted with each other and with regional skills partnerships: Keith Burnley: — No regional planning body but examples of good collaboration across the region including the Manchester Strategic Alliance—“Links between HE institutions and FE in North West are very strong.” — The regional has successfully developed and delivered the Higher level Skills Pathfinder, which has included AoC as a steering group member. — Lifelong Learning networks work with FE and HE partners to increase opportunities in vocational areas for part time and full- time learners to progress to higher education. — Employer engagement is done via the SSC’s with significant collaboration across the region. Kevin Bonnett: — “Cheshire FE connections with HE in Greater Manchester/Merseyside particularly important.” — Foundation Degree developed with Tesco which can be used by other retailers. — We need the curriculum to be flexible and responsive, made to measure provision including bite size learning with the involvement of employers. Tricia Hartley: — Relationships with FE/HE is very patchy countrywide. It is good in the NW as people tend to stay, but often based on relationships. — “Proper signposting of IAG for learners is crucial.” Lis Smith: — HEFCE—don’t have a regional policy, so no regional structure—University Challenge is an example of HEFCE’s limited consultation with regional partners, who will be expected to fund the regional initiatives. Dave Brennan: — There are problems with HE/FE connections. — How easy is it to move from L3 to higher level provision. — No regional planning body at level 4 and the RSEB will only take a view but will not take decisions regarding higher level provision. Pat Bacon: — Worked hard at local level to raise awareness of Apprenticeships, government must allow time for initiatives to embed. — “Key questions—have we got capacity and flexibility—current arrangements can sometimes be destabilising.”
6. Impact on Students GM asked about potentially excluded groups? Tricia Hartley: — There remains a fundamental contradiction in Leitch encouraging employer demand led provision versus a requirement to achieve targets. — “This can mean we don’t always touch excluded groups who need to be involved.” Lis Smith: — “I am more optimistic about our reaching broader learner groups if tackling worklessness is included in the skills strategy.” Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 99
Memorandum 2
Submission from the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, with input from the Departments for Communities and Local Government, Children, Schools and Families, Work and Pensions, and from the Learning and Skills Council
Contents: 1. Introduction 2. The Government’s world class skills ambitions 3. The role of RDAs and the Regions in achieving our skills ambitions 4. Skills Strategy at sub-regional level 5. The roles of the LSC and SSCs 6. The roles and coordination of the FE and HE sectors 7. Summary Statistical Annex
1. Introduction 1.1 The Government welcomes the opportunity to report to the Committee on the progress it has made in realising the world class skills ambition described by Lord Leitch. 1.2 A nation that is able to unlock the talents and get the best out of its people will be able to take on new challenges and harness new opportunities with confidence. And a nation that can help more people to find work, stay in work and progress will be well equipped to succeed. To compete eVectively in the global economy we need a workforce with world-class skills, from basic literacy and numeracy through to higher level qualifications. Our vision for the workforce of the future is of one unrivalled in its skills, dynamism, equity and inclusiveness. 1.3 The creation of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills brings together three closely- linked strands of policy that are critical to determining Britain’s future economic and social wellbeing. Britain can only succeed in a changing world if we develop our skills to the fullest possible extent, carry out world-class research, and apply knowledge to create innovative products, services and companies. 1.4 A more highly skilled workforce tends to be a more productive workforce, better able to innovate, and adapt to and maximize the impact of new technologies and business practices. DIUS is working closely with the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), and with employers through the new UK Commission for Employment and Skills and the network of Sector Skills Councils to ensure that the skills delivered are those which businesses need to raise productivity and competitiveness. 1.5 Developing skills is also one of the key ways of enabling people to find jobs and progress in work, and to creating a cohesive, engaged society. DIUS is working in partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions to create an integrated employment and skills service which provides low skilled and unemployed adults with the support they need to develop their skills, find and progress in work. 1.6 Following the publication of Lord Leitch’s review in December 2006, the Government set out detailed plans for implementing the recommendations and realising the world class skills ambition he set in World Class Skills: Implementing the Leitch Review of Skills in England, published in July 2007. And since the publication of World Class Skills, further detailed plans have been put in place through a number of important documents: — Adult Learning and Skills—investing in the first steps, published in November 2007 alongside the LSC’s Statement of Priorities and Grant Letter, set out on how, with our partners, we can accomplish our ambitions to deliver economic prosperity, social justice and stronger communities. — Opportunity, Employment and Progression: Making skills work, published in November 2007 put forward further detailed plans to support the integration of employment and skills services. — Train to Gain: A Plan for Growth, published in November 2007, set out how Government would build on the experience of Train to Gain’s first full year of national operation, to continue to expand and improve the service to help employers identify and address their skills needs. — Raising Expectations: Staying in education and training post-16—from policy to legislation, published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in November 2007 announced detailed proposals for raising the participation age to 18, following the consultation, and identified which aspects would require legislation, ahead of the introduction of the Education and Skills Bill to Parliament. — Informal Adult Learning—Shaping the Way Ahead, was published in January 2008. This consultation starts a discussion that will lead to a new vision for informal adult learning for the 21st century. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 100 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
— World Class Apprenticeships, unlocking talent, building skills for all: The Government’s strategy for the future of Apprenticeships in England, published in January 2008 set out the Government’s plans for reforming and expanding the Apprenticeships service. — Focussing English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) on Community Cohesion, published in January 2008, initiated a consultation on our plans to prioritise ESOL provision in support of social cohesion. — Ready to Work, Skilled For Work: Unlocking Britain’s Talent, published in January 2008, described how the Government wants to work with employers to support them in tackling their recruitment and skills challenges. — An analytical discussion paper: Life Chances: supporting people to get on in the labour market, was published in February 2008 to stimulate a debate on how best to support adults to develop their skills, find and progress in work. — Raising Expectations, enabling the system to deliver, published in March 2008, initiated a consultation on the transfer of planning and funding responsibilities for 16–19 year olds from the Learning and Skills Council to Local Authorities, and proposals for reforming the post-19 skills landscape. — Higher Education at Work: High Skills—High Value, published in April 2008, initiated a consultation that will seek views from employers, students, colleges and universities on how to raise the skills of those already in work and also ensure graduates are equipped with the knowledge and abilities that businesses need to compete globally.
2. The Government’s World Class Skills Ambitions 2.1 Improving skills and supporting individuals to unlock their talents has a number of important benefits for individuals, businesses and the economy as a whole. As set out in the recent analytical discussion paper: Life Chances: supporting people to get on in the Labour Market,1 improving skills provides benefits to individuals in terms of improved employment prospects, labour market progression and social mobility. For example, recent evidence shows: — A first degree can add an average of 25–30% to annual earnings; — Achieving 5 good GCSEs (A*-C) can lead to increases in earnings of up to 30%; — Apprenticeships produce strong increases in earnings potential at levels 2 and 3. Completing an advanced apprenticeship produces an average wage return of 35%; and — Basic numeracy and literacy skills can explain up to 10% of wage diVerentials. 2.2 Gaining skills also benefits individuals in a wide range of other ways: — More skilled people are less likely to suVer from depression, obesity and respiratory problems2; — Improved learning levels in a community are associated with enhanced cohesion and social capital. 3 Half of learners in FE felt it had encouraged them to take part in voluntary and community activities4; and — Gaining skills leads to increased political participation: 37% of those with a Level 2 or less did not vote in the 2005 General election compared to 24% of those with a level 3 qualification or above.5
Progress so far 2.3 DIUS and its partners have already made significant progress towards the world class skills ambition that Lord Leitch recommended: — The total number of 16–18 year olds in education and training increased by 15,500 to 1,547,000 at end 2006. — In 2007, 73.0% of young people aged 19 were qualified to at least level 2—an increase of 7.5 percentage points compared with 2004 and exceeding the 2008 target a year early. — An increasing proportion of 19 year olds are qualified to level 3—48.0% of young people achieved at this level in 2007 compared with 42% in 2004. — Since 2001, 1.76 million learners have achieved their first Skills for Life qualifications, with the Government meeting its target of 1.5 million achievements by 2007 ahead of schedule.
1 Life Chances, Supporting People to get on in the Labour Market, an analytical discussion paper, March 2008 (DIUS, DWP, Cabinet OYce Strategy Unit). 2 Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning 3 Feinstein et al 2003, and Green et al 2003. 4 LSC (2008) The impact of Learning on Employability 5 Sanders et al (2007) Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 101
— 74% of adults in the workforce aged 18 and over are now qualified to at least full level 2. That means 1.34 million adults have up-skilled since the end of 2002, meeting the interim target of 1 million by 2006. — Apprenticeship completion rates reached an all time high in 2006–07 of 63% compared to 24% in 2001–02. Apprenticeship starts increased from 65,000 in 1996–97 to 180,000 in 2006–07. — Train to Gain has engaged almost 83,000 employers (of whom more than 76% hard to reach); over 390,000 learners started a learning programme and almost 185,000 have achieved a qualification. — At the end of March 2008, 2585 employers had made the Skills Pledge, covering over 3.7 million employees. — FE college success rates are up, from 59% in 2000–01 to 77% in 2005–06. — Six National Skills Academies have been fully approved, and 6 more are in business planning. We are on course to meet Government’s aspiration to have 12 NSAs in place by the end of 2008. — There are now 18,000 Union Learning Representatives—28 times as many as the 700 in 1998, and a 40% increase on the 14,200 just two years ago. — 26 organisations have achieved the new standard for employer responsiveness and vocational excellence. — Since 1998, the national advice telephone has handled almost 8.3 million telephone enquiries and the web-delivered advice service has registered around 27.6 million sessions. 185,000 sessions are delivered every week. — The National Employers Skills Survey (2005)6 showed that 65% of employers had provided some training in the last 12 months, up from 59% in 2003. The number of employees trained per 1000 rose from 567 in 2003 to 609 in 2005. Total employer expenditure on training amounted to some £33.3 billion.
The way ahead
2.4 While we are making substantial progress, there is much more to do. Lord Leitch argued that we must “raise our game” on skills, if we are to compete in the global economy. The Government has set stretching targets to achieve a step change in skills levels across the board. 2.5 The ambition articulated by Lord Leitch, and to which the Government is committed, is that by 2020: — 95% of working age adults to have functional (level 1) literacy and (entry level 3) numeracy skills; — More than 90% of working age adults qualified to level 2, with a commitment to achieve 95% as soon as possible; — 68% of working age adults qualified to level 3; — Average number in learning of 500,000 apprenticeships in the UK; and — Over 40% of working age adults qualified to level 4 and above. 2.6 By 2011 the Government aims that: — 597,000 more individuals should have recorded level 1 literacy achievements and 390,000 entry level 3 numeracy achievements; — 79% of adults (aged 19- state pension age) should be qualified to at least full level 2. That means 1.2 million first full level 2 achievements over three years; — 56% of adults should be qualified to at least full level 3; — 34% of adults should be qualified to level 4 (by 2010–11).
Creating a world class skills system.
2.7 World Class Skills set out how the Government would implement Lord Leitch’s recommendation to reform the skills system, ensuring that it is demand driven, responsive to the needs of employers and individuals, and to create an integrated employment and skills system. A programme of reforms is in train to achieve these goals, and significant steps have already been taken.
6 The NESS 2007 is due for publication later in Spring 2008. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 102 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Employers leading the way 2.8 The new UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES), led by BT Chair Sir Michael Rake with the support of former City and Guilds Director Chris Humphries, has been set up jointly by the governments of the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to advise them on whether employment and skills systems across the UK are flexible enough to respond to competitive challenges, changing employment trends and employer demand. Its members each have an outstanding track record of delivery in their field and collectively represent employers across the private, public and third sectors as well as trade unions. 2.9 The Commission will publish an annual state of the nation report assessing progress towards making the UK a world leader in employment and skills by 2020. In 2010 it will report on whether a more radical change might be needed to integrate employment and skills and whether an entitlement to workplace training might be appropriate to deliver an integrated service that meets the needs of employers and individuals. In the meantime, its priorities are to oVer a holistic view of how employment and skills systems (including higher education) might better meet employer and individual need, to advise the UK Government on making access to the systems in place in England simpler, and, in particular, to make substantial progress on the reform and relicensing of Sector Skills Councils. 2.10 The Commission is also responsible for making recommendations to Government on the re- licensing of Sector Skills Councils. Re-licensed Sector Skills Councils will have a new remit sharply focussed on raising employer investment, articulating the future skills needs of their sector, and ensuring that the supply of skills and qualifications is driven by employers. 2.11 Through SSCs, employers have a leading role in reforming vocational qualifications for their sector. We are making it easier for employers to have their own training programmes nationally recognised and accredited. More than 30 have had their training accredited and a further 4 employers have been accredited as awarding bodies in their own right. SSCs have also been asked to include consideration of the needs of 14–19 learners in their Sector Qualifications Strategies as part of the development of clear qualifications routes for young learners which support their achievement and progression. 2.12 Many employers are making the public commitment to investing in the skills of their employees by signing the Skills Pledge. Between its launch by the Prime Minister in June 2006 and the end of March 2008, 2585 employers have signed the Skills Pledge and now over 3.7 million employees are covered. 2.13 The Government is creating more National Skills Academies. Six have been approved in the construction, manufacturing, financial services, food and drink manufacture, nuclear and process industries. Six more are in business planning. The Government is investing around £23.5 million in the first six NSAs. These are expected to generate employer investment of around £13.5million. We expect similar levels of employer investment from future NSAs.
Expanding Apprenticeships 2.14 The Government has undertaken a fundamental review of Apprenticeships. World Class Apprenticeships: Unlocking Talent, Building Skills for All sets out the Government’s strategy for strengthening and expanding Apprenticeships in England. Over 130,000 employers oVer apprenticeship places. But we need many more to do so if we are to meet the goal set by Lord Leitch of expanding the number of apprentices in learning to 400,000 in England by 2020; and to honour the entitlement to an apprenticeship place for all school leavers who meet the criteria by 2013. The review announced plans for a National Apprenticeships Service, which will be responsible for the delivery of Apprenticeships. This will have a significant regional and sub-regional role, working in partnership with local authorities to fulfill their obligations to young people. 2.15 World Class Apprenticeships also announced that in expanding the Apprenticeships programme, the Government will move from focussing on a single volume measure of the average number of apprentices in learning, to counting the number of people starting an apprenticeship in the year (starts) and the percentage that complete an apprenticeship (completions). Starts are an easily understood concept and express the growth challenge for the programme for a year. Completion rates are a mechanism for driving up the quality of the system. The Government will continue to collect and monitor data on the number of apprentices in learning in order to ensure that we continue to monitor our progress towards meeting the ambition set out by Lord Leitch.
Train to Gain 2.16 Train to Gain is the Government’s flagship service to support employers in England, of all sizes and in all sectors, to improve the skills of their employees, unlock talent and drive improved business performance. 2.17 Since it was fully rolled out in the autumn of 2006, nearly 83,000 employers have engaged with Train to Gain, with 76% being “hard to reach”, exceeding the 51% target. Almost 185,000 learners have achieved a qualification. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 103
2.18 Funding for Train to Gain will increase from £520 million in 2007–08 to over £1 billion by 2010–11. This makes a significant contribution towards the Government commitment to increasing the proportion of adult skills funding that is delivered through demand-led routes. In addition, by 2010–11, we expect adult learners with Skills Accounts to be able to access £500 million of adult funding, increasing to around £1.5 billion. 2.19 But we need to go further still. Train to Gain: A Plan for Growth, published in November 2007, describes how we will make the service more flexible to ensure it meets the needs of employers and employees. 2.20 Through Train to Gain, employers can now access: — Government funding, to sit alongside their own financial contribution, including a subsidy of up to 100% for certain training; — quality-assured, impartial advice from skills brokers with expertise in the employer’s business area to help identify skills needs at all levels; — help in identifying and sourcing the training and qualifications that will best address those needs; — advice on wider business needs, provided by the Business Link network, into which the Train to Gain brokerage service will be integrated from April 2009; and — high-quality, vocational skills training, delivered at a time and place to suit the employer, from a wide range of further education and other providers.
Supporting individuals 2.21 Skills Accounts, to be rolled out from 2010, will give individuals greater ownership and choice over their learning, giving them greater purchasing power to ensure that provision responds to their needs. By 2015 we expect Skills Accounts to become the key mechanism via which all adults access learning outside Train to Gain, working hand in hand with the adult advancement and careers service to enable individuals to realise their talents and advance in learning and work over a lifetime. 2.22 Skills Accounts will be rolled out across the country from 2010, with individuals accessing £500 million of individual responsiveness funding by that year, rising to nearly £1.5 billion by 2015. Trials of Skills Accounts will begin in 2008. The Accounts will put purchasing power into the hands of individuals by oVering a new “virtual voucher” of state funding representing their entitlement to purchase relevant learning at an accredited, quality assured provider of their choice. A Skills Account will also give individuals access to a range of other services through the adult advancement and careers service, and an online record on which to store their qualifications and achievements. 2.23 The adult advancement and careers service will deliver a tailored employment and skills advice and support, empowering individuals with the information they need to identify the training and gain the skills that will enable them both to find jobs and to advance in their careers. 2.24 The new service will provide more coherent support for individuals, merging the advice services of learndirect and next step and working in partnership with Jobcentre Plus. The careers service will have a key role in supporting the delivery of Skills Accounts, and will provide an integrated service for identifying individuals training needs through Skills Health Checks. Key elements of the service will be trialled progressively from 2008–2009 to 2010. 2.25 The Education and Skills Bill, was introduced to the House of Commons on 28 November where it has completed its committee stage. The Bill includes provisions to raise the participation age to 17 in 2013 and 18 in 2015. Other measures are included to ensure that all adults have access to proper free provision for basic literacy, numeracy and first full level 2 courses, as well as free access for 19–25 year olds to first full level 3 courses. The Bill was introduced to the House of Commons on the 28 November 2007 where it has completed the Public Bill Committee Stage.
Integrating Employment and Skills 2.26 As set out in World Class Skills and in Opportunity Employment and Progression DIUS and DWP are working closely together to create an integrated welfare and skills system. 2.27 This will give low-skilled and unemployed adults the support they need to find sustained employment and progress. Opportunity, Employment and Progression: making skills work (November 2007) set out the next steps in developing an integrated employment and skills services. Ready to work, skilled for work: Unlocking Britain’s Talent, published on 28 January sets out how Government will work with employers to build a new employment and skills partnership for the future. 2.28 Local Employment Partnerships (LEPs) will oVer employers a range of support to increase the eVectiveness of their recruitment processes, which can include wider use of Work Trials to enable people to demonstrate suitability for a job and tailored pre recruitment training to give people the skills employers Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 104 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
need. The Government’s objective through LEPs is to help 250,000 people into work by the end of 2010. We have made a good start, with 619 employers committed and 370 working with Government on detailed implementation plans.
The Olympics 2.29 We are working to ensure that policies and delivery partners cohere to meet the skills demands and opportunities oVered by the 2012 Olympics. We will use the 2012 Games as a lever to develop high quality demand led provision to meet the needs of individual learners and employers and to strengthen London’s skills base and boost job prospects in the long term. 2.30 For example, all companies that win construction contracts from the Olympic Delivery Authority will be encouraged to sign a Local Employment Partnership, committing to considering applicants from the least advantaged backgrounds in exchange for support for their recruitment needs. Relevant SSCs are making detailed plans in preparation for the demands of 2012. Building on the Employer Accord in London, the LSC and Jobcentre Plus are working with Olympic partners to ensure that recruitment services, working with Train to Gain brokerage, can give tailored provision to help employers who have won Olympic contracts. There are dedicated centres producing workers with the right skills, like the new Plant Training Site at the Olympic Park, which will help meet the needs of construction companies.
Lifelong Learning 2.31 The Government is firmly committed to lifelong learning. It is imperative to create the conditions to enable adults to continue to learn and progress. Around three quarters of the 2020 workforce have already left compulsory education, and with the global economy demanding an ever higher level of skills, we need to pursue reforms that support progression for all. We want learners to have the skills and qualifications they need to enter and progress in work, and to build fulfilling lives for themselves and their families. 2.32 In January 2008 the Government launched Shaping the Way Ahead, initiating a consultation on how the Government can most successfully promote Informal Adult Learning, in an age where learning is not simply promoted in classrooms or lecture theatres, but can also be stimulated by a television programme prompting a museum visit or an internet search bringing together a group of like minded learners 2.33 In April 2008 the Government published Adult Learning: Investing in the First Steps, setting out the Government’s plans to invest £1.5 billion on first steps training for adults who have yet to gain basic skills. The Government is particularly keen to ensure that the consultation reaches out to as many learners and potential learners as possible, alongside the special interest groups and networks they belong to. 2.34 The Government’s ESOL policy has helped 2 million people to improve their English language skills and take vital steps towards employment and social inclusion. Between 2001 and 2004 ESOL spending tripled, and is now just under £300m. We propose that ESOL funding should be more specifically targeted to foster community cohesion and integration in our communities. This is a radical move and will need local, regional and national partners to work closely together. 2.35 We remain committed to ensuring the continued availability of a wide range of learning opportunities for adults despite the rightful focus for public funding for adult learning on those without a foundation of employability skills. We are committing £210 million in 2007–08 for learning for its own intrinsic value, for personal and community development. We expect to maintain this from 2008–09 to 2010–2011.
Ensuring a flow of skilled young people into the workforce 2.36 In meeting the challenges laid out by Lord Leitch, improving the skills of adults already in the workforce is crucial. But we also need to continue to drive improvements in the skills of young people entering the labour force. 2.37 Wider reforms to the qualification and curriculum system for young people are designed to ensure that they are equipped to meet the needs of employers and higher education. New functional skills qualifications are being developed which all young people will take whatever learning route they follow. Young people and adults alike will be able to progress more easily up the qualifications ladder with the creation of the Foundation Learning Tier for provision below level 2. The introduction of an extended project for A-level and level 3 Diploma Students, and reforms to A levels to introduce greater stretch for the very able will help young people to develop and test the learning and thinking skills that employers and HE value. 2.38 The new Diplomas have been designed by Diploma Development Partnerships, led by the relevant Sector Skills Councils working with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA). Diplomas will oVer learners a new route into skilled employment or higher education, supporting more young people to gain higher level skills. Diplomas also have support from employers both nationally and locally, and a Diploma Employers Champions network has been established led by Sir Alan Jones, Chairman Emeritus of Toyota Europe, to increase this support. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 105
2.39 At least one of the first five Diplomas will be taught in 146 groups (consortia) of schools and colleges from this September, as the first stage in the full roll-out of all Diplomas by 2011. 72% of secondary schools and 88% of colleges will be involved with consortia teaching Diplomas by 2009. From 2013, there will be an entitlement to the first 14 diplomas and in the consultation on 14–19 qualifications—Promoting Achievement, valuing success: a strategy for 14–19 qualifications—DCSF have proposed that for 16–18 year old students the national entitlement should be extended to include all 17 Diplomas from 2013. 2.40 Delivery of the whole 14–19 reform programme requires local flexibility and collaboration to address local circumstances: it will be for local areas to decide who provides which courses, the curriculum framework, the local delivery model, and transport arrangements. The government will ensure there are suYcient facilities and provision in place across the country building on existing successful provision.
3. The Role of Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and the Regions in Achieving our Skills Ambitions 3.1 The Government recognises that the regions have a key, strategic role in achieving our skills ambitions, and is committed to ensuring that the recommendations in the Sub National Review (SNR) are implemented. Skills and training are essential components of economic development at both a regional and a local level, and they need to be integrated with other local priorities in order to deliver growth and drive productivity. 3.2 RDAs have welcomed the Government’s decision to transfer the responsibility for skills brokerage from the LSC to create, from April 2009, a new integrated brokerage service for employers which is coherent and supports the identification and fulfilment of their training needs. DIUS, BERR and the LSC are working closely with RDAs to ensure a smooth transfer. The result should be a simpler experience for employers, providing them with one channel for accessing support for their skills and wider business needs leading to an increase in the number of businesses reached and support for the Government’s skills targets. Through the Sponsorship Framework RDAs are required to report on their regions achievement of basic, intermediate and high level skills. 3.3 The RDAs expressed strong support for the Leitch vision and World Class Skills. They welcome the move to a more demand led approach that meets regional economic needs, having been concerned that the system in the past was too supply side driven. 3.4 RDAs work closely with regional partners such as the LSC, Jobcentre Plus, Sector Skills Councils and higher education institutions, to ensure that their region has the skills it needs for economic success. RDAs led the development of Regional Skills Partnerships (RSPs) in which the partners align their funding in support of agreed priorities that support the regional economic strategy. This is an important part of our strategy to ensure there is no duplication or overlap in skills provision. The goal is to ensure that the range of support available for businesses in tacking their growth needs is eVectively implemented. 3.5 One example of an RDA establishing an eVective system of cooperation through a Regional Skills Partnership is Advantage West Midlands (AWM). Evidence provided by AWM’s West Midlands Regional Observatory on the demand for skills in the construction sector, resulted in the LSC shifting its emphasis from commissioning Level 1 bricklaying, to funding level 2 construction. This closer cooperation has also led to AWM altering its own pattern of investment in order to eliminate duplication with training funded by the LSC and Jobcentre Plus. Instead AWM has been able to focus its funding on other regional priorities, such as developing leadership and management skills. 3.6 RDAs are now playing an important part in reviewing the role of RSPs and how they can better support the Employment and Skills Boards emerging in some of our larger cities. They also wish to develop a dialogue with the UK Commission for Employment and Skills in order to have influence over decisions made around Sector Skills Councils, the integration of employment and skills agendas and the reform of qualifications. 3.7 RDAs put a strong emphasis on achieving increased productivity through higher level skills. They will have an important role in delivering the High Level Skills Strategy which will provide the framework for greater alignment between HE, business demand and regional need. They are also looking to increase the ability of business leaders to be innovative and enterprising, which should also drive demand for skills. 3.8 The RDAs are currently developing their corporate plans for the next three years. Driving up the skills in their regions is one of the central themes of all of them, with a strong emphasis on Leadership and Management and high level skills.
4. Skills Strategy at a Sub-Regional Level 4.1 It is important to ensure that partners at sectoral, regional, sub-regional and local level are involved in identifying skills priorities and there is a good deal of flexibility within the current system to support alignment of skills priorities at all these levels. Government is very supportive of Local and Multi Area Agreements (LAAs and MAAs) and of the role of Employment and Skills Boards which we believe map Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 106 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
naturally onto MAA areas. It is important, however, that the setting of priorities takes place within the framework of the national skills strategy and that we maintain our focus on those important national priorities. 4.2 Multi-Area Agreements provide a means to facilitate councils and their partners (including local businesses, to collaborate at sub-regional level to drive economic prosperity, focussing on key issues related to economic growth, such as worklessness, skills, housing and transport. Government is working with a number of sub-regions on the development of an MAA. The first of these will be signed in June alongside LAAs. The vast majority of developing MAAs have identified skills as a key priority, and are developing ambitious skills targets based on cross-boundary collaboration. 4.3 The London Skills and Employment Board (LSEB) chaired by the Mayor of London is one example of how skills and employment policies can be integrated at a regional and sub-regional level. The Board is due to publish its employment and skills strategy by the end of May. The LSC will be under a statutory duty to implement the skills aspects of this plan. The Board is committed to ensuring that skills provision in London meets London’s particular needs and the objectives set out in the strategy will also help us to achieve the broader Leitch vision for world class skills. 4.4 In many areas Employment and Skills Boards, are emerging to support and coordinate local priority setting and decision making. There are particularly strong proposals in regions such as Manchester and South Hampshire, which are looking to see how they might benefit from the London model established in 2007. ESBs have the potential to play an important role in coordinating the activities of local authorities, JCP and the LSC at a local level and in promoting strong employer involvement and investment in skills. 4.5 We are strengthening our involvement with Local Authorities through Local Area Agreements in which skills indicators will figure prominently—Local Authorities have an important economic development role which skills underpins. The LSC’s partnership teams intentionally map on to local authority boundaries, and the LSC works closely with local authorities in delivering skills priorities. 4.6 In the most deprived areas there is a particular need to develop skills to facilitate progression into employment. In December 2007 the DCLG and DWP jointly launched the Working Neighbourhoods Fund (WNF). The Working Neighbourhoods Fund element of the Area Based Grant has been allocated to local authority areas which the evidence indicates face particularly significant challenges as a result of high numbers of people being out of work and low levels of skills and enterprise. As the Area Based Grant is not ring fenced, eligible areas have the flexibility to use their WNF allocations in innovative ways to tackle local priorities, including programmes aimed at improving skills levels among people in the most deprived areas.
5. The Roles Of The LSC and SSCs 5.1 The LSC welcomed the Leitch report and its focus on skills as central to both improving economic productivity and enhancing social inclusion. This agenda has been at the heart of its work with local authorities, RDAs and the wider FE sector, in particular to drive up performance on Train to Gain and in developing skills accounts and as a means of engaging more people in learning. 5.2 In the long run, fundamental changes to the learning and skills infrastructure are needed, to ensure high-quality education and training for young people and adults, and to build on a strong foundation to meet the stretching ambitions set out by Lord Leitch. The Government’s White Paper: Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver, published on 17 March 2008 therefore sets out proposals for delivering more substantial transformation of the system. 5.3 The White Paper proposes to transfer responsibility for 16–19 funding to local authorities, supported by a new Young People’s Learning Agency. Local Authorities will come together in sub-regional groupings to plan and commission the full range of 16–19 provision enabling them to meet the challenges involved in raising the participation age and to deliver the new entitlement to Diplomas, Apprenticeships and the Foundation Learning Tier. There will also be regional groups—co-chaired by the RDA—to help ensure Local Authority and sub-regional plans meet regional skills needs. For young people, the demand for apprenticeships will be aggregated at a sub-regional and regional level to agree requirements with the new National Apprenticeship Service. 5.4 Raising Expectations also set out plans for the reform of the adult skills infrastructure, creating a new Skills Funding Agency (SFA) which will have a key role in supporting the move to demand-led funding. The SFA will have a national and regional presence and will be responsible for joining up delivery of the system and services at every level to respond to the demands of users. This will be through the delivery of Train to Gain for employers and through Skills Accounts for individual learners. The latter will also be linked to the new adult advancement and careers service to ensure that more people have access to high quality information and guidance to enable them to get the skills they need to enter into and progress within employment. 5.5 The SFA will work with RDAs, Regional Skills Partnerships and other regional partners to ensure that the integrated regional strategy sets the context for action on skills, in support of shared priorities for economic development. It will also have oversight of the suYciency of colleges and providers to meet a region’s needs; and will have capability to operate at sub-regional level. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 107
5.6 The proposed changes to the 14–19 and post-19 delivery structures will be implemented over a number of years. The precise impact and timeline will depend on the outcome of this consultation. The changes we propose will require legislation, and we will not be able to give eVect to the full legislative changes until the academic year 2010––11. In the three full academic years between now and then, the LSC will retain the legal responsibility for securing and funding all forms of post-16 education and training outside higher education. 5.7 The LSC has a crucial job to do over the next 2—3 years—investing over £36 billion, and working with partners to implement the 14–19 and Leitch reforms. It has demonstrated a powerful focus on delivery and an excellent record in the management of public funds. In the interests of learners, schools and colleges, continuing that high performance will remain essential as we work through to the new organisational arrangements.
Sector Skills Councils
5.8 The Government is clear that a highly eVective network of Sector Skills Councils is crucial to the successful implementation of its long term skills strategy. Since the publication of World Class Skills, Government has been working with key stakeholders to develop an approach to re-licensing which the new UK Commission for Employment and Skills will implement. As an early priority, it is intended that the UK Commission for Employment and Skills will issue a re-licensing prospectus to all SSCs, setting out a refocused remit and the challenges they have to meet to be re-licensed. The UKCES will make recommendations to Government on which SSCs should receive a new licence, and we expect that all new licences should be issued by the end of 2009. 5.9 All SSCs have now completed their first full Sector Skills Agreements (SSAs). These are a key mechanism for setting out the skills needs of each sector, and help underpin the move to a more demand- led system. They provide the framework for SSCs to work with employers, key delivery agencies like the LSC, and with Government to address priority skills issues in their sectors. SSCs’ work in developing SSAs provides a platform for working with SSCs on how their identified skills needs can in future better be met through the Train to Gain service. Discussions on this are taking place with a number of SSCs with the intention of agreeing with them compacts to tailor Train to Gain to meet the needs of employers in their sector and thus boost skills and improve productivity. In developing their SSAs, SSCs recognise the increasingly important role played by the English regions in the skills agenda. Regional Development Agencies contribute sectoral intelligence held in the regions and provide examples of good practice in sector development work that have already been tested in the regions.
6. The Roles and Coordination of the FE and HE Sectors
Further Education
6.1 FE Colleges and providers are crucial to delivering the Government’s ambition for world class skills locally, regionally and nationally, and the creation of DIUS and its sponsorship of the FE system has enabled a greater focus on FE as a route to achieving these goals. 6.2 Performance in the FE system has improved year on year and we are making good progress on our targets for young people and adults. FE success rates rose from 55% in 1999–00 to 77% in 2005–06 and more young people are succeeding in apprenticeships—60% achieving a full framework of NVQ in 2005–06 increasing from 53%. 6.3 To help ensure that there is suYcient capacity, to deliver specialised skills and to respond to the needs of particular sectors the Government is investing to modernise the college estate and develop the National Skills Academies and specialist networks of vocational excellence. Over £2 billion has been invested in the FE sector’s buildings and facilities since 1997–98 and a further £694 million will be spent in 2008–09, £820 million in 2009–10 and £850 million in 2010–11. 6.4 To ensure this investment directly supports our skills ambitions, the Learning and Skills Council will be requiring all contractors working on publicly-funded college projects to have in place formal training programmes, to maximise access to apprenticeships, work-based learning and other training opportunities. 6.5 The Government is committed to driving forward changes to create an FE system with a strengthened focus on skills and employability, alongside a much more responsive service to individuals and employers. Our comprehensive programme of FE reform, the move towards a demand-led system and the system change proposals set out in Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver, will ensure that FE is equipped to deliver the Leitch agenda, including setting out a clear role for the further education sector in developing regional skills strategies. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 108 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Developing links and promoting progression from FE to HE 6.6 There is already much close working between FE and HE with over 150 FE colleges currently providing HE and around 190,000 students taking HE options in FE colleges. In taking up the powers to award Foundation Degrees colleges will need to continue working with other institutions, particularly at a local and regional level, to make sure that students can identify progression routes if they wish to go on to further higher-level study. 6.7 A prime example of successful collaboration between FE and HE is in the West Midlands, where the sectors have developed progression agreements through Lifelong Learning networks. The LSC has strengthened this process by appointing a Train to Gain HE coordinator within each LLN in the region to facilitate better understanding of the HE oVer, and to develop links between employers, the brokerage service and FE. 6.8 The University of Brighton has developed particularly successful progression routes with an FE college: the University’s campus linking to the college with which it has developed joint curriculum planning and cross institutional partnership.
Higher Education 6.9 As was set out in Higher Education at Work: High Skills—High Value, Higher Education (HE) makes a significant contribution to the Leitch agenda. Our latest information indicates that around three-quarters of the 2020 workforce have already left compulsory education and labour market projections suggest that 18 million jobs will become vacant between 2004 and 2020 (and that half of them will be in occupations likely to employ graduates). To compete in the increasingly competitive world of the future, we need a higher proportion of people with high level skills. The Government is committed to achieving the Leitch ambition of at least 40 % of the population being qualified to level 4 or above by 2020. This will ensure a flow well educated, imaginative and adaptable people to enable businesses and services to innovate and thrive. But we can’t be complacent—other countries are developing their high level skills rapidly as well. 6.10 We said in the January 2008 grant letter to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) that the spending review outcome would allow us to provide places for a total of an additional 60,000 students by 2010–11. Twenty thousand of these places come from our policy of increasing opportunities for first time entrants to higher education by redeploying the teaching grant that would have supported the costs of students who already held an equivalent or lower level qualification. This is a significant expansion in student numbers. We are maintaining the unit of funding and so ensuring proper financial support for providers. Together with the changes to student finance announced last year, this will enable around one-third of all eligible full-time students entering higher education in the 2008–09 academic year to be entitled to the full maintenance grant and around a further one-third to be eligible for a partial maintenance grant giving more people than ever before the opportunity to benefit from higher education.
Universities supporting regional economies 6.11 In the future we want to see universities working even more with Regional Development Agencies, Sector Skills Councils and local employers to develop the high level skills that a particular business (or business community) needs in a particular sector in a particular place). Since the Lambert Review in 2003, Higher Education institutions have been increasingly positioning themselves agents for economic and regional growth and are identifying their areas of competitive strength in research and teaching; the goal is for businesses and universities to work together and learn from each other how to generate and exploit innovative ideas. 6.12 At a regional or sub-regional level, universities act as hubs for economic development and are increasingly seen as essential partners in strategies for regeneration and innovation. RDAs are able to apply the learning and research outputs of universities to regional and sub-regional economic development; and HEIs can make a contribution to Multi-Area and Local Area Agreements. 6.13 The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has a strong regional dimension, working with regional stakeholders to support HE institutions (HEIs) in making the most eVective contribution to their area or region, through building on existing regional relationship structures and being regionally-responsive. HEFCE has a regional dimension to some of its funding streams. For instance, its Strategic Development Fund supports HEI activity through its Transforming Workforce Development programme. Bids for such funding must be regionally-responsive, with links to regional economic strategies (RES). The 3 regional Higher Level Skills Pathfinders (in the North West, North East, and South West) are led by their respective regional university associations (representing all providers of HE), and are clearly RES-driven. The FE sector is well-represented within the HLSP consortia. 6.14 HEFCE funds a growing number of institutional “employer engagement pilot” projects, currently 22, which also contribute to meeting regional needs for higher level skills. HEFCE-funded Lifelong Learning Networks, many with a sub-regional coverage and covering both HE and FE institutions, help to facilitate the progression of learners (including work-based ones) into and through HE. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 109
6.15 The Government’s new “University Challenge” underlines the importance of higher education to economic and social success. We want to have 20 more higher education centres opened or agreed over the next six years to help drive economic regeneration and create a highly skilled workforce for local business.
7. Summary 7.1 If we succeed in our goals in reshaping the landscape for planning and funding education and skills we will have a huge impact on the life chances of both adults and young people. 7.2 The integral role of employers will help ensure learners are equipped with the skills and qualifications to succeed. Our VQ reform programme, enabling employers’ own high quality training to be nationally recognised and accredited, will enable more learners in employment to gain valuable qualifications which will enable them to progress in work. 7.3 The investment that we must all make to become a world leader in skills and to generate world-leading employment rates is significant, but the cost of failure is greater—the erosion of social cohesion, the burden of unemployment and the cost to businesses and the economy of an unskilled workforce, ill-equipped to compete in a globalised economy. Working together, we can face up to these challenges, unlock our nation’s talent and secure a prosperous future for all.
Statistical Annex 1. Overall, England’s skills profile has increased significantly since 1997, with a substantial reduction in the proportion of working-age adults with no qualifications, and an increase in the proportion qualified to level 4 or above.
Level of highest qualification held (England, males 19-64 females 19-59, Q4 LFS of each year)
100%
90% 22.3 25.2 27.9 29.9 80%
70% 18.2 19.5 19.5 60% 19.3
50% 20.5 20.2 20.1 40% 20.5
30% 21.9 19.9 19.1 20% 18.0
10% 17.1 15.2 13.4 12.3 0% 1997 2001 2004 2006
None Below L2 L2 L3 L4+ Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 110 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
2. Within that overall national picture, the picture varies by region, although the overall trajectory remains upward.
Proportion qualified to Level 2+ by region
76.0 74.0 72.0 2003 70.0 2004 68.0 66.0 2005 64.0 62.0 2006 60.0 2007 58.0 56.0
London East Mids North EastNorth West West Mids South EastSouth West
Yorks & Humber East of England
Proportion qualified to Level 3+ by region
60.0 50.0 2003 40.0 2004
% 30.0 2005 20.0 2006 2007 10.0 0.0
d n Mids London North East East Mids North West West South EastSouth West
Yorks & Humber East of Engla Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 111
3. In recent years, Learning and Skills Council expenditure has been increasingly focused on national skills priorities, ie skills for life, and first, full level 2 and 3 qualifications.
Adult participation Expenditure: 2004/05 to 2007/08 £700 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 £600
£500
£400
£300 millions
£200
£100
£0 Full/Part level Full/Part level Train to Skills for Life Low Level Non-target Provision 2 3 Gain/National Learning bearing outside the Employer provision National Training Pilots w ithin the Qualifications National Framew ork Qualifications Framew ork
4. The number of adults studying on those national skills priority programmes has increased in recent years, including a 42% increase in the numbers studying towards a full level 2 qualification between 2005–06 and 2006–07.
Number of LSC funded adults (19+) studying on key programmes in England
500,000 450,000 400,000 350,000 300,000 2005/06 250,000 2006/07 200,000
150,000 100,000 50,000
0 Skills for Life Full Level 2 Full Level 3 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 112 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
5. The headline success rate in Further Education colleges has improved dramatically since 1997, from 53% in 1997–98, to 77% in 2005–06.
90% 77% 80% 72% 75% 65% 68% 70% 59% 60% 53% 53% 55% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 1997/98 1998/99 1999/00 2000/01 2001/02 2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06
Source: Learning and Skills Council Benchmarking Data Note: Figures exclude external institutions 6. Since its national roll-out began in April 2006 (full national coverage was reached in August of that year), Train to Gain has grown quickly. Almost 83,000 employers have engaged with Train to Gain, over 390,000 learners have started learning programmes, and almost 185,000 have achieved qualifications.
Chart 1: Headline Progress Ap-06 to Feb 08
450000
400000
350000
300000
250000 Cumulative Employer Engagements Cumulative Learner Starts 200000 Cumulative Learner Achievements
150000
100000
50000
0
7 c-0 un-07 Apr-06 Jun-06 Aug-06 Oct-06 Dec-06 Feb-07 Apr-07 J Aug-07 Oct-07 De Feb-08
7. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 113
8. The LSC grant letter for 2008–09 sets out how funding will be allocated over the next few years, with a continued emphasis on national skills priorities.
LSC funding for priority areas 2008-2011
1,200,000
1,000,000
800,000
08/09 600,000 09/10
£000s 10/11
400,000
200,000
0 Skills for Life Full Level 2 Full Level 3 Apprenticeships
9. The number of Apprentices is forecast to increase over the three year period 2008–09 to 2010–11.
Apprenticeships to 2011 (2) Total Starts
350,000 Total Average in Learning 300,000 Total Framework Completions 250,000
200,000
150,000
100,000
50,000
0 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09 2009/10 2010/11
9. The Government expects to deliver the following number of learners and achievements to 2011:
2008–09 2009–10 2010–11 Skills for life—achievements counting towards 2011 349,000 368,000 387,000 PSA level 1 literacy and entry numeracy level 3 target Adult first full level 2 achievements 346,000 388,000 412,000 Adult first full level 3 achievements 115,000 168,000 213,000 16–18 Apprenticeships average in learning 160,000 172,000 183,000 Total Apprenticeship completions 123,000 134,000 142,000 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 114 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Memorandum 3
Submission from the University of SheYeld How responses to the agenda set out in the Leitch Report will aVect the broader structures of further education (FE), higher education (HE) and lifelong learning
Summary The University of SheYeld welcomes the opportunity to present evidence to the House of Commons Innovation, Universities and Skills Committee. Our submission is based on the experience of senior staV who are involved in the planning, delivery or support of skills and training education, or who are familiar with the work of RDAs.
1.0 Introduction 1.1 The University of SheYeld is a research intensive university which is also committed to excellence in learning and teaching, as confirmed in its recent Institutional Audit by the QAA. It has a thriving Institute of Lifelong Learning and a proven track record in outreach and in engaging with the 14–19 agenda. However, Leitch’s wider agenda of engagement is, to some extent, a new journey for the University. The University’s Learning, Teaching and Assessment Strategy includes a clear focus on the development of students’ transferable skills, which are seen as a key attribute of the SheYeld. Graduate.
2.0 Response to the Inquiry
2.1 The responses of RDAs to Leitch and how coherent and structured these are 2.1.1 The South Yorkshire sub-region has seen the introduction of a number of skills-related initiatives by RDAs in recent years. However, our perception is that at HE level these have not been suYciently focussed on the stimulation of demand by regional employers, in particular the SME base of the sub- regional employer demands, and so have not always resulted in the necessary level of engagement for success. 2.1.2. The Yorkshire Forward Regional Economic Strategy published in December 2007 incorporates objectives which respond to the agenda set out in the Leitch report. While the strategy itself is clearly articulated, it is too soon to comment on achievement against these objectives. Traditionally, the focus in the region, given its unique socio-economic circumstances, has been on delivery at FE level and below, rather than on HE delivery, and some time is needed to see how the strategy will relate to HE providers. Since RDAs rarely fund programmes leading to awards at Level 4 or above, the University may find it diYcult to engage with the strategic objectives of the YFRES, although it has been involved with employer engagement activities. Such activities, as set out in the strategy, are coherent with the Leitch agenda, but it is not yet clear how demand will be stimulated. Similarly, the Regional Skills Partnership for Yorkshire and Humber aspires to meet the challenges of the Leitch agenda, but there is a lack of clarity as to how this will be achieved. The RSP is concerned to match employer demand and education provider supply but, again, it is not clear how this demand will relate to HE provision.
2.2 What the existing regional structures of delivery are and what sub-regional strategies may be required We do not feel able to comment on the existing regional structures of delivery or possible sub-regional strategies, and would refer these questions back to the RDAs themselves.
2.3 The role of the Learning and Skills Council and Sector Skills councils in this context The Sector Skills Councils have had very little engagement with the HE providers, their main activity having related to pre-Level 4 awards. With the notable exception of the Engineering Employers Federation, regional bodies have not approached HE providers to discuss issues relating to appropriate skills needed at graduate level in their sector. Again, this emphasizes the need to focus on skills demand as well as on delivery
2.4 The respective roles of the further education and higher education sectors in delivering a region-based agenda for Leitch and their co-ordination with one another 2.4.1 The University is an active partner of Higher Futures, the South Yorkshire Lifelong Learning Network. The network primarily acts as a magnet for 14–19 year olds to experience HE and does not support the work-based learning agenda at this stage. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 115
2.4.2 From an HE perspective, a solely regional-based approach to skills delivery would not be sustainable, as an HE provider’s engagement with regional objectives must be balanced with the overarching strategy, which in the case of the University of SheYeld is to remain a world class research university. For example, our new Executive MBA programme for local employees contributes to the fulfilment of the Leitch agenda while also meeting our own strategic needs. The University is also supporting the development of leadership and management skills through collaboration with SheYeld Hallam University, co-ordinated by the universities’ new VCs, as exemplified by a joint bid relating to executive education. The HEFCE employer engagement agenda is in many ways a more significant one for us, enabling us to focus on work- based learning at executive level in a targeted and phased way. It is worth noting that employer and employee needs in the region are more for non-accredited training and development, which makes it diYcult to achieve the targets set by Leitch.
2.5 The impact of student of these initiatives, particularly the context of lifelong learning From our perspective, the impact has been on assisting students to progress into HE but not on the development of higher level skills. We note that the recent decision relating to ELQs appears to run contrary to the Leitch agenda.
3.0 Conclusions And Recommendations 3.1 RDA initiatives need to focus on stimulating employer demand for high level skills provision if they are to engage successfully with HE providers. 3.2 A clearer view of how RDA initiative objectives will be achieved, particularly in relation to the involvement of HE, would be beneficial. 3.3 HE providers will find it diYcult to engage fully with RDAs in the provision of skills training and development while higher level skills are not on the agenda. April 2008
Memorandum 4
Submission from Research Councils UK (RCUK)
1. Summary The development of high-level skills in the UK is crucial to a knowledge-based economy which can drive the innovation necessary to compete in a global economy. The Research Councils are major investors and stakeholders in the UK research base. They have a responsibility for promoting economic impact, influencing the behaviour of universities and institutes and working with other stakeholders. The Research Councils regard the achievement of impact as integral to their activities7 and will focus on increasing the scale, breadth, and richness of collaborations between the research base and users. The Research Councils recognise the need to align training with the needs of employers8. The Research Councils also wish to encourage Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to embed transferable skills in the PhD thus raising value to employers, and improve career development for their research staV. This helps to address the employer needs for postgraduates with project management, team working skills, communication, and leadership capabilities9.
2. Introduction 2.1 The Research Councils exert a specific influence on the higher education (HE) sector through funding a major portion of the human research capital10. They support over 30,000 researchers at any one time, including: — 15,500 doctoral students; — 10,000 research staV in universities; — 4000 research staV in research institutes; and — 2000 research fellows.
7 http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/cmsweb/downloads/rcuk/publications/2008deliveryplan.pdf 8 http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/news/20061206prebudget.htm 9 http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/cmsweb/downloads/rcuk/researchcareers/strategyforsuccess.pdf 10 http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/rescareer/strategy.htm Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 116 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
2.2 As we look forward, the natural centre of gravity for RCUK is high economic impact from excellent research.11 The Government has placed a major emphasis on research as a driver of economic growth. Councils recognise that one of the most eVective means of promoting knowledge transfer is through the flow of people12. 2.3 RCUK investment in attracting, training and managing the next generation of world-class researchers will make a major contribution to improving the quantity, quality and impact of research to the benefit of UK society and the economy13.
3. Response In the Leitch Review, there is emphasis on systems meeting the needs of individuals and employers and demand-led approaches and that skills should be portable to deliver mobility in the labour market for individuals and employers. The Research Councils are responding to a new agenda to enhance the economic and social impact resulting from their investment in the UK research base, and we are pleased to see that this approach aligns well with the broader landscape for skills development developed in the Leitch Review. The Leitch Review of Skills is clear that the UK must become world class on skills stating: “One of the most powerful levers for improving productivity will be higher level skills”. RCUK looks forward to the development of a high level skills strategy, as mentioned in the Science and Innovation white paper14.
Existing regional structures of delivery and what sub-regional strategies may be required. 3.1 The UK’s 10 year Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004–2014 (2004) makes clear that science, engineering and technology (SET) skills are essential for the future of the UK. 3.2 RCUK anticipates that a significant increase in SME involvement with the research base will be achieved through partnership with the TSB and Regional Development Agencies (RDAs). RCUK has representation on the Regional Innovation Science and Technology group, RDA/Technology Strategy Board Operational Advisory Group and RDA/TSB Strategy Advisory Group, and meetings are scheduled throughout 2008. RCUK will continue to run its Business Plan Competition (£1 million), oVering researchers training and competition to develop business plans for commercially viable ideas. RCUK will seek greater involvement from the TSB, RDAs, and others and will review the scheme’s operation and impact in 200815. 3.3 There are specific initiatives which link with Sector Skills Councils, for example BBSRC has been developing links with SEMTA to help understand the training issues facing the biotech industries, and is represented on the SEMTA Board.
Impact on students of these initiatives, particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning. 3.4 RCUK monitors and reports on the stock and flow of research staV and skills in the UK: — RCUK Report on “Researchers: What is the Situation?”16 provides an overview of the current situation regarding research staV in the UK — RCUK Report on “Health of Disciplines17” provides an overview of the supply of academic researchers and the demand from both the public and private sectors — UK GRAD Reports on “What Do PhDs Do?”, with the latest report being supported by RDAs and providing a regional analysis of the first destinations of PhD graduates18. 3.5 The Research Councils recognise the need to align training with the needs of employers19. 3.5.1 Doctoral Training Grants, oVered by five Research Councils, provide flexibility for a university to respond to individual and employer needs by allowing flexibility to enter into part-funding arrangements, start students at any time of the year, and (as for awards from all Research Councils) fund students part- time. Alongside DTG funding, EPSRC is looking to expand the numbers of research students in engineering and physical sciences by establishing at least 40 centres for doctoral training with an investment in excess of £250 million. 3.5.2 CASE schemes provide funding for doctoral level training, in collaboration with a business, private or public sector organisation. It provides postgraduate students with the opportunity to gain experience in both academia and industry. The funding commitment to such schemes in 2006–07 was approximately
11 http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/cmsweb/downloads/rcuk/economicimpact/excellenceimpact.pdf 12 http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/cmsweb/downloads/rcuk/publications/addingvalue.pdf 13 http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/cmsweb/downloads/rcuk/researchcareers/rcdstrategy.pdf 14 http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/news/080313a.htm 15 http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/cmsweb/downloads/rcuk/publications/2008deliveryplan.pdf 16 http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/aboutrcuk/publications/policy/researchers.htm 17 http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/aboutrcuk/publications/policy/hod.htm 18 http://www.grad.ac.uk/publications 19 http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/news/20061206prebudget.htm Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 117
£50 million20 across all Research Councils. For example, 30% of NERC PhD studentships are CASE awards. STFC’s CASE Plus scheme also gives students a further year of support to work full time with the industrial collaborator and its partnership grants with industry and enterprise fellowships foster knowledge transfer and knowledge exchange across industry and academia. 3.5.3 Industrial CASE allow a company to initiate a project and select an academic partner for the research, thereby facilitating a demand-led approach. EPSRC and BBSRC have well-established routes for companies to receive these awards. In 2008 and 2009, the number of MRC-funded PhD studentships will increase to thirty and MRC will consider if further expansion is appropriate. 3.5.4 EPSRC Collaborative Training Accounts21 enable individual research organisations to oVer a variety of training opportunities depending on their particular area of expertise and track record. The key factor is the university’s ability to deliver people suitably trained in specific subject areas in response to local and national requirements. Over £263 million was committed on CTAs from 2004 to 2008. CTAs were created in order to place EPSRC’s collaborative training support on a more strategic footing. However, training is but one possible contributor to knowledge transfer. Thus, the introduction (during 2008–09) of Knowledge Transfer Accounts (KTAs) should further enable a two way transfer of ideas, research results, expertise and skilled people between research organisations and user communities. 3.5.5 NERC is currently leading on behalf of the Environmental Research Funders Forum (ERFF) and other employers of environmental scientists on a Skills Needs Review. 3.5.6 The AHRC Professional Preparation Master’s Scheme is intended for students who are going into professional practice eg in the museum and galleries sector, as practicing artists or performers, journalism etc. 3.6 The Review recommended flexible provisions to meet the high skills needs of employers and for skills to be portable to deliver mobility in the labour market for individuals and employers 3.6.1 As part of funding provided in response to the Roberts’ Review22, the Research Councils provide around £20 million a year to research organisations for the personal and professional development of research students and postdoctoral research staV. The Research Councils are also investing over £15 million from 2008–2012 in a new programme to support researcher development. One of the four key aims for this programme is to enhance the provisions in higher education for the personal, professional and career development of researchers through sharing practice and resource23. The “UK GRAD Programme” operates both at a national level and through a series of regional Hubs. April 2008
Memorandum 5
Submission from the Royal Academy of Engineering 1. This submission is based on first-hand experience gained by The Royal Academy of Engineering (Note 1) in the London region: through its London Engineering Project and through its support for the launch of the 14-19 Diploma in Engineering in the London Boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth. This work is the basis for the National Engineering Project (NEP). (Note 2). 2. This submission limits its evidence to one of the five topics sought by the Committee: the respective roles of the further education and higher education sectors in delivering a region-based agenda for Leitch and their coordination with one another. 3. This submission focuses on two principles set out in the Leitch report: that employers and individuals should contribute most where they derive the greatest private returns; and that there should be a focus on economically valuable skills. 4. Engineering is an economically valuable sector for people seeking employment. According to Universities UK (Note 3) the graduate premium on an engineering degree is the second highest amongst all subjects (medicine being the highest). 5. There is a shortage of engineering skills in London, particularly in sectors relating to infrastructure (water, sanitation, power distribution, transport, construction) where relative scarcity of engineers and technicians is coupled with a large number of major construction and renovation projects in the capital. 6. Against this background, The Royal Academy of Engineering is involved in direct approaches to increasing the provision of people with engineering skills in the capital following the principles laid out in the Leitch report. These approaches find new ways of employers engaging with Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) in London. Two will be highlighted here.
20 http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/cmsweb/downloads/rcuk/economicimpact/ktharmonisation.pdf 21 http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/PostgraduateTraining/CollaborativeTrainingAccounts/default.htm 22 http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk./Documents/Enterprise and Productivity/Research and Enterprise/ent res roberts.cfm 23 http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/news/redevelop.htm Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 118 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
7. The first approach is to support employers in finding ways to contribute directly to teaching and learning in the engineering departments in London Universities such as London South Bank University and University College London. Traditionally, employer engagement in university engineering departments has been limited to supporting research, technology transfer partnerships, oVering sponsorship or placements to undergraduates and to the recruitment of graduates. Through the London Engineering Project, this is being extended to include: — Placing engineers in departments as engineering ambassadors and role models with the aim of increasing the retention rates of graduates within the engineering profession. — Making engineers available to university departments to contribute to the planning and development of new courses and curricula: including but not limited to Foundation Degrees. —OVering team based learning opportunities to whole cohorts of undergraduates. For instance a second-year group project can be made common across all engineering courses in a faculty, and the multidisciplinarity brought about by this can mimic the workings of a real-world engineering project. With an employer contributing to the definition of such a project, the learning outcomes for the students are considerably improved. 8. All of these approaches require resources to be applied by employers. However, because all are likely to aid in the recruitment of well-trained engineering graduates in a sector where there are real skills shortages, The Royal Academy of Engineering has learnt to expect employers to apply such resources willingly out of their recruitment budgets. 9. The second approach is to support both employers and Universities in finding ways of deepening their involvement in teaching and learning in London schools and FE colleges. The main diYculty of one of limited time available: if an employer or a university were to get involved in supporting a number of schools and FE colleges the resource implications would be considerable. This is where the 14-19 Diploma in Engineering has proved valuable. Because this curriculum is typically delivered by a consortium of schools and FE colleges, an employer or university can lend support to a single consortium whilst gaining links with many institutions. This means one set of agreements, one set of meetings, one set of liabilities and costs whilst making connections to several institutions. The Royal Academy of Engineering has found this to be a powerful value proposition for employers and universities alike.
Notes 1. The Royal Academy of Engineering [RAEng] brings together over 1200 distinguished engineers, drawn from all the engineering disciplines. Its aim is to promote excellence in engineering for the benefit of the people of the United Kingdom. (www.raeng.org.uk) 2. The NEP started with the London Engineering Project pilot in Southwark in late 2005. This will work with five universities and 50 schools over 4.5 years. The pattern will be repeated, modified and enhanced, as appropriate, in six regions in England over the ten years. The NEP supports schools with their raised profile for SET by providing students with access to hands-on SET activities in class, residential and other SET learning events out of school and a system for mentoring of students with a capacity for higher education and ability in SET. This attention paid on schools and groups so-far unengaged in engineering is seen as key to strengthening the engineering profession in the long-term. The NEP is led by the Royal Academy of Engineering with the generous support of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). 3. “The economic advantages of a degree”, Universities UK Research report, February 2007 April 2008
Memorandum 6
Submission from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI)
Key Points — The education and skills of the workforce are key to maintaining a thriving research based pharmaceutical industry in the UK. — Introduction of the Commission for Employment and Skills, and the re-licensing of Sector Skills Councils (SSCs), is an opportunity to introduce joined up activity to meet the education and training needs of industry — Provision of part time local education, especially part time foundation and honours degree courses in chemistry and biosciences, is often inadequate. Train to Gain skills brokers could have a major impact on helping employers provide ongoing education for their employees by identifying needs across a sector, or similar needs across a range of sectors, and brokering provision of appropriate courses locally and regionally within further and higher education institutions. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 119
Introduction 1. The ABPI is the trade association for the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry in the UK. Members include large UK-based pharmaceutical companies, significant overseas investors in to the UK, emerging biopharmaceutical companies and contract research organisations. 2. The historical strength of the UK in attracting and growing R&D investment has been the supply of skills and access to fundamental knowledge in the research base. Access to skills and knowledge—especially in pre-clinical sciences, pharmacology, chemistry and early clinical development—was the UK’s key competitive advantage. 3. To support delivery of the education and skills required by this research intensive industry, the pharmaceutical industry has been one of the leading sectors in terms of collaborative research with universities. Collaborations include funding of over 600 PhD studentships and around 330 postdoctoral grants24 with 78 British universities in 2007. The total value of all of the collaborations reported in the survey is in excess of £65 million. 4. UK pharmaceutical sites also hosted over 530 undergraduate students in their laboratories for periods between 3 months and one year—the vast majority completed a one year industrial placement as part of their degree. 5. The pharmaceutical industry continually reviews the skills needs of its workforce. ABPI has convened a taskforce to review progress against the recommendations made in our 2005 report, Sustaining the Skills Pipeline25 and to identify any improvements in skills supply or additional concerns.
Implementing The Recommendations Of The Leitch Report 6. Recruitment into the pharmaceutical industry in the UK is largely at Level 4 and above. Research into the labour market for the pharmaceutical and bioscience sectors by Semta26 found that, whereas over 70% of sites surveyed had recruited BSc graduates in the last 12 months, and 60% had recruited people with a PhD, only 11% had recruited people who had left school in the last 12 months, and 13% had recruited people who had completed an apprenticeship. Hence the Leitch targets for adult basic skills and level 2 skills are less relevant to our sector than to many others; the proposed shift towards level 3 and 4 qualifications, proposed in the Leitch Implementation plan, are of more relevance to our sector. 7. The same report found that turnover in some types of company was high. In contract research organisations on average nearly one third of current employees had been recruited in the last 12 months, and 27% were new employees in the industrial biotechnology sector. Turnover was lower in pharmaceutical research and development sites (12%) and pharmaceutical manufacturing sites (5%). 8. The Semta labour market survey found that pharmaceutical and bioscience companies spend a considerable amount of time and money on training; the majority of this is on oV the job training related to specific job roles. The total spend, for the 132 sites which estimated their training spend, was over £10 million, the majority of companies expect training spend to increase in the next 12 months. Laboratory scientists are most likely to receive training with 78% of sites providing training for this group. Barriers to increasing the amount of training carried out were mainly focussed on allowing staV time oV to train and the high cost of local training provision. 9. Regional structures for delivery of skills training are of limited value to an industry which acts globally and where many employees are recruited on a national, and frequently international, basis. The key elements of education for which regional delivery is required are part time provision of HNC in biology and chemistry, and follow on undergraduate degrees. This provision is often lacking, leading to apprentices from Novartis, Horsham having to travel to the University of Greenwich to follow a course that meets their needs. 10. The Commission for Employment and Skills is in its infancy; however we see as an urgent priority, within the re-licensing of Sector Skills Councils (SSCs), more joined up activity to meet the education and training needs of the UK pharmaceutical industry. The lack of clear diVerentiation of responsibility for scientific and technical subjects between the SSCs27 (Annex) demonstrates the lack of a coherent framework. This has led to confusion amongst employers and education providers on the most appropriate SSC to engage with and has probably contributed to the slow pace of activity to meet our needs. 11. The education and skills of the workforce are key to maintaining a thriving research based pharmaceutical industry in the UK. Hence the focus for relevant SSCs must include high level education and skills, including university provision, as well as vocational qualifications. A Sector Qualifications Strategy for the Bioscience Sector (SQS) is under development, led by Semta; this will identify the
24 Data from 11 pharmaceutical companies for collaborations in 2007 (ABPI survey, unpublished data) 25 Sustaining the Skills Pipeline in the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical sectors, ABPI, 2005 (http://www.abpi.org.uk/ Details.asp?ProductID%285) 26 Labour market survey of the pharmaceutical and bioscience sectors, Semta, 2006 (http://www.semta.org.uk/pdf/ LMS Science 2006.pdf) 27 Memorandum of Understanding on the representation of the pharmaceutical sector, June 2006 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 120 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
importance of higher education qualifications to this sector. We understand that there has been a recent improvement in the engagement of HEFCE with Sector Skills Councils towards consideration of funding for employer-led demands. 12. Funding for three pilot employer engagement projects has, indeed, already been provided by HEFCE, however much of the funding has gone to support development of infrastructure for employer engagement and co-funded provision. It is too early to see if this funding will have any impact on engagement with pharmaceutical employers. In general HE sector funding for undergraduate education does not put any emphasis on meeting the needs of employers; hence engagement with Higher Education Institutions is likely to be diYcult. EVective engagement is, however, essential if the SQS is to be eVectively implemented. 13. Enabling SSCs to approve additional vocational qualifications is an opportunity; but it will only be eVective if these qualifications are valued, and taken up, by significant numbers of employers. Ensuring that the framework of qualifications is fit for purpose, to allow seamless progression to further and higher education, and to employment, should be the main focus of any curriculum development carried out by Sector Skills Councils. An ongoing review of National Occupational Standards relevant to the pharmaceutical and bioscience sectors has revealed that many areas do not have qualifications suited to their needs and that significant updating of others are required28. 14. Coordination of further and higher education provision and awareness of opportunities are a major issue. Some companies take on science apprentices, however provision of part time regional education, especially part time foundation and honours degree courses in chemistry and biosciences, is lacking in many regions, forcing students to travel long distances for their higher education. Information on foundation degrees, in particular, is patchy. Although several searchable directories of information on foundation degrees exist, the information they provide is not consistent. This is an area where Train to Gain skills brokers, working with Sector Skills Councils, could have a major impact. However their focus to date appears to have been working with individual companies rather than by identifying needs across a sector, or similar needs across a range of sectors, we have yet to see evidence of this happening. 15. Introduction of Skills Accounts, to be piloted from autumn 2008, together with unique learner numbers, will be a positive move towards engaging adults in lifelong learning. The eVectiveness of the system will depend on local provision of appropriate courses; this is the area which we believe must be addressed if all learners are to have the opportunity to progress. 16. The education and skills needs of science based industries will only fully be met when companies and education and training partners work together eVectively. Sector Skills Councils, Regional Development Agencies, higher and further education institutions and skills brokers can all play a part in identifying and meeting these needs. The economic health of research based industry in the UK is dependent on eVective joined-up working of all these organisations. April 2008
28 Sector Qualifications Strategy for Bioscience (draft), March 2008, SEMTA. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 121
Annex
Skills Needs Identified by ABPI Sector Skills Council
Pre graduate SEMTA COGENT IMPROVE LANTRA HEALTH Animal technician Laboratory analyst Laboratory technician
Undergraduate Biological and Medical sciences Clinical pharmacology/ experimental medicine Pharmacokinetics/ ADME Biochemistry In vitro pharmacology Pharmaceutical formulation Pharmacy Bioscience/ molecular biology Medicine Biotechnology Biotechnology & biopharmaceuticals Chemical sciences Analytical & Physical Chemistry Synthetic organic chemistry/ medicinal chemistry Engineering Chemical and process engineering Mechanical and electrical engineering
In vivo subjects In vivo physiology In vivo pharmacology Toxicology Veterinary medicine/ veterinary science Mathematics Statistics
Post Graduate Biological and Medical sciences Clinical pharmacology/ experimental medicine Pharmacokinetics/ ADME Pharmacy Biochemistry In vitro pharmacology Biomedical imaging/ physical sciences Pharmaceutical formulation Bioscience/ molecular biology Medicine Biotechnology Biotechnology & biopharmaceuticals Chemical sciences Analytical & Physical Chemistry Synthetic organic chemistry/ medicinal chemistry Engineering Chemical and process engineering In vivo subjects In vivo physiology In vivo pharmacology Pathology Toxicology Veterinary medicine/ veterinary science Mathematics (statistics) Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 122 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Memorandum 7
Submission from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC)
Introduction 1. This document is the submission of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) to the House of Commons Innovation, Universities and Skills Select Committee Inquiry: After Leitch: Implementing Skills and Training Policies. 2. The Committee has posed specific questions about progress against the Leitch report. This submission summarises evidence that relates particularly to: — The role of the Learning and Skills Council in this context; — The respective roles of the further education and higher education sectors in delivering a region- based agenda for Leitch and their co-ordination with one another. 3. The LSC welcomes the opportunity to report to the Committee, and would welcome the chance to attend as a witness to highlight the central role it plays in taking forward the Leitch ambition and targets. Working with the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills, the LSC was involved in the development of the Leitch implementation plan World Class Skills: Implementing the Leitch Review of Skills in England published in July 2007.
Executive Summary 4. Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver, recognises that the LSC has been successful in developing a more coherent and responsive FE system, with greater consistency between local areas and clearer progression routes. The LSC also responded to Leitch and the sub-national review by introducing regional structures and partnership teams to improve its ability to respond to the economic development agenda, and the needs of regions and sub-regions. 5. The LSC is a key partner in regional economic strategies and sub-regional arrangements such as multi and local area agreements. For example in the North West, the LSC has been an active partner in the development of a Greater Manchester approach to employment and skills. The LSC also works with emerging Employment and Skills Boards, and is actively involved in the London Skills and Employment Board (LSEB), chaired by the Mayor of London. 6. The LSC has successfully focussed its services towards low-skilled individuals, enabling more people to improve their employment and career prospects as well as boost their quality of life (see annex 1 for performance information). 7. The LSC is working to ensure that a greater proportion of its budget is progressively spent on more responsive and flexible employer-focused training. Sector Skills Councils, on behalf of employers, advise the LSC on which vocational qualifications are a priority for public funding—with funds increasingly focused on tackling low skills to improve employability and progression. A new communications campaign around the value of skills and fostering a new culture of learning also began in 2007. 8. Train to Gain, the national service to support employers of all sizes and in all sectors to improve the skills of their employees, is a major driver in addressing Lord Leitch’s recommendation for increased investment in skills, UK economic competitiveness; increased investment by employers, individuals and the state. 9. World Class Skills signals the proposed support that will be available to individuals to improve their skills and progress in work. The focus on a new joined-up system of support for adults who want to progress in their lives; whether that be moving from a low-skilled, low-prospects job onto a new and better career path, or from worklessness into sustained employment, builds on the work of the LSC. 10. Following the publication of Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver in March 2008, a consultation is taking place on the transfer of planning and funding for 14–19 from the LSC to local authorities, along with proposals for reforming the post-19 landscape. The LSC is actively developing shadow working arrangements to support the proposed changes, and continuing to develop demand-led funding arrangements. Significant work to prepare for the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) and its constituent services in 2010 is underway.
Regional Agenda 11. The LSC works with each Regional Development Agency (RDA) to align and integrate skills with the priorities set out in the regional economic strategy. In each region, the LSC publishes a regional commissioning plan, setting out investment priorities and identifying key sector and occupational skills priorities and where new and additional provision is required. Each plan identifies priority groups of learners, and how the region intends to engage these groups to increase equality of opportunity and social inclusion. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 123
12. Each LSC region has developed regional plans to implement the strategy for Train to Gain set out in A Plan for Growth, detailing local and regional approaches. Plans to manage smooth transition of brokerage activities from LSC to RDAs in April 2009 have also been developed. 13. The LSC actively participates at regional level in a variety of ways to take forward work to support the achievement of the Leitch ambition. For example, in taking forward the Regional Minister’s priorities for skills, the RDA (Advantage West Midlands) and the LSC have developed a sub regional Skills Action Plan (attached at Annex 2). The plan is nested within the Regional Economic Strategy and delivery framework. Uniquely, Leitch’s priorities sit at the heart of the Skills Plan and the RES priorities. The plan is led by employers and proposes a streamlined and simplified approach to skills and employment in the West Midlands. It clarifies the roles and responsibilities of key partners and stakeholders, and sets out a broad summary of actions to achieve agreed goals with annual numerical targets. 14. Launched in March 2008, the plan has been endorsed and supported by a wide range of partners, notably by the CBI, regional Chambers of Commerce, and the Local Government Association. 15. In the North East, collaboration at regional level is crucial in achieving strategic impact and economies of scale. The LSC and the RDA have worked together closely at all levels (from Chief Executives down) across the whole spectrum of employment and skills issues. Specific examples include the development of the “People” chapter of the Regional Economic Strategy, written jointly by RDA and LSC—with the LSC formally committing to deliver a significant amount of the activity—and the wider Regional Skills Partnership adopting this as its overall strategic plan. The RDA and the LSC have joint procurement and performance management of a fully integrated, regional skills brokerage service— delivering both the Business Link and Train to Gain branded brokerage services for the region. 16. Ongoing development and implementation of the North East’s “Regional Employability Framework” brings to life the concept of Integrated Employment and Skills; co-ordinating and enhancing the eVorts of a wide range of strategic and delivery partners—led by a group of senior RDA, JCP, and LSC staV. This work has led to the alignment of LSC and JCP European Social Fund co-financing plans. 17. The key benefit of this activity is the development of operating protocols that define the roles and responsibilities of each key partner, in the context of the sub national review including the enhanced role of local authorities around economic development and worklessness. We are systematically tackling barriers to employment through a comprehensive, system-wide approach that brings a more coherent oVer to the employer and individual. This approach binds together all services at neighbourhood level, including health, housing, transport and childcare to address skills and personal barriers to employment.
Key National Progress Towards Achieving Our World Class Skills Ambition 18. The LSC has made considerable progress to raising achievements to the levels we need to secure the Leitch ambition—progress against key LSC targets is outlined in Annex 1. We expect to achieve the 2010 target of 2.25m for skills for life achievements at least two years early. The 41.6% increase in participation by adults (aged 19 or over) on full level 2 programmes between 2005–2006 and 2006–2007 to 470,400 is fundamental to the strategy for delivering the level 2 element of the adult skills PSA target. 19. The LSC’s latest statement of priorities Better skills, Better jobs, Better lives sets out our plans to meet ambitious new Government targets for learning and skills and where we will invest our £11.5 billion of funds in 2008–09. Through the Train to Gain service we have an opportunity to get more people qualified to levels 2 and 3 (and increasingly level 4). To engage more people in learning (including learning below level 2), over £1 billion a year of public funding supports a range of learning opportunities, including Foundation Learning Tier, Skills for Life and personal and community development learning.
Train to Gain 20. Train to Gain is the national service to support employers of all sizes and in all sectors to improve the skills of their employees as a route to improving business performance. Train to Gain: A Plan for Growth (November 2007), details how the responsiveness of Train to Gain to employers’ needs will be improved for Train to Gain to play its part in delivering the skills trajectories set out in World Class Skills. 21. The plan details the actions and investments that are required to meet the challenging targets for Train to Gain to play its part in delivering the skills trajectories set out in World Class Skills. The plan projects the numbers of employers and individuals it aims to help up-skill, an estimated increase from around 242,000 learners in 2006–2007 to 786,000 in 2010–2011. 22. Enhancing skills not only boosts competitiveness, productivity and profitability, it also greatly enhances the career and salary prospects of individuals. From the low skilled to the highly skilled, Train to Gain aims to help employees improve their employability, career and skills progression. Train to Gain has had a significant impact in the workplace since it commenced in April 2006, and is transforming the way that Government and providers support employers. Current activity in 2007–2008 (data between August 2007—January 2008), has seen 22,810 employers engaging with brokers resulting in 128,000 learner starts. In its first full year of operation, 2006–2007, over 52,000 employers were engaged by brokers, involving around 240,000 employees into training activities. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 124 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
23. A Plan for Growth focuses upon the need to expand and measure the success of Train to Gain. It involves working with partners at national and regional level to consider the best way to improve performance measurement, looking at other indicators such as productivity, tackling disadvantage in particular groups and other economic and social factors. New measures and flexibilities include broadening out skills brokerage to cover all sizes of employer, and flexibilities for people recruited through a Local Employment Partnership (LEP). Train to Gain will have increased flexibility to train people from priority groups who obtain employment through LEPs.
Skills Pledge 24. The Skills Pledge, launched by Gordon Brown in June 2006, is a public commitment by employers to invest in the skills of their employees. The LSC promotes the Skills Pledge, which is now positioned within “Our Future it’s in Our Hands” branding. The Skills Pledge is relevant to all employers, regardless of size or skills needs, and aims to increase employers’ interest and demand for developing the skills of their lowest qualified employees. 25. At the end of February 2008, the number of employers making the Skills Pledge was 2,130, and is increasing steadily each month. There are now 3.3 million employees working in organisations who have made a commitment to the Skills Pledge. The top three performing sectors are Construction Skills, Skills for Care and Development, and Lifelong Learning. The LSC also continues to work with other Sector Skills Councils, and through our Sector Compact arrangements we are expecting SSCs to support a minimum of fifty of their most influential employers annually to make the Skills Pledge.
Sector Qualification Strategies 26. Employers, via Sector Skills Councils (SSCs), have a lead role in reforming vocational qualifications for their sector. The Sector Qualification Strategy (SQS) from autumn 2008 will set out the “fit for purpose” skills and qualifications in a specific sector, as identified by employers (via SSCs). The SQS is therefore a key source of information to the LSC in identifying the courses that should be supported by public funding. The SQS Action Plans will provide a suYcient level of detail to allow the LSC to focus funding where it can make most diVerence to employability and productivity.
Integration of Employment and Skills 27. A framework of stronger partnership working, performance management and targets for JCP, the LSC and a new adult advancement and careers service (aacs) is developing in response to World Class Skills, and the subsequent DIUS and DWP report Opportunity, Employment and Progression: making skills work (November 2007). Aspects of the new “careers service,” envisaged by Leitch includes joined up advice services and a new skills health check, will start to be delivered from 2008–2009. LSC has positioned the careers service as a gateway to skills accounts and as a building block for the integrated employment and skills service, which will also be trialled from 2008–2009. The new advancement service for adults will have the potential to help every adult progress in learning and work. 28. Individuals will have greater ownership and choice over their training, through Skills Accounts, backed by joined-up services providing information and advice on jobs, skills and training. Our vision is that every individual who receives publicly funded vocational provision—whether that be via college, through JCP, via an Apprenticeship or through Train to Gain will have a Skills Account to support their ongoing progression over a lifetime. We are designing and testing a high quality Skills Account product and supporting systems through trials in 2008–09 and 2009–2010 to inform the national roll-out of skills accounts from 2010.
Joint Working with Jobcentre Plus 29. Considerable progress has been made in joint working between LSC and Jobcentre Plus (JCP). JCP and LSC are now fully involved in each other’s internal project management arrangements for the forthcoming Integrated Employment and Skills trials and Local Employment Partnerships (LEPs). (LEPs are the key activity for JCP in engaging employers to recruit from their priority customer groups). 30. The LSC’s flexible and responsive pre-employment provision Skills for Jobs has been rolled out across the country, providing pre employment provision for JCP priority groups, including those recruited through LEPs. LSC provision is the primary source of pre-employment training required by employers. This area of provision will be further supported by up to £195m of European Social Fund monies in the period 2008–2010. 31. The LSC has rolled out its employability skills programme (literacy, numeracy and vocational skills) across the country, enabling more JCP customers to access tailored basic and employability skills provision, including enhanced information, advice and guidance. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 125
Apprenticeships 32. World-class Apprenticeships, unlocking talent, building skills for all published in January 2008 is central to the Government’s response to Leitch on skills and was launched as part of the Government’s skills and welfare reform programmes. The report articulated the need for a National Apprenticeship service (NAS). 33. The NAS has clear economic and social benefit goals which will help the country to compete successfully in the global skills race and to ensure that more people have the broad base of skills needed to get in and on at work. World-class Apprenticeships fundamentally re-positions Apprenticeships as a major learning route way for young people and for employers wanting to recruit and up skill their workforce. The NAS, its delivery partners and stakeholders have a massive task to stimulate a culture shift in the attitudes of employers, young people and adults and their advisers towards Apprenticeships as a key part of in-work training and development. 34. The LSC grown the Apprenticeship Programme considerably, introducing 5,000 Adult Apprenticeship places, due to increase to 8,000. Also many more young people complete their training successfully, with an increase in completion rates to 63% of those starting. The LSC’s National Employer Service has continued to grow apprenticeship programmes, with approximately 22,500 starts in 2007–2008, an increase of just over 9% over the previous year. 35. A new national Apprenticeship vacancy matching service will be trialled in three test bed regions from October 2008, following a series of developmental pilots. This service will ensure easy access to Apprenticeship vacancy details for young people and adults; provide a free vacancy service to employers wanting an Apprentice; and enable the NAS to monitor and support the successful use of the system by both employers and individuals.
The Role of the FE Sector and Co-Ordination between HE and FE 36. A comprehensive programme of FE reform and the move towards a demand-led approach for adults and the system change proposals set out in Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver will ensure that FE is able to deliver the Leitch agenda. The FE sector has improved performance successfully over the last decade, demonstrated by positive inspection ratings and increasing success rates in the standard of management and leadership, and teaching and learning. 37. The FE and HE sectors share a common goal of helping young people and adults to develop the skills needed for employment. An increase in joint working between FE and HE is demonstrated by the high level of HE delivered by FE colleges. The LSC’s Higher Education strategy Partnership, Provision, Participation and Progression published in 2006 contains a clear commitment to HE in the FE sector and to collaboration between HE and FE institutions, recognising the sector’s unique position with regard to HE, in preparing individuals to progress to HE and HE delivery in FE. 38. We believe that FE and HE collaboration can be further developed, for example, through a clear and collaborative focus on employment related higher level skills including Foundation Degrees, with the joint capacity to stimulate demand and growth at level 4. 39. We have begun discussions with HEFCE and UCAS about extending the availability of Higher Apprenticeships at Level 4 and attributing tariV points to Apprenticeships for entry to HE. 40. We are exploring new approaches to collaboration—in National Skills Academies, through FE colleges and HE institutions working together to become recognised awarding organisations in the QCF; through collaboration in the delivery of the new Diplomas, through credit accumulation and transfer across the sectors. April 2008
Annex 1
Targets and Impact
1. Participation in full-time education amongst 16–18 year olds 1.1 Participation of 16–18 year olds in education or training at the end of 2006 reached 77.3% of the age cohort, an increase of 0.5 percentage points on the previous year. 1.2 This represents 1.55 million young people in education or training and is the highest level ever recorded. 61.1% (1,223,000) of 16 to 18 year olds are in full time education, the remaining 16.2% (324,000) of young people are in other education or training. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 126 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
16-18 Participation (source: DES SFR 22/2007)
1,600 77.5% 77.3% 77.0% 1,550 76.8% 1,547 1,532 76.5% 1,500 1,455 76.0% 76.1% Volume participation 1,450 1,464 Participation rate 75.5% 75.6% 75.3% 75.3% 1,400 1,425 1,391 75.0% Participation rate (%) Volume participation (000’s) Volume 1,350 74.5%
1,300 74.0% 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
1.3 Early information relating to 2007–08 indicates that growth in young people’s participation is being maintained. Based on the number of learners in learning on 1 October 2007 the number of learners aged under 19 has increased by 2.5% to 852,400. Young peoples participation as at October 2006 / October 2007
Age Type of programme 2006–07 2007–08 % change 2006–07 Under 19 Total learners 831,200 852,400 2.5% of which is Full level 2 231,100 234,700 1.5% of which is Full level 3 319,700 339,000 6.0%
2. Number of adults qualified to at least level 1 literacy, and to at least entry level 3 numeracy 2.1 The latest information confirmed with Ministers (October 2006) shows that the 2007 milestone of 1.5 million adults with improved skills had been exceeded one year early. Confirmed figures for the end of July 2006 show that 1.76 million adults actually achieved qualifications that count towards the target. 2.2 Latest available information shows that we expect to exceeded the 2010 target at least two years early. Indicative figures to July 2007 (shown in sky blue below) show that 2.294 million adults have achieved a Skills for Life qualification since 2001. Using final year data, it is forecast that this will rise to 2.296 million. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 127
2.3 Before we can confirm meeting this target, thorough checks on Skills for Life Achievement data for repeat learners will need to be completed. Detailed analysis, commissioned by DIUS looking at each year since the start of the target and up to and including 2007–08 is due for completion by the end of May. Following this we should be in a position to publish robust data, and to measure accurately progress towards the 2010 target.
Progress against the 2010 Adult Skills for Life Target
2,500 2,979 2,294 2010 Traget (2,250)
2,000 1,789
1,500 1,287
1,000 886
589 Number of learners (1000s cumulative) 500 377 159
0 Progress to July Progress to July Progress to July Progress to July Progress to July Progress to July Progress to July Progress to 2001 2001 2001 2001 2001 2001 2001 January 2008
Learners - 10% discount rate 2010 Target
2.4 It is too early to measure our progress against the new PSA targets, to ensure 597,000 people of working age achieve a first level 1 or above literacy qualification and 390,000 to achieve a first entry level 3 or above numeracy qualification. In 2007–08 we are planning to deliver 222,100 literacy and 85,900 numeracy achievements.
LSC funded Learners 2005–06 2006–07 (provisional) 2007–08 (planned) Learners achieving first L1 Literacy 181,400 217,900 222,100 Learners achieving first entry level 3 Numeracy 71,300 83,000 85,900 2.5 In the LSC’s statement of priorities, Better skills, Better jobs, Better lives the LSC expects its providers to assess the numeracy skills of all their literacy and language learners, and to oVer appropriate provision if necessary. The LSC is also working with DIUS to develop a numeracy plan to help raise the profile of numeracy skills, to increase learner numbers and to ensure there are appropriate levels of qualified numeracy teachers. 2.6 Recent developments include a numeracy marketing campaign launched by the LSC on 17 March 2008. The first phase has received positive publicity and a very good response rate. The campaign has generated over 24,000 confirmed responses so far, with around 10,000 calls coming through the Learndirect helpline and almost 14,000 coming via the website. This is in excess of the responses generated by the most recent “gremlins” campaign and is also higher than the responses to the initial skills campaign adverts in July 2007.
3. Adults qualified to at least first full level 2 3.1 There has been a 41.6% increase in the number of adults (aged 19 or over) on full level 2 programmes to 470,400 between 2005–06 and 2006–07. This increase in participation is a fundamental part of the strategy for delivering the level 2 element of the adult skills PSA target.
Age Type of programme 2006–07 2007–08 % change 2006–07 19 plus Full level 2 332,300 470,400 41.6% Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 128 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
3.2 The latest PSA agreements include new targets for Levels 2 and 3 based on the population aged 19 to 59 for women and 19 to 64 for men designed around the Leitch ambitions for 2020. 70.6 percent of all working age adults have a qualification at Level 2 or above, equating to 20.3 million people from a population of 28.8 million. There has been an increase of 5.7% since 2001. The PSA target is 79% by 2011.
Volume of adults reaching the level 2 threshold in the workforce (source: Labour Force Survey Quarter 4, 2007) 20,000
19,000 19,530
18,000 17,700 17,500 17,200 17,000 16,720 16,340 16,530 17,340 15,970 16,000 15,790 15,540 15,090 Actual attainment 15,000 14,590 as at Quarter 4 14,000 Target attainment
Volume attainment (000’s) Volume 13,000
12,000
11,000
10,000 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
3.3 The Quarter 4 figure for 2007 is approximately 200,000 lower than the planned trajectory to reach the 2010 target. The LSC is continuing to build upon the Level 2 action plan agreed with DIUS to ensure we focus on actions to drive up performance to levels needed to meet the target. This work has included a specific focus on achieving higher levels of adults undertaking Level 2 for the first time. Other work includes ensuring under-performing colleges and providers falling short of meeting target numbers will have their allocations reviewed for 2008–09 to ensure funding continues to be directed at those that are able to deliver.
4. Adults qualified to at least first full level 3
4.1 50.5 percent of people aged 19–59/642 have a qualification at level 3 or higher—an increase of 5.8 percentage points since 2001
Adult participation as at October 2006 / October 2007
Age Type of programme 2006–07 2007–08 % change 2006–07 19 plus Full level 3 235,800 242,100 2.7%
4.2 Early data from 2007–08 indicates there has been a 2.7% increase in the number of learners participating on full level 3 courses compared to 2006–07.
5. Adults qualified to level 4 and above
5.1 30.8 percent of all adults aged 19–59/642 have a qualification at level 4 or higher. This represents an increase of 5.6 percentage points since 2001 (25.2 to 30.8 percent), equivalent to around 1.8 million more people having Higher Education (HE) level qualifications than in 2001.
Notes:
1 Economically active adults are defined as males aged 18–64 and females aged 18–59 who are either in employment or ILO definition unemployed.
2 Males aged 19–64 and females aged 19–59 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 129
Annex 2
West Midlands Regional Skills Action Plan (see http://readingroom.lsc.gov.uk/lsc/WestMidlands/nat-skillsactionplan-mar08.pdf)
Memorandum 8
Submission from EEF
About us 1. EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation, has a membership of 6,000 manufacturing, engineering and technology-based businesses and represents the interests of manufacturing at all levels of government. With a network of regional oYces, EEF is one of the UK’s leading providers of business services in health, safety and environment, employment relations and employment law, manufacturing performance, education, training and skills.
Context 2. The Leitch Review was widely welcomed as a comprehensive assessment of the UK education and skills system and the changes that would be needed to meet the challenges of globalisation. In particular, EEF welcomed recommendations that placed a greater emphasis on intermediate and higher level skills, which are especially relevant to the needs of manufacturing. Furthermore, the report recognised the need to achieve higher level skills within the existing workforce, in addition to improving the flow of more highly skilled individuals into the workforce. This is essential if the UK economy is to compete in higher-value added activities, which will increasingly rely on knowledge and innovation. 3. The Review proposed moving further in the direction of a system of demand-led training provision and correctly identified the shortcomings of the current structure which tries to predict and provide training provision. It recommended directing a much greater share of public subsidy for training through well- informed customers. However, there is more to do to ensure that the customers of the skills system are equipped with the information to make choices about the right training for their business. Train to Gain and Learner Accounts are two potential mechanisms for achieving this. It also recognised the current complexity of the learning and skills landscape in England, including the number of bodies and intermediaries—both sectoral and regional—that have been established to influence training provision and funding flows is a significant barrier to employer engagement with the system. The acknowledgement of the current confusion and its impact on business was therefore welcome. 4. While the review made a number of recommendations on the direction of travel needed, it stopped short of providing a blueprint for reform. In the interim it has taken some time for government to translate the Leitch Review ambitions into a policy strategy that would deliver world class skills. The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills published an implementation plan in response to both the Leitch report and last year’s machinery of government changes. 5. The implementation plan placed significant emphasis on increasing Level 2 skills and on how employers would be expected to contribute to meeting the UK’s skills targets. Issues around the complex skills infrastructure remained largely unresolved. A more detailed strategy on developing higher level skills, planned funding changes and the first meeting of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills did not take place until the first few months of 2008. The proposal to replace the Learning and Skills Council with a Skills Funding Agency, which will route public funding for skills through Train and Skills Accounts is a step towards a demand-led system of funding—but this is not due to be completed until 2010. 6. The delay in reforming the Learning and Skills Council until 2010 and in routing more funding through demand-led routes such as Train to Gain has been particularly disappointing given that this would potentially go some way to increasing competition in the provider market and improve its responsiveness. 7. Progress on delivering change has therefore been somewhat slower that expected. This is of concern given that the government accepted the Leitch Review recommendation that employers’ progress be assessed in 2010. Yet many of the barriers to oVering more and better training that EEF identified in 2004229—lack of information and lack of appropriate training provision—still exist. This also raises questions about how well equipped government is to responding to these challenges—the Leitch Review took two years to complete and we are now a year and a half into implementation. In the meantime, our competitors have continued to move forward.
29 http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/cmsweb/downloads/rcuk/researchcareers/strategyforsuccess.pdf Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 130 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Regional responses 8. The complexity of the skills infrastructure is most acute at the regional and sub-regional level. As this is the level at which most companies engage with the system, action on improving coherence at this level should have been a priority. There remains a lack of clarity about the future shape of the regional infrastructure and the role it will play in delivery of the Leitch Review targets. 9. While overall policy is directed at the national level, regions have two primary functions—determining skill needs in line with Regional Economic Priorities and providing the interface with employers and individuals by directing funding flows and managing the skills brokerage service under the Train to Gain banner. 10. At the national level, there has been a lot of focus on the role of Sector Skills Councils, with seemingly little direction given to change at the regional level. Currently, RDAs take a lead in ensuring that the skill needs of a region’s economy are met through the Regional Skills Partnerships (RSPs). The Leitch Review and subsequent implementation plan were published in the middle of many RSP’s planning and delivery cycles, which meant that many of the RSP’s plans were not directly influenced by the Leitch Review findings. However, most of the RSP’s plans had already identified the need to raise intermediate and higher skills— in line with the Leitch Review’s final recommendations and suggested targets. 11. EEF has previously expressed concerns about how eVectively the skills priorities identified by RSPs were translated into a delivery plan for the region by the LSC and the extent to which LSCs had suYcient discretion over the direction of public funding. In addition, it is not clear that there is suYcient employer involvement and engagement. Business representatives only make up a minority or all of the RSP boards. The current array of partnerships and regional bodies, many with employer representation, means that businesses are confused and unsure about the most eVective way to influence the skills infrastructure. 12. The link between RDAs’ assessment of skills needs and LSC funding priorities was not clearly established. While we support the creation of the new Skills Funding Agency, which will be focused on delivering funding in response to demand rather than in response to planning, this raises further questions about how the work of RSPs will influence funding or training provision—if at all. 13. The main Leitch Review recommendation in relation to regions was the creation of Employment and Skills Boards (ESBs). Again the Leitch Review was light on the detail of what these boards would look like and what their remit would be. The implementation plan, however, suggested that these should be set up according to local need and where they exist they should simplify the range of local existing bodies. 14. If the boards adapt to local circumstances and reflect local needs in terms of their exact roles and geographic coverage, they could potentially have a positive role in finding solutions to local problems. The boards should ensure that acting as a representative voice of local employers is a primary purpose and not try to replicate the roles of Regional Skills Partnerships. The development of these new boards will only increase the quality of local employer engagement if they lead to a rationalisation of other employer representation at the local level. 15. The creation of ESBs at the sub-regional level has again been variable. Some RDAs have set up ESBs but the exact design or history of them is unclear. In some cases it appears that some are simply re-badged from previous skills groups and may not be employer-led because of this. 16. A lack of direction from government about the role of ESBs means that many areas have been reluctant to back the establishment of the boards before they know what the future holds for them and this is a real constraint on the eVectiveness of the ESB model. Many employers are unwilling to invest time in engagement with the boards until they know what the boards are aiming to and likely to achieve. 17. The boards should be responsive to local need and the model they choose to adopt should depend on local circumstances. There is, however, a need for more clarity about the roles of boards. Ministers need to explain what they expect the boards to do even if how they carry out the role assigned to them and the models they adopt are decided at the local level. 18. Responsibility for the delivery of the Train to Gain brokerage service is at the sub-national level. The successful introduction of a demand-led system will depend to a significant extent on the quality of brokerage and brokers and their ability to understand the skill needs of diVerent sectors. Brokers play a key role in communicating business demand to training providers by directing business to existing providers or working with businesses and providers to commission new provision. The quality of brokers and their knowledge of the needs of diVerent sectors need to improve as the system beds down and this will need to be driven at the regional level. In addition, more needs to be done to improve the communication of the Train to Gain oVer to employers. There is still a perception that it is confined to funding for a first Level 2 qualification. 19. The government’s recently published Review of Apprenticeships proposed the creation of a new body—a separate National Apprenticeship Service—to contract with employers. We are concerned that the proposed brokerage role of the National Apprenticeship Service, which is separate from a combined Train to Gain and Business Link system, risks further complicating business involvement with the skills system. There is potentially a role for a National Apprenticeship Service in developing and managing a national matching service—for employers oVering apprenticeships and learners who want to take up an Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 131
apprenticeship place. We are concerned that the proposal for the service’s field force to be in direct contact with businesses will lead to them being approached by two separate sets of brokers dealing with skills issues. This risks undermining the confidence of business in the usefulness of either brokerage service.
Sector Skills Councils
20. Sector Skills Councils have a vital role to play in collecting and communicating the skill needs of their sectors. However, the quality of Sector Skills Councils depends on the extent of their engagement with and understanding of the needs of employers of all sizes. Moreover, the attempt to marry a sector led approach driven by the Sector Skills Councils with a regional one through the Regional Skills Partnerships has not been as eVective as intended 21. Sector Skills Councils are set to become more important role in ensuring that the education and skills system reflects the needs of business. They will play an increased role in ensuring that the Train to Gain brokerage service is more reflective of the needs of diVerent sectors and the government’s higher skills strategy will given them an enhanced role in communicating the needs of industry to the higher education sector. It is important that the re-licensing of Sector Skills Councils process is rigorous in ensuring that the bodies are able to carry out these new tasks eVectively and leads to the development of more eVective and influential Sector Skill Agreements. The simplified remit proposed in the Leitch Review, which identified four key tasks for SSCs is a good starting point for the UK Commission for Employment and Skills.
Further and Higher Education
22. Both the further education (FE) and higher education (HE) sectors have an important role to play in meeting the future demand for intermediate and higher level skills which was set out in the Leitch Review. The quality of local FE provision will impact on the ability of areas to respond to the Leitch agenda. A consistently high quality of provision throughout the country is important to ensure that all regions can successfully respond to the Leitch agenda. The development of a system where funding follows choices made by consumers should lead to increases in competition and therefore the quality and responsiveness. 23. New ways of delivering higher education will be key to achieving the Leitch target of 40 percent of the adult working population qualified to level 4 and above. The target will only be achieved through the expansion of HE participation of those who are already in work. 24. A forthcoming EEF survey will show that some employers are working eVectively with HE institutions to upskill their workforce. Others report a number of hurdles to working with HE, such as uncertainty about what universities can oVer and a lack of experience in managing such relationships. These need to be overcome if a new model of HE/employer engagement is to be rolled out more widely. 25. HE institutions do have an economic impact on their locality but their marketplace both in terms of students, research and commercial links are also national and international. The delivery of the Leitch targets by the HE sector needs to recognise HE institutions’ autonomy and their national and international reach. The focus needs to be on helping institutions respond to the needs of business for higher level training and ensuring that learners receive a high quality education.
Conclusion
26. Meeting the challenge set out in the Leitch Review is vitally important for our future economic success. The Leitch agenda has led to a flurry of reports and consultation from national government and the regional level. It is less clear, however, that policy has so far had any impact on business’s experience of the skills system on the ground. Speeding up the move to a system of funding that follows demand from employers and individuals is essential. As is improving the extent and quality of employer engagement— a vital issue if progress is to be made towards the targets set out in the report. The 2010 date for the assessment of employer response to the Leitch agenda is almost upon us, but the barriers to training which the report identified still remain. 27. Leitch identified the complexity of the skills infrastructure as a barrier to employer engagement. This complexity is most acute at the local and the regional level, which is where most companies engage with the system. Despite the apparent problem, the government’s Leitch implementation plan makes few suggestions which will lead to significant simplification and a lack of clarity about the roles of Regional Skills Partnerships and Employment and Skills Boards is one example where there is a risk of increased complexity. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 132 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
28. Overall, a clear picture is yet to emerge of how the infrastructure and delivery of post-compulsory education and training at the regional level will respond to the Leitch agenda of employer engagement in a demand led system. The fact that little has yet been achieved on making the system more coherent from the employer’s point of view is a significant obstacle to the delivery of the Leitch agenda at the regional level. April 2006
Memorandum 9
Submission from the 157 Group
Summary of the Main Points
1. Responding successfully to the Leitch targets ultimately lies in the hands of the employers not the providers. The Government needs the key employer organizations the CBI and the BCCI to be central to the Skills Pledge campaign shouting the skills message from the rooftops and supporting their members’ engagement. (paragraphs 18, 20)
2. History suggests that compliance comes before a culture change so it is essential that the Government legislates to hold compliance powers over sectors that are slow to train. The powers may not be needed but their existence concentrates the mind. It may be diYcult for that lead to come from the new UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) and Sector Skills Councils (SSC) as employer led bodies. (20)
3. The SSCs need to press ahead with their flexible and relevant qualification frameworks with a significant number of employers and providers becoming awarding bodies. Every SSC should have a provider on their board to ensure that an eVective supply chain dialogue can take place. (22)
4. The Learning and Skills Council and the Government need to ensure their targets and funding are aligned to support that flexibility. (23)
5. The Regional Development Agencies and Regional Skills Partnerships led by employers need to continue to provide good quality data to monitor progress towards the Leitch targets and set Regional Economic Strategies which guide and support the network of skills providers. (25)
6. Local Authorities and key partners such as large GFE Colleges and DWP contractors should develop realistic local economic strategies with particular regard to re-engaging the economically inactive and assisting labour mobility. (26,27)
7. The new Skills Funding Agency should integrate the Apprenticeship programmes into its wider funding of Train to Gain as an all embracing package for employers and dramatically simplify the paperwork involved in the whole employer engagement process. (28)
8. The public sector should be targeted to make a significant contribution to the Leitch targets following the example of the Health Service. (29)
9. It should be recognized that collaboration as well as competition has a role to play post 19. (31)
10. Large providers can support partnerships that enable smaller deliverers to meet local or specialist training requirements. Partnership between public and private providers should be encouraged and regional operating restrictions abandoned for quality providers. (31)
11. The provider network needs to meet the new Training Quality Standard and should be assisted directly to develop their supply chain capacity following the example of HEFCE with the University sector. Just as with the broker network it is unlikely that maximum benefit will come from funding intermediaries. (32)
12. GFE Colleges should expect to be key partners in their local communities providing the glue that links local government and neighbourhoods to the business community taking on the strategic role currently played by the local LSC oYces. This should be recognized and encouraged by DCLG, DIUS and the RDAs. (33)
13. Following the FE Sectors success in exceeding the targets set quality providers should be trusted with deregulation rather than sector self regulation. (34) Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 133
About the 157 Group 14. The 157 Group was established in March 2006, in response to the recommendation of Sir Andrew Foster in his report “Realising the Potential”. In paragraph 157, he advocates: “…a greater involvement of Principals in national representation, in particular those from larger, successful colleges where management capacity and capability exists to release them for this work. There is a strong need for articulate FE College principals to be explaining the services they give to society and how colleges can make a significant contribution to the economy and to developing fulfilled citizens.” 15. The criteria for membership of the 157 Group include achieving Grade 2 or higher for leadership and management in the last Ofsted inspection, and having a turnover of not less than £35 million per annum (although some smaller high quality and influential colleges will be included).
The Purpose of this Memorandum 16. The 157 Group represents large key players delivering the Skills agenda on behalf of employers and individuals in line with Government policy priorities. We have a major interest in ensuring that the structures and responses established post Leitch deliver a vibrant economy that maintains the nation’s influential position in the world economy and brings prosperity to our communities.
Support for a Demand Led Model to Achieve the Leitch Targets 17. The Group fully endorses the proposition that provision should be demand led; that the employer and the individual should as directly as possible influence the pattern and quality of provision. In this context it is important not to confuse skills with qualifications. We share with government the view that there are areas such as the first Level 2 and possibly Level 3 skills where the public good requires interventions to ensure provision where the market driven by individual demand might fail. In terms of social equity and economic welfare there are vulnerable groups such as those with learning diYculties and disabilities, the unemployed and economically inactive and ex-oVenders where support for an extended period may be required before such individuals are securely placed on the employment ladder. The tactical or employability skills need to be taught alongside the vocational skills.
The Central Role of Employers 18. If the proposition is accepted then clearly the first duty to develop a highly skilled, productive and flexible workforce rests with employers. They are responsible for recruiting and developing their staV.Itis their bottom line that is at stake as well as the nation’s prosperity. Clearly the government, business advisors and providers all need to reinforce the message that training and skills significantly impact on a company’s success. Key employer organizations such as the CBI and BCCI need to be fully committed to promoting this agenda. However high quality, flexible and responsive the supply side is will be of no avail if there is a demand deficit for skills upgrading from employers. Therefore the first focus of this memorandum will be to examine if the actions proposed impact suYciently on employers to bring about the step change in training necessary to meet the Leitch targets.
The Role of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills 19. At the pinnacle of the new employer facing structures is the new Commission for Employment and Skills supported by eminent leaders from the business community. The UKCES, which was set up as a result of Leitch, operates across the UK and plays a central role in raising the UK’s skills base, improving productivity and competitiveness, increasing employment and making a contribution to a fairer society. Having developed a view of what’s needed, the UKCES will provide independent advice to the highest levels in the four UK governments to help achieve those improvements through strategic policy development, evidence-based analysis and the exchange of good practice. As well as providing greater employer influence over the employment and skills systems, the UKCES will promote employer investment in people. So it will also manage the performance of the employer-led Sector Skills Councils, advising Ministers on their re- licensing. 20. Will this bring the step change in employer commitment to workforce development? From the providers perspective this could become another supply side initiative to improve providers oVer. The key challenge the Committee may wish to put to Chris Humphries the new CEO is how they will tackle the Leitch challenge for 2010 to introduce compliance legislation for those sectors that fail to grasp voluntarism. It is not clear how an employer led body will be able to step outside the CBI view that the Government should keep interference with employment practices to a minimum. 21. Will the UKCES be able to influence the SME sector that needs to spawn the world beaters of tomorrow? We need the influential players such as the CBI and BCCI to step up and proactively promote the skills agenda. This would carry significant weight with their members. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 134 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
The Contribution of Sector Skills Councils
22. This takes us to the second group of influencers on whom Leitch placed a significant burden of responsibility to transform the skills and qualification landscape. The 157 Group welcomes the move to empower Sector Skills Councils to work with employers and providers to ensure the qualification structure becomes more bespoke whilst retaining coherence and standards. To ensure an eVective dialogue every SSC should have at least one provider on their board. The structure of QCA and established Examining Bodies with an eVective monopoly over the qualification structure can now be transformed into a responsive and relevant instrument for companies and trainers to develop to reflect both sector and individual employer needs. The challenges that the Committee may wish to put to SSCs are how they ensure coherence and portability of qualifications as the number of awarding bodies increases. 23. The LSC or its successor bodies needs to ensure that the flexibility in the qualification framework is reflected in the funding model where public support is available. There will still be a tension between government targets for full qualifications and the desire of employers to focus on a narrower range of skills. This must be resolved if we are to see the full benefits of this new freedom. The key role of SSCs in the new diplomas needs to be nurtured if we are to get qualifications that ensure our pupils leave school or college with employability skills. These broad employability skills need to be given as much prominence as the narrowly defined functional skills. 24. Whilst flexible qualifications are a help they still don’t guarantee that all firms will train and develop their workforce. SSCs are relatively small organizations who can only communicate directly with a minority of their members. They need to work through employer networks, trade bodies and at a regional level perhaps Regional Development Agencies and Regional Skills Partnerships.
The Regional Structure—RDAS, Skills Partnerships and the LSC
25. The Regional Development Agencies give significant prominence to skills within their Regional Economic Strategies. Regional Observatories provide quality data about skills levels and trends in the region. They, together with some Regional LSCs who provide employment sectors skills plans have developed, through the Regional Skills Partnerships, Skills Action Plans. The question to ask the RDAs is who is influenced by these plans? The perception of the 157 Group is that it is public sector bodies such as the LSC, Local Government, colleges and perhaps SSCs (though in the latter case they are more likely to input to rather than draw on the data). The RDAs have relatively limited funds to pump prime their strategy. They do however have responsibility for the business broker network which now incorporates the LSC training and skills brokers. The brokers regularly interface with thousands of SMEs across the country. Is this a force that will transform an employer’s attitude to training? The evidence to date is not strong. Talk to a large number of providers in the public and private sector and they will report very few broker leads that have resulted in significant volumes of new training. They rely on their own employer engagement teams to generate training business and develop strong supply chain links. This needs to be recognized in future funding models.
The Proposed Skills Funding Agency,Employment and Skills Boards and Local Government
26. The LSC as currently constituted would have a regional planning role even if a skills action plan didn’t exist. The successor body, the Skills Funding Agency’s core function will be to transfer funds to education and training providers, increasingly through the demand led Train to Gain and Skills Accounts. The new agency will work with Employment and Skills Boards where they exist and with local partners (led by local government) including Job Centre! and the new Adult Advice and Guidance teams, to ensure that employment and skills commissioning is considered within a local context. This is likely to encompass Local and Multi Area Agreements with skills and engagement targets. Is this demand led or planned? Are we in danger of having a number of players with some confusion and possibly even conflict over their respective roles? Does this have any relevance to the key relationship between the employer and the skills and training supply chain? The current DWP push to hold contracts with a few large organizations may not do full justice to the value of local ownership of the problem of economic inactivity. 27. Currently the LSC have focused adult funding strongly on the achievement of full level 2s and level 3 qualifications. FE providers are not slow to pick up the signals and the number of such qualifications has risen swiftly. Does this mean that employers and their workforce are getting the skills they need to drive up productivity? In some cases the answer is yes but too often the qualifications are catching up with the skills that already existed, albeit uncertificated. In Scotland a rapid improvement in qualification levels has not been matched by a similar rise in productivity. Planning by regional or local public sector bodies, particularly if focused on the narrow achievement of LAA qualification targets may not achieve the required results. An important emphasis should be on areas of market failure such as the re-engagement of the economically inactive or coping with closures and structural change in local employment patterns. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 135
The New National Apprenticeship Service &Skills Funding Agency 28. Will the new focused National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) with its sub-regional teams deliver the step change in provision that the Leitch and the Government seek? A closer inspection suggests a structure that has survived largely intact since the days of the Training and Enterprise Councils with its own team, enrolment and funding processes which have resisted integration through the FEFC and LSC regimes. The Skills Pledge initiative oVers the chance to work with employers in an integrated fashion with Basic Skills, Level 2 and Apprenticeship targets being looked at as part of an overall employer’s HR strategy. DIUS need to ensure that this vision is not lost in discrete funding silos and that the Skills Funding Agency ensures that the oVer is seamless from both the employer and provider’s perspectives.
The Public Sector Challenge 29. The Government has a really big opportunity with the Public Sector Challenge (a variant of the Skills Pledge) to raise the qualification levels for a large part of the workforce. In many parts of the country the public sector is the largest employer. A substantial part of the Leitch targets can be met by targeting these big employers. The Health Service have led the way with the LSC and Department of Health agreeing matched funding arrangements and workforce development plans for every Trust and Strategic Health Authority focused on workers in Bands 1–4. These plans are then shared with the local health care provider network. The Committee would find it enlightening to talk to Bob Fryer and his widening participation team (now transferred to the Skills for Health SSC). Local Government could well be encouraged to follow suit.
The Role of General FE Colleges—Providing the Glue 30. Colleges are key players at the heart of their communities who can support the local economic and social strategies linking local government, employers, universities and job centre! to transform the skills in their communities. The larger colleges can do much more as has been demonstrated by Newcastle College’s intervention to secure the future of Carter and Carter’s Apprentice provision. They represent respected and secure not for profit providers, rooted in their communities who are long term players with an ethos of quality public service. 31. They can establish strong training networks in their region linking with other quality providers, large or small. They can network nationally, either together or in partnership with large private sector operators to win national contracts. 32. They will oVer guaranteed standards of employer engagement through the new Training Quality Standard and should be assisted directly to develop their supply chain capacity following the example of HEFCE with the university sector. Just as with the broker network it is unlikely that maximum benefit will come from funding intermediaries. There is a danger that the “Machinery of Government” changes will perversely disincentivise colleges to take on post 19 work. 33. They are well placed to take on the local strategic partnering role that the LSC will relinquish, with the advantage that they can not only fund but also deliver the agenda. GFE Colleges should expect to be key partners in their local communities providing the glue that links local government and communities to the business community. This should be recognized and encouraged by DCLG, DIUS and the RDAs. 34. To do this eVectively the move to deregulation needs to gather pace. Care must be taken to ensure that the new structures do not stifle a reactive and responsive sector. Colleges are corporations that need to be allowed to grow, develop, merge and federate as dictated by their business governors in response to market forces. The performance of the sector in meeting every government target it has been set should give the government the confidence to empower its most flexible and responsive education partners. April 2008
Memorandum 10
Submission from the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
1. Introduction and Executive Summary As a leading Professional Body the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) plays an important role in peer reviewing by professional examination many of those practicing in the environmental field. CIWEM endeavours to create a sustainable, multi-skilled profession and supports its many members through knowledge sharing and a commitment to life long learning and continuing professional development. Members of the Institution include engineers, scientists and other disciplines engaged in advancing and delivering environmental management for a clean, green and sustainable world. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 136 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
1.1 The Institution agrees with many of the recommendations of the Leitch Report and believes that, if we are to advance our aims of engaging more people with the life long learning agenda, and increasing the depth and range of their skill set, then higher education provision needs to become much more flexible and increasingly move away from conventional lecture/on-campus delivery to more work-based delivery and negotiated learning programmes.
2. Employer —Higher Education Engagement 2.1 CIWEM takes the view that employer participation in helping to design and to fund participants on credit bearing work-based learning programmes is a win-win-win situation with — the individual improving their credentials, skills and desire and thirst for learning — the employer gaining in the value of, and output from, their work force — the higher education institution (HEI) in forging closer links with industry and the wider community—providing expertise and facilities to more of an increasingly wide circle of people for the greater good of society as a whole. 2.2 CIWEM feels that it is also critically important for further education institutions (FEIs) and HEIs to find more ways of working together to create imaginative and appealing educational pathways that oVer a seamless transition to those learners who wish to escalate through to degree level and beyond following a more vocational route. 2.3 Students need to find FEIs (and particularly) HEIs to be learner-friendly and learner-focused organisations, oVering programmes and awards that people can relate to and that provide access to tuition and resources in ways that enable those — who are in-work and who are career developers — who are career changers — who are career break returners and — who are wishing to move into the labour market to feel included and valued. 2.4 CIWEM also believes that adopting increasingly flexible forms of delivery such as elearning and blended learning will be a critical aspect of this process.
3. Learning and Skills Councils 3.1 CIWEM believes that the Learning and Skills Council and [particularly] the Sector Skills Councils must continue to provide encouragement and support to HEIs in guiding them to increase and develop provision that addresses the particular areas of skill shortage that sector members identify.
4. RDAs 4.1 RDAs should also work closely with FEIs and HEIs and, in conjunction, develop innovative ways that reach out to, and familiarise, businesses in the region alerting them to the potential and receptive ear that these institutions must develop. 4.2 RDAs have a significant amount of intelligence about the existing business profile in their region and the developments and changes that are likely in the short-medium term. Further/higher educational institutions must work in harmony with this agenda to ensure that suYcient eVort is put into addressing those areas and subjects where there is clearly a skills deficit in the regional populous with encouragement and appropriate funding from the RDA to help to facilitate this transition.
5. Conclusion 5.1 It is clear that environmental issues—especially climate change and water-related issues—together with sustainability will feature increasingly more prominently in the people’s minds and in business’s planning and strategy. CIWEM stresses the need for appropriate weighting and importance to be given to these issues by businesses, FEIs/HEIs, Sector Skills Councils and RDAs. It is only with such coordination of eVort that that we will be able to speedily move to a position in which we can attain a knowledgeable, agile and responsive population, able to tackle the rapid changes that are needed in the environment/ sustainability agenda head on. The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) is the leading professional and qualifying body for those who are responsible for the stewardship of environmental assets. The Institution provides independent comment, within a multi-disciplinary framework, on the wide range of issues related to water and environmental management and sustainable development. April 2008 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 137
Memorandum 11
Submission from the Engineering Professors’ Council The Engineering Professors’ Council represents the interests of engineering in higher education. It has over 1600 members in virtually all of the UK universities that teach engineering. They are all either professors or Heads of departments. It has as its mission the promotion of excellence in engineering higher education teaching and research.
“A Demand Led Approach to Engineering Higher Education”
The role of engineering degrees in meeting the recommendations of the Leitch Review
Summary Many of the principles embedded in the Leitch review are fundamental to engineering education and as a result the Engineering Professors Council welcome implementation of the Leitch recommendations. Accredited engineering programmes deliver graduates who are practical, articulate, numerate, literate, imaginative, versatile, confident and inquisitive with the potential to take responsibility for innovation, technology transfer and change. This is achieved though a partnership with industry ensuring that the programmes are relevant and meet the needs of industry. Since engineering has much to oVer we strongly recommend that they are represented on the Commission of Employment and Skills. The skills shortages in engineering and the cost of engineering education has meant that engineering departments have adopted innovative approaches to education and created diverse flexible programmes that are supported by the professional institutions whose members make a significant, voluntary contribution to the education of engineers. However, there is concern that failure to fund engineering programmes properly is a threat to the future of engineering education. Engineering education is informed by research from blue sky to near market research and therefore recognising this type of research is important to the future of engineering. Hence we support the recommendation to develop research links between industry and academia.
1. Introduction 1.1. The Engineering Professors Council (EPC) welcomes the Leitch Review and the subsequent plans to implement its recommendations as many of the principles embedded in the Leitch Review are of fundamental importance to engineering education. They reinforce the best practice that has developed, in partnership, over many years between employers, professional institutions and university departments of engineering. However, the long standing nature of this partnership does not mean that those involved are in any way complacent. All parties continue to strive for improvement in order to prepare engineering graduates for the future global challenges and ensure that they are of world class standing. 1.2. Engineering higher education has much to contribute to the implementation of the Leitch Review as explained below and for that reason we strongly recommend that professional engineering is well represented on the new Commission for Employment and Skills.
2. The Engineering Degree 2.1. The flagship degree programme for engineering education is the integrated Masters (MEng). Experience has shown that this provides graduates who are practical, articulate, numerate, literate, imaginative, versatile, confident and inquisitive with the potential to take responsibility for innovation, technology transfer and change. In their early and mid careers, they are capable of looking for ways of exploiting emerging technologies and, where appropriate, promoting advanced designs and design methods. In designing their degree programme, University Departments are conscious that they will need to possess creativity founded upon a deep understanding of engineering principles and may eventually control projects involving advanced technology that require the management of both risk and large capital budgets. They will need to develop an understanding of the engineering industry, its role in wealth creation, the social and political context within which engineering is practised, the role of engineering in shaping the physical and social environment and its diverse contribution to the quality of life and social justice. Professional judgement and application of well understood engineering principles are key features of their role allied to the likelihood of responsibility for the direction of important tasks including the profitable management of industrial and commercial enterprises and the supervision and management of others. This is a challenging vision which can only be realised through a partnership between industry and academia. Therefore we strongly recommend that this partnership, enshrined in the Leitch report, is encouraged and supported. 2.2. The integrated masters degree is a world class qualification that is recognised by members of the Washington Accord. The Washington Accord, signed in 1989, is an international agreement among bodies responsible for accrediting engineering degree programmes. It recognizes the substantial equivalency of programmes and recommends that graduates of programmes accredited by any of the signatory bodies be recognized by the other bodies as having met the academic requirements for entry to the practice of engineering. The signatories to the Washington Accord are Australia, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 138 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
China, Ireland, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, United Kingdom and the United States. The professional institutions are responsible for ensuring that the engineering programmes in the UK meet this international standard therefore we strongly recommend that this continues. 2.3. The integrated masters degree is also a “level 2” qualification under the Bologna Agreement in Europe. This agreement is timetabled for implementation from 2010 and defines the academic levels for higher education throughout Europe; level 2 relates to postgraduate master degrees.
3. Diversity and Flexibility 3.1. A fundamental principle of engineering degree programmes, aimed at producing UK engineers capable of operating in a global environment, is the need to embrace diversity and flexibility. Diversity covers the ethnic and gender mix, the entry standards and the course content; flexibility covers the range of programmes including part time, full time, and work based. This diversity and flexibility has been driven by supply and demand. 3.2. Despite the recent increases in applications to some engineering programmes there is still concern that applications are, overall, in decline compared to those applying for non vocational programmes. For many years, engineering employers and academics have engaged in promoting engineering as a career (eg Women into Science, Engineering and Construction (WISE), Science and Engineering Ambassadors (SEA), The Royal Academy of Engineering BEST programme). Scholarships have been provided by professional institutions (e, g. ICE QUEST Awards, IMechE Undergraduate Scholarships), sector skills councils (eg ConstructionSkills Inspire Scholarships) and industry. There is still a need to do more because the engineering community does not represent the community at large and because there is a skill shortage in engineering. Therefore we strongly recommend that universities, industry, professional institutions and sector skills councils continue to promote engineering. 3.3. The traditional entry to an engineering degree programme is via an A-level education but engineering entry requirements are diverse in recognition of the fact the students can have a variety of qualifications including BTech, HND, HNC, foundation degrees, overseas qualifications and apprenticeships. This means that programmes are designed to develop students’ skills from a broad base. This approach allows students to develop their knowledge and understanding of the underlying engineering and scientific principles, their cognitive and intellectual skills through interaction with their peers, academics and employers, and their application skills through research informed learning. It is anticipated that the new engineering and construction Advanced Diplomas will provide routes to higher education in engineering for those candidates that elect to study the additional mathematics module as part of their Additional and Specialist Learning. The fact that the programmes accept a variety of qualification means that the new Advanced Diplomas will be accommodated. 3.4. The most direct way to because a professional chartered engineer is through the integrated Masters degree but there are alternative, flexible approaches that have allowed a number of pathways to be developed to cater for individual learning plans. This flexible approach includes full time residential students, students on day release, and students attending part time. Industrial experience is part of many degree programmes and can include sandwich placements (three to twelve months in industry as part of the degree), vacation employment and work based modules and projects. Students routinely enter the profession through cognate degrees with a conversion via an engineering MSc. All of these programmes are accredited by the professional institutions. We strongly recommend that that this flexible, demand led approach is encouraged and supported.
4. Industry Engagement 4.1. A significant aspect of industrial engagement is the role of practising engineers in the accreditation process. This is an important part of the development of engineering education—innovation and best practice are encouraged; industrial engagement at strategic and implementation levels is facilitated; engineering skills of design are learnt through case studies with the support of industry so that teaching staV have to be engaged with industry. This accreditation process provides a mechanism to ensure that engineering degree programmes meet the demands of industry and are world class. Properly applied, accreditation is a constructive process that promotes innovation. For example the institutions are developing means of accrediting work based learning and promoting new work experience programmes. 4.2. Industrial engagement in engineering degree programmes is mandatory. EVective collaboration with local and regional industry provides advice on strategic planning and development of the engineering discipline, research priorities, feedback on meeting the requirements of the Research Assessment Exercise, and provides teaching material to be used in design and project work. Industry provides access to sites and innovative schemes such as the ConstructionSkills Constructionarium. We strongly recommend that this industry engagement is formally recognised giving credit to industry and ensuring that the programmes meet the needs of industry. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 139
5. Driving Innovation 5.1. Changes in engineering education are either demand led through employer engagement, research led through academic leadership or supply led through student engagement. A demand led example is the introduction of design and sustainability into programmes though industrialists appointed as Visiting Professors under the RAE schemes and more recently SSCs schemes. Research led changes are driven by academic leadership for example the increasing need to develop skills for climate change adaptation. Student led engagement is through feedback and monitoring. 5.2. Engineering departments and the professional institutions rely on their membership to support the education of engineers. This support is voluntary and extensive. Engineering education varies from the narrowly focused programmes that develop advanced skills in technical knowledge and understanding to broadening programmes that develop engineering skills in design, sustainability or management. (e. g. the Royal Academy of Engineering proposal for the 21st Century Engineer).
6. Cost of Engineering Education 6.1. A key challenge for engineering education is the cost of the degree. A recent report by ETB/EPC highlighted the fact that the costs of most engineering programmes are subsidised by postgraduate fees. The report uncovered a range of income and cost allocation methods which do not allocate all costs, include disincentives, do not reflect the actual use of central services and estates, and do not identify teaching separately from research. The report does not cover the substantial indirect funds provided by industry in the form of time and access to resources. Therefore there is a need to engage universities and HEFCE in linking income with expenditure to ensure that engineering education is adequately funded. The postgraduate fee subsidy is a risky strategy for the funding of higher education in engineering as it relies on fees from overseas students. Such student recruitment and fee income is at risk as competition from MSc programmes taught in English develop internationally, particularly in Europe.
7. The Importance of Research 7.1. A key aspect of the world class engineering education oVered in the UK is the fact that it is informed by research which is often at the boundaries of engineering and truly multidisciplinary in nature. Much of engineering research is supported by industry through steering groups, access to data, sites and knowledge, and is demand led. It is often commercially sensitive and innovative. For these reasons recognising employer engagement in the research assessment exercises is of fundamental importance if the exercise is genuinely going to reflect the research undertaken in engineering in higher education. We strongly support this recommendation to include the impact of knowledge transfer, innovation and dialogue between leading employers and leading academic specialists in universities in the next research assessment exercise as much of innovative work in universities is near market and of direct relevance to industry. April 2008
Memorandum 12
Submission from Skill: National Bureau for Students with Disabilities
Executive Summary 1. Skill: National Bureau for Students with Disabilities promotes opportunities to empower young people and adults with any kind of disability to realise their potential. 2. The Sector Skills Councils are being advocated as the mechanism for increasing the demand-led nature of skills and qualifications through their involvement of employers. The balance to be achieved in a demand- led system is establishing whose demand is leading: that of the learners or of the employers? Employers may have low levels of awareness and understanding of disability issues and they may be missing out on valuable people through prejudice: diversity is often seen as the result not as a criterion. Skill believes that the Sectors Skills Councils (SSCs) could still do much more work with employers not only to increase their awareness of disability issues and understanding of legislation, but also of the funding and support available. 3. A key aspect of generating growth in the skills agenda has been through regional response. Skill is concerned about how the SSCs will allow for a regional response to locally identified and funded need. The development of the proposed Skills Funding Agency and facilitating its regional activities will be essential to deliver this aspect of the agenda. In terms of higher education, in recent years, the regional agenda has taken more prominence as institutions have collaborated with statutory, community and voluntary sector organisations in their respective regions to further meet the skills demands of that region. Aimhigher has done much to diversify the student body but more still needs to be done to ensure that disabled people have genuinely equal access to HE. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 140 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
4. One aspect of lifelong learning, particularly in the workplace, that can often be overlooked is that of retraining for employees who become disabled whilst in post. In addition, the government’s recent announcements on the withdrawal of funding for Equivalent and Lower Qualifications, whilst many disabled people will be exempt from this, present another barrier to those wishing to retrain and seek an alternative career.
1. Skill’s role
1.1 Skill: National Bureau for Students with Disabilities promotes opportunities to empower young people and adults with any kind of disability to realise their potential in further, continuing and higher education, training and employment throughout the United Kingdom. Skill works by providing information and advice to individuals, promoting good practice and influencing policy in partnership with disabled people, service providers and policy makers. 1.2 Skill would like the Committee to note that it is responding to the recent DIUS and DCSF Green Paper Raising Expectations: Enabling the System to Deliver and this will cover in more detail issues relating to further education funding and the future of the Learning and Skills Council.
2. The Role of the Sector Skills Councils
2.1 The Sector Skills Councils are being advocated as the mechanism for increasing the demand-led nature of skills and qualifications through their involvement of employers. The following statement from World Class Skills encompasses many of Skill’s concerns: “The skills deficits in England are heavily diVerentiated by age, disability, ethnicity and gender, but also by geography and socio-economic group.” 30 2.2 The balance to be achieved in a demand-led system is establishing whose demand is leading: that of the learners or of the employers? The demand-led system places power to choose in the hands of the individual and the employer but, with this, comes increased responsibility to make truly informed choices. Employers tend to focus solely upon recruiting enough people with the skills and attributes they require but the low levels of awareness and understanding of disability issues amongst many employers mean that they may be missing out through prejudice. 2.3 Investors in People UK delivered a report in June 200631 based on a research programme that sought evidence on how employers promote equality of opportunity in the development of their organisation’s people. It found that diversity is a well-recognised issue but is most prominently linked with ethnicity issues rather than with issues of disability. Many organisations maintain that as they select and recruit the best person for the job; diversity is seen as the result not as a criterion. This is a worrying indicator of lack of disability awareness of employers. 2.4 In addition, the then Disability Rights Commission published a report in 200732 stating that the risks of disclosing unseen disabilities and health conditions in the teaching, nursing and social work professions are compounded by the stigma attached to them. A supportive workplace or training environment was found to be key in encouraging disclosure among employees and those training within the three professions examined. Participants in the study said that major shifts in attitudes and behaviour were needed in the workplace to overcome their fears about disclosure. 2.5 Skill therefore believes that the Sectors Skills Councils (SSCs) could still do much more work with employers not only to increase their awareness of disability issues and understanding of legislation, but also of the funding and support available. Therefore, more training and education to give disabled potential employees true equality of opportunity in recruitment, training and development of career pathways is urgently needed. 2.6 Skill is also concerned about the mechanisms that the SSCs, as well as the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, have for engaging with small and medium-sized employers, and employers at a regional and local level. A recent study by JobCentre Plus33 found that there was a diVerence in the awareness of the availability of Access to Work between SMEs and larger employers. IN addition, although there was no diVerence between SMEs and larger employers in their stated willingness to employ hard to place groups of people, there was a diVerence in whether or not they had actually done this in the preceding year.
30 DIUS, 2007, World Class Skills: Implementing the Leitch Review of Skills in England, Section 14.1 31 Investors in People, 2006: Recruitment & Selection of a Diverse Workforce, Research Report, Prepared by Discovery. 32 Stanley et al, 2007: Disclosing Disability: Disabled students and practitioners in social work, nursing and teaching, Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King’s College London. 33 Bunt, et al (2007). JobCentre Plus Annual Employer (Market View) Survey 2006–07. DWP Research Report 437, pp 76–79. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 141
3. Region-based agenda
3.1 A key aspect of generating growth in the skills agenda has been through regional response. This is connected to the proposals in Raising Expectations: Enabling the System to Deliver which will place local funding and delivery at the heart of the funding mechanism. Skill is therefore concerned about how the SSCs will allow for a regional response to locally identified and funded need. The development of the proposed Skills Funding Agency and facilitating its regional activities will be essential to deliver this aspect of the agenda. 3.2 In terms of higher education, in recent years, the regional agenda has taken more prominence as institutions have collaborated with statutory, community and voluntary sector organisations in their respective regions to further meet the skills demands of that region. HE is now recognised as a significant contributor within regions as well as locally and nationally. Aimhigher and other widening participation initiatives have done much to diversify the student bodies, but more still needs to be done to ensure that disabled people have genuinely equal access to HE. Whilst the future of Aimhigher funding has been secured by HEFCE until 2011, it is extremely disappointing that the regional strand of Aimhigher has been removed and will no longer be funded beyond August 2008. The impact of this on the regional skills agenda will have to remain to be seen, particularly on disabled students as many of the Aimhigher initiatives that specifically targeted disabled students were run at the regional level.
4. Lifelong learning
One aspect of lifelong learning, particularly in the workplace, that can often be overlooked is that of retraining for employees who become disabled whilst in post. Employers have a duty under the Disability Discrimination Act to make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees, which includes people who become disabled whilst in post. In meeting this duty, employers may need to adjust a person’s job and role and may need to provide training and learning opportunities for them. Skill believes that it is important that employers meet this duty as without it disabled people can face poverty as a result of unfair dismissal. In addition, the government’s recent announcements on the withdrawal of funding for Equivalent and Lower Qualifications, whilst many disabled people will be exempt from this, present another barrier to those wishing to retrain and seek an alternative career. April 2008
Memorandum 13
Submission from the Institution of Chemical Engineers
Executive summary
1. The process-based and chemistry-using industries, having enjoyed considerable recent success, face severe skills challenges if this success is to continue. Action on the regional level to address these challenges is both necessary and welcome. The RDAs and regional partners have already taken useful action but greater coherence is required across the RDAs and DAs; across the spectrum of diVerent skills levels; across in short, medium and long term; and between the SSCs’ work and the established, proven qualifications structures in the engineering sector.
Context
2. IChemE (the Institution of Chemical Engineers) is an international organization for professionals in chemical, biochemical, process and materials engineering. It has some 28,000 members of whom approximately two-thirds are based in the UK. The industries that IChemE and its members serve— principally the process-based and chemistry-using industries—are of enormous importance to the UK economy. The process industries as defined by Cogent, the sector skills council, alone account for some £50 billion GVA to the UK economy: IChemE members are engaged throughout these industries and beyond (eg in the food and water industries). 3. These industries have enjoyed a period of considerable success in terms of investment, and further inward investments are in prospect—up to some £7 billion in the North East region alone, for example. The UK’s ability to secure and deliver these investments depends on the supply of skilled chemical engineers and allied engineering professionals. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 142 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
4. Moreover, major developments in the economy, such as the development of new capacity in the nuclear industry, the development of alternative transport fuels and renewable chemical feedstocks depend critically upon chemical engineering. The prospects for the UK to respond to these challenges, and to secure a commercial lead through innovation and competitiveness, also depend on the supply of the same skilled professionals. 5. Partly as a result of recent investment success, but also reflecting the pattern of industrial change in recent years, the supply of skilled professionals in chemical engineering and allied fields is now well short of what is required to meet employer demand. IChemE, supported by industry and universities and industry, has done much to attract more young people into the subject—its whynotchemeng campaign has been instrumental in increasing the number of UCAS applications to study chemical engineering by over 70% in some 5 years—but it will be a considerable time for this to translate into the supply of fully trained engineers, and even then it is likely to fall short of demand as the UK university capacity in the subject is essentially full.
Action required 6. Consequently, a full range of actions is necessary to underpin a large and vital section of the economy. It should include: increased university capacity in chemical, biochemical and process engineering; improved provision for non-graduate engineering personnel to advance to fully qualified status; measures to facilitate and not obstruct the migration of engineers from outside the EEA to the UK; sustained public and industry support for measures to enhance skills supply such as the National Skills Academies for the process and nuclear industries; and critically, a fully “joined-up” menu of skills support and qualifications based on the proven structures already in place in the engineering profession, and integrating the work of the Sector Skills Councils with these. Co-ordinated action on a regional level has a key part to play in delivering these objectives. 7. IChemE is committed to co-operating with regional bodies and structures in the interests of the chemical engineering profession and the industries it serves, in order to enhance skills supply, training and professional development. Since late 2006 it has — Established closer relationships with the regional chemicals initiatives, designed to support the process industry clusters in the North East, the North West, West Yorkshire and Humberside, and with Chemical Sciences Scotland; — Allocated specific regional responsibilities to central member support staV; — Begun a process of appointing staV to be physically located in the regions—appointments covering Scotland and the North of England are already in place and more are expected to follow; — Opened discussion with other engineering and scientific organizations in order to improve regional co-ordination and impact on regional engineering skills supply and other matters; — Commenced an active dialogue with Sector Skills Council colleagues — Established relationships with RDA staV connected with the process industries and their skills supply, and provided strategic and practical advice and support 8. IChemE commends the recognition by RDAs, particularly those in the three northern English regions, of the skills issues facing the process industries and more broadly, the recognition by all RDAs of their central role in relation to skills supply. However, the RDAs must ensure that their responses to the skills challenge are coherent in several respects. 9. First, they must be coherent across the diVerent regions. The process industries are global—they do not as a rule think in terms of the UK nationally, let alone individual regions. If they are to experience a clear, accessible pattern of skills support, it is essential for some degree of coherence and commonality to be established across all the regions and DAs. The best way to do this will be, in our view, by working with and taking guidance from the engineering profession nationally though the professional organizations and the Engineering Council UK. While emphasis and priorities will diVer from region to region, and while regional flexibility must be maintained, companies should be able to recognize common standards and common means of access to skills support whichever region they are dealing with. 10. Second, they must present an integrated and coherent set of actions and pathways across the spectrum of skills levels from less advanced technical skills through highly skilled process operators and technologists to senior professional engineers with Chartered status. Skills provision must allow all individuals with the requisite ability to advance to senior, highly qualified status, whether they start out as engineering graduates, non-graduate technical personnel, mature candidates, or people retraining from some other discipline. 11. Third, they must address the short, medium and long term. In the short term for example this may mean setting up on a regional or cluster basis, schemes to train individuals in the craft and technical skills required to achieve timely completion of important construction projects, such as those involved in process industry inward investments, notwithstanding the competing demands of large construction projects elsewhere. In the medium term, it will mean working with employers to improve and promote the overall “career oVer” to technically qualified personnel and to retain skilled graduates. Importantly, in the longer term it must mean working on the whole “talent pipeline”, from primary schools upwards eg through Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 143
national roll-out of the Children Challenging Industry programme or equivalent. In this context, something of a disconnect is caused by the fact that RDAs are not in a position to invest in projects directed at school students, eg in promoting STEM education. This should be addressed. 12. Perhaps most importantly of all, there must be coherence between the work of the Sector Skills Councils and regional skills bodies on the one hand, and the established professional qualifications in the engineering sector on the other. The regional skills partnerships and the SSCs must work closely with the engineering organizations to ensure that the qualifications and standards developed under SSC auspices link seamlessly to the registered engineering qualifications—Engineering Technician, Incorporated Engineer and Chartered Engineer. The highest level qualification, Chartered status, is internationally recognized and sought after as a badge of excellence and competence, reflecting both educational attainment in the requisite disciplines and proven ability to “do the job” in practice. Any lack of co-ordination, or any apparent competition, between this system and the work of the SSCs would be to the great detriment both of skills supply and of the engineering-based industries. April 2007
Memorandum 14
Submission from the Association of Accounting Technicians
Summary
1. The Association of Accounting Technicians is pleased to have the opportunity to give evidence to this inquiry. As a large specialist professional membership and awarding body we bring a particular perspective to the debate around post-16 skills training. 2. We have set out our evidence using the headings in the call for evidence. In doing so we focus on some specific issues impacting on the implementation of Leitch. As a national body our experience is mainly of the impact on a national rather than regional level. We are confident, however, that the issues that we put before the committee are relevant to the ability to address skills development at a regional and local level. The main messages that we would wish to put before the committee are — Institutional, administrative and regulatory systems remain far too complex and represent a real barrier to successful implementation of Leitch. — The burden of bureaucracy too often gets in the way of innovative approaches to skills development. — There are lessons to be learned from the experience of professional bodies, particularly in relation to higher-level skills.
About the AAT
3. The AAT (Association of Accounting Technicians) is the only UK-based professional body dedicated to the education, training, development and support of accounting technicians. The AAT’s qualification and membership develop relevant and practical accounting and finance skills for life. The AAT has a total membership of over 110,000, including student, full and fellow members. 4. The AAT provides an innovative competence-based accounting qualification based on national occupational standards for accounting. The qualification has been designed to improve the employability of AAT members and to support the eVorts of employers to raise the standards of performance in the workplace. 5. There are two pathways to the AAT Accounting Qualification: the NVQ/SVQ pathway and the Diploma pathway. Both lead to the same outcome: competent accounting technicians. The diVerence lies largely in the assessment methodology as the NVQ/SVQ pathway is most suitable for students working in accountancy who can produce work place evidence and the Diploma pathway is more suitable for those who, for various reasons, are not able to produce work place evidence. Both pathways test competence. The Diploma pathway includes a new unit on professional ethics. 6. Both qualification pathways are organised into three levels of competence up to NVQ Level 4. The qualification oVers total flexibility and choice. The three levels of the qualification (for both pathways) are externally accredited by the UK regulatory agencies: the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) and the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA). The AAT awards over 20,000 qualifications every year Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 144 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
7. The AAT makes a major contribution to the development of higher-level skills. A recent published analysis by the LSC of higher level skills in further education showed that the AAT students accounted for the largest single group of Level 4 students with 8723 enrolments in 2005–06 accounting for 5.9% of the total34 8. The AAT is also supporting the government’s drive to widen the choice and take-up of vocational qualifications in the 14–16 curriculum with “AAT in Schools”. In this initiative, the AAT facilitates partnerships between centres already oVering the AAT qualification to adults and schools wishing to expand their package of options for 14–16 year olds. For the first time, this age group has access to a well-established progression route leading all the way to the chartered accountancy qualifications and eligible for UCAS points.
The role of the Learning and Skills Council and Sector Skills Councils 9. The AAT believes that the system is overburdened with bureaucracy. It has been our experience that the LSC has been inconsistent in the application of principle and lacks customer focus. 10. A practical example may serve to illustrate this point. In 2006 the AAT responded to feedback from learners and employers and developed a 3 level “Diploma” pathway as an alternative to its NVQ. It is a competence-based qualification that has been derived from the same National Occupational Standards in Accounting and is of equal standard to the NVQ; indeed, in response to employer demand, it includes an additional component on Professional Ethics. The key diVerences are that students on the Diploma pathway use generic case studies and work-based scenarios rather than their own work-place evidence and some elements of duplication, inherent in the NVQ model, are removed. Students in colleges often share classes and the learning outcomes are recognised as the same by chartered accounting bodies who oVer the same exemptions to students for onward progression. 11. The LSC, however, set down rules that define the level of a qualification in terms of the number of guided learning hours. So, to be recognised as a full Level 2, a non-NVQ vocationally related qualification must require 325 guided learning hours. There is no such requirement for the NVQ. Level 2 of the Diploma does not require 325 guided learning hours; neither does the NVQ but the NVQ is recognised as a full Level 2 while the Diploma is not. Aside from the general principle that it is surely more important to measure outcomes rather than inputs, this matters for two main reasons. Funding is directed to supporting students to gain a first “full” Level 2 and only “full” Level 2 qualifications count towards college attainment targets. The outcome has been that a number of colleges have stopped oVering the Diploma option and it will not be an option available through Train to Gain. Obviously the AAT has taken this matter up with the LSC and continues to do so. At no stage has the LSC refuted our argument that the qualifications are equivalent but it has refused to be flexible, suggesting that the matter will be resolved in the process of migration to the QCF. Meanwhile an innovative qualification, designed specifically in response to employer and learner demand, and contributing to the government’s progression agenda, and meeting the UK’s skills needs, is put at risk. 12. We believe that while this could be seen as a parochial concern for the AAT, it does in fact serve as an excellent example of the way inflexible bureaucracy stifles innovation in the development of courses. 13. This brings us neatly to the development of the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) which we would again argue, while laudable in its aims, carries the risk of forcing qualifications into neat templates based on bureaucratic convenience rather than learner needs. This is particularly true for qualifications such as ours based on national occupational standards. So, for example, a coherent “unit” on a particular aspect of required competence may have to be artificially split because it does not neatly fit into the rigid template that every QCF unit must have 10 hours learning time. 14. The AAT believes that there are considerable weaknesses in the design of the Sector Skills Network that compromises the ability of Sector Skills Councils to fully reflect the employer voice and thus negates their ability to be the sole arbiters of “demand” for qualifications. Of particular concern to the AAT is the fact that because they are set up vertically, by industrial sector, they are not geared up to analyse and address skills like accountancy that are required across all sectors. This issue must be a priority for the review of the SSCs that is to be undertaken by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. 15. One simple step that would help to bridge this gap would be for there to be a greater recognition of the role that professional bodies can have. Many of the cross-sectoral skills are in professional areas where there are established professional bodies with a strong track record of success in developing skills and raising standards. The professions also hold lifelong learning and employability as part of their central ethos. For example the accountancy profession, with its compulsory CPD, could be argued to be far more about lifelong learning than colleges or universities oVering discrete qualifications This expertise is too often ignored and we believe that mechanisms should be put in place to actively engage professional bodies in the planning and development of provision. This will be of particular importance in addressing the priority, highlighted in the Leitch report, of developing higher-level skills.
34 Further Education and the Delivery of Higher-level Qualifications—LSC March 2008 pg 38. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 145
16. This need for greater involvement from professional bodies was specifically acknowledged in the LSC report referred to above which recommends that: “Professional bodies are a critically important contributor to the higher-level landscape………….. The LSC should attempt to co-operate more closely with the professional bodies.”35 17. It is our experience, as a professional body as well as an awarding body, that having a direct relationship with employers is most eVective in ensuring the relevance of our qualifications. In this context we would argue that at a regional level the priority should be to foster direct relationships between local employers and providers to develop skills training that is truly tailored to fit business needs. We believe it is critical that the success of the Train to Gain brokerage system is objectively measured to ascertain the level to which its introduction has actually contributed to increased skill levels in the UK.
The respective roles of the further education and higher education sectors in delivering a region- based agenda for Leitch
18. Although we have some partnerships in higher education, in the delivery of foundation degrees, the main focus for the delivery of the AAT’s qualifications is further education. In this context we would wish to highlight one specific area, which is the role of the sector in delivering higher-level skills. 19. The AAT as the largest single awarding body for Level 4 qualifications in FE gave evidence in the preparation of the LSC report “Further Education and the Delivery of Higher-level Qualifications”. The report endorses our concern that the concentration of funding towards Level 2 and Level 3 qualifications is putting at risk the provision of higher-level courses: “In particular, there was concern that a large number of colleges are entrenched in a public-subsidy model of management, in which cuts in funding are translated directly into cuts in provision. In spite of the good will of programme co-ordinators and teachers, some college principals and their management teams have tended to take a “top-down” and “bottom-line” approach, focused on maximising public funding rather than developing full-cost provision.”36 20. The AAT is not suggesting that funding Level 4 should be a priority. We recognise the argument for a greater burden of costs to be met by learners and employers and our evidence suggests that they are willing to pay. We believe rather that greater attention should be paid to supporting further education colleges to move away from the “public-subsidy model” and to develop the necessary entrepreneurial mind set and skills to develop and market full-cost provision. The LSC report recommends using the expertise of professional bodies in this area37. The AAT would view this as an area where local and regional initiatives could play an important part and we would welcome the opportunity to be involved.
The impact on students of these initiatives, particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning.
21. The AAT is concerned that to date in implementing Leitch, the Government’s policy focus and funding priorities have focused on the younger age groups. The AAT’s qualification has proved very popular with mature people seeking an opportunity for retraining or when returning to the workplace after a period of absence. Free provision for a first Level 3 is restricted to those under 26. 22. We would also suggest that for many older learners the concentration on Level 2 might be inappropriate. Although they may have no formal qualifications through acquired work and life experience they are able, with appropriate study support, to take on qualifications at a higher-level. This is also more likely to motivate them to return to learning. Artificially forcing such learners to start their training at level 2 is likely to be demotivating and to lead to an increase in drop out rates. 23. Overall we would argue that with the increasing need for us all to work to a greater age and the requirement for all ages to contribute to the economy, it is vital that the needs of all generations to acquire skills are addressed equally. The AAT would welcome the opportunity to expand on these thoughts through giving oral evidence to the committee. April 2008
35 ibid pg 60. 36 ibid pg 25 para 100. 37 ibid pg 8 para 35. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 146 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Memorandum 15
Submission from the Open College Network, Yorkshire and Humber Region
Vocational Skills in the Leitch report
The main focus and emphasis of the Leitch report is on Skills. He identified a Skills gap between the UK and other countries, and his recommendations address how we should attempt to close this gap and make our Skills system work more eVectively. He made the ambitious commitment to “become a world leader in Skills by 2020” The report focuses on Employment, Employers and Employability in a system where vocational skills should be “demand led” and not centrally planned. There are new targets to aim, for too—1.9m level 3 attainments by 2020 and apprenticeships up to 500,000 a year. The report turns the face of the skills system in England firmly towards the needs of learners and employers. The benefits to the economy of £80bn over 30 years will need investment and Train to Gain, Learner Accounts and funded Apprenticeships all represent the government’s financial commitment. N/OCN and Vocational Skills—N/OCN Accreditation confirms the belief that there is a range of routes towards vocational competence. Employers should have the opportunity to choose the flexible approach that N/ OCN oVers and Learners should be able to start from where they feel confident to begin their learning and skills journey. If the whole skills focus is on the achievement of NVQs there will be a mismatch between targets set and the ability of learners to achieve those targets. N/OCN accreditation can make swift and focused responses to Employer demands and lead the learners towards the NVQ place of occupational competence.
Qualification &Curriculum Framework (QCF)
At the same time as the Leitch report highlights the “need to be much more ambitious” in planning to close the skills gap, the QCA has been tasked to develop a new framework for Qualifications and Curriculum. These two developments must link together so that the structure of the one can deliver the promises of the other. QCA has recognised that there is a need to oVer: — Flexible Qualifications that are responsive to need — Credit based Qualifications that show, incrementally, what a learner has achieved N/OCN and QCF: As an Award Body N/OCN has been a national leader in developing flexible, credit-based Qualifications. Learners achieve credits in an OCN system which deeply understands the structures and processes that support, uphold and quality assure incremental achievement of credit-based qualifications. Learners are encouraged and, through IAG structures, advised throughout their learning experience.
Foundation Learning Tier (FLT)
The impact on learners of setting national targets at Level 2 has been disastrous. The lobbying of those campaigning on behalf of Lifelong Learning has had a significant influence on QCA’s acknowledgement that targets cannot simply be set at Level 2. Those working with learners potentially caught in the skills gap have always understood that learning is a journey that usually begins at a distance before the finishing point. It is to the QCA’s credit that the FLT, oVering Qualifications at Entry and Level 1, has been seen as a significant component in achievement and progress and is integral to the QCF. N/OCN and FLT: In order to put the UK on a course for achieving Leitch’s ambitions N/OCN can provide the routes and the road map towards flexible, accessible and targeted FLT Qualifications. These N/OCN Qualifications can be structured to suit the needs of Learners and Employers. If our learning journey is to be regarded as a lifelong experience which enhances skills, employability and the individual’s place in society, we must oVer as many pathways to that end as possible. If we can accept that learners and employers have diVerent needs, starting points and goals then we can make sure we provide a rich variety of responses and work towards the UK’s becoming a world leader in Skills. April 2008 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 147
Memorandum 16
Submission from Energy & Utility Skills
1. Executive Summary 1.1 Energy & Utility Skills is the Sector Skills Council for the electricity, gas, waste management and water industries. Employer-led, our purpose is to identify employers’ skills needs and provide eVective solutions to improve business performance across the UK. 1.2 This document presents our response to the Innovation, Universities and Skills Committee Inquiry on the response to the agenda set out by Leitch38 Our view is that, whilst regional partners are working in partnership and are embedding the Leitch vision into their skills strategies, the practical reality is that there remains a confusing picture for our employers in relation to the structures, roles and responsibilities and priorities of regional agencies and partnerships. Whilst we are working with the regional structures to support the development of skills solutions for our employers, the variance region by region is not helpful and it provides a fragmented oVer to our sector. 1.3 The future apprenticeship agency and the bodies to be created as a result of the joint DCSF / DIUS consultation paper, Raising Expectations,39will add to this confusion. We will lobby for evidence of national sector need to feature strongly in the funding priorities for existing and new agencies. The move to direct funding through the Local Authorities, despite the commitment to establish sub-regional consortia, may not be helpful without a requirement for them to focus on national sector priorities. 1.4 Our main concern in relation to further education (FE) is the quality of trainers, provision and facilities to eVectively deliver to meet the needs of our sector. The new arrangements for the new part A and B employer responsiveness quality standards do not address our concerns—we would want a greater say in endorsing provision for our sector. 1.5 The core principles of our higher education strategy are fully endorsed by the Leitch recommendations. Whilst there are some good practice examples of these principles being applied in collaborations between employers and HE Institutions, they are limited and often, where they do exist, it is often between one employer and one university. 1.6 Again, whilst we are making some progress, we do need our role as an SSC to be recognised and the regional delivery models to be flexible enough to respond to national, sectoral priorities in order to create the demand-led approach that Leitch advocates. We also need to be funded or be in a position to influence funding to roll out our pilot activity in order to maximise impact for the sector. 1.7 Overall, our employers are frustrated by the current delivery models and whilst we are working with them to facilitate access to skills development, there are potentially more eVective and eYcient ways of ensuring employer responsiveness within the system. As part of our strategy to increase our capacity to deliver employer solutions, we aim to pursue a National Skills Academy (NSA) for our sector, or industries within our sector. This will help us provide a national solution to address skills needs of employers within our sector.
2. About EU Skills 2.1 Energy & Utility Skills is the Sector Skills Council for the electricity, gas, waste management and water industries. Employer-led, our purpose is to identify employers’ skills needs and provide eVective solutions to improve business performance across the UK. 2.2 Our sector faces advancing technology, rapid change, global competition and rising expectations of choice. The skills of our people and their continuing development are crucially important to employers and employees. 2.3 Our work on our Sector Skills Agreement (SSA)40 has reinforced our purpose and given us a strong platform to further develop and deliver skills solutions for the sector. We are currently taking forward the key skills issues identified in our SSA. We have also developed a Sector Qualification Strategy (SQS) and will begin implementing this in 2008. Our research programme will ensure that EU Skills is an authoritative source of foresight, labour market and supply side information and intelligence. 2.4 We work with central government and the governments in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to both influence and respond to the skills strategies for each nation in order to meet the skills needs of our sector. We also operate in each of the English regions. Our Skills Solutions Team has Skills Directors that interface with employers and agencies in each of the English Regions.
38 Leitch (2006). Prosperity for All in the Global Economy—World Class Skills. 39 CSF/DIUS (2008). Raising Expectations: Enabling the system to deliver. 40 U Skills (2007). Sector Skills Agreement Stage 1 Report. Stage 5 action plans for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and each of the English Regions available on our website www.euskills.co.uk. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 148 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
2.5 EU Skills welcomes the opportunity to provide evidence to the Innovation, Universities and Skills Committee. We have a well established, and comprehensive, network of employers, who are engaged through regular contact by our national and regional Skills Directors and industry leads. We also have well established high level employer strategy groups and workgroups for each of the four industries in our footprint. This response has been compiled through our employer networks and comments have also been invited via our website. We have detailed our response to the specific questions below.
3. The responses of RDAstoLeitch and how coherent and structured these are and; the role of the Learning and Skills Council and Sector Skills Councils in this context.
3.1 Whilst regional partners are working in partnership and are embedding the Leitch vision41into their skills strategies, the practical reality is that there remains a confusing picture for our employers.
3.2 Our employers are confused about the roles and responsibilities of the agencies involved –Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), national and regional Learning and Skills Councils (LSCs) and partnerships created to deliver on the skills agenda in England.
3.3 Adding to this confusion is the fact that regional priorities vary, both in relation to sector priorities and skills priorities, even in neighbouring regions. The result is that an employer can get LSC support in one part of their operational area, but not in another, for addressing the same need. Equally, regional priorities are, not unreasonably, focused on economic development. As a sector which is five times more productive (GVA/head) than the UK average,42this can be to our disadvantage.
3.4 The mechanism for delivering the employer oVer, Train to Gain, has added to that confusion and also unhelpfully blurred the SSC role. This is despite arrangements such as the recently signed “Protocol” between the 25 SSCs in the Skills for Business network and the Train to Gain brokers in the East Midlands. For our employers, brokers, in some cases, are seen as duplicating our role or infact thought to be part of EU Skills. This is particularly challenging for us as we are not funded to provide the facilitation role for our employers to the Train to Gain brokerage service, however, the brokers are fully funded. We would, therefore, welcome a review of the current brokerage arrangements through Train to Gain and how this relates to an SSCs role. Not all SSCs will adopt this approach with their sectors but for EU Skills, our brokering and facilitating of solutions for our employers is one that they value (see 3.6 below).
3.5 There are examples in some regions where collaboration models are being established that have potential to clarify a confusing picture for our employers. In London, the LDA has set up the London Multi Agency Team (MAST). This is an innovative regional model for collaboration between London Regional Learning and Skills Councils, Jobcentre Plus and other partners as appropriate. MAST supports the work of the London Skills Employment Board and implementing the key messages of the Leitch report43
3.6 In the West Midlands, “streamlining and simplifying what we do through new ways of working”, is one of the three building blocks of the West Midlands Skills Action Plan (WMSAP).44 EU Skills are seeing evidence of this, in particular where we are facilitating the access to the Train to Gain service on behalf of our employers which includes the running of a successful pilot in the waste industry with Birmingham City Council45
3:7 In the East Midlands, the RDA is collaborating with EU Skills in the development of a Skills for Energy project in support of EMDA’s Regional Energy Strategy. The skills element of this project will involve delivery through Train to Gain.
3.8 Whilst these are welcome approaches, the variance region by region is not helpful as it provides a fragmented oVer to our sector and reinforces the tension between national needs and regional solutions.
3.9 In addition, the Leitch and Train to Gain focus on basic skills and level 2 has to be supported by skills policies that support higher level skills of level 3, 4 and 5. Our sector requires a push on policies to address the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills needed, driven by technological change and aging workforce issues. We welcome the Innovation Nation White Paper46in this respect and the role that RDAs will have in delivering the new proposals.
41 Leitch (2006). Prosperity for All in the Global Economy—World Class Skills. 42 U Skills (2007). Sector Skills Agreement Stage 1 Report, p 57. 43 Leitch (2006). Prosperity for All in the Global Economy—World Class Skills. 44 West Midlands Learning & Skills Council & Advantage West Midlands (2008). Skills Action Plan. 45 This involves a potential 600 waste operatives with a achieving a first NVQ Level II over the next two years. There are plans to run gas and water upstream courses with Morgan Est and South StaVs Water using a similar model before the end of 2008. 46 DIUS (2008). Innovation Nation: Unlocking Talent. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 149
4. What the existing regional structures of delivery are and what sub-regional strategies may be required. 4.1 Where regions have established sector specific fora, it has made it easier to feed employer priorities into the system and establish more eVective engagement mechanisms with employers. Examples of this are the Sector Skills and Productivity Alliances in the Northwest and built environment groups which have been established in the East of England and East Midlands, and one currently being established in the West Midlands. 4.2 In addition, the regional LSCs have put in place regional sector leads where we have been able to develop productive relationships and feed in employer priorities from our SSA or develop direct relationships for the employer to access support. In London, a dedicated Train to Gain account manager has been appointed for our sector to work collaboratively with our large employers (over 250 employees). Thames Water, EDF Energy and Clancy Docwra are in the process of benefitting from this arrangement. 4.3 We will be responding to the recently published joint DCSF / DIUS consultation document, Raising Expectations47which will impact on the current regional delivery structures and create a pull to local and sub-regional structures. Attracting young people into our sector with the right base of skills is critical development for us. The sector has an aging workforce and is faced with a declining number of young people entering the workforce. In addition, increased capital investment programmes over the next 10–15 years could well result in substantial expansion demand over and above replacement demand caused by those retiring. This relates specifically to suitable candidates for skilled roles which are so important to the continued improvements in productivity sought by the economic regulators. Work is needed to ensure that the sector is perceived as an attractive career choice for young people and those from non-traditional employment pools. 4.4 We would welcome clarity on how the new infrastructure proposed would help to address these issues. However, initial feedback from our employers suggests that the role of the proposed new Skills Funding Agency and Young People’s Agency alongside a continuing role for the National Employer Service and the new National Apprenticeship Service may reinforce the confusion evidenced earlier in this paper. We will lobby for evidence of national sector need to feature strongly in the funding priorities for these agencies. The move to direct funding through the local Authorities, despite the commitment to establish sub-regional consortia may not be helpful without a requirement for them to focus on national sector priorities. Funnelling funding or decisions on funding for strategically important national industries through the relevant SSC would radically simplify the issue for employers.
5. The respective roles of the further education and higher education sectors in delivering a region-based agenda for Leitch and their coordination with one another. 5.1 The relationship between further education (FE) and our sector is limited. EU Skills has, however, developed a successful relationship with TraVord College who have developed capacity and facilities to deliver training that meets the needs of employers in our sector. Employers including Balfour Beatty Utility Solutions Ltd. and Morgan Est. have been accessing level 3 provision through Train to Gain. Over 200 people have gained gas upstream service and mainlaying qualifications to date and the same number are expected to gain water upstream operations qualifications. 5.2 Our concern with FE relates to quality of trainers, provision and facilities to eVectively deliver to meet the needs of our sector. The new arrangements for the new part A and B employer responsiveness quality standards do not address our concerns—we would want a greater say in endorsing provision for our sector than we currently have and that is planned through the new standard. 5.3 A key strand of our SSA is EU Skills Higher Education (HE) Strategy. The core principles of our HE Strategy are fully endorsed by the Leitch recommendations. Whilst there are some good practice examples of these principles being applied in collaborations between employers and HE Institutions, they are limited and often, where they do exist, it is often between one employer and one university. 5.4 The level and the nature of engagement also means that any collaboration is time consuming and unlikely to be addressed through quick fixes. The examples below demonstrate our work to influence work based learning (WBL) developments. They are potentially long term activities and some are at an early stage: — Aston University delivering electrical power network engineering foundation degrees for Eon, Scottish & Southern Electricity and National Grid; — Huddersfield University project funded by HEFCE to develop WBL learning programmes for the waste management sector; — The Engineering Council (ECUK) working with Kingston University on a Gateways project to develop in conjunction with other universities WBL programmes which provide pathways for technicians and engineers to progress to professional status. (IEng and CEng.);
47 CSF/DIUS (2008). Raising Expectations: Enabling the system to deliver. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 150 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
— Cranfield University HEFCE funded project to convert their existing masters level programmes to a WBL format & to seek accreditation of their short course programmes to provide a flexible approach to continuing professional development (CPD); — Facilitating Eggborough Power Station (British Energy) and Leeds University collaboration on asset management optimisation programmes at levels 4–7. 5.5 There is evidence of HEI collaboration through the second phase of the Higher Skills Pathfinder projects. We have been invited to be involved in the projects in the NW and NE, along with other SSCs. We are also collaborating with other SSCs on a bid being developed by SEMTA to establish initially two pilot forums for collaboration between SSCs and HEIs facilitated by regional HE associations. In addition, we are working with Foundation Degree Forward to establish employer requirements for the Water and Electricity sectors and to make a business case to move to a programme development phase as consortia groups involving employers, HE / FE institutions and private training providers. 5.6 However, there is more work to do if EU Skills’ HE Strategy is to have maximum impact and the Leitch targets are to be delivered. Too many HEIs have been successful in procuring funding from HEFCE for workforce development projects without any evidence of explicit employer engagement. For SSCs, other than through FDF, funding or influencing of funding for higher level skills is, therefore, problematic. It is either unavailable or access is diYcult and / or unclear. 5.7 Many universities are also “stuck” in the academic learning process paradigms and there is insuYcient incentive to change. However, funding models for HEIs could be reconfigured to provide the incentives. We would like to see a move to establish the world of work as a place of learning and for this to be recognised in the funding models, ie, some of the current HEFCE funding could be shared between an HEI and employer, based on the cost of programmes rather than purely student numbers. 5.8 Employers are too often passive in the provision of higher level skills programmes. There is evidence that they too readily accept “oV the shelf” products, do not get involved in curriculum development with HEIs and do not provide suYcient in company support to learners. Through our HE Strategy, we aim to demonstrate the added business value of more eVective engagement and learn from our pilot projects to produce “how to” information and guidance for employers on the engagement with HE on development and delivery of business relevant higher level skills programmes. 5.9 Again, whilst the progress we are making is encouraging, we do need our role as an SSC to be recognised and the regional delivery models to be flexible enough to respond to national, sectoral priorities in order to create the demand-led approach that Leitch advocates. We also need to be funded or be in a position to influence funding to roll out our pilot activity in order to maximise their impact for the sector.
6. The impact on students of these initiatives, particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning. 6.1 Our experience with our HE Strategy shows that numbers have proved diYcult to maintain and consequently programmes have had a short life, perhaps two or three cohorts. These experiences have reinforced the requirement for an additional dimension to the HE Strategy, that of sustainability. Ongoing collaboration with employers is essential to ensure sustainability. 6.2 The evidence from the development and delivery of our Ambition Energy programme showed that sustained involvement of employers was key to developing learning programmes that both met the needs of employers and sustained the learning experience of the learner. However, high value / low volume training is an issue and whilst involvement of employers could be part of a solution it is diYcult in a regional context where regional monopolies still exist across our industries.
7. Conclusion 7.1 So whilst there are pockets of good practice, the response to Leitch and benefits to our employers remains fragmented due to the regional delivery structures in place. We are not convinced that the proposals in Raising Expectations48will streamline the process. Overall, our employers are frustrated by the current delivery models and, whilst we are working with them to facilitate access to skills development, there are more eVective and eYcient ways of ensuring employer responsiveness within the system. 7.2 As part of our strategy to increase our capacity to deliver employer solutions, we aim to pursue a National Skills Academy (NSA) for our sector, or industries within our sector. This will help us provide a national solution to address skills needs of employers within our sector. We are keen to work with RDAs and LSCs to provide a regional delivery route for the NSA’s national, sectoral solutions. 7.3 Employers have committed themselves to EU Skills through membership fees of £645,000 08/09, to our employer fora49who have fed into and shaped this response and through commitment to our registration schemes and as such see us as the first port of call. They are looking for a more strategic and leading role for EU Skills in the post Leitch, employer-led skills world with more emphasis on the clarity that a national model would oVer.
48 CSF / DIUS (2008). Raising Expectations: Enabling the system to deliver. 49 Lower Sector Skills Strategy Group (PSSSG), Environmental Services Association (ESA), Water Industry Sector Skills Group (WISSG), Gas upstream Network Policy Forum, Gas downstream Industry Liaison Group. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 151
7.4 Our strategic objective to be a catalyst in skills market has been built upon successful programmes we have delivered that have met demand from our employers. As an SSC we are maturing and want to see, along with our employers, a more demanding role for employers in any future structural changes in the skills landscape. April 2008
Memorandum 17
Submission from the City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development
1. Executive Summary 1.1 This submission is made by the City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development. 1.2 It examines the role of regional bodies such as RDAs and RSPs principally as mechanisms for the articulation of employer demands, and considers how they can fulfil this role more eVectively. It is suggested that clear communication, flexible funding initiatives, co-operation with sector bodies and a central role for regional bodies in training provision decisions can help to make regional bodies more eVective and responsive to employer demands. 1.3 It is argued that, while the increased local autonomy for provision proposed in Raising Expectations is welcome as it will enable local providers to meet local learner demand, this should not be allowed to confuse the picture with regards to regional initiatives and the articulation of employer demand. It is important that all stakeholders should understand the system and their own point of access to it. 1.4 It is suggested that regional bodies also have a significant role to play in the provision of regional intelligence, both in the form of Information, Advice and Guidance to learners, and in the prediction of short- to medium-term future skills needs. 1.5 It is argued that ongoing inequalities between higher education and further education represent a major stumbling block to the achievement of the Leitch targets, and that greater freedom for FE institutions would enable them better to respond to skills needs at the local and regional levels.
2. Introduction to the Centre for Skills Development 2.1 The Centre for Skills Development is an independent research and development body which aims to improve the policy and practice of work related education and training internationally. Its services are aimed at policy makers, researchers, practitioners and employers. The Centre commissions, manages and publishes research, gathers and disseminates good practice, and funds and delivers projects and consultancy with a skills development focus.
3. Our submission 3.1 This submission addresses the following questions: — Why is the regional level important in articulating needs for skills training? — How can we best ensure employers’ demands are an integral part of developing training provision? — What barriers currently prevent employers’ demands being eVectively heard? — What other functions can best be performed at the regional level? — What role can Sector Skills Councils play in ensuring an eVective regional approach to skills? — How does the need to develop a regional approach sit with the local and sub-regional focus of Raising Expectations? — What international examples oVer possible solutions?
4. The regional agenda and meeting employer demand 4.1 Employers should be incentivised to drive training provision by placing them at the centre of the system for determining skills priorities. The system must communicate clearly with employers and give them confidence that any investment they make will see significant returns and that their demands will lead to real and rapid change on the ground. This would require changes to the funding structure as well as the decision- making structure: research shows that systems become most responsive to employer demand when employers are given a central position in decision making and have some control over funding. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 152 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
4.2 Information about employer demand is not easy to access. Employers may not think strategically about the kind of skills they require, and individual companies will focus more on their own immediate priorities rather than skills needs across their sector. Employer demand is also diYcult to summarise as requirements may vary widely between and within sectors. 4.3 Existing regional structures for delivering skills and training have not achieved their full potential, due largely to a perceived lack of clout and a failure to communicate to employers how the system works and what they can expect from it. We believe, however, that the regions remain the best level at which to develop skills strategies that can take into account the needs of employers. At this level, economic activity is of a large enough scale to interest larger employers in strategic inputs and allow co-ordination with national policy objectives, without being so large that SME voices are drowned out. 4.4 To engage employers eVectively, it is essential that (a) communication is clear, and (b) that employers are given a real, driving role in the process. The Centre for Skills Development’s recent report, Skills Development: Attitudes and Perceptions, found that employers in the UK are more concerned about communication with skills practitioners and policy makers than their counterparts elsewhere: on average, UK employers rated the eVectiveness of such communication at 5.67 out of 10, compared to an international average of 6.5. Employers are confused about the role of RDAs and RSPs, which have tended to lack coherent work programmes or an adequate strategy to engage with employers demand (see for example Jeremy Humber’s 2005 Review of the Yorkshire and Humber Skills Partnership). 4.5 International comparisons show that when employers are in the driving seat of training provision, the system is more responsive to economic need and more likely to produce excellent training that leads to good jobs. The Netherlands and the USA oVer instructive examples in this context (Raddon and Sung, The Role of Employers in Sectoral Skills Development, University of Leicester 2006). Current arrangements in the UK place employers in a more consultative role. Raising Expectations envisions a voice for employers (via RDAs and RSPs) in adult skills provision, but with the Skills Funding Agency in the driving seat providing “information and brokerage” to employers. SSCs oVer the possibility to engage employers in a meaningful way, but they have had mixed success in doing so (see section 5 below). There is little available evidence as to the diVerent regional capabilities of diVerent SSCs; this is a subject that needs urgent evaluation. 4.6 Despite current shortcomings, RDAs and RSPs are well-placed to create and influence an employer demand-led approach to skills training by forming strategic relationships with businesses. RDAs have shown that they are keen to develop this role, as demonstrated by their collective response to the Leitch implementation report submitted by Dr Lis Smith of the Northwest RDA. Giving RSPs real teeth by making regionally-determined employer demand a key driver of training provision would be a good first step, as argued recently by Stephen Broomhead, CEO of Northwest RDA, at the DIUS conference “Skills for Employability”. This would mean bringing employers, via RSPs, into a genuine driving position in the decision making process and giving them at least some control over funding decisions, as recommended by Raddon and Sung (2006). 4.7 While the localisation agenda proposed in Raising Expectations provides a good tool for making further education more responsive to the needs of students, there should be clear co-ordination and communication with regional level institutions to ensure coherence across the whole system (see section 6 below).
5. The role of Sector Skills Councils 5.1 Although the Leitch report recommended that SSCs should be reformed and empowered at the national level, clearer articulation is needed of what this will mean at the regional level. Examples from abroad (such as the Netherlands’ network of “Knowledge Centres”) show that the close involvement of sector bodies in the planning and commissioning process can raise the confidence of employers in the training system and ensure that it can respond to their needs. In Raising Expectations, however, SSCs do not feature in the proposed planning and commissioning cycle for 16–19 provision. 5.2 SSCs vary enormously in terms of their institutional origins, preferred routes of training, and the shape and demands of the markets they serve. DiVerent SSCs will also have greater relevance in diVerent regions of the country. Empowering SSCs must therefore mean encouraging them to take the initiative to engage employers nationally and regionally, while allowing them the flexibility to do so at the level and scale appropriate to their circumstances and in a suitable manner. 5.3 In order to enable SSCs to take on this increased responsibility, close attention must be paid to their structure and ways of working. In particular, they could not fulfil an increased role without absolute assurances that employers have a central and driving role in SSCs. Again, the Dutch example is instructive: Knowledge Centres are structured to put employers in the driving seat and are responsible for substantial public funding. This has made them more responsive to employer demands. 5.4 Strengthening SSCs in this way would also necessitate a robust system to ensure SSC accountability for their performance. There should also be a system to ensure that companies not covered by the current SSC structure are not excluded from training possibilities; RDAs may be able to play a useful “safety net” Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 153
role here. The voices of those who deliver training and qualifications must also be an integral part of the system, but we agree with Raising Expectations that these can best be incorporated at the local and sub- regional level. 5.5 While empowering SSCs in this way may require extra funding, there are also other ways to enable them to play a greater role that would not raise costs significantly. The USA’s High Job Growth Training Initiative (HJGTI) provides an example of a scheme whereby initial public funding encourages employers and other stakeholders to make a real commitment to improving the match-up between skills supply and demand in a particular industry. The scheme is designed to be employer-led and focuses on partnerships that support job training for 12 key industrial sectors. To gain seed funding for an initiative, stakeholders must present a “challenges and solutions” paper to the Department of Labour, covering areas such as recruiting young workers, tapping new labour pools, transitioning (workers from declining sectors), competency models, training routes, retention and SMEs. The paper must include detail on the investment to be made by partners in the proposed initiative. The flexibility of the scheme means that initiatives can be targeted at an appropriate geographical area, while the limited public funding means partnerships are driven by their own objectives. 5.6 Although some of the schemes under HJGTI are national, most are regionally based. They cover issues ranging from sales and servicing to recruitment from minority communities. The scheme oVers a structured way for sector bodies to take initiatives appropriate to their own sector and, where applicable, specific regions. Giving SSCs access to a similar scheme would help improve their eVectiveness and assure more continuity across the diVerent SSCs. Giving SSCs this role would necessarily be contingent on their becoming a more eVective mechanism for articulating employer demands. 5.7 By committing public funding but allowing sector experts to drive the process of skills provision initiatives, the HJGTI scheme shows how buy-in can be achieved across all stakeholders, and particularly among employers. This in turn improves and promotes the image of sector bodies, and encourages further interaction by employers. Sector bodies are empowered to carry out initiatives at the regional level if this is appropriate, helping ensure that training delivered by the FE sector is determined by the needs of the local market, rather than government targets, and combating the perception that the FE sector is unresponsive to employer needs. 5.8 If RDAs and SSCs were enabled to co-operate on schemes along the lines of those developed under HJGTI, training programmes could be developed that respond to both local and sectoral needs, and that have stakeholder buy-in. This would require the development of a clear protocol, setting out mechanisms for direct involvement of employers and other stakeholders and defining clear divisions of responsibility and accountability. With a clear communication strategy for employers and providers, this could be a powerful way to achieve a more joined-up and responsive system of training provision.
6. Joining up the local and regional agendas
6.1 The local and sub-regional strategies outlined in Raising Expectations present a good blueprint for making skills provision responsive to local needs and learner demands. As currently presented, however, it is not clear how employer demand will be factored into this system. There is also a risk of increasing confusion among employers about how to engage with the system, given that there will be four (sometimes overlapping) levels of decision making: national, regional, sub-regional and local. 6.2 In particular, allowing local authorities to work together in groupings even if they cross regional boundaries is welcome, as it will enable provision to respond to economic needs rather than administrative borders. Care should be taken when implementing this, however, to ensure that employers have a consistent and clear point of access at which to influence the system. A proper communication strategy for employers and other stakeholders will be essential. 6.3 At present, Raising Expectations proposes that a regional grouping of local authorities, co-chaired by the RDA, should be responsible for authorising a regional strategy and for ensuring that it is aVordable, consistent, feasible and demand-led. This is seen as a much more informal institution than the sub-regional groupings developed to plan provision. If, however, employers are to be aVorded a real role in driving the provision of education and training at the regional level, the role of this regional grouping needs to be made much more substantial. To engage employers fully in provision of training for the 16–19 age group, they need to feel that they genuinely have the opportunity to drive the process and to have a clear understanding of how they can do this. More provision needs to be made for this than under current plans.
7. Other roles for regional bodies
7.1 There are a number of further areas where regional bodies should be strengthened to make best use of regional knowledge and expertise. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 154 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Information, Advice and Guidance 7.2 A universal careers service is not suYcient without links into local employment markets and local opportunities: regional structures have a valuable role to play in providing high quality Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) to learners in all parts of the system. To ensure continuity, IAG should also cater to both young people and adults, as recently recommended by the National Skills Forum. An unnecessary requirement to transfer to a new system at age 19 risks individuals slipping through the gaps and a lack of coherence in IAG provision. A single IAG service with a decentralised regional structure would ensure standardisation, improve quality and ease transitions from one stage of life to another.
Analysis of Future Skills Needs 7.3 Predicting future skills needs can be useful if it is done on a relatively small scale and does not attempt to forecast too far into the future. National forecasting is too broad brush to be of much relevance for commissioning training at the local or regional level, while local authorities are not in a position to look beyond the microeconomic level in any meaningful way. RDAs should be empowered to provide thorough labour market intelligence to guide decision making processes regarding training provision.
8. Further education and higher education 8.1 In recent years, the FE and HE sectors have increasingly overlapped. The modern UK economy needs skills traditionally associated with both sectors, and policy makers, learners and employers therefore have an equal stake in both. In this context, the Government’s announcement of plans to extend the role of businesses in the funding and direction of HE is welcome. 8.2 As recently highlighted by the National Skills Forum, there remain huge inequalities in funding for FE and HE, and in the flexibility accorded to providers in the two sectors. Although some state control of FE funding is necessary to accommodate national economic need, this is arguably equally true of HE, which has traditionally enjoyed far greater freedom. FE providers would benefit from greater autonomy to be able to respond better to local demand (from both learners and employers). Funding for learners and access to loans in the two sectors should also be balanced, as the current system unjustifiably favours students in HE. Similarly, facilities such as childcare provision are much more limited in FE. Unless steps like this are taken to make FE more attractive to learners, it will be diYcult to reach the skills levels envisioned by Leitch. 8.3 Further Education providers have a long history of working together with local employers, but have not always had government support to do so. Recent examples of government support to help Higher Education institutes co-operate with employers have been welcome. This kind of support should also be extended to the FE sector, while still allowing them the flexibility to make their own decisions on co- operation arrangements.
9. Policy recommendations 9.1 Our recommendations can be summarised as follows: — Existing regional structures should be strengthened to develop them as the best point of access for articulation of employer demand, and this role should be incorporated as a central part of developing training provision. — Employer demand should become more of a driving force in decision making about provision of vocational education and training. This means putting employers, through regional structures, in a pro-active position rather than a consultative role, and giving them at least some control over funding. — Clear communication strategies should be in place to ensure employers and other stakeholders understand the overall system and, most importantly, their own point of access to it. — Sector Skills Councils should be empowered, through flexible funding mechanisms and strong research capabilities (or resources to commission research), to become the principal agents for including employer demand in training provision both regionally and nationally, and should be held accountable for their performance in this role. — Information, Advice and Guidance should be provided in a truly universal service that caters to both young people and adults, but with a decentralised structure to enable providers of advice to take into account local conditions and requirements. Inequalities between higher and further education need to be tackled if the core skills requirements of the UK are to be addressed. This means increased funding and increased freedom for further education. April 2008 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 155
Memorandum 18
Submission from the Association for Nutrition
1. Summary a) The Association for Nutrition, a professional body and voluntary regulator presently acting under the aegis of the Nutrition Society, sets and oversees professional standards; it promotes capacity in the nutrition workforce as means to protect the public and raise the quality of goods and services in food and nutrition. b) The numbers who study nutrition at universities is clearly increasing and we infer that nutrition and related areas are popular at lower levels though numbers do not exist. In common with other voluntarily regulated professions, the size of the nutrition workforce is not documented. Therefore it is impossible to be confident that the capacity exists to meet public and social policy goals related to health and wellbeing, food quality and food supply access and sustainability. c) There is evidence of demand for a larger supply of and easier access to basic and general skills based flexible training in food and nutrition to support entry into nutrition careers. There also appears to be patchy provision of advanced training or pathways for advancing careers while advancing practice in nutrition. d) There is no apparent overarching mechanism to ensure that initial and lifelong learning instills the skills such as innovation necessary to solve public health problems that have to date proved intractable (eg obesity). e) We have set new standards of proficiency in nutrition that bring together underpinning knowledge with practical competences so that fitness to practice (ie for registration) aligns with fitness for purpose (employability), combining flexibility with rigour. Professional registration is more than a benchmark: it carries the kudos of recognition which is an important stimulus to individuals to embark upon and pay for lifelong learning. We oVer our contribution to key regional development agencies that lead in aspects of public health, food and nutrition viz London and the South West. f) It is recommended that due recognition is given to the fact that nutrition is a cross cutting theme, common to a very wide range of sectors with the potential to contribute to the nation’s health, wellbeing, wealth and environmental sustainability. It deserves to taken seriously by the SSCs. g) Because there is a risk that nutrition is overlooked in the absence of clear responsibility and accountability for developing capacity and capability of the nutrition workforce. i) food and nutrition should be highlighted in the work plans of both the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils and the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. ii) a nutrition workforce development plan is required with mechanisms to ensure underpinning knowledge relevant to developing transformative evidence-based skills to secure the attributes of flexibility, commitment to quality, and develop that of innovation. iii) More opportunities are required for training in the practical application of nutrition skills at basic and generic levels, in order to raise standards of care and innovation in food products and systems, and nutrition services, systems of care and product development and quality assurance.
2. Introduction: about the Association for Nutrition a) The Association for Nutrition [AfN] is in the process of being set up as an independent organisation by the Nutrition Society in order to take over, sustain and enhance the promotion of nutrition as a profession, raising standards of practice and thereby better protecting the public. AfN will soon take over the Nutrition Society’s Voluntary Register for Nutrition with˜ 1,000 professional registered Nutritionists who work in Nutrition (animal and human) and Public Health Nutrition. b) It accredits 27 HE courses leading to BSc degrees with honours (level 6) or MScs (level 7) that meet standards of education and competency: graduates from accredited courses and eligible to apply for direct entry to the register as Associates. Anyone who has evidence of competency (which in the absence of a degree in expected to be acquired over (7 years) can apply for registration. Such applicants may have been working in food and nutrition related health improvement or urban renewal or community development and seek recognition work and no doubt career advancement. c) Registered Nutritionists aYrm that they uphold our Policy for the Nutrition Science Professions and that they will be judged against our Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct. We have a procedure for investigating and, if there is a case to answer, establishing the fitness to practice of a registrant against whom there has been a complaint or allegation; to date there have been 10 such complaints. d) Members of the register are required to be committed to lifelong learning in the form of continuous professional development (CPD). Our CPD scheme valorises specialist and generic skills so that it dovetails with employee’s Individual Performance Review, as we have found through our work with the Food Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 156 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Standards Agency which is an Investor in People, because we have the flexibility to recognise domains in the NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework, such as management and leadership, among others common in business. e) We oVer information about where and how to choose to study nutrition and how to enter and change careers in nutrition, that includes vocational as well as higher education.
3. Information about skills and training in nutrition a) Informal analysis of our responses to public enquiries indicate an unmet demand for open or distance learning courses that lead to qualifications recognised by employers and credible to us as a professional body. b) There are few foundation degrees (level 5) in nutrition-related subjects (n%16) and, apparently, only one formal award at level 4 in the public sector, excluding units at levels 4&5oVered by the Open University. By contrast there appear to be several providers in the private sector that oVer limited volumes of credits at the lower levels [2, 3]. There are also profession led or in-house courses in nutrition or related to the application of nutrition, as part of health care, social care or beauty care; education support; animal welfare; food hygiene. There is thus an array of qualifications from the Open College Network, or a professional body; or meet National Occupational Standards or National Workforce Competences, recognised & overseen by QCA. c) There appears to be a gap between such demand led training at relatively low levels of which there appear to be an insuYcient volume at all the relevant levels (probably 3-5) to enable individual assistant professionals to accumulate suYcient credits to show easily that they have the equivalent of an award at level 5 [foundation degree] or 6 [degree with honours]. d) Nutrition is an increasingly popular subject for study at university ((6,000; ! applications through UCAS in 2007; an above average increase of 14.3%). An above average proportion of graduates stay on to study for higher degrees and below average propositions of nutrition graduates enter graduate occupations—clear evidence of wasted talent201. Unlike statutorily regulated health professions, there is not formal or routine means to quantify the contribution voluntarily regulated nutritionists make to the workforce. Research by independent consultants indicated that nutritionists work in many sectors and the largest proportion is in academia. We have evidence from our analyses of (150 recent job adverts and descriptions that most new positions at professional levels (≥5) occur in the health sector. There must be many more, so far unquantified members of the workforce who are concerned with food and nutrition in the service sectors, food industry (production, manufacture, retail and marketing), and of course in the leisure, care and third sectors; and indeed in the private sector including the self employed. e) In order to ensure that nutritionists contribute to the health and economy of our country, and mindful of the drivers of change including in professional regulation, we have devised standards of proficiency in nutrition that use competences. We are working, on our own and with others, to develop standards in nutrition across the spectrum of the new Public Health Career Framework (PHCF) to complement our existing standards at˜ level 5. To do this we continue to participate in the implementation of the PHCF, for example. Our goal is recognise the contribution being made by and also help to upskill the wider nutrition workforce, as health improvement and other paraprofessional workers apply to join our professional register. Therefore we are actively working to promote flexibility of access while retaining the rigour of our standards for admission to our voluntary register. f) There is equally a need to be more creative about the contribution that can be made at advanced levels, with discrete specific informal or formal professional development in nutrition through lifelong learning. This would encourage innovation without which intractable food and nutrition related problems could not be solved (eg “unhealthy” food choices and food intakes low levels of breast-feeding, obesity, malnutrition in hospital patients and the elderly) and may continue to worsen. At present there is formal support and provision for professions allied to medicine and in medicine that includes advanced postgraduate and/ or post-basic training to develop competences for advanced or specialist practice (at national qualification levels 7 or higher) in nutrition, which is apparently poorly accessible to others in the nutrition workforce including voluntarily regulated nutritionists. We are committed to developing comparable skills or competency based training in public health nutrition and other aspects of nutrition that would like to see more provision pertinent to other sectors in addition to health. We seek partnerships with employers to secure support and ensure that CPD contributes to fitness for purpose, fitness for practice and hence registration; and in due course, for re-registration (and for some professional occupations at least, re- validation, if that is an outcome from the reviews of non-medical and medical regulation). g) There is no evidence of an overarching mechanism to instil innovation at any level and thus secures rising standards of performance necessary to tackle the burgeoning problem of obesity and its concomitants; educate and communicate so as to support and sustain healthier food and lifestyle choices; contributes to sustainability (eg reducing food waste and recycling; food miles) and contributes to social inclusion by aiding access to education and jobs. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 157
h) We have undertaken an informal mapping exercise of the contents of degree courses against our forthcoming professional standards of proficiency [which include many domains common to the NHS KSFs and similar business and generic skills]. This indicates a gap between current orthodox delivery that includes a limited amount of work-based learning (including placements, attachments) necessary for professional skills development. As we are not a regulated profession most of our courses are not commissioned. We wish to work strategically with learning and skills partnerships, regional development agencies and employers to ensue that what we call fitness for practice (and hence becoming a registered professional in nutrition) is also fit for purpose (work). i) National professional bodies as small as we are have diYculty in finding avenues and keeping those that we have patent, so that we can articulate our work with that of the regional development agencies. We are committed to contributing to the work of RDAs that lead on areas of common interest such as the London region (with London Food; and its focus upon Public Health) and the South West Region (with its Food and Drinks Skills Network). Our role would include providing professional recognition that would in turn stimulate and sustain more individuals to be motivated to embark on and pay for more lifelong learning. This kind of stimulus is required in order to meet objectives set out by Lord Leitch (2006) and the Skills for Health Sector skills agreement.
4. Proposed recommendations to be included in the Committee’s report a) Nutrition is a cross cutting theme common to a very wide range of sectors and has the potential to contribute to the nation’s health wellbeing wealth and environmental sustainability. It deserves to taken seriously by the SSCs: there is a risk that it is overlooked in the absence of clear responsibility and accountability for developing the capacity and capability of the nutrition workforce. It is recommended that food and nutrition should be highlighted in the work plans of both the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils and the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. b) a nutrition workforce development plan is required with mechanisms to ensure underpinning knowledge relevant to developing transformative evidence-based skills to secure the attributes of flexibility, commitment to quality, and develop that of innovation. c) More opportunities are required for training in the practical application of nutrition skills at basic and generic levels, in order to raise standards of care and innovation in food products and systems, and nutrition services, systems of care and product development and quality assurance. April 2008
Memorandum 19
Submission from the Alliance Employment & Skills Board re ” what the existing regional structures of delivery are and what sub-regional strategies may be required”.
1. Summary 1.1 The Alliance Employment & Skills Board (AESB) was established in December 2006 and covers the former coalfields sub-region of North Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire areas. It has met 7 times to date. An Executive group, which was formed in the summer of 2007, provides the delivery arm and meets every six to eight weeks. The Board is led by a private sector Chair and was established slightly in advance of the Leitch Review. It was formed in the absence of any national or regional guidelines about how Employment and Skills Boards should function. The Board has contributed to national research by the Centre for Enterprise into Employment and Skills Boards. 1.2 The strategic influence of the AESB extends to the existing framework of Nottingham and Derbyshire Local Area Agreements (LAAs) and the Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI) covering the districts of Ashfield, Bolsover and Mansfield. The AESB links up with adjoining City Region Strategies and neighbouring Employment and Skills Boards including Derbyshire Employment and Skills Board and Greater Nottingham Employment and Skills Board.
2. Context 2.1 The sub-region of North Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire still suVers from the legacy of coalfields closures, with longstanding worklessness and low skills levels prevailing in many of its communities. 2.2 However, the sub-region is slowly beginning to benefit from the long period of continuous economic growth that began in the mid-1990s with over 25 large scale construction developments planned to take place over the next 5 years. These include major developments taking place around the M1 at Markham Vale with Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 158 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
a purpose built Junction 29a and public investment in hospitals, schools and housing. Sectors such as healthcare, logistics and construction are forecast to continue to grow in the sub-region and will require skilled people to work within them. 2.3 The sub-region is a mix of a rural economy and urban centres, including Mansfield, Worksop, Chesterfield and Newark. It has close functional ties with the cities of Nottingham and Derby in the East Midlands, and SheYeld and Doncaster in South Yorkshire. Many higher earners living in districts in the sub-region commute to work in these urban centres. 2.4 Economic activity and employment rates in the sub-region remain significantly below the East Midlands regional average and unemployment rates are above the regional average. Half of the 10 most deprived districts in the East Midlands are in the sub-region. 2.5 The proportion of people claiming benefits is higher in the sub-region than in the East Midlands as a whole, particularly for benefits relating to ill health or disability.. “Hidden unemployed” is very significant in the sub-region with health data suggesting residents have the highest proportion of those reporting poor health and limiting long term illness. This high incidence of health diYculties, especially among older males, can be associated with the legacy of coal mining and other heavy industry and high numbers of incapacity benefit claimants make up the largest proportion of the “hidden unemployed.” 50 2.6 Residents of the sub-region are less likely to be qualified to Level 2 or to Level 4 than the East Midlands average. However, the sub-region has the highest proportion of people who have reached an NVQ Level 3. The average earnings of individuals working in the sub-region are below the regional average, with women earning just over half the pay of men on average. Employment growth for the Alliance SSP over the next decade is forecast to be below the regional average, at 2.5% compared to 3.1%.
3. Membership The Board has a private sector Chair and members include the following public and private sector organisations: — LCA Ltd (Frank Lord—Chair) — EMQC Ltd — KAM Ltd — EasyBags Ltd — Nottinghamshire Health and Social Care Community Workforce Team — Learning and Skills Council — Jobcentre Plus — East Midlands Business Ltd — Nottinghamshire County Council — Derbyshire County Council — Bolsover District Council — TUC Midlands Region — Connexions Nottinghamshire — Enable (representing the voluntary and community sector) — Collaborative Higher Education Alliance (CHEA) Partnership — Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Training Networks — Government OYce for the East Midlands — East Midlands Employment Skills and Productivity Partnership (esp) 3.1 There is a good representation from the private sector, particularly SMEs and the Board is working with Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Chamber of Commerce to increase employer representation. 3.2 The Executive Group is a small group of mainly of public sector members but private sector members are also invited and is chaired by a member of the Board
4. Priorities 4.1 Current and planned activities of the AESB have been mapped to support the esp priorities and LAA targets through partner’s strategic funding commitments. A sub regional work plan was developed for 2007–2008 and updated for 2008–2009 which connects to the headline economic targets of partners and their strategic objectives.
50 emda (2006). Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 159
The four key priorities for the ASEB are: Priority 1: To improve productivity of businesses Priority 2: To raise employer demand for skills Priority 3: To improve sub regional employment and skills and reduce economic exclusion (using public procurement as a lever) Priority 4: To increase participation and attainment amongst 14-19 year olds
5. Activities Since its establishment, the AESB has been involved in a wide range of activities including: — Development of website independent of the sub-regional partnership but with links to the SSP and other partners www.esballiance.co.uk. All meeting agendas, minutes and key documents are available on the website. Within the website a page has been developed to highlight and promote the Skills Pledge. — Development and publishing of a regular e newsletter. — Sponsorship of skills elements of ASSP Partnership Conference November 2007. A further Employment and Skills summit is planned for April 2008. — Linking the Making the Connection initiative to the work of the ESB and, through the Executive Group, reporting progress against its targets for LEGI, SSP and LAA delivery. — Identifying areas of duplication, gaps in provision and opportunities for more collaborative working through a Mapping Exercise undertaken in 2007. This information has been uploaded onto a searchable database for partners accessed through the website. — Shaping of a funding specification for capital funding to develop improved access to higher level skills/education in the sub region. — Working to examine skills support in priority sectors for the sub-region, initially the Logistics sector, including both 14—19 and skills support for the economically excluded in the area, linking with the LSC’s work on Skills for Jobs. Further sectors for examination include Health and Social Care, Leisure and Tourism/Hospitality and Construction. — Briefing members on the European Social Fund (ESF) Co-Financing Organisations processes. The Secretariat has kept up to date with the ITT specifications of both LSC and JCP partners. The Alliance SSP is an approved LSC supplier. — Ongoing work to report Train to Gain performance and impact in the sub-region. — Canvassed and contributed to the Centre for Enterprise commissioned research for central government on existing/emerging Skills Boards.
6. Areas of Greatest Strategic Impact To Date — Making the Connection project. This project was considered an excellent, tangible example of joined-up delivery—the linking of jobs, skills and communities at a practical level which has had a real impact. The AESB influenced the activities of the LSC and Jobcentre Plus through this project and changed behaviour. — Collaborative Higher Education Alliance (CHEA) activity This included expanding the coverage of CHEA, widening delivery arrangements, putting a capital bid together and raising the profile of issues around access to higher level skills. — Agreement on the strategic priorities for the Alliance sub-region & commitment to a collective approach. — Raising the profile of the Alliance area at national and regional level. — Bringing organisations together that do not typically get involved in partnership working. — Influence on NHS workforce planning through the Skills Pledge.
7. Operating Structure 7.1 A consultant provides secretariat support to the ASEB. The AESB was funded in 2007–2008 by the Alliance Strategic Sub-Regional Partnership (£20,000) and the Learning and Skills Council (approx. £48,000). 7.2 There are detailed Terms of Reference for both the Board and the Executive Group and Nolan principles are observed. The delivery plan is clearly set out and progress monitored. Monitoring to date has tended to focus on processes and activities rather than outcomes and impact. This is to be expected given the Board is relatively new, however in future the Board is seeking to measure its impact and strategic added value. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 160 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
8. Future Work 8.1 Both the lack of national and regional guidance to date for Employment & Skills Boards and the impact of the Sub National Review create uncertainty for the future of the AESB. In the case of the latter, it is highly likely that the lack of support for structures that operate across county administrative boundaries will impact on the Board, with its cross North Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire representation and remit. 8.2 However, whilst there is a lack of clarity at present Board members feel it is important to carry forward the momentum created to date and focus on the employment and skills priorities facing the sub- region. The issues remain to be addressed and there is a strong commitment from Board members to the strategic priorities and the delivery plan for 2008–09 that they have signed up to. April 2008
Memorandum 20
Submission from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)
Executive Summary 1. Universities and colleges are engaging with employers in ways that are deeper and stronger than ever before. Through their mainstream teaching programmes and expanding collaboration with employers on higher level skills, they are a major source of the future world class workforce; they contribute more than £45 billion annually to the economy and are well placed to use their long-established relationships with business to extend their impact. The changing demographic profile of their students makes it good business sense for them to develop into new markets. 2. This change in culture and business focus has been gathering pace since the turn of the millennium. The Leitch Review added to an important debate within higher education and HEFCE contributed to that debate through publication, in 2006, of its Higher Education Employer Engagement Strategy51 Our 2006–07 grant letter from the Secretary of State for Education and Skills52asked us to lead “radical change” in developing higher education focused on meeting employers’ needs. At the same time we invested in important pilot activity—three regional “Higher Level Skills Pathfinders” (HLSPs) and several university based pilots to test new approaches to stimulating and meeting employer demand for higher level skills. The Leitch Report and its challenging ambition for high level skills led us to move beyond small scale piloting and to encourage higher education providers to come forward with larger and more ambitious employer engagement proposals. 3. We set up a major new programme53 underpinned by a new funding mechanism, separate from our mainstream funding arrangements—specifically designed to encourage transformational change and support new approaches to stimulating and meeting employer demand. Through this programme we are deploying the £105 million, made available in our 2008–11 funding settlement, to build employer engagement capacity within higher education institutions and achieve targets for growth in working people starting employer co-funded provision (5,000/10,000/20,000 entrants over three years). To date thirty-one higher education providers are have taken up the challenge to deliver employer demand-led and co-funded workforce development which will benefit some 6000 employees in 2008–09. 4. Through the network of HEFCE Regional Consultants we work regionally with the Higher Education Regional Associations (HERAs), Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and other key stakeholders to support higher education providers in making eVective contributions to their regions. We publish annually regional profiles of higher education in England and consult with partners on regional priorities for higher education. The three HLSPs are exploring how higher education can make a more strategic contribution to meeting regional skills needs and connecting providers with brokerage services, such as Train to Gain. In addition individual higher education employer engagement projects are attracting significant RDA investments. 5. HEFCE has invested £103 million in twenty-nine sub-regional Lifelong Learning Networks (LLNs), to improve the opportunities open to learners with vocational qualifications for them to progress into and through higher education. These now span120 universities and 300 further education colleges and are, increasingly, linking with employers to create eVective opportunities for continuing learning and progression.
51 Engaging employers with higher education http://www.hefce.ac.uk/learning/ employer/strat/Board strategy plus annexes.pdf 52 HEFCE 2006–07 Grant Letter http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/hefce/2006/grant/letter.pdf 53 Higher education delivering on the Leitch agenda http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/board/2007/116/67.pdf and http:// www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/board/2007/116/67a.pdf Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 161
6. Since 2003 we have supported Sector Skills Councils (SSCs): to raise higher education-SSC understanding and collaboration; to set up projects to enhance HE curriculum; and to strengthen SSC influence in Foundation Degree development, Lifelong Learning Networks, and Higher Level Skills Pathfinders. We look forward to working with the new UK Commission for Employment and Skills on the criteria for re-licensing SSCs to cement closer collaboration in growing the sector-based markets for employer demand-led and co-funded workforce development. 7. Key challenges for us over the next three years include: — Improving understanding of the potential scale of the market for new types of higher education delivered workforce development, which are employer demand-led and co-funded. — Testing the policy of employer co-funding to get beneath the welter of opinion and anecdote to establish hard evidence on the willingness of employers to pay for the “right” higher level skills product. — Identifying eVective ways of engaging with Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). — Finding sustainable business models for higher education employer engagement. — Sustaining the higher education reputation for quality. — Embedding transformation and ensuring a permanent change in the culture of higher education. — Ensuring that people in work continue with lifelong learning after their first workplace experiences of higher education. 8. If we can sustain this momentum we can oVer the very real prospect of securing the transformation of the higher education sector that the Leitch Report envisaged and of creating a platform for a much more substantial programme of growth towards meeting the Leitch ambition for 2020.
Introduction 9. From Southampton to Derby, from Newcastle to Coventry, universities are engaging with employers in ways that are deeper and stronger than ever before. That an increasing number of universities and colleges are already engaging with employers is no accident: it reflects their refreshed mission, and for many it is now part of their core business. 10. There are good reasons for this. First, as the Leitch Report showed, by 2020 at least 40 per cent of our working population will need higher level skills if we are to maintain our international competitiveness. The Government’s response54, in June 2007, recognised the economic value of higher education intervening to increase high level skills in the workforce and added to the gathering pace of the momentum for change in the higher education sector. 11. Universities have long been one of the great economic stimulants. Higher education now contributes over £45 billion a year to GDP, for a total public investment of a third of that amount55 Our continuing economic contribution through this century will come, in part, through greater engagement with employers. 12. Secondly, it is simply good for the business of higher education providers, whether universities or further education colleges. The undergraduate profile is changing and is no longer so dominated by the 18–21 year-old school leaver. A majority of first year undergraduates is over 21, and a similar proportion is already in the workforce. The number of older teenagers is set to decline and universities and colleges need to widen and deepen participation in both traditional and novel ways, developing a model that attracts a greater proportion of older students, most already in the workforce. 13. Thirdly, employers, nationally and internationally, value the reputation of UK higher education for the highest quality and standards. Higher education can equip a workforce not only to meet the demands of today’s workplace, but make it more capable of taking continuing change in its stride and of continuing learning to meet future demands. 14. In this paper we set out to demonstrate that the higher education sector is facing up to these challenges with increasing enthusiasm and commitment, actively reaching out to employers in new ways to create a highly skilled “world class workforce”.
A momentum for change 15. The decade since the Dearing Report has been characterised by a renewing of the engagement between employers and higher education. There has been a strong emphasis on ensuring that higher education graduates possess the necessary skills and attributes for employment: generic skills, such as communications, team working and problem solving; and specific vocational and professional skills, particularly in key disciplines, such as Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Leading employers and representative bodies, such as the CBI, are playing a welcome and important role,
54 Cm 7181(July 2007) Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills World Class Skills: Implementing Leitch Review of skills in England 55 The economic impact of UK higher education institutions, Universities UK (2006) http://bookshop.universitiesuk.ac.uk/ downloads/economicimpact3.pdf Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 162 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
which is having a significant impact on undergraduate and postgraduate education. Employment outcomes for graduates remain strong and many employers oVer students the opportunities for work placements which are excellent routes to enhanced employability. Companies such as Ernst and Young are creating a new range of higher education programmes in which work-based learning is integral throughout. 16. The development and growth of foundation degrees—to which HEFCE has committed funding since 2001—has encouraged closer partnership between employers and higher education to create a new, employment focused oVerings both for people entering workforce and those already in work. The success of foundation degrees can be measured by far more than the substantial year on year growth in their take- up. What we are now seeing is greater understanding of their potential to underpin the “professionalisation” of many occupational areas, particularly in the public sector; and they are meeting private sector demand for managers and highly skilled technicians in key economic areas of skills growth and shortage. The collaboration between Aston University, the National Grid and leading energy companies to develop a Power Engineering foundation degree exemplifies this trend. 17. These changes are taking time to work through the worlds of business and higher education; but the evidence of progress is growing and the pace of change is accelerating. The Higher Education Business and Community Interaction surveys56 which have reported annually since 2001, have shown consistent growth in the institutions reporting high levels of employer engagement in the curriculum, use of labour market information in course design and income generated from continuing professional development (CPD). 18. The Leitch Review added to an important debate within higher education, initiated by the Lambert Review57of 2003, about its role in supporting future economic growth. A key question was how higher education should build on its well-established relationships with business—in areas such as research, knowledge transfer, undergraduate and postgraduate education—to work with employers on a larger scale in workforce development and CPD. HEFCE’s leading role in that debate was reflected in its grant letter for 2006–07 from the Secretary of State for Education and Skills. He asked HEFCE to “lead radical changes in the provision of higher education by incentivising and funding provision which is partly or wholly designed, funded or provided by employers”. We published an Employer Engagement Strategy for the sector in November 2006 and this encompassed the breadth of the potential contribution of higher education towards building a highly skilled workforce. 19. Alongside the strategy, in 2006 we invested in two important sets of pilot activity. First, we invited three Higher Education Regional Associations—in the South West, North West and North East regions— to work with regional partners to set up “Higher Level Skills Pathfinders” (HLSPs). Their purpose was to develop new forms of higher education provision in response to employer demand, more accessible to employers through Train to Gain and other intermediaries. 20. Secondly, we invited higher education institutions, either individually or in partnership, to submit proposals for innovative approaches to stimulate employer demand for higher level skills, encourage employer investment and create new flexible ways for meeting that demand. Several pilots built upon the development of other business focused services supported through the Higher Education Innovation Fund. This kick-started some important early projects which are now an important source of developing good practice and lessons learned. For example, as a result of first-hand experience of academics developing leading-edge professional practice, Birmingham City University is linking academic involvement in knowledge transfer to the development of problem-solving based curriculum for students. 21. HEFCE has the capacity and flexibility to support such pilot activity through its Strategic Development Fund. We have committed £11 million of development funds, and around £2.5 million a year funding for provision, to the three HLSPs to support new courses focused on the needs of employers and employees. Most of this new provision is part-time and is oVered in much more flexible formats. Both the RDAs and the LSC have actively supported the pilots and have committed additional funds to the tune of £800,000 in the North East region to support the involvement of further education colleges in the region; and £4 million in the North West to extend coverage to all the RDA priority sectors. 22. We welcomed the Leitch Report and, in the light of its challenging ambition for high level skills we decided to move beyond small scale piloting. Our aim was to encourage many more higher education providers to mount larger scale projects. We emphasised the need to build sustainable capacity to enable a quick and flexible response to employer demand for high levels skills, through provision which employers would be willing to co-fund. In April 2007 we employed an experienced senior manager to plan the programme. He provides active encouragement and support to higher education providers to bring forward ambitious employer engagement proposals. 23. We also welcome the Government’s publication in April 2008 of “Higher Education at Work”58and the consultation launched to look at ways in which business, trade unions and employers can work together to encourage demand for high level skills, as well as incentives to encourage universities to respond better to employer demand.
56 HEFCE Higher Education Business and Community Interaction Surveys, http://www.hefce.ac.uk/reachout/hebci/ 57 Lambert Review of Business University Collaboration—Final Report, HM Treasury, December 2003 58 “Higher Education at Work”, Department for Innovation Universities and Skills, April 2008 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 163
24. Our 2008–11 funding settlement includes at least £105 million to build employer engagement capacity and achieve targets for growth in the numbers of working people starting employer co-funded provision (5,000/10,000/20,000 entrants over three years). The co-funding model we are testing is straightforward. In delivering employer demand-led provision, higher education providers must generate financial contributions from employers which, together with HEFCE’s funding contributions will at least cover their costs. In projects we have approved since September 2007 our expectation is that, after three years, most of the providers will be able to generate suYcient revenues from employers for their operations to be financially sustainable with a HEFCE contribution set at half its normal funding rates (sometimes referred to as “50 per cent co-funding”). 25. To take this forward we set up a major new programme, underpinned by a new and separate funding mechanism, specifically designed to encourage transformational change and support new approaches to stimulating and meeting employer demand. Thirty-one higher education providers are now leading the delivery of employer demand-led and co-funded workforce development which will benefit some 6000 additional employees in 2008–09. Twenty-two of these are receiving capacity building funds to create new, sustainable and employer-focused operations capable of delivering continuing growth in future years. For example StaVordshire University will be contributing to the regeneration of Stoke through development of the “University Quarter” and establishment of a Business Centre, reaching out to 3000 SME based learners in business supply chains and generating increased employer investment. 26. We have so far committed £44 million capacity building funds to these projects, over the next three years. Subject to available funds, we have suYcient proposals in the pipeline to double the number of projects. In allocating funds our overriding principle is achievement of the targets set in our grant letter through long-term, sustainable and transformational change. We aim to harness the considerable experience, expertise and creativity of higher education providers—stimulating demand from employers and employees and meeting it through innovation in the supply of higher education provision. 27. Our programme has been designed with the conclusions of the Leitch Report very much in mind: — Exceed 40 per cent of working people qualified to at least Level 4 by 2020. We are investing to build capacity in higher education to create a platform for accelerated growth from 2010–11. — Encompass the whole working-age population. All our projects extend opportunities for employer co-funded workforce development to the11.4 million working people, aged 19 and over, who hold Level 2 or 3 qualifications, but have no experience of higher education. — Shared responsibility to increase investment and action. Our programme is specifically designed to encourage employer co-funding. — Focus on economically valuable skills. Project proposals are assessed for thorough research of target employer market(s), references to Regional Economic Strategies, employer involvement in curriculum development, and SSC/professional body consultation and collaboration. — The skills system must meet the needs of individuals and employers and should be demand-led rather than centrally planned. Our funding mechanism supports provision to meet employer and employee needs—from short, accredited “bite-sized” units through to full qualification bearing courses. — Adaptivity and responsiveness. The funding mechanism also targets the HEFCE contribution at the point of employer demand and enables providers to respond rapidly to new demands from employers. — Build on existing structures. We ask providers to bring forward project proposals which build on their strengths as the basis for transforming their operations to become more employer-facing. We assess bids for the involvement of local partners and intermediaries, such as Train to Gain, Business Link and Lifelong Learning Networks in their delivery plans.
Regional and sector relationships 28. HEFCE is a national organisation and we allocate core teaching and research grants at a national level. However, through our network of Regional Consultants we work with stakeholders to support higher education providers in making the most eVective contribution to their regions. We publish, annually, regional profiles of higher education in England and consult with partners on regional priorities for higher education, which are published. Strong relationships at regional level are important to us in fulfilling our broad role: not only in relation to employer engagement, but also for promoting wider access to higher education and in taking forward the “University Challenge”. 29. With the HE Regional Associations, our Regional Consultants play a strong advocacy and developmental role in the Regional Skills Partnerships, which include the RDAs and LSC. The three Higher Level Skills Pathfinders are exploring how higher education can make a more strategic contribution to meeting regional skills needs, particularly by connecting providers with existing brokerage systems, such as Train to Gain, providing joined-up services to employers across skill levels. Our investment is not restricted to universities and, to the extent our remit allows, we fund further education colleges, either directly or as members of university-led partnerships. For example we recently approved direct funding for Worcester Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 164 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
College of Technology to deliver an employer co-funded foundation degree in payroll management, in collaboration with the Institute for Payroll Management and accredited by Worcester University, which will build to 2,500 students by 2010–11. 30. Employer engagement projects are attracting RDA funding. For example, University of Derby has secured over £2 million from the East Midlands Development Agency alongside a substantial investment from its own funds and our investment of over £4 million to develop “UoD Corporate”. 31. HEFCE has invested £103million in Lifelong Learning Networks (LLNs), to improve the opportunities open to learners with vocational qualifications for them to progress into and through higher education. There are now 29 LLNs, spanning 120 universities and 300 further education colleges. Many are collaborating with employers, particularly on curriculum design, and some are adopting innovative approaches to stimulating latent demand from employers and employees through new qualifications, credit accumulation, flexible work-based delivery, and accessible information, advice and guidance. We have, this year, completed reviews of both LLNs and the HLSPs and are considering the lessons learned for the future development of eVective regional and sub-regional partnerships to promote employer and employee engagement. 32. Since the publication of the first Government Skills Strategy white paper in 200359we, with the Higher Education Academy, Quality Assurance Agency, Foundation Degree Forward and DIUS have supported Sector Skills Councils’ (SSC) engagement with higher education through: — Increasing mutual higher education-SSC understanding and collaboration; — Joint projects to enhance HE curriculum; — Strengthening SSC influence in Foundation Degree development, Lifelong Learning Networks, and Higher Level Skills Pathfinders. 33. Examples of HEFCE funding of SSC-led projects include £7 million committed to support implementation by higher education providers of a new degree qualification developed in partnership with e-skills and £2 million to support the setting up of Skillset higher education academies. More than forty universities and colleges, in 2006, reported engagement with six leading SSCs—ConstructionSkills, Creative and Cultural skills, e-skills, Lifelong Learning UK, Skillset, and Skills for Health. This year, twelve universities in collaboration with leading construction companies and professional consultancies, will run versions of the six-day “Constructionarium” working field course, which was pioneered by Imperial College London, Expedition Engineering and John Doyle Construction in 2003 and is now hosted by the National Construction Skills College in Norfolk. It will provide hands-on experience for more than 1,000 construction industry students and young professionals and will bring together universities, contractors and consultants working at a significant scale with sizeable costs for both universities and industry but excellent educational and skills benefits. We believe that the planned re-licensing of SSCs by the new UK Commission for Employment and Skills oVers the opportunity for more and closer collaboration of this type to grow sector-based markets for employer demand-led and co-funded workforce development. 34. Collaboration with professional and regulatory bodies is equally important and there is a long history of universities working with such bodies across a wide range of occupations and qualifications. This is also being taken into new areas—for example a joint project between Harper Adams University College and the Animal Medicines Training Regulatory Authority provides a national programme, co-funded by employers, for over 1,600 people a year to become qualified to prescribe and supply animal medicines under new regulations.
Challenges
35. Key challenges for us over the next three years include: — The potential scale of the market. There is good evidence of a market for flexible, responsive higher education focused on meeting the needs of employers and employees, but less about its potential scale. The limited information available at present suggests on one hand that higher education secures 6 per cent of a potential £5 billion CPD market; but a study of private sector businesses employing more than 25 people in the East Midlands60suggests universities and further education colleges may be delivering three-quarters of the high level skills training currently purchased by employers and oVers new insights into the potential for growing the market. We are funding a repetition of the study in two more regions to add to the research we have already commissioned. But the action research approach of our programme will provide the important real-time evidence we need.
59 Cm 5810 (July 2003) Department for Education and Skills “21st Century Skills: Realising our potential” 60 Kewin, Casey, Smith “Known unknowns: the demand for higher level skills from businesses”, Centre for Enterprise (March 2008). Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 165
— Employer co-funding. There is more opinion and anecdote than hard evidence on the willingness of employers to pay for the “right” higher level skills products. We shall be monitoring and evaluating the success of our provider projects in generating co-funding revenues from employers, whether private or public sector; and we shall look for variations in performance by economic sector, employer size, occupational groups and geographic location. — SMEs present a major challenge both in terms of developing a viable market for higher education delivered workforce development and the scope for generating co-funding revenues. We are supporting projects, for example De Montfort University and StaVordshire University, which are taking on the higher level risks associated with the SME market and these will provide us with valuable evidence. — Sustainability. By the end of their projects our expectation is that higher education providers should be able to sustain their employer facing operations on the basis of our 50% funding rate and the revenues generated by their employer customers. Achieving this outcome requires a viable market and an employer willingness to pay towards provision. At individual provider level it requires the development of a critical mass of new and repeat employer customers; and well managed service delivery operations, underpinned by eVective costing, pricing and marketing mechanisms. — Sustaining the higher education reputation for quality. The QAA and HEFCE established a task group, in 2007, on quality assurance required for customised higher education for employers. The aim is to encourage quality assurance processes which support responsiveness and flexibility without undermining high standards which are valued by employers and employees and are vital for continued demand for this provision. — Embedding transformation requires a permanent change in the culture of the higher education. It will also require us to develop and agree with Government an eVective long-term funding mechanism to support continuing growth in employer co-funded provision from 2010–11 onwards. — Continuing Lifelong Learning. To meet the Leitch ambition we need people who come into higher education through the workplace to continue learning, either with their employers or in their own right. Almost all of the projects we are supporting include opportunities for employees to accumulate credit towards a higher qualification, but there is more work to be done to create eVective mechanisms to enable people to transfer their credits between providers.
Conclusion 36. We believe we have been successful in generating a momentum for change within the higher education sector. This paper shows that by acting early and through a sustained campaign of raising awareness in the sector we now have a major programme of higher education projects in place which will enable us to meet our targets for 2008–09 and beyond. 37. If we can sustain this momentum we can oVer the very real prospect of securing the transformation of the higher education sector that the Leitch Report envisaged and of creating a platform for a much more substantial programme of growth towards meeting the Leitch ambition for 2020. April 2008 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 166 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Annex i Table 1 Full-time Part-time Total ntrants 258,835 120,650 112,940 25,625 46,925 298,865 863,840 E tudent S IE STUDENTS IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THEIR DEGREE AFTER 1 AUGUST 2006) ducation E igher First degreeOther undergraduatePostgraduate researchPostgraduate taughtTotal 21,220 236,410 40 11,140 1,170 40,610 17,825 7,820 61,085 31,880 11,345 51,885 20,610 4,180 26,210 820 15 172,235 9,595 10,725 269,235 395 42,120 79,700 364,795 4,810 205,380 24,425 Level Under 21 21–24 25 and over Under 21 21–24 25 and over H ata on D 2006–07 STUDENT POPULATION (HEADCOUNT STUDENT NUMBERS FOR NEW ENTRANTS REGISTERED AT HE INSTITUTIONS ontextual A. Contextual data on HEB. students (entrants Data to on programmes). students whoC. combine work Income and from learning. employers toD. HE relating Engagement to between teaching. HE institutions and employers. It should be noted that numbers are rounded to nearest five including totals hence sum of rows/columns may not match the total shown. This annex presents data in four areas: ata Age is on entry. Students with unknown date of birth have been assigned to “Under 21”. D A. C Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 167 ii Table 2 Students Entrants 2001–022002–032003–042004–052005–062006–07 2,5302007–08 6,295 12,240 19,780 1,795 26,910 6,015 11,710 33,855 18,040 40,8202001–02 4,320 19,870 12,310 23,9452002–03 26,725 37,8202003–04 31,095 46,7802004–05 59% 60,5802005–06 51% 51% 71,9152006–07 52% 2,2602007–08 58% 4,805 56% 8,250(Home, EU 12,890 and 57% overseas students 1,740 and 16,810 entrants at HEIs 4,095 and FECs 19,840 in England) 6,695 24,440 9,220 3,995 9,850 8,900 14,095 14,945 16,005 22,110 26,665 57% 33,930 54% 40,445 55% 58% 63% 58% 60% Academic year Full-time Part-time Total % full-time Academic year Full-time Part-time Total % full-time NUMBER OF FOUNDATION DEGREE STUDENTS AND ENTRANTS BY YEAR AND MODE OF STUDY (REGISTERED AT HEIs AND FECs) 2001–08 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 168 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence 780 40 40 690 695 060 14,935 705 1,970 2,675 405 670 1,070 180 125 305 430 10,635 11,065 2,245 7,650 9,895 17,280 188,600 205,880 22,630 3,360 25,990 15,070 11,480 26,550 iii 492,425 371,415 863,840 288,390 53,830 342,220 108,540 76,300 184,840 Full-time Part-time Total Table 3 2006–07 GENERAL QUALIFICATION AIM (HEAD COUNTS FOR NEW ENTRANTS): HEIs ONLY General qualification aim of student Diploma in HE leading towardsFirst obtaining degree eligibility to register to practice with a Health or Social Care regulatory body 14,410 585 15,000 First degree leading towards obtainingbody—General eligibility Dental to register to practiceFirst with degree a leading Health towards or obtainingbody—General Social eligibility Medical Care to or register Veterinary to statutory practiceFirst regulatory with degree a leading Health towards or obtainingbody—Other Social eligibility Care to or register Veterinary to statutory practiceFoundation regulatory with degree a Health orNVQ Social level Care 4 or or Veterinary 5 statutoryOther regulatory formal HE 860 qualification of lessOther than postgraduate degree qualification 6,780 standard Other undergraduate qualification 12,875PGCE Postgraduate (Not professional qualifications or PGCE) Professional qualification at 2, postgraduate 5 levelProfessional (not qualification PGCE) at with undergraduate or level,Professional without with qualification academic or for qualification without serving academic schoolQualified qualification teachers teacher status 860 only 6, No formal undergraduate qualification No formal postgraduate qualification Total 1,340 5,505 285 6,840 7,910 8,195 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 169 ear 2005–06 iv Headcount As % of those who answered Table 4 earning L Yes—before my programme of studyYes—during my programme of studyYes—both before and during my programmeNo of studyTotal 23,995 11,370 29,995 15% 7% 18% 163,595 98,235 100% 60% ork and W ombine C THEY WORKED FOR THEIR EMPLOYER BEFORE OR DURING THE PROGRAMME OF STUDY THEY RECENTLY COMPLETED tudents who HE LEAVERS IN EMPLOYMENT ON THE CENSUS DATE FOR THE dESTINATION OF lEAVERS FROM HE (DLHE) 2005–06 WHO RESPONDED THAT (Tables 4–6 and 9 are taken from the Destination of Leavers from HE survey (DLHE) 2005–06 which surveys qualifiers who left their programme in academic y six months after completing their studies.) B. S Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 170 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence vi v As % of total employed and required to study Headcount (who answered this question) Table 6 Table 5 BEFORE THEIR COURSE project work term time WERE REQUIRED BY THEIR EMPLOYERS TO UNDERTAKE FURTHER STUDY OR RESEARCH answered answered answered answered answered answered Self-funding eg savings/loans/employmentGrant/award eg Research Council Studentship/LEA Award for PGCESponsorshipMy employer provided financial supportOtherTotal 430 2,465 12% 185 120 70% 325 3,525 5% 3% 100% 9% 5.19% Sandwich placement Other placement or Holiday job FT or PT all year round FT or PT during Other Percentages sum to more than 100% as leavers can tick as many of the options on the questionnaire as they wish. TYPES OF WORK UNDERTAKEN BY HE LEAVERS RESPONDING TO DLHE SURVEY 2005–06 WHO WORKED FOR THEIR EMPLOYER DURING OR SOURCE OF FUNDING FOR STUDY, TRAINING OR RESEARCH IDENTIFIED BY HE LEAVERS RESPONDING TO THE DLHE SURVEY 2005–06 WHO Employersize Headcount As % of Headcount As % of Headcount those who As % of Headcount As % of Headcount those who As % of Headcount As % of those who those who those who those who SmallMediumLargeUnknownTotal 415 460 1,640 460 2,970 0.7% 0.8% 2.9% 0.8% 1,030 5.2% 950 3,620 1,190 6,795 1.8% 1.7% 6.3% 2.1% 11.9% 580 1,160 2,195 675 4,605 1.0% 2.0% 3.8% 1.2% 8.0% 3,885 5,290 20,415 4,900 34,490 35.7% 6.8% 9.2% 8.6% 60.3% 3,875 1,295 1,740 1,275 8,185 6.8% 2.3% 3.0% 14.3% 2.2% 1,275 315 735 2,865 535 2.2% 0.6% 1.3% 5.0% 0.9% Note: Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 171 0 vii Table 7 First degree Other undergraduate Postgraduate research Postgraduate taught Total 308,900 55,895 50,180 219,055 19,205 5,220 114,135 91,245 863,840 MAJOR SOURCE OF TUITION FEES 2006–07 ctivity A eaching T mployers for E from HE ncome to C. I Absent for year Charitable foundationDepartments of Health/NHS/Social CareDepartments of Social ServicesEU CommissionFee waiver under government unemployedFees students paid scheme under part-time graduateprogramme apprentice studyGovernment/Local authoritiesInstitutional waiver of support costsLocal government—Channel Islands and IsleFE of Bursaries Man/ScottishNo award or financial 7,670 backingOverseasResearch 655 Council 5Student’s 30 employer 2,895UK industry/commerceWhole or part SLC, 15 SAAS, 11,605Other DELNI 10 60No fees 210Not known 21,345Total 1,600 20 95 50 335 265 1,210 30 50 102,090 40 445 60 45 370 5 30,150 65 189,545 235 130 20,120 175 5 6,620 12,250 1,265 127,720 3,535 120 1,075 12,715 3,690 65 3,210 25 855 10 1,990 48,805 6,245 6,225 11,050 235 105 535 520 5 40 50 3,480 90 995 60 4,145 95 45 10 1,170 79,295 1,535 820 29,780 125 700 10 785 15 2,520 48,515 1,330 180 1,100 270 417,615 20 20,195 965 560 315 240 0 1,225 460 75 3,550 70 15 15,195 145 2,315 1,795 765 535 9,760 2,140 155 190 3,690 410 2,350 40 670 10,140 243,175 4,615 2,150 1,750 70 45 70 40 290 20,695 805 745 550 4,230 61,385 310 1,595 115 150 140 390 1,310 130 10,890 2,765 1,070 1,580 1,215 5,440 2,545 3,575 1,390 18,055 13,405 7,610 Major source of tuition fees Full-time Part-time Full-time Part-time Full-time Part-time Full-time Part-time Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 172 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence 10 10 5 25 viii 30 55 30 10 125 25 25 235 195 430 5 45 260 315 Table 8 First degree Other undergraduate Postgraduate research Postgraduate taught Total 308,900 55,895 50,180 219,055 19,205 5,220 114,135 91,245 863,840 MAJOR SOURCE OF FUNDING FOR THE PROGRAMME OF STUDY 2006–07 TDAUK charities UK governmentUK private industry/commerceUK public corporation/nationalised industryOther funding 365 25 7,780 180 120 115 195 1,070 225 345 675 1,280 350 3,760 1,220 5 85 10 70 21,635 35 400 140 15,645 585 49,290 415 395 335 805 1,155 2,845 4,310 LSC Overseas government or other overseasOwn organisation institution Research Council 30 45 80 Departments of Health/NHS/Social CareDepartments of Social ServicesEU CommissionFunded entirely by student tuitionHEFCE feesJoint between two sources includingLEA/DfES a funding council 11,770 4,135 17,000 550 35 5 24,475 1,090 50 2,595 110 5 4,040 288,250 49,215 240 1,365 5 29,610 10 135 2,395 182,980 61,250 3,130 18,730 115 2,650 4,940 14,425 86,880 10 68,110 728,720 75 60 90 60 150 85 270 Major source of funding for the programme of study Full-time Part-time Full-time Part-time Full-time Part-time Full-time Part-time Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 173 publication of the 2006–31 July 2007. x ix As % of PT Headcount qualifiers employed Table 9 Table 10 CPD for SMEs, other (non-SME) commercial businesses and other 2003–042004–052005–062006–07 198,122 229,109 236,518 290,840 57,560 87,642 99,758 255,682 110,738 316,751 336,276 401,578 131 129 129 130 Year non-commercial organisations CE and CPD for individuals Total Yes: my tuition fees wereYes: paid I was given aYes: grant I to was cover given my studyYes: tuition leave I fees was and supported living inNo: expenses other my ways employer did not support me inNote: any Percentages way sum to more than 100% as leavers can tick as 245 many of the options on the questionnaire as they wish. 2% 4,385 7,515 4,245 28% 4,980 48% 27% 32% EMPLOYEES STUDYING PART-TIME WHO WERE SUPPORTED BY THEIR EMPLOYER (2005–06) CONTINUING EDUCATION (CE) (2003–07) (EXCLUDING THOSE FUNDED BY THE NHS OR TDA) INCOME FROM COURSES FOR BUSINESS AND THE COMMUNITY—CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT (CPD) COURSES AND It should be noted that Tables 10–16 are taken from the HE-Business and Community Interaction Survey. Figures for 2007–08 are provisional ahead of the report which is scheduledQualitative for data 10 on July employer 2008. engagement It is taken should as be a noted snapshot that of the activity survey in is January 2008. in two parts. Financial information is accurate up to the period 1 August Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 174 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence xi Skills for Table 11 mployers E nstitutions and HE I Asset Automotive Government Construction Creative and Energy and Financial Services Improve Lifelong Skills for Skills for Skills for Summit Total HEIs ngagement between Year Skills Skills Skills Skills Cogent Cultural e-skills UK Utility skills Skills Council GoSkills Year health Justice logistics Skillsmart Skills Other responding Year Ltd Lantra Learning People 1st Proskills SEMTA SkillsActive Skillfast-UK Skillset Care 2004–052005–062006–072007–08 3 6 9 11 182004–05 222005–06 282006–07 322007–08 4 9 n/a 13 16 15 24 25 182004–05 302005–06 30 252006–07 322007–08 37 34 50 40 43 68 41 74 59 73 9 77 15 14 26 18 25 34 14 40 17 52 21 71 26 86 6 89 8 2 9 14 3 5 54 63 7 70 10 70 17 25 19 20 29 35 46 15 3 16 7 20 13 25 8 10 19 26 29 11 16 18 17 16 23 12 28 34 18 22 130 24 130 128 130 1 2 6 10 33 47 57 62 14 23 38 46 HEIs REPORTING ENGAGEMENT WITH SECTOR SKILLS COUNCILS (SSCS) AS PART OF THEIR BUSINESS AND COMMUNITY STRATEGY (2004–08) D. E Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 175 xii xiii xiv Table 12 Table 13 Table 14 An enquiry point Assistance to SMEs in Total number of 2004–052005–062006–072007–08 116 117 118 119 102 105 107 110 130 130 128 130 Year for SMEs specifying their needs HEIs responding HE INSTITUTIONS REPORTING THEY OFFER COURSES FOR EMPLOYERS training (HEI training (Partner training (Both training (None institutions Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship Number of Distance learning Continuous work- Short bespoke courses Short bespoke courses Total HEIs Year provided) provided) provided) provided) responding 2004–052005–062006–072007–08 66 66 67 66 7 8 4 6 31 35 39 42 25 21 18 16 130 130 128 130 2004–052005–062006–072007–08 86 88 89 88 79 82 86 87 109 113 115 117 103 106 110 109 130 130 128 130 Year for businesses based learning for business on campus at companies’ premises responding HE INSTITUTIONS REPORTING THEY OFFER ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRAINING TO SPIN-OFF COMPANIES (2004–08) HE INSTITUTIONS REPORTING THEY HAVE A CENTRAL DEDICATED UNIT TO PROVIDE SUPPORT FOR SMEs (2004–08) Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 176 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence xv xvi Total HEIs Total HEIs Table 15 Table 16 2004–052005–062006–072007–08 42 36 36 59 28 67 69 10 78 7 7 130 8 130 128 2004–05 130 2005–062006–072007–08 31 24 24 62 23 66 58 32 60 36 43 44 130 130 128 130 Year 3 4 5 responding Year 3 4 5 responding OF THE CURRICULUM (ON A PREDEFINED SCALE OF ONE TO FIVE) 2004–08 TAKE THIS INTO ACCOUNT IN PLANNING PROVISION (ON A PREDEFINED SCALE of ONE TO FIVE) 2004–08 Annex B of HE-BCI publication 2007/17 for full description of levels 3, 4 and 5 (http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2007/07 17/) HE INSTITUTIONS REPORTING THEY MONITOR SKILLS NEEDS AND SECTORAL CHANGE THROUGH LABOUR MARKET INTELLIGENCE, AND See Annex B of HE-BCI publication 2007/17 for full description of levels 3, 4 and 5 (http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2007/07 17/) See HE INSTITUTIONS REPORTING THAT EMPLOYERS ARE ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONTENT AND REGULAR REVIEWING Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 177
Glossary and Acronyms Channel Is. Channel Islands CE Continuing Education CPD Continuing Professional Development DELNI Department of Employment and Learning Northern Ireland DLHE Destination of Leavers from Higher Education Survey DfES Department for Education and Skills EU European Union FEC Further Education College HE Higher Education HE-BCI Higher Education-Business and Community Interaction Survey HEFCE Higher Education Funding Council for England HEI Higher Education Institution HEIFES Higher Education in Further Education Students Survey HESA Higher Education Statistics Agency HESES Higher Education Students Early Statistics Survey I. of Man Isle of Man LEA Local Education Authority LSC Learning and Skills Council NHS National Health Service NVQ National Vocational Qualification OU Open University PGCE Postgraduate Certificate in Education SAAS Student Awards Agency for Scotland SLC Student Loans Company SME Small and Medium Sized Enterprises SSC Sector Skills Council TDA Training and Development Agency for Schools UK United Kingdom
References i HESA Record 2006–07 (Figures for HEFCE-funded HEIs only. OU students domiciled in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been excluded. ii Data source: Columns 1 ! 2 of HESES and HEIFES (2007–08 values are provisional). The numbers of overseas entrants for 2005–06, 2006–07 and 2007–08 are estimated by assuming they represent the same proportion as for the other years, that is 4.6% for full-time and 5.5% for part-time. 2001–02 student numbers include some continuing students from 2000–01 which were marketed as foundation degrees but which may not have had all the attributes described in the HEFCE foundation degree prospectus. iii HESA Record 2006–07. iv Destination of Leavers from HE survey 2005–06 (Figures for HEFCE-funded HEIs only. Only those records counted within the DLHE target population are included. v Destination of Leavers from HE survey 2005–06. vi Destination of Leavers from HE survey 2005–06. vii HESA Record 2006–07. viii HESA Record 2006–07. ix Destination of Leavers from HE survey 2005–06. x HE-Business and Community Interaction Survey. xi HE-Business and Community Interaction Survey. xii HE-Business and Community Interaction Survey. xiii HE-Business and Community Interaction Survey. xiv HE-Business and Community Interaction Survey. xv HE-Business and Community Interaction Survey. See Annex B of HE-BCI publication 2007–17 for full description of levels 3, 4 and 5. xvi HE-Business and Community Interaction Survey. See Annex B of HE-BCI publication 2007–17 for full description of levels 3, 4 and 5. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 178 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Memorandum 21
Submission from Ufi
Executive Summary
1. Background 1.1 Ufi is the company behind the nationally renowned brand of learndirect, aiming to transform skills in the UK using technology. Established in 1999, Ufi is now the largest provider of skills and training in the UK. 1.2 Ufi is responsible for three customer-focused services which are all unique to the UK: — learndirect skills and qualifications, web delivered learning with 1–1 tutor support — learndirect business, learning services to employers — learndirect careers advice, the national careers and advice service for adults currently available by phone and over the web 1.3 Ufi operates across the nine English Regions, Wales and Northern Ireland. Over 300,000 people do learndirect courses each year and nearly 90% have either no or only Level 1 qualifications. 1.4 Ufi welcomed Lord Leitch’s findings and recommendations published in December 200661.As implementation gets underway across the sector, as outlined in the DIUS Implementation Plan62 and more recently the DIUS/DCSF Machinery of Government announcements63, Ufi has stepped up to the challenge by strengthening its regional delivery and increasing its contribution to new PSA targets, thereby establishing itself as a major provider in the new demand-led landscape.
2. Key Messages for the Inquiry 2.1 EVectiveness of regional structures. Ufi believes there is a lack of consistency with regard to the eVectiveness of structures and partnerships across the regions. For example there is often tension between the LSC and RDAs in the regional planning process due to conflicting priorities, eg LSC focus on Level 2 v RDA focus on higher level skills (Level 3/Level 4 and beyond). The North East is one region where the key agencies work well together, and this view is supported by the fact that the North East is often a pilot region for new policy initiatives. 2.2 Reform of the FE sector post Leitch. There is a danger that the recent Machinery of Government proposals in the White Paper “Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver” may replace one complex system with another. Ufi welcomes the adult responsiveness model to create a truly demand led system through the development of Train to Gain and Skills Accounts. The responsibility on employers and learners to choose their provision needs to be supported by clear information and a genuinely level playing field for providers. In managing the transition, the lessons from Train to Gain should be applied to Skills Accounts so that performance meets ambitions. 2.3 Impact on students. The impact of these initiatives on students will become clearer as more funding is routed through Skills Accounts and Train to Gain over the next three years. In order to make the system work, individuals and employers need informed choice and greater personalisation of services. The AACS pilots need to be undertaken against a robust blueprint which urgently needs to be developed, including full use of web and phone technology. 2.4 Further detail on these key points can be found below.
Specific Areas for Consultation
3. Role of RDAs in implementing skills and training policies 3.1 Ufi has been delivering skills training at regional and sub regional level since learndirect was launched in 2000 and since then we have developed variable relationships with the RDAs as a strategic and delivery partner. We believe the RDAs do not always work well with Regional LSC given their focus on Level 3 skills and above and the LSC’s priority to focus funding on Level 2. This often creates tension in the regional planning process. 3.2 RDAs have a broad remit; we believe they are strong in reinforcing messages but weak on implementation of policy.
61 Prosperity for all in the global economy—world class skills (December 2006) 62 World class skills: implementing the Leitch Review of Skills in England (July 2007) 63 Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 179
3.3 We have also experienced inconsistencies across regions in relation to partnership working. For example, Ufi has secured representation on Regional Skills Partnership Boards in only three regions. Where we have been successful, for example in the South East, Ufi has worked hard to build strong relationships with RSP members, and to ensure that they fully understand how Ufi/learndirect can add value at regional and local level. Ufi is not a member of the first Employment and Skills Board (ESB) in London but our aim is to be involved in the relevant sub-groups as they are established and to ensure that regional ESBs understand Ufi/learndirect’s contribution to regional objectives. 3.4 Policy aVecting the role and remit of RDAs in relation to skills and training is still evolving through implementation of the DCLG Sub National Review. Under the proposed changes top-tier councils will be given a new duty to assess the economic conditions of their area: those assessments would then form the basis of a Regional Strategy, drawn up by the RDAs and covering areas including skills. Strategies would then be scrutinised by regional forums of Local Authority leaders. Also under new legislation, Councils rather than RDAs could lead on projects using funding delegated to them from the RDAs.
4. Regional structures 4.1 It could be argued that the recent Machinery of Government proposals in the White Paper “Raising Expectations...” may confuse the regional and sub-regional landscape further—with one complex planning and funding structure being replaced with another. Ufi believes further clarity is needed around the potential gaps that will be left when the LSC ceases to exist in 2010, including the current role of LSC Regional Councils and potential constraints imposed by Local Authorities, DIUS etc. 4.2 More clarity is needed around responsibility and leadership of regional bodies. In Ufi’s experience, unless bodies such as Regional Skills Partnerships have clear authority with budget, they do not have impact. For example the Regional Skills Partnership in the Eastern region only became eVective when it became responsible for managing ESF funding. 4.3 As skills and employment policy and delivery become more integrated it will be increasingly necessary to bring together the key agencies and delivery partners in a region. In the North East the key bodies, including LSC, JCP and Regional Skills Partnership, are focused on delivering the Regional Employability Framework (REF). Ufi supports the focus of the Framework to remove duplication of funding however it is proving diYcult for some providers to enter the employability market as the regional LSC already have provision that JCP refer into to meet their targets.
5. The role of the LSC 5.1 The LSC restructure in 2005 strengthened their regional presence by creating regional LSC bodies with a responsibility for strategies, planning, some commissioning and delivery across the nine English regions, in addition to the National Employer Service. 5.2 Pre-19 funding will transition to Local Authorities in 2010 and the LSC will move to become the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) within the next three years. It is still unclear where the balance of power will lie for Adult Skills Strategy in new regional structures post 2010. It is possible that DIUS will take responsibility for strategy and that the SFA will become a planning and funding body. This may create a significant distance between the policy makers and the delivery, although it may create opportunities for national providers such as Ufi to respond to policy on a national level, providing an opportunity to become a significant national delivery partner and potentially securing national contracts.
6. The role of SSCs 6.1 Ufi believes SSCs have struggled with the regional agenda and not had the impact expected because of their national focus on qualifications reform, 14–19 and apprenticeships. Ufi agrees with Leitch’s observations that SSC performance is variable but much of this is down to their diVering heritage and start up resourcing. 6.2 It is believed that SSCs have not successfully addressed the employer engagement agenda partially due to weak strategies for partnership working, particularly with brokers and Chambers of Commerce. SSCs are the voice of the employer, but they often do not make a significant contribution to regional priorities. SSC membership is not always a true reflection of businesses in a region, eg not representative of sole traders/micro-businesses. 6.3 There have been diYculties in aligning Sector Skills Agreements (SSAs) with local strategies such as Regional Economic Strategies and there is a danger that since the closure of SSDA there will be little attention to SSAs going forward. Some SSCs may feel their future is uncertain given the UK Commission’s plans to re-license later this year and there is an expectation that the number of SSCs may be rationalised. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 180 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
7. Respective roles of FE and HE in delivering a region-based agenda 7.1 Bridging the gap between FE and HE is still a policy priority. Ufi is a national organisation which delivers regionally and sub-regionally and is the only national organisation with an oVer ranging from Entry Level to Post Graduate level. Ufi believes more innovation is required in the sector to make the adult responsiveness model successful. Ufi’s unique learning model packages technology, outreach, tutors and products enabling a personalised learning experience to be delivered to individuals and employers cost eVectively. 7.2 The online, flexible nature of learndirect makes learning “portable” and Ufi has been particularly innovative, for example the development of a secure model delivering learning into prisons. learndirect has now been rolled out in 25 prisons, with another 10 prisons coming on board by July 2008. The oVer includes a tutor-supported portfolio of learndirect skills and qualifications including Skills for Life, IT and work based learning—oVering a pathway which can lead to employment. OVenders have an Individual Learning Plan which can be transferred to the learner on release enabling them to continue to access their learning and learner records online in the community. 7.3 Ufi is also using the learndirect model to address regional issues such as graduate migration. Through its Learning through Work programme, Ufi partners with a number of HEIs and FECs to deliver qualifications from Level 3/4 to Level 7 including Foundation Degrees, Honours Degrees and short CPD courses so that graduates can be “grown” in a region where there is a shortage of skills. learndirect Learning through Work is delivered through a custom-built Learning Support Environment enabling the development of tailored programmes for individuals and groups. It particularly responds to the needs of business because it: — enables staV to gain relevant (and QAed) learning and qualifications without taking time oV work; — demand led: programmes can be tailored specifically to the work related needs of the employer and the individual; — tailored programmes can be developed for employers within a short timescale. — existing, relevant in-house courses an be incorporated; — includes a range of on-line learning packages relevant to business need
8. Impact on students 8.1 To date, the impact of Leitch’s review has been more on systems and processes rather than the learner. The impact of these initiatives on students will become clearer as more funding is driven by demand over the next three years. In order to make the new system work, individuals and employers need informed choice and greater personalisation of services and Ufi supports a contestable, demand led system which routes funding through Skills Accounts and Train to Gain to empower students to make informed choices based on quality and flexibility of provision in an area. 8.2 The AACS pilots need to be undertaken against a robust blueprint which urgently needs to be developed, including full use of web and phone technology. April 2008
Memorandum 22
Submission from CRAC: The Career Development Organisation
Executive Summary 1. This submission focuses on the impact that the responses to the Leitch Review will have on students. Primarily it is focused on the impact responses will have on the career decision-making of those considering entry to or already engaged in higher education, in all contexts. 2. Given the diversity of the student cohort, CRAC is concerned primarily with the coherence of IAG provision for 14–19, FE, HE and adult clients. 3. CRAC, through the UK GRAD Programme, supports the career development of postgraduate and research staV. This group of highly skilled individuals also requires coherent as well as “specialist” support; current arrangements are insecure due to the nature of the relevant funding streams, and the relationship between advisers working with this cohort and those working in the broader HE and adult sectors requires clarification. 4. In order to support the development of the workforce on local and regional levels, CRAC strongly feels that access to relevant labour market information is vital, and is concerned that currently there is no onus on Sector Skills Councils or Regional Development Agencies to provide this from a career development perspective. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 181
5. Finally, CRAC believes that all students should have access to opportunities to actively enhance their employability, and institutions can support this by developing closer relationships with industry, embedding employability initiatives in the curriculum, supporting work experience or work placements and encouraging engagement in voluntary activities. However, in order to maximise the potential of these opportunities, students should also have access to resources or to structured support for them to reflect upon the learning they have gained through such participation.
Introduction 6. CRAC: The Career Development Organisation is pleased to submit to the committee’s inquiry on the implementation of skills and training policies. CRAC is the independent, charitable organisation dedicated to career development and active, career-related learning. We have a passionate belief that individuals have the ability to achieve their career goals if they are equipped with the skills to do so. 7. CRAC supports: — those who help people make career decisions with up to date knowledge of career pathway options and resultant decision making — employers in their understanding of national education and skills policies and their development of career-related learning programmes — career development for specific sectors, industries, age or educational groups. 8. CRAC believes that a commitment to career development by individuals and employers alongside the provision of impartial, good quality information, advice and guidance will contribute significantly to the success of the proposed Leitch implementation plan on both regional and national levels.
The impact on students 9. This response focuses primarily on students entering higher education, in either an FE or HE context. Although the Leitch implementation plan focuses on provision for adults, there is reinforcement for the raising of the participation age for those still in compulsory education. As such, this response will look at both the traditional entrants to higher education and the target group for participation (adults in the workplace). 10. It is imperative that the opportunities on oVer post-Leitch reflect the diversity of the student cohort. 11. Patterns of study for traditional entrants to higher education (18–20 year olds) have been shifting over the last decade. Many studies64 have shown that an increasing number of the traditional cohort choose to study at a local university in order to remain in the parental home for the duration of a full time undergraduate degree. The primary reason cited for this is financial. Further, those students living at home during their undergraduate degree are more likely to remain and gain employment in the local area after graduation. 12. For these students, the transition from secondary education to higher education and from higher education into employment involves a number of decisions, often taken with the aid of their parents and peers and utilising information from the internet and from careers oYces. Access to independent advice and guidance at the required stages becomes ever more important. 13. However, it is also of importance that those providing careers advice themselves have access to properly researched labour market information. In particular, this cohort must be aware of the needs of the local labour market, as well as have access to the skills, training and degree programmes which meet these needs and are provided in their locality. The new 14–19 prospectuses, for example, could have some reference to LMI (which the majority do not), which could then be built on at post-19 level. In its work with employers CRAC has already found that such information is seen as important and valuable and it is our belief that employer engagement around the provision of knowledge about the employment market, both national and local, should be secured by incentivisation. We would be willing to help structure such programmes. 14. Understanding the pattern of regional migration eg that, currently, the biggest “losers” of graduates are the North East and the East Midlands, with the biggest gains being in London and the South East must also be addressed in order to ensure adequate supply of skills to core industry sectors. 15. In order for this to happen, Sector Skills Councils and Regional Development Agencies must work together to ensure there is accurate, regionally-focused LMI which is accessible from the point of view of the careers or IAG practitioner and the end user (the student). Currently provision for these groups is
64 What drives graduate regional retention? Education Research Services on behalf of Coventry Solihull and Warwickshire Partnership (CSWP) 2007; The choices and experience of HE students living in the parental home, Jackie Patiniotis and Clare Holdsworth, Department of Geography, University of Liverpool 2005; NatWest Student Money Matters Survey 2006; Patterns of Higher Education Institutions in the UK, Universities UK 2006 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 182 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
patchy, with the focus being on provision of LMI for business growth—ie it is written for the business user. From a recent CRAC survey there is very low awareness amongst practitioners of reliable tools to support the usage of LMI in careers practice. 16. For the traditional entrant, formal IAG provision will comprise a tailored local service at 14–19 level, access to a university or college careers advisory service at HE level but also, presumably, access to the services provided by the new adult advancement and careers service (nationally led by the new Skills Funding Agency) from the age of 19 until the end of their working lives. CRAC believes that the interaction between these services must be transparent and coherent to the end user. Beyond this, there is a need for better use to be made of new technology and for the various agencies and advisory services to know how technology might be used to aid choice and decision making by young people and their parents. 17. For the non-traditional entrant, support will come from employers, training providers and the adult advancement and careers service (AACS). CRAC welcomes the recent Higher Level Skills Strategy consultation paper which asks higher education and employers to increase their level of interaction in order to meet the demands of the Leitch implementation plans. 18. CRAC again states the importance of coherence between providers of information and advice to this cohort. Given the proposed co-financing arrangements between SSCs and employers, which will build on the HEFCE Level 4 Train to Gain pilots, employers will need to be clear about progression paths open to employees undertaking higher education; at the same time, the AACS must be able to provide an impartial service. 19. However, the development of the Adult Advancement and Careers Service and how the existing services will interact with it will have a significant impact on all students at all levels of higher education. For example, there is already some level of employer engagement at doctoral level, through schemes like the Industrial CASE awards65, collaborative and doctoral training accounts (CTA and DTA). Some employers also support their employees in undertaking “professional” doctorates, whereby support is provided in terms of time, and sometimes funding. 20. CRAC, through the UK GRAD Programme, supports the career development of postgraduate and research staV. Many of the same issues around coherency of service apply to this cohort. 21. Research into the career expectations of doctoral researchers66 by the UK GRAD Programme shows that very broadly, the key motivation for undertaking a PhD was to improve career prospects. 34% of respondents were undertaking a PhD to enhance their career prospects inside academia and that 49% wanted to pursue a career in research. 45% indicated that the chance to research their field in greater depth was a core reason for further study. It is interesting that 40% considered that undertaking a PhD would enhance their career prospects outside the academic sphere. 22. The Roberts’ Review highlighted a need for careers support for postgraduate researchers and research staV. Currently, careers support for this cohort comes from national, regional and local provision, funded through the UK GRAD Programme by Research Councils UK, through direct funding to universities provided in response to the Roberts’ Review and through institutions’ own careers advisory services. On a local level, many institutions have acknowledged the need to provide specialist careers advice for researchers. The Roberts funding stream is not yet embedded. Many institutions face challenges posed by the insecurity of funding, often leading to “specialist” careers advisers being employed on short term contracts. This instability makes it diYcult for institutions to support a long term strategy for flow of highly skilled individuals into the workforce. Any reduction in the Roberts funding stream would further compromise the ability of careers services to provide the required specialist support. 23. The UK GRAD Programme seeks to engage with Regional Development Agencies, Sector Skills Councils and employers nationally and through its regional hubs (hosted by HEIs and funded through the UK GRAD Programme). It is vital that stronger links are built between these stakeholders in order to support doctoral researchers’ career decision making through access to relevant labour market intelligence; the UK GRAD Programme is keen to engage in more in depth discussion around this. 24. CRAC supports the transparency of provision which the new credit arrangements for higher education should facilitate, but questions how this will work in practice for the non-traditional entrant, who has an active Skills Account, recommences learning at Level 3 and wishes to progress to Level 4 (ideally, supported by their employer). 25. CRAC supports the aim as stated in the Higher Level Skills Strategy to create more, and more employable, graduates. CRAC strongly believes that access to formal work placements, participation in voluntary activities and engagement in part time work can all provide excellent opportunities for students at all levels to become more employable—as well as to enhance the student experience. This is also a common belief amongst employers. 26. Students must have access to such opportunities, either through their programme of study or as part of the extra-curricular oVering.
65 http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/PostgraduateTraining/IndustrialCASE/default.htm 66 A survey into the career motivations and expectations of doctoral researchers, UK GRAD Programme 2006, http:// www.grad.ac.uk/downloads/documents/Reports/Career%20expectations%20survey%20(pdf).pdf Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 183
27. CRAC also believes that in order to realise the full potential of these opportunities, students must have access to resources or to structured support for them to reflect upon the learning they have gained through such participation. Much of CRAC’s work with undergraduates and with doctoral researchers through the UK GRAD Programme is based on such experiential learning.67 28. Whether this is achieved through further HEI/business engagement, through financial support for volunteering activities or through embedding employability in the curriculum, it represents a significant culture change. April 2008
Memorandum 23
Submission from the Council for the Mathematical Sciences (CMS) The Council for the Mathematical Sciences (CMS), comprising the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, the London Mathematical Society, the Royal Statistical Society, the Edinburgh Mathematical Society and the Operational Research Society, is pleased to present its evidence to the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Select Committee Inquiry on Implementing Skills and Training Policies. The CMS is an authoritative and objective body able to speak on the role of the mathematical sciences in UK higher education, research, business, industry and the public sector, and to engage with and respond to policy decisions that aVect the mathematical sciences in these areas. 1. The Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Select Committee has invited submissions of evidence on what regional structures exist for delivering the Leitch agenda on skills, and the role of the higher education sector in delivering a region-based agenda. This submission concentrates on structures for mathematical sciences skills at level 4.
The importance of mathematical sciences courses and departments to the Leitch agenda 2. The Leitch report recommended a commitment to increasing the proportion of adults trained to level 468, and called for a focus on economically valuable skills69. The report argued that economically valuable skills can be identified where employers are prepared to pay higher wages to those with particular qualifications70. 3. Maths skills at all levels are a crucial element of a well-trained and flexible workforce. It is important that all those who undertake HE courses have a proper understanding of the mathematics underlying their subjects, be they other STEM subjects, economics, business or marketing courses. Mathematics graduates are highly sought-after and are well-placed in tables of comparative earnings71—that is, mathematics skills at level 4 are economically valuable. The implementation of the Leitch agenda should therefore encompass availability of mathematics courses and departments, both to provide training in the mathematical sciences and to underpin training in other subjects. 4. This requires that all HEIs recognise the role that mathematics plays in providing local, regional and national skills for mathematicians for industry, mathematics teachers, engineers and technicians, or graduates in commercial subjects. The loss of mathematics departments, courses and educators from a university will have wide-ranging eVects across all these areas.
The importance of regional provision of HE courses to widening participation and the impact of departmental closures 5. There is evidence to suggest that regions benefit by graduates remaining there after qualification; conversely, a poor geographical distribution of courses can therefore be expected to lead to a shortage of specialist mathematics teachers in an area and hinder the regional delivery of the Leitch agenda with respect to improving the teaching of numerical skills teaching in schools and colleges.
67 The CRAC-led European Framework for Work Experience illustrates a basic programme of support for all kinds of “work experience”: www.efwe.org 68 Prosperity for all in the global economy—world class skills: Paragraph 3.59 69 Ibid. Paragraph 3.68 70 Ibid. Paragraph 4.32 71 See, for instance, NC O’Leary and PJ Sloane: “The Return to a University Education in Great Britain” National Institute Economic Review.2005; 193: 75–89, Universities UK: Research Report: The economic benefits of a degree (February 2007), and others. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 184 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
6. Lord Leitch’s report concluded that “it is critical that access to university is dramatically improved so that young people from all backgrounds have a fair chance of attending”72. The existence of high-quality honours degree courses in mathematics distributed throughout the UK is vital to widening participation to students who, for a variety of reasons, need or wish to live at home whilst studying. In particular, the existence of “local” courses with more moderate entry requirements (termed “broader entry” courses below) is essential.
Current regional structures for delivery of mathematics skills in HE
7. Our analysis of course provision (based on A-level achievement) shows significant sub-regions of the UK where there is no “broader entry” course provision. We refer the Committee to our recent report Keeping HE Maths Where it Counts73, which examined the drivers and implications of the decline in provision of “broader entry” mathematical sciences courses, noting the eVects of RAE funding decisions on the sustainability of departments and therefore courses. Termination of recruitment to courses at Bangor and Hull in recent years has had a noticeable eVect on the provision of broader entry courses in North Wales and East Yorkshire, and provision is sparse in the whole of Eastern England, Wales and in the central and western parts of southern England. April 2008
Memorandum 24
Submission from the University of Hertfordshire and Oaklands College (CMS)
Introduction
i. This is a joint submission from the University of Hertfordshire and Oaklands College to the Select Committee Enquiry as we see a strong case for HE-FE partnership being the core of delivering the Leitch agenda. ii. The University and Oaklands College are part of the Hertfordshire Higher Education Consortium, which has been successfully delivering vocational higher education in four colleges across the county and seamless progression routes since 1992. Currently, around 1,300 undergraduates and nearly 60 postgraduate students are studying HE courses at the Consortium’s colleges, taking advantage of flexible access and study paths towards a nationally recognised qualification validated by the University. More than 13,000 students have graduated through these progression routes since the partnership was formed. iii. The four Hertfordshire colleges also deliver around £100 million of Further Education annually and are involved in a wide variety of educational provision—this includes working with over 70 schools on the 14—19 agenda as well as skills delivery and apprenticeships.
Executive Summary
iv. Our submission is focused on the need for skills strategies to be developed at sub-regional level, which is the level at which needs can be best identified and appropriate solutions delivered; a demand-led system is necessarily a locally-focused system. We propose a system of sub-regional partnership bodies, including independent providers, contracting directly with national funding bodies, with the support and advice of a regional agency. We further suggest that partnerships sub-contract the management to a third-party organisation, possibly owned by the providers themselves. That organisation would be delegated the brokerage and interface role between the partnership of providers and the market, and would take on sales and marketing as part of its remit. Any solution must be underpinned by a consortium-based approach to ensure user need, not supplier preference, shapes the service.
Submission evidence
Our submission evidence is as follows, organised according to the areas of interest stated by the Committee:
72 Prosperity for all in the global economy—world class skills : Paragraph 3.63 73 Available from www.cms.ac.uk/reports/2007/steele report.pdf, and attached to this submission for the Committee’s reference (not printed) Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 185
The responses of RDAs to Leitch and how coherent and structured these are
1. The appointment of an Executive Director for Skills & Communities by EEDA is a tangible response in the East of England. Skills as an issue features strongly in the Regional Economic Strategy and corporate objectives include reference to demand-led skills. 2. By their very nature, regions are too large, too diverse in their skills needs, profiles and provision to allow these mechanisms to operate eVectively; skills needs are not homogenous across the region, but highly dependent on the economic geography and the skills base of sub-regions. 3. We would argue that it is therefore problematic to address skills at regional level. Strategy and delivery need to do more than articulate; there needs to be mechanisms to ensure that they consistently and coherently inform each other, and this requires a sensitivity to local demands rather than region-wide initiatives.
What the existing regional structures of delivery are and what sub-regional strategies may be required
4. We would argue that skills strategies are better made at sub-regional level and propose that sub- regional groupings of Local Authorities as commissioners of services would be the best level to site the development of strategy, informed by local demand. It would bring a valuable strategic and joined-up perspective the design and delivery of skills development within a coherent economic geography. This approach is in line with the Government’s thinking on the delivery of the 14–19 agenda, as expressed in Raising expectations: Enabling the system to deliver. Questions of expertise within Local Authorities—as well as the potential for eVective collaboration across administrative boundaries—deserve serious consideration. 5. A key question is whether there remains a role for the region. The White Paper calls for a regional planning group, for example. We would argue that available funding must be focused at the point of delivery. There is a role for the region to act as a facilitator of sub-regional delivery, with a regional oversight to ensure dissemination of good practice and co-ordination of sub-regions, but that role should not diminish the demand-led characteristics of a localised system. 6. Within regional structures however, RDAs consider strategic policy themes like skills as they re-focus on economic development through their new responsibility for the Single Regional Strategy. Their role would be to support the development of sub-regional strategies, but, we would emphasise, not to determine skills strategy in their own right. For example, it is at regional level that engagement with the Sector Skills Councils should happen—for example, a discussion about the bio-pharma industry needs to embrace both Hertfordshire and Cambridge in the East—but advice based on that engagement needs to be directed sub- regionally, for sub-regional decision-making. So, while the region will embrace sectoral concerns, create balance and coherence above the level of delivery and, of course, undertake the planning that underpins economic development, individual skills strategies should be made at sub-regional level, where needs and priorities can best be identified and delivery achieved. A demand-led system is necessarily a locally- focused system. 7. So how should sub-regional skills strategies develop? We propose a system of sub-regional partnership bodies, contracting directly with national funding bodies, with the support and advice of the regional agency. It is local providers, FE and HE, working in partnership to create learning pathways that will deliver the targets around skills, including 50% HE participation.
The role of the Learning and Skills Council and Sector Skills Councils in this context
8. The transfer from LSCs to Local Authorities of 16–18 funding is being accelerated where relationships are strong. We would endorse this approach and propose such acceleration is considered across the country where it is appropriate to local circumstances and where authorities can demonstrate expertise, whether in- house or through a sub-contracted body. The existence of a mature and successful Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) will benefit this process. Within this proposal we also suggest that the adult agenda be driven through the sub-regional level, with LSPs at their core. 9. A clear understanding of the role of Sector Skills Councils needs to be established. In our view, their role should not be to fund, validate or commission, but rather to inform skills requirements and planning in these areas by the local partnership. Their input would be most valuable in terms of identifying in what skills/roles additional training is required in that particular sector and as a channel of communication with employers around curriculum design. This would ensure that partnerships develop the right qualifications for each sector, government funding is channelled to qualifications that employers need, and yet also maintain sensitivity to local need. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 186 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
The respective roles of the further education and higher education sectors in delivering a region-based agenda for Leitch and their coordination with one other 10. Demand should be identified at local level—that is the strong message from both providers and business—and an eVective partnership body responds to that demand and creates appropriate pathways within and between providers. The Hertfordshire HE Consortium has been operating in this way since 1992, each partner meeting demand according to its capability. There are many examples of success here, including STEM skills development and construction skills pathways. The partnerships would oVer the full range of programmes, including those co- or fully funded by Government and others delivered at a price set by the partnership. The four Colleges in Hertfordshire operate as a Federation, which has allowed a collective FE approach to the County’s needs, both in representation and delivery (for example, the very successful Train to Gain Hertfordshire Consortium). 11. These partnerships would help to bring LSC-driven (currently) course developments at FE level and HEFCE-influenced (through ASN allocations) course developments at HE level into complete alignment at sub-regional level, the level where they are needed. While the Hertfordshire HE Consortium has a strong track record of success, we would acknowledge that there improvements could be made. A key task is to achieve the co-ordinated planning of educational provision to ensure not only that there is seamless progression from primary school or from adult entry level to graduation and beyond, but also that the entire system is designed to meet skills needs. That means partnerships taking input from a wide range of stakeholders, including employers. 12. Our proposal for sub-regional partnerships would build on the existing HE in FE consortium model, introducing independent providers, to address remaining gaps in provision and ensure clarity about the educational oVer to individuals and employers. 13. This model requires partnerships to establish a sales and marketing role in engaging employers, a role in which, historically, providers have been less than optimally eVective. There are a number of solutions to this issue, but a consortium approach will need to underpin any solution to ensure user need, not supplier preference, shapes the service. 14. This opens up a broader question about how best to manage and deliver an eVective partnership. One option that deserves serious consideration is the sub-contracting of the management to a third-party organisation, possibly owned by the providers themselves. That organisation would have a key relationship with the LSP; it may be that it is directly accountable to the LSP or that the LSP has a formal role inputting into the understanding of local needs. It is vital that the sub-contracted body could operate eVectively, without conflicting pressures from the LSP, the provider base and the sectoral needs of each economic area. 15. That organisation would be delegated the brokerage and interface role between the partnership of providers and the market, and would take on sales and marketing as part of its remit. It would be vital, however, that the next stage of engagement, that is, the creation of the educational oVer, was led by the appropriate provider or group of providers. 16. We would propose that within each partnership, leadership for provision in particular sectors is taken by the provider/s with particular expertise and capacity, within an overall consortium approach. Where FE- HE progression pathways are needed, the appropriate FEC and HEI would hold that leadership jointly. This is a new challenge for many in the education sector as it requires a group of individuals who would be considered “technical sales” in the corporate world. Their role calls for a skill set that includes a deep understanding of the curriculum and of the delivery of learning and skills, as well as the ability to communicate with employers in their language and understand the business need, ie neither a broker nor a traditional academic. 17. We would argue that this sectoral leadership is best done by providers, informed by SSC guidance. It is important that the educational oVer is developed as close to the actual provision as possible. Proximity matters, both in terms of content development and delivery and in terms of access and geography. 18. This devolutionary drive will also help to create local accountability as part of a genuinely demand- led system. With local partnerships taking direct commissioning responsibility there would be an opportunity to streamline the bureaucracy of the skills system—including funding—and reduce the burden on the public purse. 19. The partnership model has the potential to transform the approach to meeting skills needs and gaps. Current thinking often focuses on planning, with SSCs expected to direct curricula to address present requirements. A key issue with this approach is its lack of agility; it may take years before the eVects of changing curricula are translated into skilled individuals in the workplace, by which time the critical competencies for the area may well be diVerent. Graduates trained only in sector-specific skills will be left behind as their area of employment evolves; employers will find themselves with ongoing skills gaps. 20. This skills obsolescence—and hence upskilling requirement—requires a two-fold approach that partnerships could take. The first phase would ensure that employability, innovation and enterprise skills are embedded across their curricula, meaning all students passing their courses are ready for work and equipped with the generic skills and adaptability that employers consistently say they value. A second phase, Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 187
addressing skills renewal, would develop a “rapid response” CPD oVer, which employees and employers can access to address specific skills needs and gaps as they emerge in a rapidly changing and increasingly global marketplace. 21. The Hertfordshire Consortium is currently developing a flexible and responsive 5-credit short course oVer, in which new programmes can be validated in 3 weeks using short course descriptors. We believe this system of generic skills plus CPD would be a powerful, eVective and agile solution to skills needs as well as being demand-led. 22. The third party brokerage organisation also meets this requirement; it also makes the link between economic development and skills. These two core skills themes have until recently been considered separately; the creation of DIUS—and the IUSS Select Committee—reflect a recognition that these agendas are essentially interlinked. But making this linkage really deliver at local level, which is where people learn and progress and businesses innovate and grow, means applying that same thinking at that level. 23. In Hertfordshire, economic development has been contracted by the county to a local economic partnership called Hertfordshire Prosperity, which reports directly to the LSP. As an apolitical organisation, it can really drive economic development in the county. While it is not within the remit of this Inquiry to consider the merits of such a model, it does represent an opportunity to bring the two core policy themes together, and to produce coherent needs-driven sub-regional skills strategies.
The impact on students of these initiatives, particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning. 24. The current system does, in our view, create confusion for both students and employers, the key target markets for this agenda. Even where partnerships between providers exist, the set-up often doesn’t meet consumer needs and gaps in provision make entry into the system and progression within it unclear. Our proposal is strongly demand-led and accountable to the community through the LSP. 25. Furthermore, lifelong learning—particularly for people in employment—is generally driven by the need for specific competencies; the current pattern of provision, with its emphasis on full awards (eg honours degrees), often appears to be an ineYcient and discouraging way to meet those needs. We would emphasise, therefore, the value of the bite-sized learning approach, driven by and focusing on, local and sub-regional needs. 26. We would be delighted to provide further evidence and to have the opportunity to appear as witnesses should the Committee require. April 2008
Memorandum 25
Submission from the Council for Industry and Higher Education (CIHE)
Executive Summary 1. The Council for Industry and Higher Education (CIHE) is pleased to oVer the following input to your inquiry “into how responses to the agenda set out in the Leitch Report will aVect the broader structure of further and higher education and lifelong learning.” 2. We do so from the premise that the UK has to up-skill those in the workforce as well as develop more enterprising and employable graduates—the fundamental belief in the Leitch review. Equally we are clear that a highly skilled workforce is a necessary but not suYcient condition for business success. Employers need to be ambitious and demanding in the strategies they set for their businesses. High value-adding strategies backed by investment in new knowledge will pull through a demand for high level skills. The Government’s innovation and skills strategies are therefore linked. Universities and colleges can help organisations reposition themselves through knowledge exchange as well as through the supply of skilled graduates, post-graduates and learning for those already in work.
Leitch and Higher Level Learning 3. The Leitch Review had twin aims that created an internal tension. These were to consider the learning and skill needs appropriate in the face of ever increasing global challenges notably from Asia, and to consider how to address the skill needs of those who currently have low levels of qualifications especially in maths and English. The result was a report that was strong on the latter and on up-skilling to levels below higher education but weaker on the former. However, its analysis on how the jobs of the future will increasingly require higher levels of learning and its recommendation that at least 40% of the working population should be qualified to level 4 (HE) by 2020 were extremely important. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 188 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
4. Generally it was weak on the roles of higher education in raising the capabilities of the workforce and building the knowledge intensive and high value-adding economy we need to face the global challenges. What it did say was founded on a questionable presumption that employers think in terms of levels and qualifications. Hence it underplayed the substantial changes needed to establish in England74 a comprehensive system of learning credits and funding by credits as well as the quality and other frameworks needed to support universities and colleges to engage in work-based learning.
“World Class Skills”
5. The Government’s initial response in World Class Skills 75 displayed the same tensions as were evident in Leitch. It also seriously underplayed the need to up-skill a workforce that can only compete with Asia on the basis of higher level learning, enterprise and innovation. 6. Hence the report had little to say about the development of higher level skills or management and leadership. HEFCE funding for just 5,000 additional student numbers (ASNs) in 2008, 10,000 in 2009 and 15,000 in 2010 should be seen as just a holding response. There are some 23,000,000 who are in the workforce and 70% of these have had no assessed experience of higher level learning. We need tens of thousands of learners every year rising to hundreds of thousands per year to have their existing learning assessed and then upgraded if organisations are to have the capacity to absorb knowledge and reposition themselves against global competition as rightly envisaged by Lord Sainsbury in his report The Race to the Top76 and in the DIUS Innovation Nation report of April 2008 7. HEFCE will also want to rethink the notion of ASNs. OVering ASNs is appropriate to full-time or part-time courses where there is a substantial amount of learning over a year. For bite-sized learning where the credit rating may be uncertain at the start and/or may be only 10 to15 credits, it is less appropriate and could be excessively bureaucratic for HEIs to agglomerate the learning to FTEs. It may not prove attractive if the learner/employee has to pay fees and the employer half the cost of the provision (as stated in the HEFCE guidance letter to HEIs 04/2007). We need to make the process as attractive as possible to all parties.
High Level Skills Strategy Consultation Document
8. We welcome the thrust of the recent Government’s Higher Education at Work consultation document77. We agree that this high level skills strategy complements the DIUS Innovation Nation and the BERR Enterprise Strategy and that a key aim has to be “to raise the skills and capacity for innovation and enterprise of those already in the workforce”. 9. The commitment in the new DIUS consultation document to drive towards an approach built on credits is particularly welcome. Small businesses in particular cannot release staV for long courses at universities or colleges and many people want to take one step at a time down the learning road. They want learning in small chunks delivered at times and in ways that suit them—often in the workplace or at evenings or weekends. They do not necessarily want to have to go to an institution. They may want the learning they have already acquired in the workplace to be assessed and accredited. They may want to build up credits towards a range of awards such as certificates, diplomas, two year degrees or MBAs. 10. Credits also help those learners from non-traditional backgrounds get a taste and drop in and out of learning. Currently if you do not finish a whole course of study you and the university or college are classed as failures. In fact a person may well have learned a lot and benefited even though a year long course could not be completed all at once. They might like to return later and the credit route makes that possible. 11. The Higher Education at Work consultation document states78: “For the first time, we now have a clear timetable and prospect for nationwide credit arrangements to be in use in higher education. By 2009–10, HE institutions should have credit-rated their main provision and be publishing details in the descriptions of the programmes they oVer. This more consistent and transparent approach to the use of credit will encourage learners and aid progression.” We urge the Select Committee to press the Department on the need for a credit based approach to high level learning as the key to engaging businesses and individuals in lifelong learning and progression.
74 A credit and qualifications framework exists in Scotland while Wales has a system of funding by credit. 75 DIUS 30th May 2007 76 HM Treasury 2007 77 DIUS April 2008 78 cf Para 7.9 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 189
The Importance of Credit Frameworks
12. While there are regional consortia79 we need a system-wide approach that embraces all the players: universities, colleges, private sector providers and in-house provision. England has nothing equivalent to the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework. Each sector has its own architecture and nomenclature of levels; and in neither has credit been fully adopted as a measure of transferable learning. While some universities, mainly post ‘92, do use and accept credit transfer, this is not generally the case with the pre-’92 universities. There is little here, and elsewhere, to compare with the currency of credit in the American system across diverse institutions and the amount of mobility aVorded to (and taken by) its students as a result of the centrality of credit within State-wide systems. 13. Lifelong Learning Networks were established with the main aim of constructing local vocational pathways to HE. In their relatively short lives, they have gone some way to addressing this issue through the development of Progression Accords. However, these local arrangements are often between one course at one College and one particular course at one University. As Lifelong Learning Networks come to the end of their lives, what will be their lasting legacy? 14. If we are serious as a nation about enabling learners of all ages and backgrounds to develop higher level skills, to acquire learning when and where it suits them and to explore and progress around the climbing frame of learning, then systems of credit accumulation and transfer have to be implemented80 and be made compatible across the country. Individuals need to be able to have the learning and skills they have acquired in the workplace validated and credited, go on an in-house or external course whether provided by a private sector provider, a College or an HEI and build further credits. 15. New initiatives on a sub-regional basis such as across learning providers in Manchester oVer potential. In the Thames Gateway all of the HE and FE institutions have signed to support a guarantee of progression for all with a level 3 qualification. This commitment is indeed an important part of the Thames Gateway Plan. “But generally UK hierarchies have mitigated against federal FE/HE structures and Government/HEFCE incentives are needed. LLNs simply do not go far enough. Despite getting a lot of their students from FE, many pre-92s keep FE at arms length for fear of dumbing down by association.”81 By contrast we note that credit and credit transfer lies at the heart of the Community College and university systems in many US States82 and that all of Hong Kong’s top rated Universities have an FE college within their governance83. 16. The moves under Bologna to develop an EU wide European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) credit and transfer system oVer a way forward that international employers want to see implemented as soon as possible. All universities and colleges will want to consider how they might best work together to learn from the best practice in the US, implement ECTS and make credit frameworks central to their provision. We have to help learners transfer their learning when they transfer their job. We have to help them build their learning from all learning sources including on-the-job practical learning. We have to help learners value every step they take down a learning road and stop classifying those who “stop out” as “drop outs”. An English credit framework can help enormously with these aims. We urge the Select Committee to stress the need for a comprehensive qualification and credit system in England along the lines of that already in place in Scotland.
Foundation Degrees
17. When first announced, the Foundation Degrees (FD) was described as akin to the American Associate Degree. But it has always tried to face in two directions. It is required to function as a transfer qualification (oVering progression to the final stages of the bachelor degree) as well as a complete qualification keyed to the needs of employers in specific occupational areas. The emphasis given to the transfer or the exit function has varied with universities being more interested in the latter and the preservation of their supply chain than in it being a terminal award that would meet the skills gap at supervisory and higher technical level. The tensions inherent in this dual role became particularly open when the Government announced that future expansion would be at FD level. Those universities that saw themselves in that FD market were naturally keen to preserve and expand their oVerings even at the expense of local Colleges. Foundation Degrees also lack the broad base of the US Associate degree and are specifically aimed at skills development in a way Associate degrees are not. This in turn may aVect transition as some HEI third year programmes are based on broad approaches in years 1 and 2 thus creating the bizarre position where some FDs may be too focused on employer need to aVord easy progression.
79 The Greater Manchester Strategic Alliance which incorporates all universities, colleges and some other key players is particularly promising in being extensive and inclusive 80 There have been many attempts to implement such schemes; see eg. the INCCA Report for the then DES in 1999–2000 chaired by Dr GeoVrey Copland and supported by the then Minister Tessa Blackstone 81 Private communication from a recent CIHE Vice-Chancellor 82 CIHE forthcoming publication on US and UK colleges 83 Professor Sir David Melville communication Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 190 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
18. High performing colleges should be at least as well-placed as certain business facing universities to contribute to the growth and development of foundation degrees. Indeed, where they have a particular vocational niche they may be the most appropriate player with the credibility and understanding to develop such awards. Some learners may welcome the local nature of their College or do not want to be constrained by an academic year and timetable. Currently, 140 FE Colleges are directly funded by HEFCE to deliver HE. The Government agrees that direct funding might be appropriate in some instances where niche provision is oVered or where there are no obvious higher education partners. Understandably colleges seeking additional funded numbers must also meet criteria including critical mass, their track record on quality and standards, and the nature of such provision. The Further Education and Training Act 2007 enables those Colleges who have major provision of higher level learning to award their own Foundation Degrees.
19. But generally Colleges are now expected to develop Foundation Degrees on the basis of structured partnerships with universities where they are funded indirectly through franchise or consortium arrangements. Such partnerships, the government argues, can help stimulate demand for the Foundation Degree and establish its currency. But Colleges have to rely on their HEI partner to accept their proposal for a Foundation Degree and not submit a competing one when student numbers from the school leaving cohort is about to turn down. There is every incentive for universities to squeeze out foundation degree provision by Colleges. Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) might have a role in brokering partnerships between universities and colleges to see how they can be built on a mature appreciation of the strengths that each side can bring.
20. Up to 72% of FDs are reportedly delivered in Colleges which have a presence in areas where there are no local universities or none interested in FDs. Colleges also have close associations with businesses, a track record in widening participation and encouraging progression and an apparent ability to deliver at competitive rates.
The select Committee might like to question the Government on its policy stance and the priority it attaches to the delivery of high level learning by Colleges as well as Universities.
Funding Colleges
21. Roughly 140,000 students are taught on prescribed courses at higher education level in Colleges84. Some 140 colleges are funded directly for their prescribed higher education by HEFCE. Funding for the significant amount of “non-prescribed” higher education geared to professional qualifications comes from the Learning and Skills Council which historically has had a focus (driven by Government priorities) on the development of lower level skills and qualifications.
Might the announced demise of the LSC and its replacement by a new Skills Funding Agency (so far as adult learning is concerned) be an opportunity for all higher level learning to be funded by HEFCE?
22. The Select Committee might like to probe on why there does not appear to be much enthusiasm in Government and HEFCE for this proposition. Such a unified approach to funding high level learning might make it easier for an integrated view of skills (ie integrated across levels) to be taken by RDAs as skills brokers. LLNs, HLSPs and Aimhigher have all reinforced the role of the RDA as planning bodies and this has been reinforced by placing Business Link with the RDAs.
23. An aspect of plural funding arrangements is that the regulations governing prescribed higher education in Colleges do not allow these institutions to receive direct funding for short and flexible forms of provision, such as might be required by employers to enhance the skills and knowledge of their workforce. Funding for this kind of provision is allowed and available to higher education establishments. In these circumstances, colleges could seek indirect funding for such work but, as in all franchise relationships, some of the funding would be retained by the higher education institution to meet the costs of its quality assurance. Unit delivery can already be done with indirect funding. But directly funded colleges are unable to oVer anything other than whole courses, thus hampering their flexible response to business need.
The Select Committee might like to probe the logic of this distinction. Do the safeguards on quality and the need for colleges to set out and justify their strategies for the delivery of higher level learning justify a change of approach?
84 Roughly 100,000 students are taught at levels below higher education in HEIs—largely in what were previously Colleges which have been absorbed into universities. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 191
Stimulating Business Demand 24. The key to achieving the aims set out in the Leitch Review and reiterated by the Government in Higher Education at Work will be the reaction of businesses. 25. We suggest that the Select Committee might like to note the lessons learned in Scotland. We agree with the statement in the Scottish Government’s report Skills for Scotland85: “Simply adding more skills to the workforce will not secure the full benefit for our economy unless employers and individuals maximise the benefits that they can derive from these skills. Furthermore, how skills interact with the other drivers of productivity, such as capital investment and innovation, is crucial.” 26. We suggest that it will be ambitious employers who realise that they have to reposition their businesses for a more knowledge intensive age who will pull through a demand for high level skills. Organisations are unlikely to demand more skilled people without changing their business strategies, their products, processes and management styles. Scotland has for many years had levels of higher education participation amongst young people considerably above those in England. But in the absence of organisations able to absorb them, oVer them graduate level jobs or free them to transform the organisations they join, many have either drifted south or remained as a wasted resource in non-graduate occupations. GDP and productivity has lagged that in England despite the high output of graduates. 27. Businesses have to be helped to add greater value in what Lord Sainsbury has rightly called “The Race to the Top”86. Government can help most through the power of innovative public purchasing. The Government spends some £150 billion per year on procurement against some £10 billion on research. If just 2.5% of the former encouraged small businesses to be more innovative, link with universities and upgrade their capabilities, that would represent an injection of some £3.75 billion87. That compares with the £150 million that the Government intends to inject via the supply side of universities in knowledge transfer under the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF 3) in 2010, £350 million going to the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) for their business led activities and perhaps £100 million from HEFCE for delivering Leitch. 28. There is an increasing recognition that the future competitiveness of the UK rests on continuous innovation88.Itisinnovation that will drive businesses to be more knowledge intensive, to add still greater value to the products and services they oVer and the management practices they use in their quest for international competitiveness. It is this repositioning that in turn will drive the skills agenda and make it necessary for the organisation to recruit more highly educated people and up-skill their existing workforce. The DIUS innovation agenda will drive the realisation of the Leitch agenda. 29. Currently we know little about the demand from businesses for higher level learning89. HEFCE is funding a number of mostly post-’92 universities to pilot a range of approaches and specific projects. The Government is funding three Pathfinder regions in the NW, NE and SW to the same end. But it will take some time before it is possible to assess what works and why, whether the small scale initiatives are scaleable and on what conditions90 and before a range of co-funded pilots at the local and sector levels enable us to assess the range of options that might work. 30. The Government’s preferred approach appears to be to rely on an expanded Train to Gain brokerage service to build relationships between businesses and learning providers. “The commitments in the Train to Gain Plan for Growth will ensure that Train to Gain provides an advice and referral service which truly meets employers’ high level skills.”91 This is high risk as the service is unproven at HE level and the experience so far in the NE is that brokers have had only limited success at bringing in new learners at HE level. We would prefer to see a range of approaches including via Sector Skills Councils and through expanding the business focused expertise that exists in HE and FE institutions—including through an expanded HEIF allocation. Universities and colleges are well placed to understand not only what it is feasible for them to provide but also their local markets. They need to be encouraged to augment their market knowledge and focus. A range of appropriately funded approaches will be needed to raising business and individual learner demand. 31. We welcome the roles that Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) have to engage more in working to help their businesses articulate the high level skills they consider they need. SSCs are business organisations much more than RDAs and should be the main route through which business demand is articulated. Equally RDAs are largely artificial geographical constructs. Universities, colleges and businesses work across such boundaries. So while RDAs are useful in pulling together regional and local partnerships both from the
85 The Scottish Government September 2007 86 HM Treasury November 2007 87 The 2.5% figure reflects the US Government’s approach under Federal public procurement policy deployed under the SBIR/ STTR schemes. The CIHE report Using Public Procurement to Stimulate Innovation builds on the support for this approach in the Sainsbury review and makes specific recommendation on how US experience can inform the practical steps that now need to be taken. 88 See also International Competitiveness: Businesses working with UK Universities, CIHE 2006 89 See the summary of available evidence in Workforce Development: how much engagement do employers have with higher education? Madeleine King, CIHE March 2007 90 See however an interim assessment Workforce Development: what works and why; Helen Connor, CIHE July 2007 91 DIUS op cit Para 7.4 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 192 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
supply and demand side, it is our view that business led organisations must take the lead. As we noted above, Local Learning Networks have had only limited success and there is no reason to believe that RDAs will be more successful at dealing with essentially sector focused learning needs. The Select Committee might like to probe the Government on how far the innovation agenda will drive the skills agenda, the linkages between the two and how far available funding focused on stimulating innovation and enterprise might bust pull through a demand for higher level skills. The Select Committee might consider whether business demand is most likely to be articulated and driven forward by business led organisations such as the SSCs rather than organisations such as the RDAs and whether resources should be allocated accordingly. April 2008
Memorandum 26
Submission from the Humanities Subject Centres of the Higher Education Academy This submission from the Humanities Subject Centres of the Higher Education Academy argues that there is no fundamental incompatibility between promoting Leitch and public support for the Humanities. Through teaching and research the Humanities disciplines minister to “quality of life” and sustain the environment within which economic and cultural creativity flourish. They should therefore be taken into consideration within any proposals for the implementation of the Leitch agenda. 1. In their role of supporting learning and teaching, the Humanities Subject Centres of the Higher Education Academy have debated the Leitch report. In the light of this discussion, we wish to make the following brief observations. These bear particularly (though not exclusively) on the fifth bullet point in the call for evidence: “the impact on students of these initiatives, particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning”. 2. Broadly, our position is that while we do not wish to dispute the general case for raising the UK skills profile, we believe that Leitch’s proposals for improving the national skills base need to be interpreted in a larger and more encompassing educational and cultural environment. (We also note that a major area of the Leitch recommendations lies largely outside the remit of higher education: the review stresses that the current UK skills deficit is “most severe at the bottom end” (3.3.8). The UK seriously trails comparator economies in basic and intermediate skills. Obviously, the universities can only act very indirectly on that situation.) We argue that the development of skills should be informed by an awareness of the ways in which university teaching and research sustain and promote qualities and aptitudes essential to national and global citizenship. 3. We do not believe that there need necessarily be conflict between the promotion of skills and the larger purposes of higher education. High order skills are developed and applied by individuals and communities within frameworks of values and aspirations. The Leitch report itself speaks of raising aspiration and “embedding a culture of learning” (chapter 6 throughout). But while applauding the ambition to raise aspiration, we press for a richer and more inclusive definition of all that might be encompassed by such aspiration. Highly complex and rapidly evolving societies require a correspondingly high level of articulacy and mental acuity on the part of their citizens. Twenty-first century citizens require high levels of historical, cultural, and political awareness. Above all they need to be able to learn quickly, to assess and evaluate complex information, to appreciate and engage in sophisticated arguments, and entertain a lively and informed sense of the beliefs and values of communities diVerent from their own. These observations apply as much to adventurous and responsible economic activity narrowly conceived as they do to the processes of democratic engagement. A society marked by vast disparities of cultural access (made up of cultural and linguistic “haves” and “have nots”), is at much at risk of succumbing to hatred and destructive resentment as is one characterised by large disparities of material wealth. 4. The integrated teaching and research carried out by the Humanities disciplines in Higher Education has a major role to play in all the cultural aspirations sketched above. Between them, the Humanities group of subjects carry out research in history, language, argument, and creativity. Thus they not only play a major part in safeguarding the national treasury of knowledge (and in so doing contribute extensively to the symbolic role of Britain in the world, to the cultural industries, and the desirability of Britain as a destination for overseas students and tourism). They also, through their long-standing commitment to teaching and public communication, contribute to the cultural health of our diverse national communities. Around 55,000 students graduate from UK HE humanities programmes each year,92 and—whether or not their subsequent employment is directly linked to the subject of their degree—they enter into the national life as citizens equipped with high order verbal and reasoning skills, the aptitude for going on learning, and a zest
92 Source: www.hesa.ac.uk, HE qualifications obtained in the UK, 2004–5—2006–7. This figure is an approximation based on an aggregate of student numbers in the subject areas of Languages, Historical and Philosophical Studies. Note that this figure represents the number of graduates from all HE programmes in these subjects; of this figure, nearly 36,000 are first degree graduates. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 193
for cultural knowledge. We also note the direct relevance of this argument to current debate over HM Government’s recent decision on funding ELQs (equivalent or lower qualifications). The Humanities subjects have traditionally been hugely popular in university continuing education programmes. So we also argue that the public sharing of knowledge in the Humanities domains makes a significant contribution to the well-being of the culture through lifelong learning. As one eVect of the ELQ decision is to force contraction upon already beleaguered continuing education providers, we urge that thinking about Leitch plainly needs to be aligned with imaginative thinking about access for “mature” students. 5. Whether in terms of the UK’s diverse heritage, of lifelong learning, or of graduate skills and aptitudes, the Humanities disciplines minister through both scholarship and teaching to what is often referred to as “quality of life”. They produce publicly assimilable knowledge and they produce graduates equipped with high order skills and aptitudes. Their work in providing a home for cultural knowledge and creativity must—in any serious estimate of public advantage—be considered alongside the work of those agencies (eg the Health Service or the Prison Service) which deal with the by-products of suVering and inadequacy. We do not oVer the Humanities as a panacea, but note that creativity, learning, and engagement with cultural knowledge provide sources of fulfilment of which many of our fellow citizens feel themselves starved. To put it succinctly, poetry (or philosophy) is cheaper than Prozac. 6. Much of cultural life is of course sustained by the market (music, publishing, film and TV production, the world-wide web). But—just as few societies trust the market to conserve or promote national heritage— there is a case that much of the production of the cultural market tends to infantilise the individual, riveting attention on celebrity, consumption, envy, and the immediate gratification of needs. The study of Humanities subjects on the other hand performs some of the functions served historically and in other societies by organised religion: maintaining a space within the larger culture for the fulfilment of more profound needs, and the consideration of longer term human values. 7. The upshot of our summary case is that, just as the market is not a suYcient mechanism for supplying all cultural needs, the Humanities subjects should not be left simply to sink or swim under the review of student funding. Nor can they simply be sustained through their role in “knowledge transfer” to the cultural industries. While on the face of things they may appear distinct from the pre-occupations of the Leitch report, the teaching and research carried out by Humanities disciplines is of direct relevance to the cultural and economic well-being of the United Kingdom. Those disciplines therefore have a strong case to be included within any discussion of the implementation of the proposals made by Leitch. April 2008
Memorandum 27
Submission from the University of Central Lancashire
Executive Summary 1. RDAs should not be involved in detailed skills planning. Their function is to ensure there is an environment in which a regional labour market can thrive. Their focus should be on investing in business— HEI links to achieve regional economic strategy objectives. 2. With the LSC to be dissolved in 2010, it is unclear what impact, ability or role it will have to play in the intervening 18 months to promote and deliver on the skills agenda. In particular, it should not be investing in long term initiatives. 3. Sector Skills Councils need to play a critical role in providing higher and further education institutes with authoritative labour and skill market analyses but they need more HEI representation and focus on higher level skills. This needs to be supplemented by employers, who have first hand knowledge of the skills required for a business to be competitive, but who need to focus on long-term needs rather than short- term threats. 4. Partnerships between HE and the FE sector are crucial for the delivery of the Leitch agenda and should look to oVer a seamless route for learners from NVQ level through to post grad. There must however be a stronger focus on higher level skills where genuine competitive advantage can be secured against international competitors. 5. Region-based agendas will not serve the needs of the UK workforce. We should take a more holistic approach to skills and analyse the needs of the global economy. Regeneration requires a sub-regional agenda while international competitiveness needs a sectoral approach. 6. We should look to expand the provision of work based learning, as a viable solution for those in employment to access new skills and training. A large number of employees will be unable to leave the workplace to train full-time. Real life work projects could form part of a portfolio for achieving qualifications. However, there needs to be greater recognition of the upfront costs and challenges in this area. There is a need for DIUS/HEFCE to share more of the risk with HEIs on this activity. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 194 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Introduction to University of Central Lancashire: 7. The University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) is based at campuses in both Lancashire and Cumbria. We are one of the UK’s largest universities with more than 30,000 students undertaking, full-time, part-time and post graduate courses. We also support over 5,000 students studying at our network of partner colleges. 8. In addition, UCLan has a very strong international base comprising over 3000 students. This is replicated abroad, where we are one of the leading UK Universities in terms of students studying on its programmes in-country in China and Hong Kong. 9. UCLan is a major employer with over 2500 employees, an annual turnover of over £160 million, and with an indirect annual contribution to the local economy of £400 million. We are committed to supporting and playing a significant role in the regeneration of both the local and regional economy, and in 2007 opened the John Tyndall Institute for Nuclear Research—a first of its kind in the UK oVering consultancy, research and training for future nuclear and engineering workers. 10. 2007 saw UCLan launch its Medium Term Strategy (MTS), which sets out the University’s vision for the next decade. Focusing on four key themes—internationalism, employability, sustainability and the student experience—our new strategy aims to enhance the University’s standing as a leading, student- focused higher education institution at a regional, national and international level.
Further Detail
The responses of RDAs to Leitch and how coherent and structured these are: 11. The labour market is constantly evolving and changing. This has led to increasing diYcultly for higher education institutes to prepare students with the skills that will stand the test of time. 12. With a fast paced market, it would not be helpful or practical to have RDAs involved in central planning or funding for skills provision. Instead, RDAs need to work to ensure any given regional market works eVectively in driving economic prosperity.
The role of the Learning and Skills Council and Sector Skills Councils in this context: 13. There continues to be confusion and uncertainty regarding the role of the LSC in delivering the Leitch agenda, particularly with a date already set for its dissolution. While the government recently announced that that a new agency will be created for adult learners and that local authorities will be responsible for young people, it is unclear how these two entities will work together to ensure a streamlined and cohesive approach to delivering training and skills. 14. Sector Skills Councils meanwhile have an important role to play in advising providers in both the higher education and further education sector about the skills needs of employers. We believe that the Sector Skills Councils, as part of their role, need to undertake in-depth analyses of the labour market and skill needs for the medium term. This would act as an authoritative guide for universities, who are both keen and willing to meet the demands of employers and learners alike. 15. In order for Sector Skills Councils to work eVectively, however, there needs to be an open and transparent dialogue with HE institutions. At present many Sector Skills Councils do not have higher education representatives, which is a major stumbling block for meeting skills-related employment demands. 16. Alongside Sector Skills Councils, employers also need to play a much bigger role in advising universities on the skills required for businesses to compete eVectively. This is particularly critical given the need for a flexible labour market that must be able to adapt quickly to the ever-changing demands of the global workplace. UCLan would welcome the involvement of employers in curriculum design as well as delivery of academic programmes both on university campuses and business premises. As an example, the University has formed a successful partnership with BAE Systems whereby students work on real projects for the company.
The respective roles of the further education and higher education sectors in delivering a region-based agenda for Leitch and their coordination with one other; 17. Strong partnerships between the HE and FE sector are critical for the delivery of the Leitch agenda. There is no point in the two factions competing. UCLan would welcome strengthened partnerships that oVer a step by step route for learners from NVQ level through to post-grad. This would act as a one stop shop for employers. UCLan was one of the first University’s in its field to franchise courses to FE colleges, and now has one of the largest national networks in terms of student numbers and partner colleges. 18. Additionally, we are not convinced that a region-based agenda for Leitch is the best approach. There are a number of regions throughout the UK without a high concentration of big businesses and companies. In order to serve the UK economy as a whole, we would support working collaboratively with businesses Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 195
throughout the UK in areas such as nuclear engineering, where UCLan has significant expertise and knowledge. We firmly believe that this approach presents us with the best chance of up-skilling our current and future workforce.
The impact on students of these initiatives, particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning: 19. There are a huge number of people already in work, to whom the Leitch agenda is aimed. Many of these people can’t aVord to give up full-time work or re/up-skill. As a result, we need to find ways of providing and supporting flexible education solutions such as part-time, or those that are concurrent with work. 20. One solution to this is a significant expansion in work based learning. The workplace can be a rich environment, in which potential students can access mentors, resources and real life projects that could form part of a portfolio for achieving post-grad qualifications. While this would require engagement from managers, the benefits to a company could be huge. UCLan has already begun to experiment with work based learning, having developed an injury and rehabilitation clinic, where members of the public can seek expert advice and treatment from student’s undertaking “hands-on” training. 21. A key outstanding question is of course, who would fit the bill. While Leitch does not address funding issues in his report, we feel there is a good case to be made for investment from both employers and the government. In addition, individuals could be incentivised to pay for some of their own training with the promise of tax reductions. April 2008
Memorandum 28
Submission from YWCA England and Wales This response focuses on the impact on students of these initiatives.
Summary 1. YWCA works with the most disadvantaged young women in England and Wales. We have examined the impact of the Leitch review and subsequent responses in education on the young women we work with. We support the Leitch review recommendations to improve skills for all and we are keen to see skills strategies work for disadvantaged young women as a route out of poverty. 2. We are however concerned that the gender pay gap in apprenticeships and low pay for young women act as a financial disincentive to them gaining vital skills. We are also concerned that the careers education and guidance they receive is poor quality and directs young women into low paid work in traditionally female sectors. 3. We have worked with government to make positive steps in improving equality for young women. We want to be sure that the changes in the education structures over the coming years do not lose these important steps. 4. We want to make sure that the most disadvantaged young women, those who have chaotic lives, caring responsibilities or who move frequently and those who have diYculty with the transitions from secondary education to training and FE/HE will have tailored support and flexible funding that follows them and their need.
Introduction to YWCA 5. YWCA is the leading charity working with the most disadvantaged young women in England and Wales. We run services to support them and campaign with them to combat the discrimination they face. Our campaign, More Than One Rung, seeks to ensure that young women have the opportunities to meet the challenges of poverty, gender stereotyping and financial disincentives to gain skills and training to get oV the bottom rung of the careers ladder.
Implementing skills and training policies after Leitch:Apprenticeships 6. YWCA welcomed the launch of Leitch. We were keen to make sure disadvantaged young women’s needs were addressed in the skills strategy and that policy changes worked for the young women we work with. The recent DIUS publication Apprenticeship Pay: 2007 Survey of Earnings by Sector93 highlights the disparity in apprenticeship income, the persistent gender pay gap and occupational segregation. Figures
93 Fong, B. and Phelps, A. (2008) Apprenticeships Pay: 2007 Survey of Earnings by Sector, DIUS Research report 08 05. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 196 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
show that in 2007 the gender pay gap was 21%. It has reduced by 5% since 2005 but it still has a long way to go. The majority of Apprenticeship sectors are still heavily weighted towards one sex or the other. Young women are still entering the lowest paid, stereotypically female jobs with fewer prospects for increased future income and progression. 7. The £80.00 per week minimum has been a welcome step in the right direction but more needs to be done. It still equates to less than the National Minimum Wage for most young people. The survey also reported that 5% of apprentices questioned said that they were earning less than the £80 per week minimum. Although the £80 minimum is a step in the right direction YWCA believes that there must be more of a safety net and that Apprentices should receive the equivalent of the National Minimum Wage. We are also concerned that such low levels of income contribute to the current high drop-out rate from Apprenticeships.
The Government’s strategy for the future of Apprenticeships in England
8. YWCA welcomes the proposals in the Apprenticeships review and we are keen to oVer help with the roll out of the strategy. — We welcome the recognition of the importance of gender within the Apprenticeships review. The review’s diversity and equality proposals are urgent and pivotal to the successful increase in the number of apprenticeships, uptake and completion rates. We want to see the measures implemented soon and be given a high priority — Disadvantaged young women need support and pre-apprenticeships courses to gain the confidence and skills they need to get an Apprenticeship — We are particularly keen to work with the new National Apprenticeships Service and Government to support development of the positive action pilots.
Equality as a priority
9. Government has made a number of positive steps towards addressing inequality in Apprenticeships and access to training and skills. It is essential that, in the new proposed structures to education funding, these measures are not lost. For example, introducing positive action pilots on equality issues will be a good way of ensuring equality stays at the top of the agenda.
Careers advice and guidance services
10. The new 14–19 education agenda requires young people to make decisions about their future careers early on. Good quality careers advice and guidance are an essential component to the success of the Diplomas, Apprenticeships and the wider skills agenda. YWCA is concerned that: — Girls and young women from disadvantaged backgrounds are not getting the careers advice and guidance they need. They are being directed into low paid work, which has “traditionally” been done by women — Girls do not know that their career choice can aVect their lifetime earning potential. They do not know about gender diVerences in work or the diVerence in pay between jobs — Disadvantaged girls struggle to find out about work and the labour market. Gender stereotypes influence the decisions they make about what career to go into — Young women need support to build confidence and self esteem, deal with personal problems and overcome barriers to work — Young women need to know how to enter the labour market and gain the right skills. At present many are instead channelled into gender stereotypical work which oVers low pay and little chance of progression — Work experience placements assume young people have equal access to the labour market, which is not true. The barriers created by poverty and disadvantage mean that gender and class stereotyping is commonplace in work experience 11. YWCA has found that: — Non-formal education and youth work can oVer girls a chance to challenge gender stereotypes, learn about careers choices and make informed decisions about the work they want to do — Working with girls in women-only settings is a successful way to raise self confidence and challenge gender stereotypes Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 197
Young mothers and transitions 12. YWCA is concerned that the forthcoming changes to the Learning and Skills Council and education funding may not meet the needs of young people who have not been able to follow traditional patterns of progression from secondary education to FE/HE and training. For example, young mothers and young women who have had diYcult childhoods or who move frequently. We want to see structures in place that make sure any young person who has experienced breaks or disruptions in their education and training is able to re-enter the system with the necessary support. We want assurance that that support will be able to follow young people who move frequently or change courses across local authorities. 13. We support plans in both the Leitch review and the Apprenticeships review to oVer training opportunities to adults. Funding for those over the age of 19 is essential. This is especially true for disadvantaged young women who are carers. They may need to take time out of education and will need childcare and financial support to return.
14. Case Study
Sian 24 Sian is 24 and the mother of two children aged 3 years and 8 months. She left school with few qualifications and worked in a nursing home before having her children. She would like to go back to work when her youngest is one. She would re-train but says she would not be able to aVord this. “I don’t want to go into just any job. I want to have a career, but that’s the college thing and you don’t get childcare and I wouldn’t be able to aVord on just benefits to go to college.” Sian did a YTS scheme gaining NVQ levels 2 and 3 in Care. She now needs to do an access course to become a nurse. That would mean being in education for another 5 years; something she cannot aVord to do on the family’s income. Childcare costs would be a major barrier as Sian’s partner works in a low paid job and they struggle to pay for even the basics. “In ten years what do I see for myself? I’d love to see myself as a qualified nurse; or a qualified anything. Not just working as a shop assistant. I’d love to be able to do something else, but at this present moment I can’t.” April 2008
Memorandum 29
Submission from the Academy for Sustainable Communities The Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee has decided to hold an inquiry into how responses to the agenda set out in the Leitch Report will aVect the broader structures of further education (FE), higher education (HE) and lifelong learning. The Committee invites evidence on: — the responses of RDAs to Leitch and how coherent and structured these are; — what the existing regional structures of delivery are and what sub-regional strategies may be required; — the role of the Learning and Skills Council and Sector Skills Councils in this context; — the respective roles of the further education and higher education sectors in delivering a region- based agenda for Leitch and their coordination with one other; and — the impact on students of these initiatives, particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning.
Background on the Academy for Sustainable Communities (ASC) 1. ASC is the national centre for delivering the skills and knowledge needed to make better places. Our remit is to foster a shared understanding of what it takes to make sustainable communities and encourage an integrated, cross sector approach to ensuring there are enough people equipped with the skills and knowledge to develop and maintain them. ASC was established as a result of the recommendations set out in the Egan Review, Skills for Sustainable Communities which concluded that key factors hampering the delivery of sustainable communities were: — A combination of a lack of generic skills — Labour shortages in the core professions — A lack of opportunities for cross-sector, cross-professional learning Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 198 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
2. ASC’s role involves increasing the skills base of the sector as a whole by promoting generic, technical and specialist skills in the core professions -planning, community development, environmental management, architecture and urban design, engineering, housing and regeneration—and encouraging them to work more eVectively in multidisciplinary, cross sector teams. The focus is on building capacity and changing working practices on the ground. 3. Our strategic objectives are focussed on continuing to strengthen the nation’s capacity to develop and maintain sustainable communities achieving the maximum impact in the shortest time. Specifically, we aim to: — Build the skills, knowledge and capacity of individuals in the public, private and third sectors responsible for creating sustainable communities. — To champion a shared understanding of sustainable communities and provide practical knowledge to support delivery. 4. ASC will become part of the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) by 2009/10. The HCA is the new housing and regeneration agency in England, which is being introduced to join up the delivery of housing and regeneration, and will bring together the functions of English Partnerships, the Housing Corporation and the housing and regeneration delivery functions of CLG, as well as ASC. This new agency will be a new delivery partner for local authorities, and will support them in strategic place-making as well as helping them to create and shape prosperous communities. The agency will also pioneer innovative and more eYcient ways of working with key partners in the public, private and voluntary sector to get better outcomes from public investment in places.
ASC response 5. We have looked at the reforms proposed by Lord Leitch and the issues raised by the Select Committee Inquiry and their implications for skills for sustainable communities. Our response, which draws on current research into the impact of recent policies on the sustainable communities agenda, is summarised below. This research will be completed and published in the summer. The full response is included in Annex A.
Summary 6. The establishment of new regional and sub regional structures will result in a more strategic role for RDAs in which there is less influence in project work and funding, but increased working in partnership with local authorities and delegation of their budget to sub regional partners. 7. For the new arrangements to be eVective, programmes need to be put in place to develop the skills and capacity of those involved in the delivery process both regionally and locally. These skills will need to include both technical and generic skills. As part of the wider HCA team, ASC will be part of the single conversation with local partners. ASC will identify existing capacity issues and emerging skills needs through a single co- ordinated approach to regional and sub regional partners. 8. ASC is keen to work with partners in due course to help develop these mechanisms. We are hopeful of trialling new ways of working regionally later in the year in 2009 as part of establishing the regional arrangements of the new Homes and Communities Agency. April 2008
Annex A
After Leitch: Implementing Skills and Training Policies
(i) The evolving role of RDAs in the post Leitch agenda Following the Review of Sub-national Economic Development, the remit of the RDAs is to be simplified so they take on a more strategic role, with less influence in project work and funding. There will be an increase in partnership working with local authorities and delegation of their budget to sub regional partners. This will require improved partnership working and co-ordination in the regeneration/sustainable communities sector to ensure that everyone is “talking the same language” and that partners are working to maximum capacity rather than duplicating or overlapping work. RDAs will increasingly need people with skills in policy and strategy, with less focus on delivery as they move towards managing programmes of funding rather than project delivery. The RDAs may also need more skills such as financial and budget management, as well as a need for more programme managers. There is a question about the impact of the disbanding of the Regional Assemblies and the transfer of their housing and planning functions to the RDAs. This will produce one regional strategy, combining the previous RSS and RES documents. In terms of the skills implications of this restructuring, the changes are intended to represent a simplification and stream-lining of the organisations involved. Several RDAs we have spoken to, which will become the regional planning bodies, noted that at present they have only limited Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 199
spatial development capacity and will therefore need to develop skills in this area. It is possible that policy experts will transfer from the Regional Assemblies as there is a need for continuity to ensure that skills stay in the region and are not lost. However, the details of how staV may transfer from the regional bodies are not yet determined, although RDAs are aware of the labour shortages and skills gaps in certain professions and are therefore keen not to lose experienced staV or “poach” staV from partner organisations and exacerbate existing skills shortages. Nevertheless, it was highlighted that culturally, RDAs and RAs are quite diVerent organisations and individuals may chose not to work in the new RDAs on merged RSSs. There is also a suggestion from our conversations with RDAs that they will need to build skills in change management. Evidence shows that some organisations shut down during periods of flux and do not move forwards whereas for others it can be a very fertile time that provides an opportunity for growth. The handover period will need to be carefully managed since many of the programmes funded by the RAs and RDAs still have considerable time left to run and changes in roles will not occur immediately. Indeed, some RDAs feel under pressure that the government has “upped the game” in terms of targets and housing delivery, while at the same time “changing the organisational landscape”, which can lead to organisations becoming overwhelmed with bureaucracy and re-structuring rather than focusing on their priorities. In terms of the skills impact of regional restructuring on local authorities, oYcers, councilors and other sub-regional organisations, which will receive projects and budgets transferred from the regional level, will need to build capacity in a wide range of generic skills and develop a more outward-looking approach. They will need to increase their capacity to deliver projects in the built environment. There will be an increased need for well developed commissioning, community empowerment and partnership skills and better leadership in each of these areas. Individuals will need to improve skills in contract and project management, economic development, finance and accountancy skills and monitoring and review. It is suggested that oYcers working in planning, environment, housing, and regeneration/economic development departments will be the most in need of this type of training provision. In relation to the organisational changes set out in the Sub National Review, a number of those we have spoken to referred to the skills sets of elected Councillors, board members and Planning Inspectors. It was suggested that there needs to be focused provision of training for elected members in planning, master planning and spatial visioning. Members need an improved knowledge and evidence base to be able to steer their planning departments in an informed manner. The skills of RDA board members will also need to be developed to make sure that they fully understand how to carry out their new functions under the revised arrangements. For example, it is likely that business-led boards are fully aware of regional economics and business issues, but are potentially less aware of regional planning and transport issues. Therefore RDA boards will need further training before the Sub National Review changes are implemented. It was also suggested that Inspectors undertaking the EiP process for the new overarching RSS may also need further training, since this document will now address subjects wider than spatial planning issues.
(ii) Existing regional delivery structures and the sub-regional strategies required; (iii) roles of LSC, SSCs; and (iv) Further and Higher Education Sectors ASC currently works with a range of partners, including the Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) and the Higher Education/Further Education sector, local government agencies and key regional and national partners, to ensure that the skills gaps in the sustainable communities sector are narrowed, by promoting work on generic skills94. ASC also works with the professional bodies, such as RIBA, RICS, RTPI, IED, and the CIH, to help them tackle the technical skills issues and resulting gaps faced by their professions. It would be helpful to ensure clarity in relation to the roles and responsibilities of all those involved in the skills agenda. The focus on regional and sub regional activities has to be right, but there needs to be continued scope for a national perspective. In particular, this should enable a small national organisation such as ASC to be recognised as supporter and influencer in the sustainable communities sector, and there should be the mechanisms in place to ensure that our impact on the delivery of skills is reinforced and not undermined. This includes recognition amongst the regional and local agencies that tackling the sustainable communities agenda can help to deliver economic development in the regions. For example, empowering local communities and community leaders enables planners and architects to successfully engage with local communities on plans aVecting their neighbourhoods. By also providing local authority oYcers and elected members with leadership and visioning skills, it will enable them to promote master plans and regeneration schemes to the local community. There is also a need for the sustainable communities agenda to be incorporated in the regional economic strategies, and huge potential for the RDAs, LAs, FHE institutions and ASC to join forces with other partners to deliver joined up approaches to tackling skills issues. In this context, for example, ASC and EP recently published for consultation a strategy for developing the skills required for the eYcient and eVective re-use of Brownfield land95.
94 Generic skills include: decision making, breakthrough thinking, communication, conflict resolution, customer awareness, financial management, inclusive visioning, making it happen given constraints, project management, change management, stakeholder management and team working and leadership skills. 95 ASC and English Partnerships (2008) Draft Brownfield Skills Strategy—Securing, retaining and developing the workforce, Leeds: ASC. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 200 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
There needs to be clear communication on how the RDAs are planning to fulfil their new role in tackling skills and recognition that sustainability doesn’t end with economic development. ASC has recently undertaken research96 “Mind the Skills Gap” in 2007 to update the findings of the Egan Review97 which looks at the sustainable communities skills gaps on both a national and regional level, as we appreciate that some regions face diVerent scales of issues compared to the national picture. “Mind the Skills Gap” confirmed that there are significant and growing generic and technical skills gaps nationwide and that these diVered qualitatively and quantitatively from region to region. It highlighted the lack of leadership and generic skills and emphasised the gap in specialist knowledge areas eg low carbon and cohesion. It concluded that we face a significant shortage of qualified practitioners with the skills to deliver between now and 2012. This research is currently being updated to take into account CSR 07 and the Housing Green Paper, and the updated evidence will be available from May 2008. Finally, while ASC is supportive of Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) and their role in articulating the needs of employers, as part of the re-licensing process that the new UK Commission will oversee there is scope for greater attention to be paid to working with ASC to address shortages in specialist skills of the type identified in Skills Gap (MSG). This is particularly important, as some of the issues raised in this research need to be tackled to enable the government to meet its aspirations and deliver 3 million new homes by 2020.
(v) The impact on students, particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning It is essential that the changes lead to greater coherence in the oVer to students. There need to be better information and advice to help learners make the best career and skills choices; clearer signposting on entry and progression routes; oversight of demand-led approaches to avoid the surpluses and deficits; closer partnership with FHE and SSCs informed by labour market information and intelligence of the type Mind the Skills Gaps provides for sustainable skills. Work also needs to be driven forward on qualifications reform.
Memorandum 30
Submission from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)
Background 1. The CIPD’s primary purpose is to improve the standard of people management and development across the economy and help our individual members do a better job for themselves and their organisations. 2. The CIPD is well placed to comment on skills and training policy, with 130,000 members, from organisations of all sectors of the UK economy, many of whom are their organisation’s principal decision- makers in the recruitment, deployment and development of skills within the workplace. Our members are both front line deliverers of training and development and key stakeholders for anyone involved in delivering learning on behalf of government or private sector suppliers. 3. Our numerous surveys and research draw on the experiences of our substantial membership base and provide a solid benchmark with which to analyse both current and emerging trends in the skills agenda. 4. This memorandum to the Innovation, Universities and Skills Committee draws upon this benchmark and summarises our observations of skills and training policy implementation to date.
Making the most of higher education, further education and lifelong learning 5. The CIPD believes higher education (HE), further education (FE) and lifelong learning have a vital role in making the United Kingdom more productive. If led by market demand, both FE and HE can give employers and employees the skills and qualities they need for economic productivity and growth. In an ever changing market, lifelong learning can ensure individuals and business are well positioned to adapt to shifts in demand. 6. The CIPD believes that FE and HE will be better placed to meet market demand and contribute towards increased productivity if skills acquisition is combined with eVective people management. 7. Findings from our extensive research show that skills acquisition alone does not automatically produce higher productivity. Instead, our research shows that skills development is more eVective if it is combined with other people management practices such as job appraisal and reward, job design, job quality, flexible working and staV communication. CIPD research also emphasises the importance of developing the capability and capacity of managers in this process.
96 ASC (2007) Mind the Skills Gap, Leeds: ASC. 97 Egan, J (2004) The Egan Review: Skills for Sustainable Communities, London: Stationery OYce. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 201
8. StaV members need not only the skills but also the opportunity and the motivation to deploy them eVectively, which further underlines the importance of job quality and job design. Given that job design is a technical process, with responsibility shared by HR and line managers, CIPD argues that training in job design should be made more widely available to UK managers and that such training should receive government subsidy to incentivise acquisition of the key skills involved in job/organisational design and development. 9. CIPD strongly believes that the impact of skills acquisition via further and higher education, is most beneficial when organisations have the right people and the right functions in place to: — Identify what skills are needed to drive organisational performance and increase business productivity—and to map skills development to specific training and education, including further and/or higher education; and — Regularly assess whether the skills sets of existing staV match the skill needs of their role and of the business—and where they don’t match, engage individuals in the appropriate learning and development, including further and/or higher education. 10. CIPD research also emphasises the importance of developing the capability and capacity of managers in this process. Employers acknowledge the importance of people management in driving individual and organisational performance and productivity. In a recent survey of over 700 of our members 90% of respondents felt management and leadership skills were the key to driving their business objectives over the next two years. Moreover, as a recent CIPD survey of 2,000 UK employees shows, almost one in three employees feel that they are not being managed well enough to make eVective use of their existing skills. CIPD therefore argues that the government should provide incentives and targets geared to improving the quality of management and leadership practice and development in the UK. 11. Further and higher education courses should more obviously be encouraged to favour a strong practical, applied approach to curriculum geared to the development of managers and leaders. FE and HE providers should be encouraged to include practitioner experience in course delivery. 12. We also argue that government-sourced research funding should be actively geared to stimulating research outcomes that are practitioner-friendly, accessible to line managers and aimed at influencing better leadership and management practice.
Implementing skills and training and policy—the impact so far 13. The extent to which skills and training policy has influenced organisations’ learning and development activities is perhaps still open to question. Our recently released 2008 CIPD Learning and Development Survey, shows that that two in five respondents feel their learning and development activity has been influenced by Leitch recommendations. Just over half however (53%) do not feel that their strategies have been influenced by the recommendations at all. 14. Public sector organisations are most likely to say their learning and development activity has been influenced by changes to skills and training policy (56%). However, almost two-thirds of private sector organisations (61%) don’t feel that strategies have been influenced by the policy changes at all. 15. While some organisations may not have been greatly influenced by the recommendations, findings show respondents are actively involved in learning and development. Nearly 80% of respondents have specific training budgets, with a median training spend per employee of £300. 16. The CIPD’s research indicates that most popular skills and training initiatives amongst employers appears to be the provision of vocational or occupational specific training for employees and the involvement of government-sponsored NVQs/SVQs (52%). 17. The popularity of this type of training is certainly a useful step towards addressing skills requirements of business. However, the CIPD also believes that such initiatives will be more likely to pay a genuine productivity dividend if combined with eVorts to raise employers’ investment in intermediate and higher levels skills—particularly in higher education.
Assessing the role of skills bodies or agencies 18. Considering the nature of their work, many of the CIPD’s members interact with a wide variety of public and private sector bodies to help them identify their training needs, oVering advice on training and providing training courses. Based on this experience, the CIPD has asked employers to rate these bodies (refer Table 1). 19. Findings from this research show that private sector training providers are rated most highly (described as “good” by almost two-thirds of respondents and “bad” by only 3%). Universities, employer networks and further education colleges are rated relatively highly by employers. 20. By contrast, most public agencies are given low ratings, including the Learning and Skills Council and Sector Skills Councils. Of particular interest is the low rating given to Regional Development Agencies, with only a quarter of respondents describing their service as “good” and 18% rating them “bad”). Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 202 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
21. When employers were asked to identify what would increase their contact with publicly funded skills bodies, over two thirds referred to increased help with funding training. However, half of the respondents surveyed also want agencies to be more responsive to their needs and to operate with less bureaucracy. These results highlight both the need for improving the existing public bodies, and ensuring any new bodies quickly demonstrate their credentials amongst employers.
Table 1: How employers rate training bodies (%)
Good Average Bad Private training providers 63 34 3 Universities 59 39 2 Employer networks 50 47 3 FE colleges 48 46 6 Business Link 33 54 13 Learning and Skills Council 33 52 15 Chamber of Commerce 30 57 13 Sector Skills Councils 28 59 13 Regional Development Agency 24 58 18 Source: Labour Market Outlook, CIPD/KPMG Spring 2007 22. This memorandum has summarised our observations of skills and training policy implementation to date. April 2008
Memorandum 31
Submission from Semta
Executive summary 1. Progress since the publication of Leitch and the government’s response is unsurprisingly still at a very early stage, but the picture overall is of a combination of disquieting and encouraging signs. As an SSC, Semta is experiencing first-hand the potential power of Leitch in the development of its Sector Compact, but also shortcomings in other areas, such as RDA support and qualifications reform. Progress is slower than hoped in many areas for our sector, given Leitch’s support for the high level and technical skills essential to science, engineering and manufacturing technology.
Semta, the Sector Skills Council 2. Industry owned and led, Semta aims to increase the impact of skilled people throughout the science, engineering and manufacturing technologies sectors. 3. We work with employers to determine their current and future skills needs and to provide short and long term skills solutions, whether that be training and skills development, or campaigning with government and other organisations to change things for the better. Through our labour market intelligence and insights from employers across our sectors, we identify change needed in education and skills policy and practice, and engage with key industry partners and partners in the education and training sector, to help increase productivity at all levels in the workforce. 4. The sectors we represent are: Aerospace; Automotive; Bioscience; Electrical; Electronics; Maintenance; Marine; Mathematics; Mechanical; Metals and Engineered Metal Products. 5. Semta is part of the network of 25 employer-led Sector Skills Councils.
Semta response
Impact of Leitch on employers across the UK 6. We believe that the majority of employers, especially those who are not engaged with their SSC, are not particularly connected with the Leitch agenda. Even for those who do a lot of work in skills and training, the impression they have is that the activity currently coming from Leitch is primarily concerned with lower level skills. The launch of the Skills Pledge in England, with its headline commitment to addressing basic and Level 2 skills has reinforced that view. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 203
7. For the science, engineering and manufacturing technologies sector, initiatives originating from Leitch such as apprenticeship expansion, are still at early stages. These mechanisms to increase high level technical skills for our workforce will be key in future, and must be flexible to enable the right people to gain the right skills at the right time. 8. In terms of provision, as more “demand-led” funding in England is channelled through Train to Gain for employers (and Skills Accounts for individuals), it is essential for our sector that funding is more flexibly available to support high level technical skills, and second qualifications in relevant subjects. Semta is currently negotiating to deliver a Sector Compact, which should address these issues, and bring the publicly- funded structures and processes closer to the needs of our employers. 9. There is an inherent risk that the Leitch proposals are implemented in diVerent ways and leading to diVerent outcomes across the four UK nations. Our companies which cross the borders of the 4 nations are concerned that diVerent interpretations of requirements, and timescales for implementation, of Leitch will mean more confusion and result in employer disengagement (see Welsh/Scottish/Northern Ireland Response sections following).
Implementing Leitch in a changing landscape
10. In England, the system is facing extraordinary upheaval and change over the next three to five years, with the creation of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, the Business Simplification initiative, raising the learning leaving age, the proposed changes and expansion to apprenticeships, wholescale reform of qualifications, initiatives to improve quality in FE, the further development of National Skills Academies, devolution of funding for 16–19 year olds to Local Authorities, and relicensing of Sector Skills Councils. While many of these are directly linked to achievement of the Leitch targets, it means creating a landscape of astonishing complexity and perpetual change. There is perhaps a danger that, unless properly funded, the energy required to create the mechanisms necessary to achieve Leitch may sap enthusiasm for the actual delivery.
Regional/Devolved Administration response to Leitch
RDA Response
11. Our experience so far is that there is little improvement in the approach of RDAs in promoting the Leitch findings. In some cases, RDAs have reduced staYng in support of the skills agenda, making it more diYcult for the Semta representative in the region to engage. There is some evidence that a few RDAs are focusing even more closely on the immediate economic impact on the Gross Value Added for individuals in terms of training—which is in the “letter” of Leitch, but perhaps not in the “spirit”. Raising skills for productivity is a long process requiring a holistic approach, and focusing solely on provision which delivers an immediate and quantifiable boost to productivity is to miss the wider and more long-term benefits of, for example, helping a company plan their training eVectively, link that training to a longer term business plan, reduce staV turnover, increase staV confidence, and prepare for the challenges of the future. 12. In other RDAs, there are more encouraging signs that the overall approach of Leitch is welcome, but activity is slow, and there is a frustrating amount of dialogue which has yet to demonstrate how the targets will actually be achieved in practice. “Leitch” is becoming a popular term invoked by some RDAs, but a little more detail and more in terms of delivery plans would inspire greater confidence that they are willing to change their approach in support of it. 13. A particular frustration which Semta is experiencing relates to the propensity of some RDAs to wish to continually revisit the “drivers of skills”—the reasons behind skills needs and measurements of skills requirements. Through the Sector Skills Agreement process, Semta has already identified these for our sector (which is regional economic priority in the majority of RDAs) and is now in the implementation and delivery stage. There is a strong feeling among Semta regional staV that RDAs are not giving the Sector Skills Agreement the appropriate authority to inform strategy, direction and funding.
Welsh Response
14. The recent consultation issued by the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) on “Skills that work for Wales” draws on the Leitch Review, but makes few direct links between the Leitch targets and activity to support them. One area where WAG made specific reference to Leitch relates to the strengthening the SSC network in Wales to deliver its enhanced remit. Semta is actively engaged in projects and strategic developments which will result in improving skills in Welsh science and engineering companies, and is confident it can deliver on this enhanced remit. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 204 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Scottish Response 15. “Skills for Scotland—A Lifelong Skills Strategy” similarly contains many of the Leitch aspirations, but few direct references to meeting Leitch targets. Again, the role of Sector Skills Councils is underlined and supported, which is welcome.
Northern Ireland Response 16. In Northern Ireland, the government has directly linked further development of its “Success through Skills” initiative to achievement of NI’s contribution to the Leitch targets through its “Statement of Skills in Northern Ireland”.
Role of LSC and SSCs
LSC—national response to Leitch 17. The most recent Statement of Priorities from the LSC rejected Leitch’s target for all public funding to be delivered through “demand-led” mechanisms such as Train to Gain (for employers) and Skills Accounts (for individuals) by 2010 in England. With the introduction of Sector Compacts, Semta believes that this process could now safely be speeded up, without excessive risk to provider stability. The National Skills Academy for Manufacturing is already raising the capability of the provider network to deliver the skills our sector needs, and other initiatives such as the new Training Quality Standard will continue to bring providers closer to a fully responsive system. 18. The LSC has also used Leitch to accelerate full cost recovery from employers and individuals for provision which is outside existing entitlements. While this is helping level the playing field for private providers and non-profit training organisations such as Group Training Associations when competing with FE colleges, the increasing costs to employers and individuals of training will inevitably have an impact. We expect the Sector Compact to address some of these issues, by providing additional funding for those qualifications and learning which our sector has identified as priorities, and which currently fall outside existing entitlements. 19. Inevitably, the impending changes in funding for skills (the dissolution of the LSC and devolution of funding for 16–19 year olds to Local Authorities) is causing confusion and concern, particularly around the ability of the proposed Skills Funding Agency to deliver the demand-led agenda in future. It remains to be seen whether the changes in 2010 will have the required impact, but there will undoubtedly be a degree of uncertainty as the new agencies and structures are put in place. This will be taking place while the learning system in England is attempting to reach the first round of targets contained in the Public Sector Agreements by 2011, which are themselves a stepping stone to Leitch in 2020.
LSC—Regional response to Leitch 20. In our experience, the LSC at a regional level is still struggling to change its approach from one focused on delivery of basic skills and Level 2 qualifications, to one based more closely on articulated employer need. The Sector Skills Agreement for science, engineering and manufacturing technologies calls for a focus on higher level technical skills, leadership and management, etc, rather than these lower level skills and qualifications. Following Leitch, everyone involved in the demand for, delivery of and funding of skills needs to make a step-change in their approach—from a supply-driven approach to one which is based on demand, and we believe that the LSC at an operational level has yet to eVectively and comprehensively do this.
SSCs—relicensed and reformed 21. Semta was one of the first SSCs to receive a licence, and is proud of its achievements since then. Our Sector Skills Agreements are now UK-wide and cover the whole of our “footprint”, and are providing the evidence and key drivers of our activity. Leitch recognised the role of SSCs in helping the UK improve its competitiveness through skills, and we are enthusiastic about delivering on this enhanced remit in the future. However, we acknowledge that confidence in the SSC network as a whole needs to be improved, and this could be achieved through the relicensing process, and through improvements to funding for the network as a whole. 22. The Leitch recommendations relating to skills are certainly in line with the findings of our Sector Skills Agreements, which called for more focus on higher level skills, and more support for companies to upskill and reskill existing employees in a rapidly changing environment. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 205
SSCs—Sector Compact in England 23. If the Leitch targets are to be met, it is essential that they are understood and applied on a sectoral basis. The proposed Sector Compacts should enable SSCs to apply public funding and support in a more appropriate way for our sector. We are also planning on working directly with several thousand companies, not only to actively encourage their participation in training, but to ensure that training is appropriate and linked to the company’s strategic direction. This shows a willingness on the part of the national LSC to embrace the Leitch approach, which was strong on sectoral flexibility. It means relaxing the rigid focus of funding on basic skills and first full Level 2 qualifications, to encompass areas specifically identified by our employers as key priorities—areas such as Business-Improvement Techniques, leadership and management, technical upskilling and reskilling of adults in the existing workforce, etc.
SSCs—Qualifications 24. SSCs were given an enhanced remit around qualifications by Leitch, but in some areas, progress has been disappointing. At a national level, we are particularly concerned about the SSC role in “ownership” of the standards and qualifications for their sector. Semta has been actively involved in the development of a Sector Qualifications Strategy, and our view is that we are not yet being given the authority to manage the process appropriately. 25. The proposed changes to apprenticeships would see SSCs eVectively relinquishing ownership of the “blueprint”. At a time when SSCs are mandated by Leitch to take an increasing role in ensuring quality and national standards, the proposed changes would seem to mitigate against this. 26. The migration of existing qualifications from the National Qualifications Framework to the Qualifications and Credit Framework in England has proved diYcult, with QCA eVectively stating that it is not the role of SSCs to manage this process. The additional task of the development of new vocationally- related qualifications, which QCA are expecting SSCs to undertake, is similarly problematic, with awarding bodies unwilling to populate the framework as there is so much uncertainty around this area. The whole process has also been bedevilled with technical problems, which must be resolved if SSCs are to manage these qualifications and standards eVectively. Without proper testing and trials, the whole system is in danger of employer disengagement. 27. For SSCs to take the role envisaged for them by Leitch in terms of qualifications, they need to be properly resourced and empowered to manage the process, and the early indications are not positive at the moment. The roles of QCA/SQA, awarding bodies, and Sector Skills Councils need to be more clearly defined and agreed if this process is to be successful.
Role of Further Education 28. FE is undergoing radical changes, some of which could significantly impact (and enable) the Leitch vision. Engineering has a long tradition of Group Training Associations, which received an additional boost in the recent apprenticeships consultation for England (“World-class Apprenticeships: Unlocking Talent, Building Skills for All”). If the Leitch targets on apprenticeship are to be met with meaningful and well- managed programmes, GTAs have a strong role to play in engaging small and medium-sized firms in oVering places, and in supporting both the employer and the apprentice through to completion. Future reform of the FE system, and funding support provided by government, should be entirely free from bias in terms of provider, enabling colleges, private providers, GTAs and employer training bodies to compete and innovate on an equal footing. This is essential to the achievement of the Leitch targets, as “more of the same” in terms of provision will not have the desired impact. Provision must be more responsive, tailored to the employer’s/ individual’s needs, and available at a fair price.
Role of Higher Education 29. In higher education in England, HEFCE has recently provided £50 million in funding for employer engagement projects as recommended by Leitch, but most of these projects relate to the setting up of HEI infrastructure to improve employer engagement processes and resources. This means that it is too early for outputs from the projects to have had much impact on employers in terms of actually delivering on employer workforce development and expanding employer co-funded student places. 30. In terms of Semta’s particular experience with HEFCE, recent sector-specific discussions have been increasingly positive and constructive. Semta is finalising its Sector Skills Agreements for the Metals, Mechanical and Electrical sectors, and for Bioscience (which has a particularly strong need for improvements to undergraduate and graduate level learning), and HEFCE has welcomed this opportunity to make a positive contribution. It is very early to say with confidence, but we are hopeful that a real and permanent change is taking place in terms of the availability of funding for more employer-led and employer-responsive provision. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 206 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
31. The three higher level skills pathfinder projects have had a mixed impact so far for our sector—Airbus has benefited from the programme in the South West, and Semta was oVered the opportunity to influence and oVer sector guidance in the North West, but we are disappointed with the lack of engagement which has been possible in the North East project.
Semta recommendations 32. We recommend that, in its report, the Committee sends a strong signal to regional and local bodies that they should take a holistic approach to Leitch, enabling a wide span of activity to be considered in the context of the particular sector’s needs, and for this activity to be informed by the Sector Skills Agreements. The national LSC is potentially leading the way on this through funding of Sector Compacts. 33. We also recommend that the Committee underlines the role of Sector Skills Councils in the post- Leitch landscape, as the strong employer voice on skills. As an SSC, we are expecting to feel the impact of Leitch strongly over the coming months, as we prepare for relicensing. If SSCs are to fulfil their revised remit, they need support and funding to achieve this, and to bring all areas of the network up to the very highest standard. April 2008
Memorandum 32
Submission from the Open University
Executive Summary 1. Current regional and sub-regional arrangements for delivering the skills strategy can be confusing to learners and employers. It is hoped that the new arrangements outlined under “Raising Expectations” will address this. However, it is currently not clear how the higher education sector will relate to these developments. Neither is it clear how The Open University (OU) can eVectively deploy its national scale and reach to support objectives and activities that are conceived and managed at regional and sub-regional levels. 2. We are concerned by the prevailing and implicit view that further and higher education providers should give greater priority to employer needs than learner demand. The University recognises that employers have a legitimate voice that needs to be better articulated. However, employer demand (as expressed by what they will pay for) can often be focussed on addressing relatively short-term skills gaps rather than on developing a broader range of transferable competences.
Introduction 3. The Open University (OU) is committed to increasing the opportunities for students to engage in lifelong learning and skills development. We believe that both are vitally important to ensuring personal and professional development, social inclusion and wealth creation. 4. The OU is a national university teaching students in all parts of the UK through a system of supported open learning. It therefore has a distinctive role to play in the development of higher level knowledge and skills and a unique perspective on the operation of national, regional and sub-regional strategies for change. 5. Our submission concentrates on the following two issues on which the Committee has invited evidence: — The respective roles of the further education and higher education sectors in delivering a region- based agenda for Leitch and their coordination with one other. — The impact on students of these initiatives, particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning.
The respective roles of the further education and higher education sectors in delivering a region-based agenda for Leitch 6. In the Open University’s view current regional and sub-regional arrangements for delivering Leitch can be confusing to providers and employers. At the moment it is unclear what aspects of the skills agenda are being co-ordinated at the regional, sub-regional and local levels with the responsibilities of the RDAs and the LSC in transition. This does not necessarily impact directly on the University but in our view it does not help employees or employees understand the “Leitch oVer” that the sectors are able to deliver. 7. Co-ordination of the “skills” agenda at a regional level has in recent years been attempted by the establishment of the Regional Skills Partnerships (RSPs). RSPs have mainly focused on pre-HE provision but some RDAs, such as the North West Development Agency, have made real eVorts to include the HE Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 207
sector. However, it is not clear to the University if the contribution HE can make to the skills agenda has been fully valued across all RSPs. In some regions there has also been unnecessary competition between organisations as to which organisation should take the regional lead on skills. 8. Higher Education has traditionally asserted its independence from attempts to plan at a regional level. The Open University has sought to co-operate with initiatives such as Lifelong Learning Networks, Aim Higher Partnerships and, more recently, Higher Level Skills Pathfinders. This is despite the fact that, as a national provider, we do not always find it as easy as other providers to fit into regionally or sub-regionally constructed projects. It has not always been transparent to the OU how these regional and sub-regional developments correspond to the development of national priorities or the requirement that some activities can only be eVectively developed at a national level. In three regions the Higher Level Skills Pathfinders (HLSPs) have been implementing the Leitch agenda. The Open University is active in all three HLSPs. Interestingly, they have operated quite diVerently and have demonstrated diVerent levels of engagement with the further and higher education sectors. This seems to us to arise from a lack of clarity as to how the two sectors should be working together to deliver the Leitch agenda. 9. It is also important to point out that, as far as many large employers are concerned, regional and sub- regional demarcations can be barriers to development. It is important that the structures developed to implement Leitch appropriately reflect the national and international dimensions of the skills agenda. An international bank does not necessarily want courses tailored to sub-regional or regional planning and funding requirements. The challenge is to ensure that broader sub-regional and regional “agendas” support and do not interfere with the delivery of the “Leitch UK agenda”. The Open University has a valuable role to play in delivering the Leitch agenda and we want to ensure that we are able to operate eVectively at the national as well as at the regional level. 10. The Sub National Review (SNR) confirms that the RDAs will continue to have responsibility for managing Business Link and ensuring a one-stop-shop for high quality diagnosis and brokerage services. The Government considers that a single brokerage service is the simplest way for business to access government support on skills, and intends to fully integrate skills brokerage with Business Link to ensure a single brokerage service managed by the RDAs by April 2009. So far the brokerage service has, perhaps understandably, been pre-HE focused. There is insuYcient understanding of the progression pathways to HE and the traditional local University oVer never mind that of the Open University. It is not clear to the Open University how our unique role as a national UK university oVering flexible, high quality distance learning opportunities will be maximised by the nine regional brokerage services. 11. The SNR supports the establishment of Employment and Skills Boards (ESBs) and stated “it is at this (sub-national) level that local employer-led Employment and Skills boards should operate”. There is a recognition that these boards need to work flexibly to meet diVerent needs in diVerent areas. It is not clear to us how these sub- national ESBs will articulate with the Commission for Employment and Skills at the national level and provide an appropriate framework for employers and for universities (such as the Open University) that are operating at national and international levels. We would welcome further discussion with the relevant agencies on this. 12. In the English regions the roles of both the Regional Development Agencies and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) are changing. The recent publication, on 17 March 2008, of the joint DCSF/DIUS consultation “Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver” outlines proposed roles, from 2010, for the successor bodies of the LSC including the creation of a national pre-HE Skills Funding Agency (SFA). However, it is not entirely clear what the regional and sub-regional planning structures will be in relation to the proposed SFA. Therefore it is not clear to us how the Higher Education (HE) sector and the OU might wish to relate to these developments.
The impact on students, particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning 13. Comprehensive lifelong learning can be understood as the provision of education and training from early years to post-retirement which enables learners to realise their potential to contribute fully to the economy and society. 14. The Open University supports both lifelong learning and the objectives of Leitch. We strongly believe that both are important and should be supported by government. However, Leitch raises, rather than answers, a number of important questions about the relationship between the two. Broadly, Leitch promotes the idea that further and higher education providers should primarily address employer demand rather than learner demand. The University recognises that employers have a legitimate voice that needs to be better articulated. However, employer demand (as expressed by what they will pay for) can be focussed on addressing relatively short-term skills gaps which are known to be impeding the achievement of more fundamental national targets. 15. The growing internationalisation of economies, the accelerating pace of change, and the introduction of new technologies and company structures, require many employees to posses up-to-date specific job- related skills and more generic competencies that enable them to adapt to change. Overall, individuals and the economy “require” high levels of transferable skills which can be taken from one job to another as Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 208 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
economic structures and opportunities change. Employers also want employees with longer-term, good transferable “employability” skills such as communication, problem solving and learning to learn skills— though it is not clear that they are willing to pay for these. 16. Government policy can be implemented with a “broad brush” and it is always limited by the funding available. The Open University regrets that the current policy climate tends to promote the view that the Leitch agenda is the preferable alternative to lifelong learning rather than regarding it as a necessary complement to it. It is this climate that in the long-run will need to change. If Leitch is interpreted crudely as only being about narrow specific job related skills then individuals, employers and the economy will all be the ultimate losers. April 2007
Memorandum 33
Submission from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA)
Introduction ELSPA (the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association) is the trade association for video games publishers. ELSPA was formed in 1989 to establish a specific and collective identity for the UK video games industry, and has grown to its current membership of almost 60 companies. ELSPA works to protect, promote and provide for its members’ interests via a number of activities including anti-piracy enforcement, research, political lobbying, sales charts and reports. It also ensures its members publish games which are responsibly age-rated with the pan-European PEGI ratings system ensuring parents can make informed choices when purchasing product for their children. ELSPA also helps organise a number of key gaming events in the UK including the annual London Games Festival, staged every October, and the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, in August.
ELSPA’s Response 1. ELSPA welcomes the enquiry, “After Leitch: Implementing Skills And Training Policies”. While we do not believe the focus of this review is central to the video games industry, ELSPA is keen that the job market is buoyed by skilled entrants. We would also like to take this opportunity to highlight our concerns about the future of the industry if the number of high-quality entrants is not significantly increased. ELSPA will be submitting a more extensive response to the recently-announced DIUS consultation, “Higher Education at Work—High Skills, High Value”. 2. The enquiry states that the UK aims to become a world leader by 2020. It must be made clear exactly how the UK is to become a leader, in order that achievable and definable objectives can be set for Government and industry to jointly work towards. ELSPA believes that the UK should aim for a highly skilled workforce which not only develops UK industry and productivity, but also attracts investment from overseas companies who recognise the potential of the UK workforce. 3. The UK video games industry is a significant contributor to UK plc, generating sales of around £1.72 billion and employing 22,000 people. The industry has specific skill requirements in terms of school leavers and graduates, and is currently losing out significantly to the financial services industry which appears to dominate recruitment of highly skilled graduates entering the job market annually. The video games industry oVers an attractive career option for science and maths graduates, and has the potential to encourage gifted youngsters to pursue science and maths education paths and so boost levels of suitable graduates to satisfy the industry’s requirements for skilled entrants. 4. ELSPA and other creative industry stakeholders require a highly skilled workforce in order to continue to produce innovative, high-quality products and maintain the UK’s position as a world-class producer of audio-visual content. Increasing numbers of high-calibre English-speaking graduates already enter the creative industries job market around the world each year—the UK Government should work with UK industry to produce a more qualified workforce enabling us to compete on a global scale. 5. Developing a robust, highly-skilled workforce in the UK is crucial for industry, and the UK’s economic future. Otherwise, video games publishers and other creative industries stakeholders might well be increasingly tempted to move operations overseas to countries with higher concentrations of skilled workers and enticing tax breaks and pay incentives. 6. In support of the above aim, ELSPA believes that children must be encouraged to engage with the traditionally “diYcult” academic science and maths subjects. ELSPA would highlight the Scottish Government’s forward-thinking and proactive review of education, which will give school children the chance to develop video games in the classroom. We would like to see other education authorities in the UK follow this example. The Scottish Government has recognised the skill requirements which need to be Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 209
addressed in schools and has found a way to incorporate appropriate measure into the curriculum, addressing the skills shortage and inspiring students to explore the video games industry as a quality career option with long-term prospects. 7. ELSPA also believes that higher education and industry could benefit greatly from an increased number of “sandwich” courses, in which undergraduates are able to spend time within a video games company gaining first-hand experience of the industry, both contributing to their education and increasing their employability. Further, we envisage Government/industry co-funded degrees forming a key means of developing a robust graduate base in the UK—with universities and industry working together to create and accredit courses which fulfil exacting industry requirements. April 2008
Memorandum 34
Submission from Age Concern Age Concern is the UK’s largest organisation working with and for people over 50. Four national Age Concerns in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and a federation of over 400 local organisations work together to promote the well-being of all people over 50. Our work ranges from providing vital services to influencing public opinion and government. Every day we are in touch with thousands of people aged over 50 from all kinds of backgrounds—enabling them to make more of life. Age Concern is a provider of training and welfare-to-work services through Age Concern Training and through local initiatives in around 15 communities across England. We also oVer a national information and advice service for individuals about their rights under the new age discrimination legislation. The Age Concern England Policy Unit develops public policy proposals on ageing and older people with respect to England and UK-wide policy. We influence government, public bodies and professional organisations by commissioning and undertaking research, responding to consultations, liaising with decision makers, holding policy events and developing partnerships with other organisations. Most of our policy responses and summaries are available to download on our website: www.ageconcern.org.uk.
Executive summary Age Concern welcomes the inquiry into how responses to the agenda set out in the Leitch Report will aVect the broader structures of further education, higher education and lifelong learning. Our response to the inquiry is split into four sections: government policy and vocational learning, government policy and non-vocational learning, older people’s views about non-vocational learning and practitioner perspectives on non-vocational learning. In line with our remit, its primary focus is on the 50! age group.
Government policy and vocational learning: — We calculate that to achieve the government’s overall aim of an 80% employment rate by 2015–2020, an extra three million people will need to be in work. About 900,000 people over 50 who are not in work want to find jobs. If they were all in work this would add around £30 billion to the economy. — The government’s employment and skills ambitions cannot be met unless more people over 50 are helped to improve their skills: around a quarter of the 2020 workforce—and an even higher proportion of those with low skills—are already aged over 40. The government will miss its targets for Level 2 skills unless there is a step-change in the training of workers over 40, who make up half the non-pensioner adults without these skills. — Workers over 50 are less likely to participate in training than those under 50. The focus on achieving a first full Level 2 qualification is not the best or most cost-eVective way of improving employability for all workers aged 50!. For example, it precludes those who wish to make a career change.
Government policy and non-vocational learning: — Non-vocational learning is proven to maintain good health and well-being, which has knock-on benefits for health and local government budgets. — The government’s focus on funding basic skills, Level 2 qualifications, and Level 3s for under 25s has left less money available for other forms of learning, including many of the courses valued by people in retirement. As a result, non-vocational learning providers are being forced to reduce costs, including by limiting student places and removing concessionary fees. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 210 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
— Some local authorities and colleges who are removing concessions for people over State Pension Age are using the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 to justify their actions. — The number of people aged 60 and over participating in Further Education halved between 2003 and 2006.
Older people’s views about non-vocational learning — Older people value non-vocational learning for a range of reasons, including alleviating loneliness and maintaining mental and physical health. It also enables them to help others and give back to the communities they live in. — The barriers older people face to participating in non-vocational learning include cost, lack of information provision, size and timings of classes, poor transport and inaccessible buildings.
Practitioner perspectives on non-vocational learning: — Non-vocational learning benefits both the individual, for example in terms of better health and well-being, and society, for example in terms of increased community engagement. — Learning provision can reinforce structural inequalities. In particular, it tends to be harder to attract people from black and minority ethnic communities to non-vocational learning activities. — There is a need for better information and better communication about funding opportunities.
1. Introduction 1.1 Age Concern welcomes the inquiry into how responses to the agenda set out in the Leitch Report will aVect the broader structures of further education, higher education and lifelong learning. Our response to the inquiry predominantly focuses on the impact that responses to the Leitch Report have had on students in the 50! age group. Our response categorises the impact on these students’ learning activities in terms of government policy and vocational learning, government policy and non-vocational learning, older people’s views about non-vocational learning and practitioner perspectives on non-vocational learning.
2. Government policy and vocational learning 2.1 We calculate that to achieve the government’s overall aim of an 80 per cent employment rate by 2015–2020, an extra three million people will need to be in work, a significant proportion of which could be over 50. About 900,000 people over 50 are not in work and want to find jobs. If they were all in work this would add around £30 billion to the economy.98 2.2 However, government support overwhelmingly prioritises young adults preparing to enter the labour market for the first time. At present, most education and training policies do not distinguish between a person of 26 and a person of 36, 46, 56 or 66. Such an approach presents a real challenge to government if it is to meet its employment and skills ambitions. 2.3 For example, around a quarter of the 2020 workforce are already aged over 40 and about a third of this group are without Level 2 skills. On current trends few will reach Level 2 standard over the next 15 years and their employment prospects will reduce in that time as employers expect employees to have progressively higher skills. If action is not taken today to address the skills of people over 40, employers will be unable to meet their workforce needs in 2020—in terms of either overall headcount or skills requirements. The government will also miss its targets for Level 2 skills unless there is a step-change in the training of workers over 40, who make up half the non-pensioner adults without these skills.99 2.4 Workers over 50 are less likely to participate in training than those under 50. But a range of evidence suggests this pattern is not inevitable in the future, not least because of evidence from the pilots which preceded the Train to Gain initiative. Workers over 50 who do participate in training are just as likely to succeed as younger adults. The attitudes of employers, and individuals themselves, still remains a significant barrier.100 2.5 The training and qualifications the government is currently promoting are not always appropriate for many adults over 50, for whom achieving a full Level 2 qualification is not the best or most cost-eVective way of improving employability. Instead, these workers may need accreditation of existing skills, together with support to plug specific skills gaps with bite-sized training. The focus on first full Level 2 qualifications also precludes those with historic qualifications who wish to make a career change or those who may have been away from work for some time, for example raising children.101
98 Age Agenda 2008 Report. Age Concern, 2008. 99 Age Agenda 2008 Report. Age Concern, 2008. 100 Learning in Later Life: A public spending challenge. NIACE, Age Concern England and the Centre for Research into the Older Workforce, 2006. 101 Learning in Later Life: A public spending challenge. NIACE, Age Concern England and the Centre for Research into the Older Workforce, 2006. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 211
3. Government policy and non-vocational learning 3.1 Non-vocational learning is proven to maintain good health and well-being, which has knock-on benefits for health and local government budgets. Moreover, it is an issue that older people themselves care greatly about. Age Concern is concerned about the impact that the government’s skills strategy is having on non-vocational learning. 3.2 The government’s strategic focus on up-skilling workers has had a significant impact on the funding and provision of non-vocational learning provided by both the further education sector and community education institutions. The government’s focus on funding basic skills, Level 2 qualifications, and Level 3s for under 25s has left less money available for other forms of learning, including many of the courses valued by people in retirement. As a result, non-vocational learning providers are being required to reduce costs, including by limiting student places and removing concessionary fees. 3.3 Some local authorities and colleges who are removing concessions for people over State Pension Age are using the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 to justify their actions. However, as there have not been any test cases under the new legislation, it is not possible to say when or if concessions are unlawful. We believe that many education providers will be able to rely on the argument that the concessions are justified, or that some non-vocational learning could be covered by an exemption in the Regulations allowing positive action to address disadvantage or under-representation of particular age groups. It will then be for a court or tribunal to decide whether or not this is justified. However, for risk-averse providers facing mounting financial diYculties, removing concessions for retired people has seemed to be the easiest solution. 3.4 The number of people aged 60 and over participating in Further Education halved between 2003 and 2006. The number of people aged 60 and over participating in Adult Community Learning decreased by 12% between 2005 and 2006. This shift is set against the backdrop of a rapidly ageing population. The number of people aged 50 and over is set to rise even faster than was previously expected: in 10 years time there will be an extra 4.5 million, which is up 1.9 million from the previous estimate. Given rises in life expectancy, this means that an increasing number of people will be spending longer periods of time in active retirement than ever before.102
4. Older people’s views about non-vocational learning 4.1 The evidence in this section is based on two unpublished deliberative workshops with people aged 50! in April 2008. The workshops were held in London and Exeter.
Value of non-vocational learning 4.2 Participants cited a range of reasons for getting involved in non-vocational learning. These reasons ranged from improving mental and physical agility to tackling feelings of isolation and loneliness. A significant finding was that some participants also undertake non-vocational learning courses so that they can help and contribute to others and give back to the communities that they live in.
Barriers to getting involved in non-vocational learning opportunities 4.3 Participants also cited a range of barriers which prevented them from undertaking non-vocational learning. A key barrier was fees, particularly with the removal of adult education concessions following the introduction of the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 (see section on government policy and non-vocational learning for more details). Other barriers include, the timing of classes, class sizes, the accessibility of buildings, the locality of learning centres, poor transport and poor information provision.
5. Practitioner perspectives on non-vocational learning 5.1 The evidence in this section is based on unpublished interviews with eight local Age concerns between February and March 2008. The organisations that we interviewed are: — Age Concern Bath and North East Somerset — Age Concern Berkshire — Age Concern Bolton — Age Concern Brighton, Hove and Portslade — Age Concern Cheshire
102 Age Agenda 2008 Report. Age Concern, 2008. For more information see: http://www.ageconcern.org.uk/AgeConcern/ FCDAC740D6034C12A01334ED4E597059.asp Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 212 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
— Age Concern Croydon — Age Concern Doncaster — Age Concern Hertfordshire
The value of non-vocational for the 50! population 5.2 Non-vocational learning benefits both the individual, for example in terms of better health and well- being, and society, for example in terms of increased community engagement. 5.3 Older people participate in non-vocational learning for a variety of reasons. Some want to learn new skills or develop their skills further. While others learn for social reasons: that is, to meet new people, get themselves out of the house and/or to help them add structure to their days. Learning has numerous individual benefits. It can foster mental and physical health and can help break patterns of depression, isolation and social exclusion. A number of local Age Concerns commented that people over 50 are much more specific about their learning needs or requirements than they were five years ago and that they expect more from their retirement than previous generations. 5.4 Ensuring the 50! population has up-to-date ICT skills has particularly important benefits. It enables individuals to more eVectively communicate with their relatives, including grandchildren, and more eVectively use ICT in their everyday lives, for example to take up cheaper internet deals. 5.5 Learning can also engender a sense of belonging to the community and to the wider society, which can foster social cohesion. Individual benefits, such as improved mental and physical health, also have knock-on benefits for health and local government budgets.
Equality of access 5.6 The interviews with local Age Concerns suggest that lifelong learning provision can reinforce structural inequalities. Those who participate in learning activities tend to be aware of the value and benefits of learning and want a healthy and active lifestyle, which corresponds to those of higher socio-economic status. Generally, it tends to be harder to attract people from manual occupational backgrounds and people from black and minority ethnic communities. These groups have been most successfully engaged where outreach work has been undertaken in local community centres and taster sessions have been oVered. Overall, improving equality of access to non-vocational learning tends to be about being proactive and imaginative. 5.7 Initial drop-out rates have increased for organisations that have recently increased the fees they charge for learning activities. Although many people who dropped-out of courses after the fee increase subsequently returned, others have not had the means to.
Funding 5.8 Since there are many funding streams through many government departments, it can be diYcult to identify those responsible for lifelong learning. There is a general feeling among the local Age Concerns interviewed that in order to access funding, particularly in relation to self-organised learning, individuals have to be very proactive and resourceful. 5.9 This suggests that there is a need for better information and better communication about funding opportunities. One way of achieving this could be through an information portal, where people could go and access all diVerent funding opportunities provided by government as well as private businesses. It is important that the funding system is flexible enough to cater for diVering local needs. April 2008
Memorandum 35
Submission from the Lifelong Learning Networks in the Yorkshire and Humber Region
Summary Lifelong Learning Networks (LLNs) are partnerships funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). The overall objective for LLNs is to improve the coherence, clarity and certainty of progression opportunities for vocational learners into and through higher education. They are also increasingly seen as change agents within the higher education system, supporting institutions to respond to the challenges of the Skills Agenda. Their work encompasses three main objectives in relation to Leitch: Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 213
a. Preventing waste of local talent within regions/sub-regions by ensuring that clear and realistic articulated progression routes are available for vocational and work-based learners into and through higher education. — Ensuring that the higher education curriculum delivers the skills needed by employers through involving sector skills councils, employer organisations and individual employers more closely in curriculum development, especially at (though not restricted to) Foundation Degree level. — Development of accredited higher education provision as flexible CPD to meet ongoing higher skills development needs for employers and groups of employers. This paper sets out the potential role of LLNs in supporting the delivery of the High Level Skills / Leitch Agenda using the Yorkshire and Humber Region as a demonstrator case study. It contends that LLNs are the only structures that currently involve all HE providing institutions, both HEIs and FE Colleges, and therefore are able to play a unique role, both through their existing funding and their membership, in co- ordinating HE and FE responses to Leitch.
Main Paper 1. The Yorkshire and Humber Region is home to four LLNs: Higher York; Higher Futures (South Yorkshire); West Yorkshire LLN and Yorkshire and Humber East LLN. They are inclusive of all higher education providing institutions in the region. Between them they have received grant funding of over £15M from HEFCE, and approximately £6M in allocated funding to their partner institutions for student places covering the period 2007–9. 2. The four LLNs are working strategically with the RDA (Yorkshire Forward), Regional LSC, Regional Universities’ Association (Yorkshire Universities), the Regional Skills Partnership and Foundation Degree Forward to develop a strategy for ensuring that higher education can contribute to its full potential to the support and development of the Yorkshire and Humber economy, and to deliver a regional, integrated approach to the Skills Agenda. 3. Yorkshire and Humber has not been designated a Higher Level Skills Pathfinder Area and therefore has not previously been required to develop a regional infrastructure to stimulate demand for, and meet employer expectations in relation to, higher level skills. Instead solutions have begun to emerge organically in the post-Leitch environment through a strong collaboration between stakeholders as detailed in 3 above. We propose this as a case study of note in considering national strategy for higher level skills development in that: a. It brings together all the institutions in the region delivering funded higher education through existing, proactive partnerships that are already focused on vocational / work based learners (LLNs). b. There is an emerging model of joint regional planning and strategic development between the RDA, LSC and higher education delivery partners. This allows for a sharing and co-ordination of eVort and resources across the boundary of HEFCE funded HE and all other vocational and work-based training. This builds on and contextualises work carried out by the Joint Forum for Higher Levels. Crucially, it also aligns the developing work of the Train to Gain brokerage with individual HE and FE institutional eVorts to stimulate employer demand for higher level skills. c. Fully coherent with this regional strategic context, city-regional approaches are emerging through the work of the partners which reflect the diversity of the region and are better placed to respond to local higher level skills requirements. It is envisaged that these will empower local groupings of higher education providers, facilitated by the LLNs, to achieve a local response to employer needs and to cohere with sub-regional bodies (such as local authorities, chambers of commerce and economic partnerships). This will be fully coherent with HEFCE strategic frameworks for Employer Engagement and the Higher Education Innovation Fund, and proposals within Innovation Nation for similar capacity building programmes for Further Education. 4. The remainder of this paper addresses two of the key consultation questions set out in the inquiry.
The respective roles of the further education and higher education sectors in delivering a region-based agenda for Leitch and their coordination with one other SheYeld Hallam University and Rotherham College have developed a new Foundation Degree in Control Technology targeting four advanced manufacturing sectors—Metals, Glass, Food and Packaging—with collaborative involvement of CORUS, Cadbury Schweppes and British Glass, and consultation with Yorkshire Forward and SEMTA. This initiative has also sparked interest from the NPower in the energy sector and current thinking is to develop a range of industry- specific routes to support product and process technology. 5. Both HE institutions and FE institutions that deliver HE are well positioned to address employer and individual skills needs, and most can already demonstrate eVective examples of such work. However capacity building, additional or changed structures and a closer degree of cross-agency partnership working Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 214 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
are likely to be required if this activity is to scale up to the level required to meet Leitch targets. While there are, for example, just over 8,000 students registered on Foundation Degrees in the Yorkshire and Humber Region in 2007–8, additional 850,000 individuals would need to qualify at Level 4 in order to reach the new Regional Economic Strategy targets by 2016. 6. All HE providing institutions are proud of their institutional distinctiveness and are able to provide expert education, higher skills training and knowledge transfer in diVerent niche areas. There are obvious benefits, therefore, to strong and enduring partnerships between diVerent institutions within a region or sub- region, with expertise sourced from outside the area where necessary. Joint approaches to planning, resourcing and recognition/reward are essential in maintaining these partnerships and in tempering the tendency for institutions to compete where co-operation could also deliver a competitive market advantage. This will allow for the skills needs of an area, and of individual or groups of employers within the area, to be approached in a holistic way that has the potential to be demand rather than supply led. 7. Intensive public investment has already gone into developing such partnerships through the LLNs— the only spatially-based partnerships that are inclusive of HE delivered in FE Colleges. In Yorkshire and Humber there are four LLNs that are able to respond to the diverse needs of diVerent parts of a large region, and yet work closely together through their Directorates. This allows for realistic planning and genuinely collaborative and inclusive working between institutions in a way that a single regional partnership would be unlikely to achieve, but within a regionally coherent framework. The Yorkshire and Humber East Lifelong Learning Network, in partnership with Aimhigher Humber and Foundation Degree Forward, have worked closely with a range of employers including Jefco Services (an SME), HGB UK Ltd, and Hull and East Yorkshire NHS Trust to create a generic specification for a Foundation Degree in Construction Project Management. This award is now being developed collaboratively between FE colleges in Hull, Grimsby and York, with the first cohort of employer-supported students enrolling in the autumn. Northern College is undertaking pilot development for a new City and Guilds Higher Professional Diploma in Community Development. Work is progressing with both universities in SheYeld to create progression routes into Foundation and Undergraduate Degrees in sustainable communities, working with communities and related fields. This is an entirely new Level 4 qualification for the sector, designed to oVer professional development and HE progression for people working in community, voluntary and public service environments. Higher York has worked across the partnership to develop a number of Foundation Degrees working with a range of employers. These employers include those from the voluntary and community sector. The Foundation Degree Visual Impairment was developed with the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and is delivered by York St John University. This qualification is being delivered oVered both part-time and full-time to suit the needs of the learners.
What the existing regional structures of delivery are and what sub-regional strategies may be required All ten college partners in the SheYeld City-Region have approved a progression agreement through Higher Futures to provide a clear route from a wide range of Level 3 vocational courses in health and social care to a Foundation Degree at SheYeld College. This is the first multi-lateral agreement of its kind within the partnership. 8. There is no national, regional or sub-regional body that takes an overview of the planning and delivery of education and skills at Level 4 and above. While, in common with other English Regions, Yorkshire and Humber has a regional universities association, this is not inclusive of the wealth of HE in FE provision that is strategically important across the region. The current framework tends to weaken the ability of HE providing institutions to act collaboratively and for employers and employer representing organisations to find a single point of contact to meet their skills needs. 9. The LLNs currently represent the only structures in which all HE providing institutions are represented and their resources are currently being used to begin to develop the employer HE oVer and to ensure that this meshes with the current system of vocational and work-based education and training. 10. The LLNs, Yorkshire Forward, the LSC, the Regional Skills Partnership, Foundation Degree Forward and Yorkshire Universities have responded to this by initiating regular strategic meetings and developing a “World Class Skills for a World Class Region” outline strategy that is currently under discussion. This includes both a regional and a city-regional dimension. It seeks to create a coherent and planned approach to meeting employers’ and employees’ needs for higher level skills development, and to ensure that all HE providing institutions are able to respond in line with their institutional strengths and areas of expertise. Through a franchise arrangement with the University of Hull, Yorkshire and Humber East LLN member colleges are able to oVer “bitesize” 10 credit modules of higher education to those in employment in order to introduce both employers and employees to the benefits of higher education, and which oVer progression into longer qualifications. Examples include modules in digital technologies such as Photoshop and Flash oVered to small businesses in Scarborough by Yorkshire Coast College, and a module on the new animal legislation oVered by Bishop Burton Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 215
College to pet shops and equestrian centres across the East Riding of Yorkshire. Some colleges also oVered two-hour “Expert Sessions” to businesses, which have proved successful in promoting the modules.
Recommendation 11. Lifelong Learning Networks represent the first policy attempt to bring together the HE and FE sectors to address high level skills needs. Substantial public investment has already gone into establishing these Networks and, although it is early days, results are already being seen. LLNs, in collaboration with other regional and sub-regional structures and agencies, have the potential to make a unique contribution to the delivery of Leitch targets. As such their continued role needs to be given consideration in decisions relating to regional and sub-regional structure for implementing skills and training policies for high level skills. April 2008
Memorandum 36
Submission from the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs)
1. Executive Summary 1.1 It is important to note for the purpose of this inquiry that the heart of the Leitch Report was about creating a demand-led skills system which when aligned with a change in culture to value skills, would ultimately improve productivity: The focus very much on “prosperity for all in a global economy” with targets on growth and productivity. 1.2 Qualifications whilst an important part of the Leitch Implementation Plan have been utilised as a proxy for skills as they are easy to measure. It is however, important to recognise that they are not an end in themselves for either individual learners or employers. In looking at skills issues we need to consider supply, demand and eVective use of skills and the links to the other drivers of productivity—particularly innovation and enterprise. 1.3 The infrastructure needed to enable the achievement of the Leitch ambition has already undergone big changes, with further changes proposed in the recent white paper, “Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver”. Changes which flow from this will have a significant impact on whether the system is able to meet the Leitch aspirations. Aligned with this RDAs continue to work with Government and partners to develop SNR so that skills development is central within Regional Strategies and delivery is aligned to demand. 1.4 RDAs primary focus is on economic development and growth and has a statutory purpose of improving the development and application of skills to support this. In this sense RDAs have always worked to the spirit encompassed in the Leitch ambition. 1.5 Although RDAs work across 9 diVerent English regions, there is a commonality in the response to Leitch which has built on existing good practice. RDAs have endeavoured to provide strategic leadership, bringing together key stakeholders to enable structured actions in response to Leitch that will add value. 1.6 Regional Economic Strategies, updated post Leitch, have been enhanced so that Leitch priorities are reflected coherently, this will continue with Single Regional Strategies and will give a clear regional “road map” in how regions will work to deliver the Leitch ambition. 1.7 In developing Regional Skills Partnerships and Regional Skills and Employment Boards—RDAs are ensuring that the Leitch agenda is not fragmented but looked at coherently to give a seamless approach for employers.
2. The Responses of RDAS To Leitch and how Coherent and Structured these are 2.1 RDAs, with their primary focus on economic development and growth, have a key statutory purpose of enhancing the development and application of skills relevant to employment, underpinning the Leitch ambition. 2.2 RDAs have always recognised the links between skills and the productivity agenda and this has been reflected in the Regional Economic Strategies (RES). Leitch provided a further opportunity to strengthen the importance of skills within the drive for increased productivity and competitiveness, and strengthen the links between employment and skills, supporting the drive to increase the size of the workforce including reducing worklessness. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 216 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
2.3 RDA Corporate Plans have already incorporated this commitment to the Leitch ambition, and where appropriate a specific contribution to the Leitch targets.. There are diVerent foci across regions but include; a focus on Leadership and Management Development, Enterprise and innovative skills development skills for all, Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths skills and Higher Level skills priorities,, FE & HE capacity building and support for sectors; these align with the RES and the Regional Skills Partnership Priorities. 2.4 Regional Skills Partnerships, (and the regional variations) become vitally important, they are led by RDAs and build upon the Leitch Implementation Plan., They provide a joint strategic approach to skills and employment for the region from a business led perspective.. These will seek to change the culture and drive up demand for skills from business, aiming to increase employer investment in developing their workforce and employment practice to maximise opportunities for those out of the workplace. A key factor is about avoiding duplication and aligning mainstream monies with other funding for maximum impact. 2.5 On a national level RDA Chairs and Chief Executives are developing relationships with the UK Commission for Employment & Skills and continue to meet with Ministers to inform policy around the Leitch agenda. 2.6 In the West Midlands, the timing of our review of the Economic Strategy has enabled reflection of the Leitch challenges in the revised Regional Economic Strategy. 2.7 In the South West a refresh of the delivery plan for the RES (2008/09) provides an opportunity to further strengthen the focus on productivity and worklessness in line with Leitch. 2.8 The North West has evolved the Regional Skills Partnership to a Regional Skills & Employment Board, continuing to enable partners like the Learning & Skills Council (LSC), Jobcentre Plus (JCP), sub- regional partnerships and the NWDA to come together with employers to formulate strategy and look at co- commissioning activity, strengthening the evidence base to ensure that investment gives the return needed.
3. What the Existing Regional Structures of Delivery are and what Sub-Regional Strategies may be Required 3.1 Each region has a delivery plan for the implementation of their Regional Economic Strategy— including the skills aspects of the strategies. With the exception of London, the skills aspect of the Economic Strategies are overseen and delivered by partners within the Regional Skills Partnerships (or equivalent) working together. In London the focus of partnership working is mainly on the LSC budget, in contrast the regions have adopted a wider demand-led agenda that includes increasing getting more people into work by tackling workessness and the skills needs of employers from literacy and numeracy functional / basic and intermediate level skills through to more people with graduate level skills in employment. 3.2 Sub-regional strategies are being developed around local employment and skills board and local strategic partnerships but they will need to be refreshed in the light of the Sub National review and the recent announcements on machinery of government changes. Multi Area Agreements (MAAs) and Local Area Agreements (LAAs) are being developed in partnership with RDAs that will look “in the round” at employment and skills issues—relating these to place and productivity. 3.3 In some regions, within the framework of the Economic Strategy, a Skills Action Plan has been developed—the Action Plan focuses specifically on the Leitch qualification targets. The Skills Action Plan in the West Midlands sets out the roles of all the key partners (LSC, RDA, JCP, SSCs, Universities, Local authorities, FE Colleges, government OYce and the Regional Observatory). The Plan recognises the contribution of Local Area Agreements and the role of local Employment and Skills Board. 3.4 In other regions the Regional Skills Partnership (or equivalent) is chaired by the RDA Chair or Chief Executive, instead of a Skills Action Plan there is a priorities statement, which is fully embedded within the RES and is reflected in the individual RDA’s skills policy. 3.5 This focus on priorities where joint working will add value, include Leadership and Management Development, Skills for Innovation, Enterprise Skills, STEM Skills, Higher Level Skills, with the over arching theme of Sectors, sub-priorities include IAG, NEETs, Migrant Workers. All of the above has been based on a detailed skills, employment and enterprise analysis (2007). The RSP has also developed the ESF Regional Strategic Framework, which aligns the RES and RSP Skills Priorities with the ESF priorities. 3.6 In the South West the RSP has established a process for monitoring not only the delivery of the RSP Priorities but also achievement of the ESF Regional Framework, Partners skills plans (including LSC, JCP and HE) as well as the health of the labour market. Local employment and skills boards are being actively supported through the RSP and its partners. 3.7 The RDAs’ corporate plans also take account of the Leitch challenges and agreed actions where RDAs can add strategic value. 3.8 Future sub-regional strategies will have a need for strong monitoring and the ability to evaluate impact. These should feed in to the overarching regional body to ensure that best practice can be shared, and skills investment is targeted. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 217
3.9 Following further changes to the skills sector that are currently undergoing consideration—there needs to be a clear policy about the provider base, in particular FE colleges. Funding changes, specialisation, sixth form presumption and the ability for a general college to seek approval to become a sixth form could have a detrimental impact on a locality in terms of its skills delivery. 3.10 Government need to be clear about the impact, scale and scope of changes giving a message about if, when and how colleges will be allowed to fail and any rescue packages that may be available. Risk mitigation then needs to be addressed in any sub-regional strategies—ensuring that the provider base remains stable in order to deliver.
4. The Role of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and Sector Skills Councils (SSC) in this Context 4.1 The role of the LSC in this context needs to be about understanding the provider base—what enables best practice and what constitutes barriers to this. They need to establish an eVective way to contract with providers and Colleges that will not destabilise the business for those performing providers, but enable that the funding becomes demand led. Business planning cycles need challenging and the ability to flex funding across streams should be investigated—allowing providers to then truly oVer “business solutions”. The LSC should then contract and monitor to this new way of working—preparing the ground for the Skills Funding Agency and sharing some innovative practice with the Young People’s Funding Agency. Primary role of SSCs is to be the voice of employers for skills and therefore need to provide the evidence on demand from employers both now and in the future, in suYcient detail that funders and providers can make decisions. 4.2. SSCs need to focus on the VQ reform and bringing up the quality of delivery in the provider base. As the voice of sectors, SSCs need to exploit their employers to drive forward on the reform of qualifications and work this into the Qualifications Credit Framework. They also have a role to play in supporting providers in delivering and quality assuring this new provision. Skills delivery should be at a time, pace and place to suit the employer and their business need. SSCs also should be in pole position in evidencing the need for and supporting the establishment of National Skills Academies. 4.3 Key areas for SSC activity: — Drive the development of occupational standards — Lead VQ reform and align the QCF to business need — Collating and communicating sectoral labour market data, including international intelligence — Raise employer engagement, demand and investment — Understanding what collective employer action is needed to address specific sector skills needs 4.3 The Skills Action Plan in the West Midlands, includes statements about the roles of the LSC and SSCs—LSC is responsible for commissioning public investment in training below Level 4 and SSCs are responsible for ensuring qualifications meet market need and public funding only supports qualifications employers want and for developing a more flexible Qualifications Credit Framework. 4.5 In the South West the RSP, through its Sectors Operations Group, is working with all SSCs to assess the contribution of their SSA and NSA plans to the economic performance of the Region. The development of the Qualification Credit Framework is of vital importance to ensure greater flexibility in delivery and every eVort needs to be given to it working as intended. 4.6 In Yorkshire and Humber the Regional Skills Partnership approach is firmly based on sectoral priorities and Sector Skills Councils are engaged to both provide and share regional labour market intelligence with the partnership network. 4.7 RDAs would also see that the role of Jobcentre Plus and DWP in its commissioning role would be critical for inclusion here—given that a key spine of Leitch is the integration of the employment and skills agendas.
5. The Respective Roles Of The Further Education And Higher Education Sectors In Delivering ARegion-Based Agenda For Leitch And Their Coordination With One Other; 5.1 The further and higher education sectors have key roles, together with private sector training providers, in delivering high quality provision that meets the needs of employers and individual learners within the context of regional and local economic priorities. Ultimately, training and learning at a time, pace and place to suit business need and that gives identified business benefits. 5.2 The Universities are focused in particular on progressing young people through undergraduate programmes, post graduate progression and workplace progression for those in work. Given the reality that most of the workforce will be in employment by 2020—HEIs need to become even more focussed on working with employers, flexing provision and creatively delivering higher level skills in the workplace. Foundation degree forward are important partners in this agenda. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 218 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
5.3 Universities also have a key role to play in research, innovation and the translation of these into the skills landscape. Innovation needs to become a key driver for skills if businesses are to capture maximum productivity—British industry needs to constantly drive forward with its knowledge economy and innovative working practices to achieve the Leitch ambition. There is certainly a place for this to be shared at some levels with FE. 5.4 FE is the cornerstone for many of the building blocks outlined by Leitch, with enhanced estate and better virtual and blended learning they are ideally placed to work with both the employment and skills agendas. They are embedded in communities and could provide a vital stepping stone for individuals— embedding a lifelong learning culture within even those hardest to reach. But FE has some clear capacity issues. It needs to increase its flexibility around leadership, HR practices, provision, overhead costs and funding models in order for the sector to respond eVectively to business., FE needs to create the demand led skills delivery needed by employers that will enable UK productivity and skills levels to meet the Leitch ambition. This needs to be addressed and more emphasis brought back to the Foster Report “Further education; raising skills and life chances” which identified the conflicting messages facing FE and the need for clarity of mission coupled with intense capacity building. 5.5 RDAs acknowledge the importance of both sectors and are actively engaged with the FE Colleges in a capacity building exercise around the RES as well as support and interaction with HEIs. Ultimately the two sectors need to dovetail together to give individuals and employers seamless skills delivery. 5.6 Linked to this there are issues for development around the Adult Advancement and Careers Service. Most regions have worked with their Higher Education Institutes on graduate IAG, these are initiatives that should be integrated into the mainstream. If this is not done then there is a danger of duplication or that the higher end of the spectrum is omitted, instead of bringing existing regional services in to complement the national service.
6. The Impact On Students Of These Initiatives,Particularly In The Context Of Policies For Lifelong Learning.
6.1 Students as customers have to be of prime importance in the context of these policies. Developing competitive people is paramount to achieving Leitch, as is embedding a culture for lifelong learning and progression. 6.2 The skills landscape has a proliferation of initiatives and funding streams—confusing even for practitioners. To lessen negative impact there has to be a rationalisation of this along the principals of BSSP. 6.3 However, an important aspect is that learning is not devalued and skills progression is rewarded or recognised in some way. Workplace learning needs to carry a value with it that is on a par with academic learning, although employers should be supported to develop their own accredited training packages—it is vital that these are portable and have currency in the overall job market. 6.4 The section below sets out the impact of new policies / ways of working for individuals as well as for businesses and for training providers.
6.5 For individuals a. a universal Adult Advancement and Careers service to enable individuals to make informed choices about their employment options and career development needs at any point in their lives whilst of working age; the quality of the IAG is critical in ensuring that people are appropriately informed of future career opportunities as a result of changes in the regional economy. This service also needs to be able to give access to advice about funding and educational maintenance support b. this needs to be underpinned by appropriate support to access high quality skills training through future Skills Accounts c. it is essential that there is a stronger integration between employment and skills, focusing resources on disadvantaged communities and individuals d. the essential development of a single integrated programme structure where learning undertaken through Train to Gain and Skills Accounts combines to provide a single evidence statement of an individual’s learning achievements, facilitating skills and career progression e. accreditation of training undertaken internally whilst in employment, through the Qualifications and Credit Framework allowing for transfer of skills and training qualifications between employers, through a nationally recognised award system Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 219
f. much clearer progression pathways between intermediate and higher level skills through an enhanced local and regional infrastructure of Lifelong Learning Networks bringing together all FE colleges and HE institutions to deliver a major expansion of Foundation Degrees and Level 4 work-based programmes through regional brokerage, principally Train to Gain g. Supporting the transition to an Integrated Brokerage, and ensuring a pro-skills service to help support the delivery of Train to Gain service.
April 2008
Memorandum 37
Submission from Million!
Introduction 1. Million! is a university think-tank supported by 29 subscribing universities which teach the majority of the UK’s higher education students. We welcome the opportunity aVorded by this Inquiry to submit evidence in relation to the implementation of Lord Leitch’s Report and should be pleased to be called before the Committee to add to and expand on this evidence. 2. Million! has welcomed the challenge set down by the Leitch Report for the UK to be world class in skills by 2020 measured by the top quartile of the OECD. The Government has set itself the target of moving from 29 per cent of adults educated to Level 4 to at least 40 per cent by 2020. Universities which subscribe to Million! have educated over 3 million additional graduates, oVer flexible opportunities to study, have long traditions of responding to the needs of students and employers and are outstandingly successful in ensuring that all those who can benefit from higher education also have the opportunity to access higher education regardless of age or prior acquisition of traditional qualifications. As Universities they are vital to the economy and to delivery of the Leitch agenda and make a significant contribution to the 40% target for higher level skills set by Leitch 3. In fact Leitch raises the bar for Universities in a number of ways: — Through an increase in the progression of young people to University with the impact of higher attainment and universal participation to 18 at school, college in an apprenticeship or in other work-based training. — Driving up entry to higher education from the adult population, by driving up acquisition of Level 3 qualifications in the work-place and progression; — Fostering closer links between business and higher education, to deliver higher level skills in the workplace. 4. Universities which subscribe to Million! already deliver and are well-placed to respond further to a diverse student group, more part-time and an older student demographic gaining higher skills and graduate and postgraduate qualifications if national student support and institutional funding regimes support these objectives.
Regional Development Agencies and Leitch 5. There are examples of excellent working relationships between Million! members, HE regional associations and RDAs, However the experience overall is one of variable RDA performance. This is set against a background of RDA variable resources to create quite a complex picture of RDA capacity and eVectiveness. RDAs themselves have also been required by Government to meet additional expectations without additional or the allocation of specific streams of funding eg responsibility for delivery of the Lambert Review’s recommendations re university-business collaboration was transferred to RDAs without any additional resource allocation although it could be argued that this regional agenda has now been superseded in funding terms by allocation of increased funding via a national formula of Heif (the Higher Innovation Fund) from 2008/09. The RDAs will also be required to contribute funds to support the innovation agenda being promoted by the Technology Strategy Board—an agenda strongly supported by Million!. 6. Demand from employers is not a one-way street. Students and institutions also play some part in creating demand. For example, universities have a role in being responsive to student demand and new and emerging markets in terms of course and curriculum innovation and graduate supply. The work of universities in applied research and knowledge exchange with employers, including SMEs, can create demand within those organisations for higher level skills and professional development which in turn leads to curriculum innovation. HE institutions also innovate curriculum content and higher level skills to meet the changing needs of the “not-for-profit” sector and the public sector eg the public sector Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 220 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
professionalisation agenda for para-professionals in health, education and early years sectors have been made possible as a result of the engagement between Universities and public sector employers and relevant professional bodies.
7. These activities will impact in their own right on regional and localities priorities and will be themselves the course of innovation. It is therefore important to recognise that the relationship of HE to RDAs structures and the Leitch agenda is moderated by the work of universities with local and national employers in both the private and not for profit sectors and by their interrelationship with student demand not only within the UK but also from the EU and internationally. Many universities which subscribe to Million! make very substantial contributions to their regional economies not only through raising aspiration and opening access routes to HE and delivering graduate supply; they also provide and promote access to applied research and knowledge exchange for business, SMEs and the public and “not for profit” sectors providing regional and local access to these activities (research and knowledge exchange) that would otherwise not exist. These Universities are, nonetheless, working in the context of the national economy with national employers (and are international universities in their partnerships and student recruitment).
8. The aspirations of Leitch in terms of higher level skills will only be met if the national and international role of universities which have strong regional and locality presences in terms of access, graduate supply and applied research are also recognised. In this context, RDA structures are clearly important but they are by no means the only mechanism for delivery of higher level skills.
Regional vs national agendas and Leitch
9. Universities operate in national, EU and international markets for students, and research with a responsibility and interest in contributing to local, regional and community life and economies. While it is certainly true to say that Universities operate within a regional context and have important relationships with the RDA in regional economic planning that relationship must be seen in relation to the national and international framework within which HE institutions also operate and trade.
10. Universities are uniquely placed within the global market for skills to take advantage of the highly mobile student population, to expose and prepare their students to the realities of international competition. They are a conduit for bringing specialist skills to the local labour market from outside the region or outside the country. They are also responsible for fostering local talent to meet local, national and international labour market demands. These activities should be recognised as integral to delivery of the world-class skills to which Leitch refers.
11. Therefore it is right that mainstream university funding operates on a national level and funds activities through national allocation. Million! would be worried by any move to shift mainstream resources for Universities away from the national level. However, the national funding regimes do have weaknesses in the context of the Leitch agenda as well as in other areas. Some of these weaknesses were highlighted in a research report commissioned by Million! from London Economics (A reality check: student finance regimes pub Nov 2007). This identified the exceptional complexity of the finance and student support systems in the UK and the eVect on both participation and institutional resources of the diVerential and less favourable treatment of part-time students. We will be feeding our views on these problems to the independent review of variable fees in 2009 and others, including the problems arising in relation to the funding of provision for widening participation and mature students which also aVect the delivery of the Leitch agenda.
12. Million! also submitted evidence to the Committee’s inquiry on the withdrawal of funding for equivalent or lower level qualifications (ELQ) and on the negative impact of the changes in funding on subscribing universities because of their strength in recruiting “atypical students. We welcome the Committee’s conclusions that the withdrawal of funding should have been considered in the context of the wider debate on funding in 2009 and have requested that the Secretary of State review current proposals for transitional arrangements and exemptions for 08/09 and defer implementation in 08/09 in the light of the Committee’s Report. We have further noted that DIUS did not meet statutory requirements and failed to conduct an evidence-based equality impact assessment in advance of the announcement. It remains our view that the Government’s current policy to withdraw public funding from institutions for ELQ provision over a three year period, is likely to undermine the aspirations of Leitch in relation to the need to re-skill (as well as upskill) the workforce to higher levels. This is important, bearing in mind the anticipated demographic and the exemptions policy bears little relationship to the need to respond to new and emerging areas, new professional body requirements and the need to provide access to HE to those who, for whatever reason, are not in the paid workforce or are “hidden learners”. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 221
Role of Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) in the context of Leitch implementation
Learning and Skills Council 13. On 17 March 2008 DCSF and DIUS launched a consultation on a new national Skills Funding Agency and the delegation of commissioning for 16–19 learning to the Local Authority. Million! remains cautious about the demand-led funding models the Skills Funding Agency has been established to deliver and we have reservations about the eVectiveness of the “Train to Gain” programme in delivering higher level skills. We look forward to further evidence of eVectiveness of Train to Gain and impact from the evaluation. In particular we are concerned about lack of evidence of “additionality” in training at Levels 2 and 3. This is set against a backdrop of success of Million! subscribing universities working with employers and charging full cost for higher level training. 14. The variety of work-based provision and the cost to institutions of work-based provision are often underestimated; for example, work-based provision and learning delivered by universities includes foundation degrees and foundation degree placements, employer engagement activities, professional placements such as nursing, social care, accredited work experience, accrediting a company’s own training or delivering in-company accredited training. Costs will include course development, delivery, mentoring and supervision costs and assessment / Quality Assurance (QA) procedure costs. In-company accredited training is likely to incur all of these costs areas. In addition, there are often “hidden” institutional costs associated with work based learning which need to be considered in any evaluation of costs compared to “face to face” delivery solely on university premises. 15. Million! endorses the drive to increase participation at age 17 and the legislation to increase the statutory leaving and training age to 18, which all support progression to higher level learning. We understand the logic of devolving funding for young people’s learning to Local Authorities to create coherence with funding for the 14–16 age group. But we are concerned that the proposed arrangements for ad-hoc groups of Local Authorities to commission services for 16–19s may risk undermining the drive to increase participation at age 18. 16. The success of the Local Authority strategic commissioning role as currently described depends on capacity and coherence at the local level to eVectively commission from a range of public and private providers. It also requires an understanding, not only of needs at 16–19, but routes of employment and progression across geographic boundaries where learner, employment and employer needs may be complex and may not be coterminous with local government boundaries 17. There has been varying degrees of success in applying complex commissioning models eVectively in other areas of the public sector, for example, PCTs / the NHS. There have also been some unintended consequences in terms of HE supply routes and HEI funding when NHS funding parameters at national and thereafter Strategic Health Authority level have been amended. The proposed model for commissioning of 16–19 provision by Local Authorities is untried and untested. We also have concerns about the complexity for FE colleges of Local Authorities developing ad hoc arrangements to co-ordinate funding. While we would not want a rigid regional structure placed on colleges and Local Authorities, it is important that the arrangements do not add another layer to an already crowded landscape with Local Authorities, Employment and Skills Boards and RDAs all having an interest in skills at the sub-regional level. 18. Progression from FE to HE is vital to the Leitch agenda. Currently 48% of HE applicants come from FE taking into account both A-level and other qualifications.. It is intended that, in addition to their role as strategic commissioners, Local Authorities will also have a performance management role. But there is no reference to the need for Local Authorities to review performance in terms of progression to HE and no requirement to include any involvement from or discussion with higher education in the commissioning process. These omissions will need to be addressed but any new arrangements for 16–19 must not compromise progression to HE as a result of variations in funding provision, inexperience of and / or complexity in commissioning arrangements at local or sub-regional level.
Sector Skills Councils 19. Million! experience of Sector Skills Councils is again one of variable performance. However, we have great concerns about the capacity of SSCs to reduce complexity and deliver qualification reform. We do not dispute the need for employers to be involved in the design of qualifications but this needs to be regulated and to operate within a clear framework to ensure and all qualifications must support progression and prepare potential HE entrants for higher level learning. If not properly regulated, SSCs agreeing baskets of units proposed by employers will risk the robustness of the qualifications, to the detriment of the individual learner’s future prospects of progression and it is absolutely crucial to learners that qualifications are transferable. This approach also seems to be counter-intuitive to the Government’s proposals to streamline school / college qualifications. The involvement of SSCs in the qualification framework appears contradictory and we are concerned that public funding may also be tied or even limited to SSC qualifications. We see no merit in an ever more complex range of educational qualifications agreed by SSCs and others. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 222 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
20. As far as Universities are concerned, qualifications also provide a valuable screening mechanism for admission and progression to higher level skills. A proliferation of qualifications from SSCs therefore has the potential to make the job of matching individuals, institutions and courses more diYcult. Anything that makes the job of matching more diYcult risks damaging the Leitch agenda because potential students need to be encouraged to progress and be confident that they can step back onto the qualifications “ladder” without risking failure. In particular, they need to feel confident that they will not be faced with undue diYculties and risk withdrawing from rather than successfully achieving a higher level qualification. So- called HE “drop out” comes at a resource cost to the HE institution but it also comes at a high cost to the individual in terms of lost self esteem. It will also be at a cost to the country in terms of the promotion of the dynamic and progressive skills base to which the Leitch agenda aspires. 21. Where there is reform of qualifications, care must be taken that Universities are involved and consulted at every step of the way. The development of diplomas is a good example of collaborative working where we hope there will be a positive outcome for the widening participation of young people. It is by no means clear that the design and award of qualifications by SSCs and FE Colleges will be backed by the same development work with HE and there needs to be further consideration of the interrelationship with HE. We are further concerned that, regardless of UCAS points, a hierarchy of value will be applied by some HE institutions in their HE admissions criteria to SSC qualifications. The transparency and credibility of any new SSC qualifications is not just a matter for the SSC and / or employers in the sector: all employers, students and universities would need to be convinced that an SSC qualification had transferability and currency in terms of wider employment and learner progression.
Higher Education, Further Education and Leitch 22. Universities and FE colleges interface on many diVerent levels. One key interface is that FE provides an important supply route of students to Universities. 48% of HE students with A-level and other qualifications currently come from FE. As outlined, colleges working eVectively as feeders are a meaningful source of on-going progression to HE both for younger and more mature learners. This works best where there is good information and communication between the institutions about prospective students to aid the matching process. This can work on a local or regional basis, but can also be as a result of specialisation or other close relationships and partnerships (of which there are many). 23. Million! believes the relationship between HE and FE should be one of collaboration, not competition. There is a common misconception about FE capacity to deliver higher level learning with only 5.5% of HE currently delivered in FE. Higher level learning is done most eVectively when done in partnership with the expertise of an HEI. Universities which subscribe to Million! have considerable expertise in oV-site delivery, working in the domestic but also the international context promoting and delivering progression and access to higher level and postgraduate qualifications. These Universities have supported Higher Education Centres (HECs) as part of the HEI’s activities and often in collaboration with FE but HECs should not be seen on a “stand-alone” basis. Experience suggests that there is a minimum geographical or demographic footprint for an HEI and there are important economies of scale that increase quality for students. 24. Complexity creeps into the interface between FE and University where there is uncertainty about respective roles, funding and qualifications—as occurred in the Government’s proposals to extend foundation degree awarding powers to colleges, notwithstanding the partnership and franchise arrangements between HE and FE that were and are in place. Alongside part-time provision, work based higher level qualifications, foundation degrees and apprenticeships are in themselves important developments to deliver choice to the learner and to widen participation. However, there must be transparency and information for both students and employers about the quality and the returns of the diVerent courses and routes on oVer to the individual and there must be the potential for progression to HE in order to fulfil the Leitch aspirations. 25. We welcome in particular DCSF’s commitment to progression routes to HE from apprenticeships as set out in their March 2008 document “Promoting Achievement, Valuing Success: a strategy for 14–19 qualifications”. In order to deliver this and as part of the Leitch agenda, we would reiterate the need for there to be mechanisms (on similar lines to diplomas) to secure compatibility of apprenticeship skills and curriculum with higher level skills progression. Skill requirements and curriculum design change and are dynamic. Many HEIs with good records of promoting the employability of their students have experience in delivering practice-based curricula, applied research and placements which are all responsive to changing higher level skills requirements. Universities should be important partners in ensuring that qualifications deliver relevance for learners and that lower level qualifications deliver the potential for progression. 26. The risks of complexity are just as high when looking at funding regimes. As noted above, we believe that the relatively straightforward policy intention behind the ELQ decision will lead to serious adverse consequences for groups of individuals and institutions. When developing new funding models Hefce, LSC and the new Skills Funding Agency must take decisions with the maximum amount of information about the consequences. For example, diVerential funding for routes such as foundation degrees and co-funding of HE could lead to serious market distortion to the detriment of choice for the learner and the Leitch agenda. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 223
Implementing Leitch: impact on students 27. There is broad consensus about the policy aim of increasing the proportion of part-time learners and to recruit older learners, including those with experience in the workforce and studying at higher levels. Our view is that the Leitch report underestimates the amount of part-time learning that is currently undertaken in Universities. Million! previously submitted evidence to the Committee outlining reasons why many HE part-time students are “hidden” to employers, because they are looking to move on from a current employer, to retrain, or are with employers who are not supportive. There are also students who are out of or returning to work. All these factors emphasise the need for a strong individual route back into higher level learning, not one based around or reliant on employer funding and “co-operation”. 28. Leitch concludes that funding for the world class skills ambition must come from a tripartite of employer, individual and state. While it is true that the benefits are spread, the logic does not follow that all parties must participate equally in all circumstances. Universities which subscribe to Million ! are at the cutting edge of university-employer links with some examples of excellent practice. We would agree with the importance of working with employers to ensure that graduates have the attributes required and therefore stand a good chance in a competitive labour market. However, the emphasis on co-funding and work-place development must not be at the detriment of independent workers and potential workers seeking to advance their skills. 29. We see the announcement in Budget 2008 that Skills Accounts will be introduced from 2010 as an endorsement of the importance of the individual route back into learning which could provide flexibility for learners but we have concerns about operation and funding implications. Demand-side funding model and the individual choice agenda have the potential to undermine the unit of public resource for institutions by, for example, underestimating administration and overhead costs of running a course and the need for stability in year-on-year funding. There is also some evidence that institutions end-up cross-subsidising study where the “price” of Skills Account funding does not meet the cost of delivery. While we are supportive of the principle of raising awareness of entitlement to learning, we are cautious about Skills Accounts and their potential to increase progression. Our experience points to the importance to students of certainty in financial support and paid time-oV from the employer for those in work, in order to make a return to learning a viable option. We remain concerned not to lose sight of the importance of the individual when trying to stimulate new co-operation between business and HEIs but the extent to which Skills Accounts deliver additionality in terms of numbers and flexibility for individuals choosing to access Level 2 and 3 qualifications independently from their employers will need careful evaluation alongside the impact of the Accounts on institutional funding.
Conclusion 30. The Leitch ambitions cannot be delivered without HEIs working to their strengths. Universities which subscribe to Million! are already well established in widening participation, employer engagement and delivering to a demanding student population and expect to play a key role in delivering on the Government’s target to have at least 40% of the workforce with a level 4 qualification by 2020. However this ambition cannot be delivered through regional or employer agendas alone. Successful reform and capacity building can only occur on the back of rigorous evaluation and a deeper understanding of what HEIs are already delivering—and a proper evaluation of the limitations of current student support and institutional funding regimes in terms of mature and part-time students. April 2008
Memorandum 38
Submission from UNITE and Civil Service Pensioners’ Alliance (CSPA)
1. Executive Summary 1.1 The Civil Service Pensioner’s Alliance (CSPA) and UNITE welcome the IUS Select Committee Inquiry into the implementation of skills and training policy following the Leitch Report. 1.2 We acknowledge that the implementation of the Leitch Review, and the emphasis on the development of the skills and qualifications of those of working age, is essential to ensure international competitiveness and economic wellbeing. 1.3 However, our members have expressed concerns over the consequential redistribution of funding, specifically the reduction in funding for personal development, community learning and other “first-step”, non qualification bearing adult learning and further education provision. This has a disproportionate and negative impact on older adult learners who are often the least able to cope. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 224 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
1.4 The provision of informal adult learning should be a cross-cutting Government objective, and should not just be looked at within the confines of the skills agenda. Evidence suggests that active older people are less likely to need health and social support if they participate in informal learning103. Therefore, informal learning can contribute to “active ageing” which will increase in importance, given the UK’s rapidly ageing population. Consequently, we believe that cutting funding for informal adult education is something of a false economy.
2. Introduction
2.1 The Civil Service Pensioner’s Alliance is a voluntary body which campaigns on behalf of the 500,000 civil service pensioners. The CSPA has approximately 65,000 members in the UK, organised into 100 local groups with membership drawn from all grades and all departments of the civil service and related bodies. 2.2 UNITE, the National Federation of Royal Mail and BT Pensioners, is the oldest and largest occupational pensioners’ organisation in the UK, with over 100,000 members nationwide. 2.3 Both organisations campaign on behalf of their members, and older people more generally, on issues such as improving pensions, health services and equality. 2.4 The CSPA and UNITE welcome the opportunity to respond to this inquiry. Our members have a keen interest in learning, particularly learning for enjoyment, personal fulfilment and stimulation. Given the reductions in funding catalysed by the Leitch Review, we are grateful for the opportunity to comment on the impact on older students. 2.5 The Innovation, Universities and Skills Committee has invited views on the impact of Leitch on the structures of FE, HE and lifelong learning. We have, however, limited our evidence to the impact of new initiatives on students, particularly older students in the context of informal adult learning.
3. The impact of Leitch on students
3.1 The Government’s strategic focus on raising the skills of workers has led to a concentration on funding basic skills, Level 2 and Level 3 qualifications for the under 25s. This has left less funding available for other forms of learning, including the non-vocational courses valued by many of our members. Non- vocational learning providers are being required to reduce costs; either by limiting student places or by limiting concessionary fees. This has resulted in a reduction in the number of people aged 60 and over participating in Adult Community Learning of 12% between 2005 and 2006 104. 3.2 Correspondence from our members suggests that the reduction in concessionary fees has impacted heavily upon their ability to participate. Furthermore, increases in fees can create a “vicious circle” whereby courses are axed due to a lack of interest and lecturers are therefore unable to provide courses. For example, a severely deaf member has recently reported that a charge of £165 was recently levied for her lip reading class, which was previously free. As almost all members of the class were pensioners, who felt unable to meet this cost, the course did not run. 3.3 Some colleges and local authorities who are removing concessions for older people are using the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 to justify their actions. As there have been no test cases on this, it is not possible to say whether this is unlawful. It seems that removing concessions for retired people has been viewed as the easiest solution for providers. 3.4 We believe that the fee structure for non-vocational learning should be improved so that those on low and fixed incomes, such as most pensioners, are able to participate. At present, a strategy designed to increase inclusion (the Leitch Review) has excluded older people from opportunities that would improve civic participation, result in better health and contribute to greater individual well-being and fulfilment. 3.5 Learning in retirement has significant benefits including improved health and well-being. This has a clear impact on local government and health budgets. Therefore, Government should safeguard non- vocational learning, particularly for those on low, fixed incomes or with poor health. 3.6 We believe that increased support from the Government is vital to ensure the successful implementation of their lifelong learning policy. Informal adult learning should be aVorded a higher priority across Government, both in terms of recognition of its impact and in terms of funding. 3.7 Furthermore, there should be more clarity around the funding streams available for informal adult learning in each department and an agreed understanding of the concept across Government so that civil servants and those trying to access the resources could be directed more eYciently.
103 Schuller et al, The Benefits of Learning, University of London, 2004. 104 National Statistics Press Release, Learning and Skills Council. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 225
4. Conclusions 4.1 Informal adult learning for older people has a positive impact, both in terms of physical and mental stimulation and a greater involvement in community activity. Leads to greater social inclusion. 4.2 Although we applaud the objectives of Leitch, we believe that an expansion of learning provision for retired people is needed, to improve civic participation, improve health and lead to greater well-being and fulfilment. 4.3 UNITE and the Civil Service Pensioners’ Alliance would welcome the opportunity to present further information to the IUS Select Committee in writing or in person. April 2008
Memorandum 39
Submission from GoSkills
Resume Good progress is being made in the integration of skills strategies through the adoption through mutual agreement of the partners of a regional skills action plan. The LSC and SSCs work well together in the region. The recent changes to give greater importance to localities in relation to skills and employment pose particular challenges to individual SSCs. More collective SSC activity is required in response. — the responses of RDAs to Leitch and how coherent and structured these are; In the West Midlands (WM), the RDA, Advantage West Midlands (AWM) has collaborated well with its other WM regional partners in agreeing an Action Plan geared to the Leitch demands. The Network of SSCs is shortly to meet the collective RDAs to discuss (inter alia) joint priorities in relation to Leitch. We are unable to comment further on the coherence of the RDA response to Leitch. — what the existing regional structures of delivery are and what sub-regional strategies may be required; GoSkills, through its CEO, chairs the Network of SSCs in the West Midlands. The Network worked closely with the Regional Skills Partnership (RSP) in order to draw up the first Skills Action Plan of any Region. This apportions roles to each of the key partners. The targets in the Action Plan relate Leitch to the context of the West Midlands. GoSkills would recommend that each RSP be tasked with drawing up a Skills Action Plan. The RSP is working well in the region. The LSC and the Network of SSCs meet quarterly as part of the strategic partnership we have agreed. The changes announced in relation to the funding of 14–19 education will mean that the Network as such will need to link with probably at least three clusters of local authorities in the WM but is well placed to do that in view of the existing level of partnership working in the region and the structure post-SSDA the Network is putting in place. The demand on individual SSCs is such that most will need to work in a collective way at on 14–19 matters at regional level, and in a strategic way at national level with the local authority representative bodies. Individual Local Employment Partnerships pose problems of engagement for most SSCs. GoSkills believes a possible approach is for the Network regionally to be the first point of contact for LEPs and individual SSCs. It makes sense that where a major employer is an LEP focus that the relevant SSC is fully involved in the Partnership. These considerations argue for a greater regional capacity than some SSCs currently possess. — the role of the Learning and Skills Council and Sector Skills Councils in this context; The driver for the regional Skills Action Plan was the via the Regional Minister to LSC in partnership with Advantage West Midlands. LSC drafted the plan and discussed it with the Network of SSCs at an event the Network organised to involve SSCs, employers and other players such as the Engineering Employers‘ Federation. Since then LSC has agreed significant resources over two years for the Network collectively to deliver some of the key targets in relation to the Plan, including employer engagement around Train to Gain. This is likely to be matched by the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils. The Network enjoys an excellent working relationship with the LSC in the Region. An LSC oYcer currently works on secondment to the Network for part of her time. — the respective roles of the further education and higher education sectors in delivering a region- based agenda for Leitch and their coordination with one other; and The Association of Colleges (AoC) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) are both represented on the RSP. AoC has invited member colleges to form networks around each of the original 14 Diploma lines of learning under the Chairmanship of a College Principal. The Principal of Stoke Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 226 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
on Trent College chairs the Travel and Tourism cluster, in which GoSkills has an interest. It is proposed that regional hubs be set up comprising colleges in each region with the Chair championing that area of work regionally. We strongly support this way of working. — the impact on students of these initiatives, particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning. GoSkills has no comment to make in relation to full time students except to say that good working links are clearly necessary between individual Diploma consortia and relevant SSCs in relation to career progression and employer engagement. In relation to work-based learners, it is helpful that skills brokerage is to be fully integrated with business support under the RDAs as it is right that skills should be reviewed in the context of business priorities. GoSkills hopes that the reforms made recently to the Train to Gain service will be consolidated and built upon when RDAs assume responsibility for this service. April 2008
Memorandum 40
Submission from the Centre for Enterprise (CFE)
Introduction and executive summary of evidence 1. CFE is pleased to make this submission to the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee Submission and welcomes the scrutiny it is giving to the implementation of the Leitch Review of Skills. 2. Since the publication of Skills in Context 1.0 in October 2005, CFE has aimed to stimulate a conversation around public policy in the area of skills, enterprise and economic development. At the request of Future Skills Scotland we further developed the argument in Skills in Context 2.0 (March 2007) to suggest that: — Productivity performance is not determined by skills level alone — Skills are often a derived concern in company decision-making linked to product marketing and the organisational processes — A purely demand-led approach might not lead a highly skilled workforce, employers often choosing a more profitable, low-skill route 3. In short, do employers share the same level of ambition that is reflected in Lord Leitch’s report? Is the demand out there demanding enough? 4. Much of our work, as a research and development not for profit company, has been at a sub-national level looking at the implementation of policy at local, sub-regional and regional tiers of government and its agencies. 5. Part of this work has included market research in the field of higher education and employer engagement, and Employment and Skills Boards (ESBs). See sections 3 and 4 for an abstract of evidence from our reports on these areas of the post Leitch landscape. 6. These reports highlight issues with both supply-side and demand-side reforms initiated by the Leitch review. In particular, we draw attention to: — The need for a more sophisticated understanding of the extent and nature of the demand for higher level skills at a regional level — The fact that businesses that do invest in higher level skills really do invest, but the majority do not invest at all and within that cohort over half regard themselves as what our research characterises as “hard” nos to training (ie, the principal reason not to train is a result of a conscious business case) — Employers do not recognise administrative boundaries and are exasperated by multiple approaches by local agencies and brokers without any seeming sense of coordination — Demand-led employment and skills partnerships oVer real advantages to the successful integration of the employment and skills agenda, meeting local employers’ recruitment and training needs and upskilling the local population — The lack of a single governmental voice on whether ESBs are supported or not, creating confusion across Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and their regions and hesitation in moving forward with any changes to their current landscape in response to Leitch 7. Looking at the implementation of the Leitch aspirations at a sub-national level points to the central question raised in number of government reports: what is the right geographical level of intervention for skills development and economic planning? Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 227
8. Our concern is that these two aspects to the UK’s success in the global market place have become disconnected since Leitch—or at least less connected. No one can disagree with the ambitious skills targets in Leitch, so long as in the process we do not lose sight of the fact that the issue of skills is only a proportion of the current productivity gap. 9. An overly ambitious skills agenda runs the risk of devaluing our longer term skills goals if divorced from the wider economic context.
The regional context
10. Since 1997, regional policy has been pursued through a three part regional structure of regional assemblies, Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and government oYces. These organisations have had delegated, rather than devolved authority. The purpose of this approach was to: — Reflect the diVerences in regions’ economic performance and the need for diVerent approaches to enable regions to fulfil their economic potential — Capture the strategic perspective that regional bodies bring to policy development and spatial decision making, bringing together a range of interests to better align plans and funding — Pragmatically address issues which cross local authority boundaries and ensure resources are invested eVectively across wider areas 11. This tripartite regional governance structure resulted in a complex environment in which to develop regional strategies, including those for skills. It also led to a confusing picture of formal and informal partnerships, forums and networks, some of which have been successful and influential, others less so. 12. The move in 2001 to “Single Pot” funding required RDAs to develop Frameworks for Regional Employment and Skills Action (FRESAs) to provide a strategic context for the investment of regional funds for skills and employment and to identify regional priorities with other partners. 13. After the skills strategies of 2003 and 2005105, there was increased emphasis at a regional level on pooling budgets and strengthening integrating mechanisms. Where budget pooling was piloted, it was restricted to pots of development funding (rather than recurrent budgets) combined with the so-called “dual- key” (LSC and RDA) commissioning process. 14. More recently Government OYces, which initially led innovative approaches to learning and skills like the Testbed Learning Communities work, have become increasingly focused on the children and young people’s agenda. This has limited the opportunities Government OYces have to influence RDAs’ agendas for adult skills, and the ability to support local authorities to include adult skills in the design of local area agreements and local community strategies which will, looking forward, become the basis for the new regional integrated strategies. 15. In August 2005, the LSC’s Agenda for Change programme led to the creation of a regional infrastructure for the organisation but at the same time created a degree of organisational turbulence that meant the LSC increasingly focussed on meeting targets rather than on the planned strategic development with regional partners. The LSC has not been consistent as to whether its role is in the regional implementation of national policy, or as a part of a more sophisticated model of regional policy development within a national framework. 16. Since Leitch, there have been more explicit tensions between national and regional policies around skills. While national skills policy, implemented by the LSC, has been increasingly focused on the delivery and achievement of full qualifications at or below level 2, RDAs have been calling for investment in higher level skills, in “soft” skills, and for more flexible provision that is more responsive to the needs of employers. Examples exist of some regional mediation of the demand-led approach based on qualifications. 17. In addition to a tension around the right skills levels required, there has been a further one that is most simply expressed in terms of regions focusing on a wider range of drivers for productivity than the Leitch skills agenda. Analyses of these were well developed before Leitch, but the primacy of the skills has been to the detriment of more sophisticated thinking around the drivers of sustainable economic development. How to measure success was less well developed. 18. In terms of the role of Sector Skills Councils, there has been a focus on priority sectors within Regional Economic Strategies and Regional Skills Partnerships’ plans which have in turn influenced LSC adult skills priorities. There are potential tensions between sectoral and regional approaches to skills policy which risk further confusion for both employers and learners. It is recognised that some sectors might require a more regional approach than others that are better planned for nationally (for example, creative and media).
105 21st Century Skills: Realising our Potential—Individuals, Employers, Nation, (July 2003) Getting on in business, getting on at work, (March 2005) Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 228 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
19. Leitch advocated a “network of employer-led Employment and Skills Boards”. He recommended that ESBs would inform how “training [can] be more relevant to the needs of the local labour market” and should “scrutinise the functioning of local careers and employment information to ensure that it better reflects employer needs”106. Such boards would bring together the skills and employment agendas within an area and “strengthen the employer voice” in influencing and informing this agenda. 20. Government felt that a structured network of boards responsible for reporting to the new Employment and Skills Commission was overly prescriptive in meeting local economic development needs. However, there was support indicated for the concept of ESBs to function at a sub-regional level— promoting economic prosperity, bringing together the employment and skills agendas and strengthening the employer voice in identifying priorities107. 21. The Sub-National Review (July 2007)108 supported ESBs and stated “it is at this [sub-national] level that local employer-led Employment and Skills boards should operate”. There is recognition that these boards need to work flexibly to meet diVerent needs in diVerent areas. The Leitch Implementation Plan (July 2007109) states ESBs “will rationalise and build on successful city, employer coalitions and other regional models”. It also calls for the development of ESBs to be based on the sharing of “good practice” rather than prescribing specific models and processes. The report also recognises that ESBs may not be an appropriate mechanism within some areas and leaves it to “local partners to decide” if they are appropriate within their area. The Lyons Inquiry (March 2007)110 also supported the concept of ESBs and called for “local authorities to play an appropriate role”.
Regional delivery structures: employment and skills boards 22. Our evidence draws on CFE’s recent national review of demand-led employment and skills partnerships, conducted through desk based research and consultation and case study development, with representatives across all regions. From our research, evidence shows that many stakeholders welcomed the progress made nationally on the employment and skills agenda particularly in publications such as the Leitch Review of Skills and the following implementation plan and the Sub-National Review. However, it was clear that progress in terms of establishing ESBs has been tentative as regions await guidance from the national level signalling support (or otherwise) for ESBs and providing a steer on the role they should play. Many also called for the Commission to take on the role of a national champion, supported by government departments providing a single voice and driving quality in partnership arrangements. 23. RDAs have responded to Leitch agenda in a range of ways with approaches varying widely both within and between regions. In terms of development of ESBs, or demand-led employment and skills partnerships, most arrangements can be categorised into one of five “types”. These include: Employment and Skills Boards, Employer Coalitions and Fair Cities Boards, City Growth, Skills and Productivity Alliances, and Local Strategic Partnership employment and skills sub-groups established to feed directly into Local Area Agreements. 24. Those partnerships formally calling themselves ESBs exist to some extent within all regions. Some have been established for one or two years, however most are more recent developments, often established in response to the publication of the Leitch Review and are therefore still in the early stages of development. The map below shows where ESBs and similar demand-led employment and skills partnerships are in operation.
106 Leitch Review of Skills (December 2006) p. 24 107 Strong and Prosperous Communities: Local Government White Paper (October 2006) Department for Communities and Local Government, London also supports this and “encourage Employment and Skills Boards to be formed in core cities” to support economic development 108 Review of Sub-National Economic Development and Regeneration (July 2007) HM Treasury: London 109 World Class Skills: Implementing the Leitch Review of Skills in England (July 2007), HM-Treasury: London 110 Lyons Inquiry into Local Government—Place-Shaping: A shared ambition for the future of local government (March 2007) HM Treasury: London Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 229
ESBs Established Employer Coalitions LSPAs East Partnership Employment and Skills Forum SW Partnership ESBs Proposed City Growth Sub-Groups Community Partnerships (East of England) Learning Partnerships (Y&H)
25. In establishing ESBs, RDAs have tended to follow one of three approaches: — A “coordinating” role, proactively supporting the development of ESBs across their region — Liaising with local partnerships to gain a sense of developments within their region, taking a “monitoring” approach — “Waiting” for further guidance before taking any action. 26. There is evidence that where established and operating eVectively with support from the RDA and strong membership from both the public and private sector ESBs oVer the following advantages: — Creating local and sub-regional links to the regional agenda and planning — Linking up programmes on the ground like Train to Gain, the Skills Pledge, Local Employment Partnerships and Work Trials, Local Area Agreements (LAA), the development of Multi-Area Agreements (MAA) and City Strategies. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 230 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
— Streamlining the landscape by linking into existing arrangements such as Employer Coalitions, Local Strategic Partnerships and other existing economic partnerships. 27. To some extent diVerential approaches have provided the opportunity for areas to develop arrangements appropriate for their area. However, evidence shows that these benefits are often outweighed by the drawbacks of having no guidance or national steer on development of demand-led employment and skills arrangements. The lack of guidance and national steer has had the following impact: — Confusion and hesitation within regions in making progress on this agenda — Risk of duplication and overlap of employment and skills partnership arrangements — Risk of poor quality and lack of accountability — Lack of buy-in to achieve a demand-led approach
Higher education delivering a region-based agenda for Leitch? 28. The Leitch recommendation that 40% of the population aged 19 to State Pension Age should be qualified to Level 4 or above by 2020 represents a significant challenge to the HE sector—in 2005 the figure was around 28%. The Review gave a clear indication of where this growth should come from: “workforce development and increased employer engagement.”111 29. The focus on employer engagement is understandable; we know that 70% of the 2020 workforce has already left compulsory education112. At both a national and regional level, public policy tends to focus on the need to reform the supply of higher level skills. We agree that this is a necessary process; HEIs will increasingly need to develop high quality provision that is relevant to the needs of business and can be delivered in a flexible way. 30. At the same time, this process must be informed by a more sophisticated understanding of the extent and nature of the demand for higher level skills. It was this central proposition that led us to undertake a programme of research activity in the East Midlands113. 31. The report identified that 39% of businesses surveyed had undertaken higher level skills training and 61% had not114. We characterise businesses that do not invest in higher level skills as “soft” nos or “hard” nos. The “soft” nos represent businesses that have not undertaken higher level skills in the preceding 12 months but indicated that they would “definitely” or “maybe” do so in the next 12 months. The “hard” nos represent businesses that have not undertaken higher level skills in the past 12 months and reported that they were “unlikely” or “definitely not” inclined to do so in the next 12 months.
61% 39% of businesses of businesses do not do
7 % 59% 34% 53% 47% D are ‘soft’ use regional K are ‘hard’nos use other providers nos HEIs
32. Our research tells us that businesses that do invest in higher level skills really invest. On balance they pay for qualifications and they know the reasons for buying and the anticipated returns. These do not fit the caricature of businesses not interested in qualifications—in a mature market each agent knows the rules and by reason of their trade has chosen to accept them. There is little evidence of market failure here. 33. We must accept that for many of those that do not invest, this is the result of a similarly mature decision making process. The majority of these businesses reported that they had not undertaken higher level skills training because they saw no benefit to their business in doing so. We are not necessarily talking about owners of dark, satanic mills here; all these businesses had undertaken some training during the preceding 12 months. The training “habit” was therefore well developed, but this did not translate to investing in skills at higher levels.
111 Leitch Review of Skills (2006), op cit 112 Leitch Review of Skills (2006), op cit 113 Known unknowns—the demand for higher level skills from businesses. 114 The survey focused on businesses based in the East Midlands that employ more than 25 staV. This group accounts for 74% of the region’s private sector workforce. All the businesses surveyed has undertaken some general training during the preceding 12 months. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 231
34. The reality is that these businesses will only start to undertake higher level skills training if there is a change to the market context in which they think about their business strategies. In other words, the “hard” nos can only be tackled as part of a wider economic development strategy, in which HEIs play a role alongside a much wider cast of characters. 35. Regions have a potential role to play here, but only if they develop a more sophisticated understanding of the nature of demand. Historically, policy makers have assumed that all businesses would invest more in their workforce, if only higher level skills were easier to find (eg, through the extension of Train to Gain) or could be made more financially attractive. Our research does not support this view: financial costs and lack of awareness were only cited as reasons for not undertaking higher level skills training by a small minority of businesses. 36. Viewing all businesses through the same lens runs the risk of making deadweight interventions, oVering inducements to those businesses that already invest, or ineVective ones to those businesses where it just doesn’t make sense to do so. 37. As relatively autonomous institutions, it is also worth remembering that not all HEIs need or want to engage with employers to deliver workforce training. Furthermore, the sort of levers and incentives that can be deployed to eVect change in the Further Education sector do not have the same impact in Higher Education. 38. HEIs are less likely than FE colleges to see their market in regional terms. Non-regional HEIs account for 14% of the higher level skills market in the East Midlands; regional HEIs are likely to have a similar market share in other regions. On this basis, a purely regional assessment of market share is always likely to underplay the success of HEIs with a predominantly national or international (rather than regional) customer base.
Looking forward 39. There are a number of areas that lack current evidence-bases and therefore remain largely uncontested: —DiVerences in the relationship between skills levels, productivity and skills utilisation — The nature of employer demand for skills and the diVerent levels of demand in those enterprises that will have most impact on economic development in current global capital investment markets 40. This committee has concerned itself with the structure and roles of public institutions delivering the Leitch agenda, which again is built on the presumption that demand from employers will automatically increase as the volume and quality of skills increases. Can we equally reassure ourselves that business is changing its strategies to fully utilise any expansion in skills created by the Leitch agenda? April 2008
Memorandum 41
Submission from the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) 1. The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) is the leading non-governmental organisation for England and Wales representing the interests of adult learners, potential learners, and those who make provision for them. NIACE is a membership organisation and a registered charity, advocating increased opportunities for adult learning and for better quality provision. It is particularly concerned to advance the interests of those who have benefited least from initial education and training. 2. NIACE has oVered consistent public support for the skills strategy since its inception while also working to make it more eVective in meeting the needs of adult learners. This memorandum considers the issues posed in the committee’s press notice of the 4th of March 2008, specifically the impact of Leitch on students and lifelong learning.
Impact of Leitch on learner numbers 3. Our primary concern is that falling numbers of adult participation in learning suggest that the strategies chosen to implement Leitch and to create more individual and employer demand for learning are not working to their fullest capacity. Whilst revealing and successfully meeting new demand in the workplace, strategies to implement Leitch are also unintentionally reducing opportunities for other adult learners, many of whom were learning in colleges and community settings to strengthen skills for the workplace. 4. The 2007 NIACE Survey on Adult Participation in Learning115 shows a significant decline of employed people participating in learning and, in particular, a drop in participation by part-time workers. From 2006 to 2007, current or recent participation levels fell by 8 percentage points for part timers and by 2 percentage
115 Aldridge, Fiona and Alan Tuckett (2007) The road to nowhere? Leicester: NIACE. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 232 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
points for full time workers. It is especially worrying that this has occurred in the very groups Government is keen to encourage to learn through Train to Gain. The 2008 survey will be publicly available on the 13th of May. Initial analysis of the data shows a further and statistically significant drop in participation of current and recent learning of 3%. The decline since 2007 is notable among respondents in full-time employment (–4%), in social grade C2 (–6%) and among 25—34 year olds (–7%). NIACE will gladly provide the Committee with further information once it is published.
Table 1.
Number of 19+ learners (000s) in LSC funded provision
5000
4500 4000 3500 FE 3000 WBL 2500 T2G 000s 2000 ACL Total 1500 1000 500 0 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 Year
5. Table 1. illustrates the loss of 1.4 million adult learners in courses funded by the LSC over the last three years. The Government’s 2007 Statistical First Release116 rationalises this loss by saying: For key programmes, learner numbers have not only increased as set out by Government policy, but have done so at a much faster rate than originally expected. As a consequence, the number of funded adult learners on lower priority programmes has reduced more rapidly than envisaged (p.2). 6. However, statistics published by DIUS, The Level of Highest Qualification Held by Adults: England 2007 show that current growth rates for level attainment would not be enough to achieve either Level 2 or Level 3 targets set for 2011. For example, if the current growth rate for achieving a Level 2 qualification is simply maintained the Government target will be missed by around 1.38 million adults. 7. Furthermore the age groups with the largest numbers of adults without a level 2 qualification and hence vital to reach the target are generally older ones: 40–44 (815,564 adults), 35–39 (769,120 adults) and 55–64 (743,904 adults). NIACE is concerned that if the Government strategies based on Train to Gain and “full fat” qualifications are not made more flexible and attuned to the needs of adult learners, demand will not be suYcient for the targets to be reached. 8. Adults tend to benefit more and are more likely to opt for short updating programmes that build on knowledge acquired through experience rather than “full fat” courses. In practical terms these programmes are also more easily coordinated with the competing demands in an adult’s life. Policies for higher education recognise that credits and bite-sized units of learning are essential to involve both individuals and businesses. However for lower level skills a policy focus where funding support is limited to adults willing to commit to full qualifications is a major deterrent. For almost a decade, Government has been committed to the development of a unit-based credit system in further education and training; without it many adults will continue to miss out. The Select Committee has already expressed concern over the problems of targeted funding117 and Government has dismissed its recommendations citing market failure and the high wage returns for full qualifications: The Government has a clear rationale for focusing on first and full qualifications…We believe Government should focus its resources on addressing market failures…that means ensuring all
116 Further Education, Work Based Learning, Train to Gain and Adult and Community Learning—Learner Numbers in England: 2006/07 117 House of Commons Education and Skills Committee (2007) Post-16 Skills, Ninth Report of Session 2006–07 Volume I, London. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 233
adults possess a full level 2 qualification...someone with a level 2 qualification earns on average around £100,000 more over their lifetime118 9. However, given the scale of demographic changes, where two in three of the jobs in the next decade must be filled by adults, NIACE believes the Government’s approach only addresses part of the challenge. Dropping learner numbers indicate that not all adults are suYciently swayed by Government’s clear rationale of an economic argument to commit to a “full fat” qualification. While in other policy areas the Government has recognised that individuals can be trusted to make rational choices (eg social networks, personal finance, family responsibilities, individual health, personal interests) with regards to adult skills they have taken a one-dimensional approach. Although Train to Gain seeks to be the mechanism for demand-led provision, (and works well for the people it does serve), it excludes many adults who learn for progression diVerently and through less predictable paths. By channelling most of the adult learning resources to just key mechanisms (Train to Gain and Skills Accounts), the breadth and complexity of routes that adults take to strengthen their employability skills are being lost. 10. In NIACE’s view Government policy should support a more holistic set of incentives, which take into account individual learners’ motivations, and the wider benefits of learning they value. These incentives are interdependent and should therefore sit alongside and not secondary to the economic case for learning skills to improve productivity. This would not represent a shift in Government priorities away from employment and progression; it is rather a necessary condition to make strategies fit-for the purpose of raising UK adult skills and therefore achieving participation targets.
Impact of Leitch on lifelong learning 11. NIACE detects that Government policies are inadvertently hampering adults’ motivations to learn and disregarding needs that have an impact on learning demand. As departments and providers are pressured to achieve the qualification targets, they are using levers such as limiting funding entitlements only to learning that will count towards those targets. This has left learners not only with less publicly funded subjects and modes of study but also with less choice of learning being oVered. 12. Another concern is that many adults, especially those with lower levels of skills, need time to develop motivation and confidence before they commit to a full course. NIACE is concerned that current policies drive providers towards “quick wins” which guarantee funding but that disadvantage the most marginalised learners. We are now seeing evidence of the concerns expressed on the last memorandum NIACE sent to the committee119 that a target-driven approach will focus on those people with the shortest journey to achieve the target. 13. For example, RNIB College Loughborough runs residential training programmes for adults, funded by the DWP. There are currently 10 colleges in England providing Residential Training for Disabled Adults. The programme is for those people requiring a greater degree of support than is provided by other programmes such as New Deal for Disabled People (NDDP). The Residential Training Unit administers the total budget of around £19m. Previously colleges were credited with a “positive outcome” if trainees entered employment or full time education or training within a year of leaving the programme. The DWP is under funding pressure and is focussing on achieving the government target of 80% of adults in employment. Major changes to the RTU contract have been implemented from April 2007: — Only employment within 6 months of finishing the programme counts as a positive outcome — Full time education or training is no longer a positive outcome — There is financial pressure on colleges to get people through programmes as quickly as possible. Colleges have been told that they should register for the programme only those likely to get into sustained employment within 6 months of leaving. These changes disadvantage anyone with more complex needs. For example blind and partially-sighted people typically face the challenges of learning access software which mean they require more time. The changes also block oV an important route into mainstream further or higher education for those capable of more than low-skilled employment. 14. Given that pre-entry level qualifications do not count toward the Leitch targets, many providers may feel pressured to respond by marginalising such provision. Yet the replication of evidence is that intergenerational poverty in Britain lies in families with pre-entry level literacy or numeracy skills.120 15. NIACE is worried that despite good intentions current policies are undermining a culture of lifelong learning for all. NIACE believes that a strategy is needed that will measure success of educational policies not through qualifications but through real population outcomes. There is still time to complement current policy initiatives with a committed investment to those generic skills which develop people confident in their
118 House of Commons Education and Skills Committee (2007) Post-16 Skills: Government response to Committee’s Ninth Report of Session 2006–07, London. 119 House of Commons Education and Skills Committee (2007) Post-16 Skills, Ninth Report of Session 2006–07 Volume II Oral and written evidence, London. 120 Bynner, J. and Parsons, S. (1997) It doesn’t get any better: the impact of poor basic skills on the lives of 37 year olds, London: Basic Skills Agency. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 234 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
capacity to learn and unafraid of change. Part of this change will need to include a funding regime with a more equitable balance between public money for employers and individual learners. Presently individuals’ chosen routes are not adequately recognised and future cuts (76% of the adult learner responsive developmental learning budget over the next three years)121 indicate a worsening scenario. At this stage of the Leitch implementation there is still time to steer away from scarcely achieving targets and missing the point.
Regions response to the Leitch implementation
16. Overall NIACE’s work with Regional Development Agencies has emphasised tension between their remit to support business needs, and the Government’s interpretation of Leitch, which focuses on a qualifications strategy rather than on the needs that businesses and their workers actually articulate. NIACE believes that at this stage of the implementation, with RDAs taking on their new responsibilities they are still considering the implications of attending to the Leitch targets. NIACE has identified that RDAs face the challenge of using Leitch in the regional context to help with skills utilisation, to develop initiatives that address the skills needed in a knowledge economy and to approach sharply diVerent experiences of demographic change. 17. Nevertheless, most RDAs are showing strong and well-rounded commitment to the skills strategy. For example, NW RDA plans to invest £69 million over the next three years in skills, so it is finding other money from within the RDA “single pot” to complement the approximately 5–7million from DIUS. Their focus is on releasing potential and while they see skills as important they also recognise that leadership, management and cultural and behavioural change is necessary to release the creativity of individuals and businesses. 18. The London RDA has expressed concerned that inclusion seems to be increasingly oV the agenda in London. It is therefore trying to prioritise outreach and engagement by using ESF projects to “plug gaps” and to ensure LDA provision in priority areas. 19. For example, Libraries for Learning (L4L) project Libraries for Learning is an 18-month project co-funded by the London Development Agency (LDA) and ESF to improve the skills base of Londoners. It leads on from the Londoners Need to Read project, which highlighted the role of libraries, museums & archives in supporting learning for adults with Skills for Life needs. The report, written by David Brockhurst and Ian Dodds, showed that libraries, museums and archives are recognised as welcoming places to get information, for pleasure, family learning and much more. As such, they are ideal “trusted intermediaries” to help people work out what their aspirations and goals are, and to help them take the steps towards learning, gaining confidence and getting work. The project aims to ensure a consistent approach to the delivery of Skills for Life activities in libraries, museums and archives across London, as part of MLA London’s Skills for Life Compact, to which the library services of all 33 boroughs have “signed up”. The objectives of the project are: — Moving forward with the London libraries compact—this aims to find out which compact level the borough library services are currently achieving, asks them to set themselves a target for what levels they could reach in 14 months time, and identify what help they need to reach that target — Training 120 library staV across London in S4L awareness—staV will be oVered Skills for Life Awareness training at level 2. This will involve 3 or 4 days of study and include the Skills for Life background, signposting and referrals — Creating (or developing where they already exist) referral packs of information so library staV know where to refer would-be students—these will be diVerent for each borough and most branches, so would-be students can be referred locally and to provision which, hopefully, has free places, or will take names for waiting lists — Establishing recognised referral routes from libraries and museums to accredited S4L provision— using the information from above, and collecting the data to enable the project to follow-up the would-be students to check they are able to find provision, and report on their achievement — Assisting the libraries/museums/archives in referring would-be S4L students to suitable provision through the organisation of events and engagement activities — Community engagement and work with outreach groups 20. RDA’s are committed to Leitch but as they encounter the complexities of productivity, growth and learning in their particular regions they, like NIACE, have identified that a strategy solely focused on qualification gain is too rigid for purpose.
121 DCSF and DIUS (2007) LSC Grant Letter: 2008–09, London. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 235
21. NIACE would welcome the opportunity to elaborate on any of the themes covered in this paper and looks forward to the opportunity of contribting further to discussions. April 2008
Memorandum 42
Submission from Birkbeck College, University of London 1. In the Government’s policy paper World Class Skills or the Leitch Report it is argued that 40% of adults need to be to be qualified to level 4 and above by 2020. This is equivalent to an extra 5.5 million attainments, or 450,000 a year. This expansion cannot be achieved by the expansion of full-time undergraduate provision because the number of 18-year-olds will decline by more than 100,000 up to 2020. and 70% of our 2020 workforce is in employment now. To improve the skills of the adult workforce it will be necessary to provide a significant increase of part-time provision and on working with mature students. 2. In the United Kingdom part-time higher education is a significant element in the continuing growth of the sector and plays a central role in not only meeting Government objectives such as the extension of higher-level skills it also meets key objectives such as widening participation, and lifelong learning. It will continue to do so, if properly supported. In particular, the specialist part-time higher education institutions, Birkbeck, University of London and the Open University, need to have suYcient support if they are to continue to meet the needs of part-time learners and especially the needs of employers and their employees by providing employer-based provision. Part-time students benefit from a wide range of flexible academic provision that has been developed by higher education institutions in response to their needs. Students can study at their own pace, which means that some study at very low intensity over a long period of time whilst others study at nearly full-time levels. Part-time higher education is part of lifelong learning: it is the first experience of higher education for many mature students, and it also forms part of a continuous updating in skills and knowledge for those who already have a degree. 3. In 2003–04 London higher education institutions enrolled 144,000 part-time students—17% of all part- time Higher Education (HE) students nationally. London Higher commissioned research into part-time study in London and into London employers’ attitudes towards part-time study which was funded with London Development Agency support. The main findings from this research showed that, “firstly, few employers have approached HEIs and secondly, Government subsidies for part-time courses would make employers more willing to encourage part-time study amongst employees, however few employers are aware of subsidies already made available by the Government”. We look forward to the London Higher supported research being done by Grant Thornton into the specific labour market need of employers in London. 4. Government must re-examine public support for part-time students if part-time higher education is to meet the demands of the Leitch Report. Part-time undergraduate study cannot be seen as an adjunct to full- time study or as an alternative. In too many universities part-time provision means that part-time students simply fit into the existing full-time provision taking place during working hours. For many part-time students the alternative would not be full-time study but not studying at all. There is potential fragility in the part-time market and some evidence of price sensitivity. A minority of part-time students currently benefit fully from the public support that is available, and many report that costs are higher than the support available. It is important that detailed work takes place to ascertain the costs incurred by part-time students. Also, students studying for less than 50% should not be excluded from government funding? Many employers working in partnership with higher education institutions begin partnerships by providing their employers “bite-size chunks of learning which usually adds up to 25% of a full-time programme of study. And would the higher-level skills agenda be better served if some students who already have a higher education qualification were no longer excluded from support? Finally, the review of the impact of variable tuition fees should consider the implications for all students, not just full-time undergraduates. 5. The recent decision to not fund higher education institutions for ELQ students undermines rather than supports the Leitch Report recommendations, as learners will be unable to take an equivalent or lower qualification aimed at vocational development. The policy fails to recognise that adults need to re-skill as well as upskill in order to maintain employability in changing labour markets. As a result, the knowledge economy will suVer rather than develop. There is a very high possibility that graduates who would otherwise engage with university and continuing education/lifelong learning led professional development will no longer be able to aVord to do so, diminishing the national pool of skills for the economy. Furthermore, it is unhelpful for the economic development of the country that those taking first degrees are expected to predict future labour market needs for the duration of their working lives, nor equitable that citizens are now being informed retrospectively that they can no longer re-skill. It is essential for the development of the knowledge economy that re-skilling is both supported and actively encouraged. The ELQ policy directly contradicts its own lifelong learning policies and the wider contribution of learning, including benefits to individuals and society as well as the economy as outlined in The Learning Age. The contribution of Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 236 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
continuing education and lifelong learning departments in universities in helping adults to develop skills for the workplace will be greatly eVected by the ELQ decision and some of these departments may be forced to close. 6. The expansion of part-time higher education will involve more engagement with the world of work, collaborating with employers; it means a greater focus on the vocational relevance of qualifications; a greater emphasis on continuous professional development; and more emphasis on employability skills, including skills learned through both work based learning and community based learning. In addition to funding to enable higher education institutions to engage more eVectively with employers more support will be needed to enable academic to provide this type of learning. For many traditional students placements, internships, volunteering and community based learning provide an essential form of experiential learning for employability. In addition this type of experience based learning is essential for flexible learning for those in employment and learning that will more then conventional training enable them to more fully develop higher skills for eVective performance. 7. Higher education has to involve employers much more in partnership working power in the university world. It means enabling employees as learners to gain “economically valuable skills”. This will mean not just working with employers as consumers of higher skills training but also their involvement in curriculum development. Getting employees to embrace higher skills education in any great numbers, however, also depends on such culture change within the private sector as well as the public and voluntary and community sectors who are also major employers. 8. While the Leitch Agenda is aimed primarily at the private sector it should also be recognised that higher education institutions significantly work with employers in the public sector and the voluntary and community sector, These proposals undermine rather than support the recent government report from the OYce of the Third Sector (2007) and also the 2008 report of the Commission on the future of Volunteering, which argue for an expanded role and significant workforce development for both paid and unpaid workers in the third sector. This important partnership working with employers in these sectors should be fully supported by the Government. 9. In London the five Lifelong Learning Networks are beginning to play a key role in enabling vocational progression from level 2 and level 3 based in Further Educatiion Institutions and some schools into higher education. They can also play an essential role in working with further education and other 16–19 providers to enable learners doing the new diplomas to progress to higher education. Many of those in employment will need extensive support if through employer based learning they are given the opportunity through part- time learning to progress to higher education and achieve level 4 higher skills.
10. Key conclusions: A. The Government must review its support for higher education institutions that provide substantially or part-time higher education if they are to meet the demand for part-time study for employees to achieve higher skills. B. The Government must also review the support it provides part-time students, including providing support for students who do 25% of a full-time programme, to enable them to engage in bite-size learning which meets the needs of employers. C. The Government must more fully analyse the impact of its recent decision to not fund higher education institutions for ELQ students on the “Leitch” agenda. The recent decision to not fund higher education institutions for ELQ students undermines rather than supports the Leitch Report recommendations, as learners will be unable to take an equivalent or lower qualification aimed at vocational development. The policy fails to recognise that adults need to re-skill as well as upskill in order to maintain employability in changing labour markets D. Higher Education institutions need to involve employers as partners in curriculum development and support needs to be provided to enable higher education institutions to more fully engage with employers and to provide work based learning and community based learning. This result in a diYcult but important transformation of the culture of higher education. E. Employers will need to work more with higher education institutions in not only the private sector but also the public and voluntary and community sectors. More research will be needed to ensure that the new co-sponsored by employer-based curriculum provided by higher education institutions, in partnership with employers, best meets the needs not only of employers but also employees in terms of more long term employability and the more long term economic needs of the country. F. Higher Education Institutions will need to rethink the role of work-based learning and community based learning as part of the curriculum of higher education if they are to not only meet the needs of employers but to also enable more transformative development of higher skills by learners in employment. The importance of employer based provision in higher education in partnership with the public sector and the voluntary and community sector in addition to the private sector should be recognised. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 237
G. The contribution of Lifelong Learning Networks in enabling vocational progression to higher education and especially the new diplomas needs to be recognised and supported. April 2008
Memorandum 43
Submission from Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK)
1. Lifelong Learning UK 1.1 Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK) is the independent employer led Sector Skills Council for community learning and development122 ; further education; higher education; work based learning; and libraries, archives and information services. 1.2 LLUK provides the strategic perspective for workforce planning and development for the sector across the four countries of the UK. 1.3 We are responsible for defining and developing the Sector Qualifications Strategy and are licensed by the UK governments to set standards for occupational competence in the delivery and support of learning. These standards are used to inform the recruitment and professional development of our employer’s staV. 1.4 LLUK leads stakeholders in the collection and collation of workforce data and provides analysis on workforce characteristics and trends to better inform future workforce planning. We also work with partners to improve the dialogue between our employers and those who look to the lifelong learning sector to meet their own skills needs. 1.5 As the Sector Skills Council for the employers in the skills system post-14 (outside schools) we have a key role, recognised by Lord Leitch and others, in ensuring appropriate and eVective principals, vice chancellors, teachers, tutors, trainers and support staV can be recruited and have access to the right training and development. We are currently working with Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and Department for Children, Schools and Families in particular on programmes to reform the workforce across the skills system and discussing how we can best support the Scottish Executive, the Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Department for Employment and Learning. Further information can be found on our website: www.lluk.org
2. Executive Summary 2.1 LLUK, as the Sector Skills Council (SSC) for the lifelong learning sector, occupies a key position in the skills landscape as the Leitch reforms are implemented. LLUK has developed good working relationships across the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils and has started implementing programmes of work that bring the supply of education and training closer to the needs of employers, such as the Catalyst Programme projects, Pass on your skills and Business Interchange. The lifelong learning sector is adapting itself to respond better to the needs of employers and students and LLUK is responding to the need for employer engagement skills through its Sector Skills Agreement (SSA), Further Education Workforce Strategy and Sector Qualifications Strategy (SQS). LLUK has been involved in various regional groups, such as the Regional Quality Improvement Partnerships and Lifelong Learning Networks. In the light of recent proposals in the white paper Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver, existing good practice must be recognised and transferred into any new regional structures that are put in place to enable the regions to deliver on Leitch.
3. The response of RDAstoLeitch and how coherent they are 3.1 Lifelong Learning UK has developed the Catalyst Programme to help Further Education providers become more responsive. Some Regional Skills Partnerships, such as the East of England Skills and Competitiveness Partnership, have responded with interest to this programme (funded by DIUS) and in particular Pass on your skills and Business Interchange. LLUK will be looking to develop relationships with Regional Development Agencies to boost investment in these Further Education retention and recruitment programmes in the regions.
122 This includes Community Development, Working with Parents, Youth Work, Development Education, Community Based Adult Learning, Family Learning and Community Education. More detail on request. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 238 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
4. What the existing regional structures of delivery are and what sub-regional strategies may be required 4.1 LLUK is a founding member of the Regional Quality Improvement Partnerships (RQIPs) in each region, hosted by the LSC and run in conjunction with QIA. The role of the RQIPs should be reviewed by the new Quality Improvement body following the merger of QIA and CEL but LLUK considers that the RQIPs in the same or revised form, should continue to meet as a consultation forum to help review and shape the oVer for local training needs and to address regional quality improvements, particularly in the more rural regions. Going forward it could be useful for this group’s role to extend to tracking quality of responsiveness to learner and employer demand. Connections could be made with the new Training Quality Standard (formerly “the New Standard”) as it is awarded to institutions, all within the context of the new Framework for Excellence. 4.2 Following the creation of the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils, the relationships between the Learning and Skills Council and Regional Development Agencies and Sector Skills Councils could be formalised in a new way. Clear communication structures and networks should be established to enable clarity of commissioning and delivery of skills at local and regional levels. 4.3 With the establishment of the new Alliance of Sector Skills Councils, existing network groups can be strengthened and new network groups could be established in the regions to ensure that the skills supply and demand sides are brought together. David Hunter (LLUK Chief Executive), during the last year, has chaired the Supply Side Reform Strategic Group (SSRSG). Successes thus far have included the development and parliamentary launch by the Secretary of State, John Denham, MP of a protocol with the Association of Colleges (AoC). This has been followed up by developing strong relations between SSCs and the Principals, designated skills champions of sectoral specialist areas. Higher Education relations at a strategic level have progressed more slowly than that in FE, though substantial improvements have been made in the last year. Similar “supply side reform” strategic groups could be developed in the regions to enable regional bodies to be more eVective in delivering on Lord Leitch’s recommendations. For example the London Skills and Employment Board is currently in the process of agreeing part funding of a “London Network” of SSCs to enable regional bodies to have one point of contact for all 25 SSCs. 4.4 The recent White Paper Raising expectations: enabling the system to deliver (DIUS/DCSF, March 2008) outlines possible new operational models for commissioning along regional and sub-regional lines regarding funding for 14–19 year olds and also the replacement of the LSC with the Skills Funding Agency. This will have a knock-on eVect on other regional structures and any new arrangements that are made will need to take this into consideration. It is particularly important that, with the new changes being made, the routes for employers to access the training they need are extremely clear. If any new sub-regional structures are created as a result of the Raising Expectations paper, these could also be mirrored for the adult skills agenda for coherence of approach (for both providers and employers).
5. The role of the Learning and Skills Council and Sector Skills Councils in this context 5.1 LLUK has undertaken a “business transformation” process to ensure that the organisation can meet the requirements of the Leitch agenda. This commenced in September 2007 and will continue over the coming months to ultimately improve our structure, systems, processes and performance. 5.2 LLUK is currently building on established relationships with Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and other major stakeholders through the Further Education Workforce Strategy Implementation Plan and the Sector Skills Agreement for the Lifelong Learning sector. 5.3 The Skills Pledge is a voluntary, public commitment by the leadership of a company or organisation to support all its employees to develop their basic skills, including literacy and numeracy, and work towards relevant, valuable qualifications to at least Level 2 (equivalent to 5 good GCSEs). The Skills Pledge is specifically featured within the Workforce Strategy for the Further Education Sector in England, Implementation Plan, recently released, to encourage employers to sign up. The detail of how the Skills Pledge can be taken forward and maximized by the sector will be explored and determined over the next 12 months, as stipulated in the plan. 5.4 LLUK is unique amongst the Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) as our employers teach and train individuals to work in all sectors. As SSCs move to endorsing qualifications that meet employer needs, it must be noted the collaborative approach that is required as some parts of the sector will be endorsing qualifications for other parts of the lifelong learning sector. This issue is magnified with the structural changes proposed for the LSC. It is proposed liaison with three bodies, instead of one, at regional level adding to the stakeholders involved in the demand led agenda. Ensuring that “no provider is left behind” as a result of the move from planning to demand-led skills and training was identified as a key issue for the lifelong learning workforce in LLUK’s Sector Skills Agreement (SSA). Consequently, one of the 10 skills solutions proposed in the SSA is around introducing measures to ensure providers are supported to become more demand-led. LLUK is currently developing actions with stakeholders to address this need. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 239
5.5 As part of the SSA research, LLUK undertook a parallel project called the Impact Review—a review of the impact of the other 24 SSAs on the lifelong learning workforce. This research provided a series of common themes that can be a basis for collaborative action between LLUK and the other SSCs. LLUK is currently formulating a plan for taking this work forwards and will be keen to involve the LSC in this work. 5.6 A clear example of the Leitch reforms being put into practice is through LLUK’s Catalyst Programme projects (which responded to needs identified through the Impact Review of SSAs) “Pass on your skills” and “Business Interchange”. These projects aim, respectively, to recruit skilled individuals to be tutors in the FE sector and provide placements in industry for current FE tutors to update their skills and knowledge for modern business needs. Both of these projects are improving links between the FE sector and employers and have involved collaboration between LLUK and SSCs.
6. The respective roles of the further education and higher education sectors in delivering a region-based agenda for Leitch and their coordination with one another 6.1 Lifelong Learning Networks could be utilised to boost the role of Further Education and Higher Education in delivering Leitch in the regions. The networks are at diVerent stages of development but do provide a structure through which to coordinate activity. The funding for these networks needs to be continued to ensure sustainability. 6.2 It is important to note that some of the lifelong learning sector operates in a regional context with employers, for example Further Education and Community Learning, but others operate nationally and/ or internationally—some Further Education Colleges deliver cross-region, for example Newcastle College, and Higher Education regionally, nationally and internationally. Priorities for providers may vary depending on their student make up—for example, some universities may regard recruitment of international students as a higher priority than regional engagement.
7. The impact on students of these initiatives, particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning
7.1 More demand-led provision should provide students with better career prospects as the courses they are undertaking are endorsed by industry (through SSCs). However, there still needs to be space for student choice as well. Students are becoming more demanding as increasingly they are required to pay for their courses, particularly in Higher Education. Measures need to be in place to enable students to study what they want to study—which may not always be directly endorsed by an employer/SSC. This has implications for the trial of Skills Accounts from autumn 2008. It is important that as Leitch is implemented, the learner remains at the centre of policy and planning April 2008
Memorandum 44
Submission from the Association for Science Education The Association for Science Education welcomes the opportunity to respond to the House of Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee inquiry into Implementing Skills and Training Policies. The response does not include any comments on the science teaching profession as such, but picks up the issues related principally to technicians who are supporting practical work in science in schools and colleges, working typically at levels 2 or 3, and attempts to highlight areas of concern that ASE wishes to raise to include in its response to the House of Commons Innovation, Universities and Skills Committee inquiry into how responses to the agenda set out in the Leitch Report will aVect the broader structures of further education (FE), higher education (HE) and lifelong learning. We have grouped our response as requested to providing evidence on: — the responses of RDAs to Leitch and how coherent and structured these are; — what the existing regional structures of delivery are and what sub-regional strategies may be required; — the role of the Learning and Skills Council and Sector Skills Councils in this context; — the respective roles of the further education and higher education sectors in delivering a region- based agenda for Leitch and their coordination with one other; and — the impact on students of these initiatives, particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 240 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
There is also a short commentary on the emerging role of Teaching Assistants (TA) who operate at level 2 & 3 and support science teachers and Higher Level Teaching Assistants (HLTA). There is also a discussion of the involvement of other bodies such QCA, TDA and the SWDB.
Key Messages 1. The importance and role of the technician in supporting a science department to deliver an exciting, relevant practically based course cannot be underestimated. Technicians should have a clear job description linked to a national career structure, pay scale and continuing professional development. 2. The LATA NVQ underpins the career structure supported by over 20 organisations, including ASE, RSC, IoB and IoP. The key issue for technicians at levels 2 & 3 is typically not about access to training, but access to funding and access to assessment. While the GATSBY supported virtual national assessment centre Techcen and its associated e-portfolio, has addressed the latter issue, core funding beyond 2008 and access by individual technicians to funding through the LSC are still major sources of frustration. The changes in priorities identified by LSC both locally and nationally over the three year pilot period is also an issue. 3. The Sector Skills Council for Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies (SEMTA) has had little impact in terms of promoting the LATA NVQ to schools and colleges. 4. For technicians working in schools, the role of the Teaching & Development Agency (TDA) in developing a Sector Qualification Strategy for School Support StaV (SQS for SSS) and the Support Work in Schools (SWiS) qualification only add to the confusion. The overlap between technicians and TA/HLTA supporting school science teachers is also an issue. ASE would be happy to explore some of these issues in more detail if requested to do so. More detail is given in the background paper attached to this short response. Prepared by: John Lawrence, on behalf of The Association for Science Education In any response it is understood that ASE has an interest in the virtual national technicians assessment centre known as techcen which was supported over a 3 year period by a Gatsby grant, and is linked to PAAVQSET as the awarding body, as techcen is an approved centre for the award of the LATA NVQ. In addition, the TDA has agreed to support ASE and techcen by means of a grant in 2007—2008 to encourage and enable more science technicians to undertake the LATA NVQ.
Brief Comments from ASE
Q1 the responses of RDAs to Leitch and how coherent and structured these are; No particular commentary.
Q2. what the existing regional structures of delivery are and what sub-regional strategies may be required; In relation to the delivery of training through regions, we understand that as far as technicians in schools and colleges are concerned there are probably a suYcient number of providers (CLEAPSS, Science Learning Centres, ASE INSET Services 123 and others) to support science technicians. In Scotland, training has been funded by the Scottish OYce through SSERC on a diVerent model to that in the rest of the UK. “There appears to be no real career structure to the job. Although appreciated by the science staV, no recognition is given for length of service or commitment to the school, by senior management. At this school all technicians are on the same pay scale point regardless of length of service or relevant qualification”—Survey of science technicians in schools and colleges, 2001 The issues about the need for clear job descriptions and career structure have already been made, for example in the ASE response 124 to the 2006 House of Lords Select Committee on Science Teaching in Schools inquiry. The two key recommendations were: — The recommendation is that technicians have a clear job description linked to a national career structure, pay scale and continuing professional development. — There should be a nationally agreed career structure for science technicians working in schools The key issues for science technicians is about access to centres for the assessment for the LATA NVQ. This is largely because of relatively low numbers making it non viable for most FE/HE institutions to oVer the NVQ.
123 For example, see http://www.ase.org.uk/htm/inset courses.pdf 124 See http://www.ase.org.uk/htm/homepage/notes news/june-06/lords.pdf Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 241
The establishment of a virtual national technician”s assessment centre known as techcen alongside the development of a sophisticated e-portfolio, was the solution developed by ASE in partnership with the D&T Association, and funded principally by GATSBY. This was recognised in the Science Teaching in Schools Report with Evidence which was published November 2006 by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology. This noted: A motivated and well-trained supply of technicians is an essential component of eVective science teaching. We therefore wholeheartedly endorse the ASE”s proposed career structure for technicians, the new NVQ and the virtual assessment centre. We recommend these proposals to the Government, and in addition invite them to consider whether the career structure could be linked to advisory salary scales, in an attempt to increase the almost universally low level of pay for technicians.
Q3 the role of the Learning and Skills Council and Sector Skills Councils in this context;
In relation to school technicians, the answer is that there has been little overt support from The Sector Skills Council for Science, Engineering & Manufacturing Technologies (SEMTA) as a SSC that translates into an impact in schools and colleges, in terms of promotion and funding. “I am aware of the new S/NVQ laboratory technician working in education but have tried to get funding through the school with no success. This is a common problem within education—lack of funds for non—teaching staV training.”—Survey of science technicians in schools and colleges, 2001
Funding is the other major issue. The frustration with LSC has been access to funding at a local rather than national basis. The ASE oVering and the e-portfolio as such is not a “course” in LSC terms. In addition, while an FE college can attract a grant, a national centre such as Techcen, cannot access such funding. The LSC priorities for each of the three years of the project have changed, making it much more diYcult for technicians and their managers to access funding.
A number of other bodies have an impact on technicians is also an issue: TDA, SWDB and QCA. If anything, with the fact that the TDA looking at a Sector Qualification Strategy for School Support StaV (SQS for SSS) means that for school laboratory technicians, the situation is even more confusing. Added to this is the emerging School Workforce in Schools (SWiS) qualification and the review of Qualification and Curriculum Framework (QCF) by the QCA, the messages going into schools are not clear.
Q4. the respective roles of the further education and higher education sectors in delivering a region-based agenda for Leitch and their coordination with one other;
The key issue here is funding. Technicians in schools and those who manage them, find it diYcult to access funding streams.
Even the recent funding by the TDA for 2007–08 of some £4,637,126 for the Support Work in Schools (SWiS) qualification is very little when each individual Local Authorities (LA) is considered and spread across the whole school support workforce in that LA.
Q5. The impact on students of these initiatives, particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning. “After being promised training at my interview, it”s taken over 2 years of continual reminders to my head of section before actually being given permission to attend one [course]. It seems that some LEAs do not consider technician training particularly important and it shows an ignorance and lack of respect that others in education have for school science technicians and the job they do within the science department/faculty.”—Survey of science technicians in schools and colleges, 2001
The key issue here is that LSC funding is often targeted at under25”s whereas most technicians are much older than this In terms of continuation training, the SWiS qualification may be an impediment to taking the full level 2 or 3 NVQ. Further, for those under 25, the apprenticeship is not seen as an attractive route nor indeed is the “career” valued.
Age is an issue here and typically schools are not recruiting younger technicians. The route to Senior Technician or perhaps HLTA is a possibility, yet in many schools this would mean two separate contracts and pay scales. April 2008 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 242 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Annex
ASE Working with Science Technicians 1990–2008
Background ASE represents the professional interests of teachers of science and technicians. ASE has some 2000 technician members out of a membership of some 15000, with a Technicians Committee working on behalf of technicians. In 1990 the Association for Science Education (ASE) published Technical support for School Science and in 1994 ASE undertook a 5% sample of all schools leading to the publication School Technicians: an invaluable asset. In 1995 ASE was contracted by DFEE to develop occupational standards for laboratory technicians. This was the original Laboratory Technicians Working in Education NVQ. ASE also contributed to an EU Leonardo da Vinci Programme to develop a training programme for a European Environmental and Work Safety Technician involving Italy, Portugal and Hungary. In 2001, this was followed by the Survey of Science Technicians in schools and colleges (Royal Society/ ASE). Completed questionnaires were received from 1917 schols and from 5026 individual technicians. In 2002 Supporting success: science technicians in schools and colleges (Royal Society/ASE). The recommendations called for substantial investment by the Government, both to recruit more technicians and to develop an appropriate career structure and training for existing staV. Subsequently, ASE was involved with the sector skills council SEMTA, to contribute to and develop the Laboratory and Associated Technical Activities (LATA) NVQ, replacing the earlier NVQ Laboratory Technicians working in Education. This earlier qualification was only oVered only at levels 2 & 3, whereas the LATA was for levels 1–4 and included an education and an industry route. ASE presented a report to DfES in June 2003 Supporting success: developing a career structure for science technicians in schools an colleges. As a result of this, ASE was encouraged to explore the role of technicians working in Design & Technology, and discussions with the D&T Association took place. In 2004 as a direct outcome of the report to DFES, a leaflet A Career Structure for Science Technicians in Schools and Colleges was produced and sent to all schools in England, Wales and N Ireland. Following discussions between GATSBY, ASE and the D&T Association, the techcen project was developed to support technicians by establishing a national assessment centre for technicians. This was seen as a necessary step to break the cycle of the very real problem that there were very few centres oVering the qualification and hence making this easier by establishing a national assessment centre. There was also the aim to promote the career structure for technicians working in science and D&T, which was underpinned by the 4-level LATA NVQ. The key issues for science technicians and teaching assistants were highlighted in the recent submission by ASE in June 2006 to the House of Lords Select Committee on Science Teaching in Schools. The full text of the ASE submission can be accessed at the following URL and the relevant sections related to science technicians are included here as annex to this response125. In November 2006 the Science Teaching in Schools Report with Evidence was published by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology. This noted: A motivated and well-trained supply of technicians is an essential component of eVective science teaching. We therefore wholeheartedly endorse the ASE”s proposed career structure for technicians, the new NVQ and the virtual assessment centre. We recommend these proposals to the Government, and in addition invite them to consider whether the career structure could be linked to advisory salary scales, in an attempt to increase the almost universally low level of pay for technicians. The techcen project is noted in the School Workforce Development Board (SWDB) report “Developing People to Support Learning—a skills strategy for the wider school workforce 2006–9” as “a pilot to provide flexible training and assessment for science and design and technology technicians”. The project supports all three of the strategic objectives outlined in the report. These are to: — Support schools to develop new ways of training and deploying their support staV — Create a framework of standards and qualifications to enable schools to develop the potential of all support staV — Extend training opportunities to meet the development needs of support staV Techcen has also contributed to the TDA commissioned report Assessing Current Provision and Use of Qualification.
125 http://www.ase.org.uk/htm/homepage/notes news/june-06/lords.pdf Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 243
Techcen has oVered to work with the TDA and has continued to explore the contribution that technicians in science and D&T can make to teaching and learning in the laboratory or workshop. We have also made contact with John Ryalls, Project Leader of the Sector Skills Council for Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies (SEMTA) Standards Team about the review of qualifications.
A brief description of techcen TECHCEN—technicians national assessment centre an e-portfolio and assessment tool for science and D&T technicians undertaking the LATA NVQ (Laboratory and Associated Technical Activities National Vocational Qualification). A virtual centre “techcen”—a technicians national assessment centre, has been created to enable access to the Laboratory and Associated Technical Activities (LATA) NVQ qualification which underpins the 4 level career structure: Assistant Technician, Technician, Senior Technician and Team Leader Technician. This career structure has been publicized in a leaflet A Career Structure for Science Technicians in Schools and Colleges which was distributed to all schools in England, Wales and N Ireland, addressed to the Head teacher, Head of Science, Chair of Governors and the Senior Technician. This was endorsed by the Royal Society and CLEAPSS School Science Service and nearly 20 other organizations (www.ase.org.uk/ careerstructure.php). techcen is currently supporting the LATA award at levels 2 and 3.The qualification is aimed at the needs of both D&T and Science technicians. It is assessed via a portfolio of evidence that technicians compile while completing their normal duties. One of techcen’s aims is to develop online assessment methods, which simplify the qualification process and enable technicians to take responsibility for their own professional development. The virtual centre enables them to engage with the qualification without having to regularly attend sessions away from the workplace.
Summary of candidate cohorts to date One hundred and five of technicians were recruited into the cohort commencing September 2005. One hundred and thirty four technicians were recruited for the cohort commencing September 2006. This included 27 of the first cohort transferring from Level 2 to Level 3. Some 23 trained assessors have now been recruited to support Techcen, including a further 20 trainee assessors across the country. 56 candidates from cohort 1 have achieved the Laboratory and Associated Technical Activities (LATA) NVQ at level 2. This represents a 53% success rate for cohort 1 to date, with illness, moving jobs, workload or changing roles within the school being cited as reasons for dropping out. Seven assessors have now gained their A1 award through Techcen. Statistics from the US Corporate University Exchange, based on a study of some 4148 online learners, quote drop oV rates as high as 70%. Typical completion rates for some Open University (OU) short courses are between 50–60% (but can be as low as 30%). The 2005 cohort completion rate (to date) currently stands at 53%, but techcen expects that by the end of April 2008, when the majority of the remaining candidates will complete, this will be nearer to 60%. The initiative is not in the first instance designed to train technicians but helps them identify areas for personal development as they undertake the qualification. Training needs can then often be met within the technician”s workplace, provided by colleagues or by attending short courses run through ASE, the D&T Association and can include for science courses run by other organizations such as the CLEAPSS School Science Service or the Science Learning Centres (SLC).
Techcen Website The basic functionality that Phase 1 delivered included: — Login & Roles—The tool is for accepted users only and maintains private sections for candidates. In addition, diVerent functionality is available for a variety of roles — Menu bar—Giving the users access to the various sections of the tool including login. This should be present at the top of each page — User Selection—Allows users with access to more than one candidate to select which candidate they currently wish to view — Evidence—A private collection of evidence files demonstrating the knowledge and skill of a candidate — Tracking—A spreadsheet available for download indicating the candidate’s progress. This would be updated by the assessor and internal verifier. Additionally, assessors should be able to access a personal tracking sheet for recording their own progress Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 244 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
— Communication—Participants, assessors, internal and external verifiers should be able to communicate via a messaging tool and view previous messages (and associated evidence if applicable) — User management—Allows administrators to edit users’ details and assessors to view candidates’ details
Phase 2 of the website The advanced functionality that was introduced in phase 2 is highlighted below. — Candidates will be able to manage their NVQ — Candidates will be able to plan their activity on the NVQ & choose methods of assessment — Candidates can check their progress by unit and by activity — Candidates can view a summary of their activity — Candidates can manage their evidence and post messages to assessors — Assessors can assess the evidence through the site — Both internal verifiers and assessors can get an overview of their progress — Administrators can set up new NVQ’s using the system — Administrators can view the progress of all candidates on a per unit basis — Administrators can also view the progress of candidates at a statement level — Candidates will now have a new look homepage
Phase 3 In phase 3 (2007–2008) we hope to further improve the functionality of the website in supporting the work of Internal Verifiers (IV) and External Assessors. Note the site also allows the development of individuals wanting to do the A1 or V1 awards. The Phase2 website was entered for the BETT Awards 2008 and was shortlisted for the award in January 2008. The phase 2 site can be accessed at: www.techcen.org.uk. Techcen continues to believe that the methodology pioneered by the project is unique. The fact it is written in open source code, means it should be transferable to other NVQs. The flexibility of the system doesn”t means it is just confined to NVQ programmes. Other programmes such as Modern Apprenticeship schemes can be added into the system without any structural changes. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 245
In November 2008, a presentation on the eVectiveness of the approach and advantages oVered by online provision was be presented to the PAAVQSET National conference and an article written in PAAVQSET Working Together Issue 3 Summer 2007 called E-portfolios-Putting the e in NVQs. Science and D&T Technicians do it first! The nature of the resource centre means that, after an initial face-to-face registration, technicians can engage from any online portal. Support can be provided remotely and technicians can work on their NVQ any time, anywhere (EiS June2007). Techcen was the first centre to allow candidates to build their portfolios on line which potentially caused a conflict with the existing code of practice (section 43) that requires assessors and candidates to provide a written declaration that the candidate evidence is authentic. The Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA) has given approval to the way the online system manages the security around what is described as the Declaration of Validation when a candidate uploads evidence to their portfolio. This is a significant step forward in the validation process. Techcen has been showcased at both ASE and DATA conferences, including the national D&T show held at the NEC. Both Education in Science (ASE) and D&T News (DATA) publications feature regular articles on Techcen. We note in the words of the candidates themselves the following (June 2007 EiS): The Techcen NVQ acted as a wake-up call. You tend to become too comfortable with the way you do things. The NVQ through the ASE and DATA has allowed me to thoroughly examine my role and to network with colleagues in the local area. With the process being online, I have also improved my IT skills, and this fits well with the increased use of ICT in our science department. I have recently completed the level 2 NVQ Award through Techcen and I feel that my confidence has grown and I have now got a recognised qualification. The Techcen team and, especially, the assessor supported me all the way through the process. I am now working toward my level 3 Award. We embarked upon this innovative NVQ project to allow educational assessment support to technicians who want to engage with further qualifications, but are limited by their location. Prior to Techcen, access was only possible if a suYcient number of colleagues in their area wanted to embark on the programme. With the Techcen virtual centre, location is not an issue. (EiS June 2007)
Some recent articles published by ASE and the D&T Association are highlighted below: — Putting the e in NVQs ASE EiS, June 2007. — Higher level support in the science laboratory ASE EiS June 2007. — Technicians’ National assessment Centre D&T News Issue 31 — Techcen Development of Techcen for Technicians D&T News Issue 32 — Techcen Suporting D&T Technicians D&T News Issue 33 — Techcen the Assessment Centre for D&T and Science Technicians Phase 2 D&T News Issue 34 — Techcen D&T and Science technician do it first! D&T News Issue 35 — Techcen pilot nears completion D&T News Issue 36
More on LSC funding issues In 2005–6 The skills we need (LSC Our Annual Statement of Priorities, December 2004) we note: “We will prioritise skills development—especially literacy and numeracy, level 2 qualifications and apprenticeships—that target people employed […] in local authorities and schools and colleges.” On this basis we attracted funding (£50k) from Coventry LSC to support level 2 and help develop the e- portfolio. Since then, the priorities for 06–07 and 07–08 [LSC Our Annual Statement of Priorities: Transforming learning and skills (November 2005) and Raising our game (October 2006)] are much more focused on those who do not have any qualifications equivalent to a level 2. This precludes many technicians working in schools and colleges who often have existing qualifications. The sections on adult learning focus on level 3 entitlement for 19–25s, again not the target age group for school technicians. One last example, which might provide a real opportunity for technicians is the Apprenticeships route, but again because the age of the typical technicians means this route is again not available In discussion with one LSC we note that it focuses funding on full L2 325 guided learning hour programmes. While any technician can register with Techcen for the LATA NVQ independent of location this is not considered by them to be an NVQ “programme” and as such the response from LSC was if this is the case, there will not be funded support available, and it will be diYcult to engage the LSC regional teams in this work as this provision is not a priority for public funding support. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 246 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
More on Teacher Development Agency TDA
The Teacher Development Agency is looking at developing a Sector Qualification Strategy for the School Support StaV (SQS for SSS). In addition it has developed School Workforce in Schools (SWiS) qualification. ASE has responded to TDA on an early draft of the SQS for SSS, and the issues raised in relation to this are noted below: The Support Work in Schools (SWiS) qualification is welcomed because of the funding given to Local Authorities (LA) by the TDA for 2007–08 of some £4,637,126. However, the proportion or uptake by technical staV working in science of the SWiS qualification is unknown. Funding for the LATA NVQ at level 2–3 through LSC can be diYcult to access by technicians working in schools. LSC local and national priorities also change over time making access to funding problematic for those working in schools trying to make sense of the funding arrangements for diVerent qualifications which form part of the totality of the SQS for SSS. Currently only CACHE, C&G, EdExcel and OCR are approved to provide SWiS training. It is not understood why PAAVQSET and other providers are not able to oVer this. The SWiS qualification on its own may not be suYcient for technicians working in science laboratories, eg in areas such as H&S but also other skills which are described in some detail in the CLEAPSS guide L238 Induction and Training of Science Technicians. The LATA NVQ is still the more appropriate qualification. If the SWiS is seen as a starting point on the way to a full NVQ then that may be OK, but schools are unlikely to fund a further extension to training, believing that the SWiS is suYcient. Further background can be found in the CLEAPSS Guide L228 Technicians and their jobs. See http:// www.cleapss.org.uk/download/L228.pdf Long term there is some concern over the Qualification and Credit Framework (QCF) proposals in that GCSE and A level are not part of the QCF, the fact that Scotland is excluded from this consultation and that the position of NVQ units and the LATA NVQ etc are not clearly understood beyond 2010 are issues. We also commented about the role of TA & HLTA in relation to science and also issues to do with suYcient specific knowledge in H&S and overlap of roles in some cases with technicians: Induction training for TAs, including those working in special needs, may not be suYcient for those working in a science context (see Health and Safety Training for Teaching Assistants Working in Science in Secondary Schools Education in Science June 2004). For HLTA’s the CLEAPSS Guide L238 Health and safety induction and training of science teachers may be a more appropriate benchmark against which to measure gaps in knowledge and skills. The guidance for the science specialist HLTA is obviously of interest here, but the more detailed guidance resides in ASE and CLEAPSS publications. In TDA attempting to become a sector skills council for schools, there still remain issues about specialist training in, for example, H&S that the SWiS does not adequately address. There will remain a role for those specialist NVQs, for example the LATA, which sit with SEMTA.
HOUSE OF LORDS SELECT COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
SCIENCE TEACHING IN SCHOOLS
A SUBMISSION OF EVIDENCE FROM THE ASSOCIATION FOR SCIENCE EDUCATION
JUNE 2006
APPENDIX FIVE 105. Provision and use of laboratory technicians and teaching assistants The importance and role of the technician in supporting a science department to deliver an exciting, relevant practically based course cannot be underestimated. 106. A survey1 by the ASE and the Royal Society has yielded a unique database of information concerning the roles, responsibilities, working conditions and opinions of laboratory technicians working in secondary schools and colleges. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 247
107. There are a number of issues that arise out of the recommendations2 made in the follow up report which are described below. 108. The level of technician support for science in schools is not adequate by any of the commonly used measures to determine the number of technicians required. 2, 3 Without adequate numbers of science technicians the learning experiences of students will be impaired, raising levels of achievement will be much more diYcult, and safety in school laboratories will be compromised. The recommendation is to recruit up to 4,000 additional science technicians. 109. A clear job description for all technicians has been described and is available to all schools.3 The recommendation is that technicians have a clear job description linked to a national career structure, pay scale and continuing professional development. 110. A career structure for technicians in schools based on four levels has been published4. This is supported by over 20 organisations. There should be a nationally agreed career structure for science technicians working in schools. 111. National Occupational Standards for laboratory technicians have been developed. The Laboratory and Associated Technical Activities (LATA) National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) provides a framework in which existing skills can formally recognised, it supports a career progression pathway and encourages technicians to develop their skills throughout their careers. 112. A national assessment centre (techcen5) for technicians has been established. This is a joint project with the D&T Association, to a “virtual centre” website. This is a major initiative, funded in the first instance by Gatsby, to develop online assessment methods. This will simplify the qualification process and enable technicians to take responsibility for their own professional development. The project should be supported. 113. Registered Technician (RTech) status is being explored with the Engineering Council. Technicians in schools have a vital role to play in the provision of high quality science education. National support for Registration would support the development of a suitable career for technicians. Registration would mean demonstrating competence to perform professional work to the necessary standards and a commitment to maintain that competence, work within professional codes and participate actively within the profession. 114. An induction programme for technicians has been described. There should be a nationally recognised induction programme for technicians.
115. An induction programme for Teaching Assistants (TA) in secondary science has been described7. While this may adequately cover the first stage of induction, a more detailed programme covering science- specific aspects including health and safety training for teaching assistants has been produced by ASE8 and should be used in schools. 116. The role of the Higher Level Teaching Assistant (HLTA) in science needs to be explored. There are plans9 to deploy some 7,000 specialist maths and science HLTAs, enabling each school to have one. There should be detailed hands–on science including health and safety training if that HLTA is to contribute to practical activities in the laboratory. 117. Technicians as HLTA (Specialist & technical) Science is a practical subject, and good quality “hands-on” activities, which involve students undertaking experimentation and investigative work, add hugely to the experience of learning science. If students are to experience such work, a well trained technician service is essential. Existing science technicians might, with suitable additional training, wish to act as a specialist HLTA in the laboratory. It must be understood that if this is the case, extra technician help will be needed in the science department to compensate for lost time. 118. The profession of science technician is not attracting young recruits. The apprenticeship route is being explored, but the issues are largely about pay and conditions. Being a technician should be seen as an attractive and viable career. 119. Funding for Continuing Professional Development. While a recommendation for ring fenced funding for the CPD of science technicians was made in the original report, we are now recommending that technicians can access funds set aside for training TA”s or HLTA”s, for example. While ASE INSET Services reports on the popularity of technician courses vs. teacher courses, there is little funding, through for example, Learning Skills Council (LSC) to support the NVQ process.
120. References 1. Survey of science technicians in schools and colleges (ASE & Royal Society, 2001) 2. Supporting success: science technicians in schools and colleges (ASE & Royal Society, 2002) 3. Technicians and their jobs (CLEAPSS guide L228, 2002) 4. A career structure for science technicians in schools and colleges leaflet (ASE, 2004) 5. www.techcen.org 6. Induction and training for science technicians (CLEAPSS guide L234, 2003) 7. Induction training for teaching assistants in secondary science: science module (DfES, 2004) Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 248 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
8. Health and safety training for teaching assistants working in science in secondary schools (EiS, June 2004) 9. Developing people to support learning: a skills strategy for the wider school workforce (School Workforce Development Board, 2006)
Memorandum 45
Submission from Skillset 1. Please find below a Memorandum from Skillset, the Sector Skills Council for Creative Media. Skillset has also fed into the Alliance of SSCs combined submission, but in this document we would like to give evidence from our sector’s point of view. 2. We agree for this information to be available on the public domain and we are happy to contribute to an Oral Evidence if the Committee would like us to elaborate on our submission. 3. Skillset is the Sector Skills Council for the Creative Media industries. Jointly funded by industry and government, our job is to make sure that the UK creative media industries have the right people, with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time, so that our industries remain competitive. 4. We are responsible for the following sectors: Publishing, Television, Film, Radio, Animation, Interactive Media, Computer Games, Photo Imaging, Facilities. 5. Please note however, that the publishing sector has only recently come to our footprint. Therefore, the responses here are mainly reflecting our experience from working with the Audio Visual Industries. 6. If you need to contact us regarding any issues raised on this submission please do so via our Policy and Public AVairs Advisor.
Memorandum
Executive Summary 7. We note that the Committee’s inquiry preceded the publication of the three recent policy papers: The Machinery of Government: Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver, Prosperous Places: Taking Forward the Review of Sub-National Economic Development and Regeneration, and the high-level skills strategy, Higher Education at Work—High Skills High Value. Our response is based on the current landscape but we will be considering the changes proposed and we will continue to respond to the consultations. 8. We broadly agree with the comments made through the Alliance’s response on behalf of the all the SSCs collectivelly. The regional (sub-national) picture is not always consistent. SSCs’ role in some places is recognised and it is working very well; in other places the SSC role needs to be enhanced. 9. We also recognise that each SSC has a diVerent experience and level of engagement on a regional and local level. Which is why we felt it is useful to submit from our own sectoral perspective. 10. Skillset believes that a balanced combination of “spatial” and “sectorial” engagement is key to increase the level of skills, productivity and social justice. DiVerent regional economies require diVerent approaches but sectoral input is vital in terms of both analysing and delivering a consistent oVer. 11. Skillset over the years has worked hard and systematically to build strong partnerships with industry, public agencies and regional training provision (including Further and Higher Education). We were the first SSC to publish a Sector Skills Agreement (SSA) for all four Nations and the first to develop and produce 9 Regional Collaborative Action plans that contextualised our SSA within each English region. Below we explain how this model approach has worked and how it manages to serve both our industry and the regional economy. 12. The publication of the Leitch Review of Skills amongst a general consensus on the principle of a demand-led approach, has strengthen our position on regional level. However, as it was noted in Education and Skills Select Committee’s nineth report last year (Post-16 Skills), SSCs sometimes do not have the capacity to continue with the required level of engagement; the committee recommended that SSCs should be properly resourced. 13. It is Skillset’s view that Lord Leitch recommended the reform, relicencing and empowering of SSCs and that the current level of resources that we have available is not enough to support the empowerment that will eVectively add value to the regional/sectorial interface. We believe that we bring focus and added value to learning provision which brings added value to the learner. We have worked hard to invest in our regional/sectorial interface and are seen at having developed good practice. However, we will, in six months time, have to cut back this investment, unless we see some greater financial commitment through DIUS to Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 249
our work. This commitment will have to be over and above what we currently have, which has not increased in line with the new role that Lord Leitch has identified for us —driving demand at the heart of the skills agenda. 14. Leitch tasked the SSCs with a clear role in delivering a demand-led agenda and economically valuable skills. We welcome the establishment of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) and its remit to support the implementation of the Leitch review of skills. However, we have noted that World Class Skills, the government’s response to the Leitch recommendations, was less clear on UKCES’ engagement with regional (sub-national) settings like the local Employment and Skills Board (ESB). Unlike Leitch’s recommendations, the Commission in England will support but not licence ESBs. 15. We feel that more consideration needs to be given to this and welcome the Committee’s Inquiry. 16. We have also noted that the recently published DCMS/BERR Creative Britain/ Creative Economy strategy paper supports a coordinated framework of delivery for our industries that combine regional economic development plans with SSCs’ regional action plans. The Committtee asked:
Evidence on the responses of RDAs to Leitch and how coherent and structured these are.
What the existing regional structures of delivery are and what sub-regional strategies may be required. 17. Skillset has managed over the years to build relationships with the RDAs as well as the regional structure of the LSCs. Although some RDAs have demonstrated great interest and flexibility in responding to the Leitch targets, we are concerned about consistency. It is also worth mentioning that RDAs often find themselves in competition with each other, as they try to develop the regional economies contained only within the administrative borders of their regions. A possible exception to this is the development of the Northern Way. 18. As we mentioned above, Skillset developed the Regional Collaborative Action Plans for each English region, following the publication of our SSA. These plans outline specific priorities, as identified through research and a consultative process with the key public agencies and industry, and develops the required actions and, crucially, agrees responsibility for these actions. 19. The Regional Collaborative Action Plan approach has yielded a lot of positive outcomes in some regions; below are examples from London, South East and North West. 20. In the region of London with the co-ordinated approach of the London Skills and Employment Board and the creative industries as a priority sector for the regional economy, we have been able to— amongst other things: — Provide support for our industries to engage with the 14–19 school consortia that will pilot the Creative and Media Diploma; — Trained careers advisors and Train to Gain brokers to access sector specific Labour Market Information for our sector; — Unlocked funding through ESF to support both employees and freelancers to upgrade their specialists skills; — Developed a programme that responds to the needs of the industries in preparation for the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics Games; 21. Similalry in the South East, our approach has helped to: — Develop and pilot a new apprenticeship framework for QA Testing in Computer Games; — Supported Interactive Media and Computer Games SMEs with growth potential to access specialist business advice and mentoring; — Unlock investment from industry and public agencies to support an innovative training programme for new entrants in the radio industry. 22. In the North West, the action plan has attracted £2.8 million worth of investement from public and private sector that will go towards supporting schemes like: — Rolling out of the Media Apprenticeships scheme (currently in pilot stage) — A proposed National Centre for Excellence for Computer Games — Specialist Training courses for media professionals and new entrants delivered through the North West Vision and Media (Regional Screen Agency). The above schemes will support the development of mediacity:uk and the BBC relocation to Salford. 23. In most cases, the Regional Collaborative action plans have helped public agencies to maximise the impact of their investment by focusing funding to where is needed most. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 250 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
24. But our experience is patchy. For instance, even though we have an oYce and a post in Yorkshire, we have found it diYcult to achieve a clear strategic recognition by the RDA of our role or the added value that we can bring. We trust, however, that the establishment of Skillset North—an industry-led partnership over the regions of North West, North East and Yorkshire—will provide an industry-led strategic framework of sector development across the North of England and, we hope, will harness the commitment of all parties to work in a co-ordinated way across the North.
The role of the Learning and Skills Council and the Sector Skills Councils in this context. 25. We welcome the Machinery of Government: Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver proposals for a funding agency, rather than a planing and funding agency (current position with LSC). 26. However, we are not yet convinced that the proposed changes will trully simplify the system—we fear that they may result in further compartmentalisation of funding. Since the policy is still in consultative stage, we will input directly to DIUS. 27. The Train to Gain system, as noted in the in Education and Skills Select Committee’s nineth report last year (Past-16 Skills), needs more fine tuning if it is to deliver consistent support to our industries. We have worked in some of the regions to increase the brokers’ understanding of our sector. From our experience, the Train to Gain oVer is not consistent across the regions—an issue that we have been continuously debating with National LSC. 28. As a result, Skillset is developing a sector compact with the National LSC which will increase co- ordination within the brokerage service (Train to Gain) and our sector, advise and monitor demand for skills and training (particularly on the management and leadership strand) and signpost to appropriate quality provision. We hope that our industry’s demand will drive the public funding provision to be more flexible, rather than pre-occupied with achieving their own targets. 29. In the Machinery of Government: Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver, it is proposed that the Train to Gain service will move from the LSC to the responsibilities of thr RDAs under their simplified business support service. We are not sure of how our work so far with Train to Gain will be transferred and whether we will need to renegotiate a revised sector compact. We hope that this issue will be resolved in a consistent way across the RDAs. 30. Particulalry for our sector, we have noted that Commitment 13 of the DCMS/BERR Creative Britain /Creative Economy strategy paper is about establishing a network of regional beacons for business support for the creative industries in the South West, South East, North West, North East and West Midlands; we will be looking forward to working with them.
The respective roles of the further and higher education sectors in delivering a region-based agenda for Leitch and their co-ordination with one other. 31. Our industries attract a highly qualified workforce. Across all sectors in Skillset’s scope the entry level norm is level 4126 and 24% of the workforce hold a postgraduate qualification. Our industries need high level skills and they rely on FE and HE for their provision (both at entry level and for Continuous Professional Development). 32. In order to meet their needs, the supply side needs to be more responsive. Our experience so far has identified the following barriers in making this happen: — Continuous emphasis of public funding for full qualifications—our industries are not interested in full qualifications; they favor instead bite-size learning. — Issues around the quality of training provision—combined sometimes with an inconsistent oVer of support from region to region. — A dis-jointed system of funding that does not encourage FE and HE collaboration. 33. Skillset’s work with Further and Higher Education is pioneering in bringing together partnerships of FE, HE and industry in order to address industry’s skills needs. Our work with the Skillset Media and Screen Academy Networks and the industry-approved accredited courses, enable education and industry to work together to to ensure the UK has the most talented workforce in the world for film, television, animation, interactive media and computer games both now and in the future. — The Skillset Media Academies form a network of colleges and universities across the UK which are centres of excellence in television and interactive media, selected by an industry-led panel. — The Skillset Screen Academies are institutions which the UK film industry has identified as those oVering the highest quality of skills training for film. — Working with industry, Skillset also accredits practice–based courses in FE and HE that most eVectively provide learners with the skills and knowledge that employers need.
126 Sixty-nine percent of people working in the media have a degree, compared to 16% of the UK workforce as a whole. Skillset Workforce Survey 2005. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 251
34. All these institutions also receive funding through HEFCE and the LSC. However, the level of support available is also subject to regional sensibilities—this is why a consistent regional oVer is of great importance for our industries. 35. The recently published Higher Education at Work—High Skills High Value recognises the importance of high level skills within the economic context and advises HEIs to work with SSCs, RDAs and local employers “to develop the higher level skills that a particular business needs in a particular sector in a particular place.” We agree and we would like to see the funding infrastructure also set up in order to serve such purpose. 36. The paper, currently in consultation, also makes proposals that will help move funding in a demand- led direction: brokering of higher level skills training into businesses through Train to Gain; flexibility in training delivery to suit business needs; a co-purchasing role for SSCs in expanding employer co-funded places. We are encouraged by the recognition that SSCs and their SSAs will have strategic input in the planning of provision. 37. The Higher Level Skills Pathfinders (HLSPs) is also a step towards HE meeting industry needs. Skillset has been involved in the HLSP in North West and South West; having an SSC involvement has added value to these grouping of HEIs in a local area to create sustainable partnerships and channel funding in a strategic way.
The impact on students of these initiatives, particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning.
38. Most of our initiatives develop through time and it is probably too early a stage to validate impact. However, the examples below, may provide the Committee with a short insight on the quality of experience for the learners. 39. Examples from Screen Academy network: — Trailblazers: this initiative, piloted for the first time in Edinburgh Film Festival 2007, showcases selected students’ work and promotes their short films in international industry events. 17 filmmakers-students of the Skillset Screen Academy network are currently involved in Trailblazers and their work is set to be shown next at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. — Skillset 100: a database resource of 100 top industry professionals committed to sharing their knowledge and expertise through master classes, workshops and guest lectures. — RawStock (http://www.rawstock.co.uk/): this is an online community providing a creative network exclusively for Teachers and Students at a college or university that is a member of the Skillset Screen Academy Network. The website allows them to find out about news, events and information relevant to their work, as well as post their work online for support or simply to showcase. — 35mm project: This was a practical scheme run in summer 2001 by the Skillset Screen Academy at London College of Communcations and Ealing Institute of Media. The students were asked to submit studio-based scripts with a challenging set-build. Overseen by industry mentors, the students had to build the sets entirely from scratch at Elstree Studios. Following the end of their training, most of the participants went straight into employment at Pinewood.
Appendix 40. Skillset Screen Academy Network: In 2005 we launched the network of Skillset Screen Academies. The Skillset Screen Academy Network is a UK-wide group of “Centres of Excellence” in film education and training. These institutions were identified by the UK film industry as those already oVering the highest quality of skills training but which need further support to continue to serve industry need. Their aim is to ensure the UK has the most talented and skilled workforce in the world, both now and in the future. 41. The Network is made up of six Skillset Screen Academies and the Skillset Film Business Academy at Cass Business School. 42. Within the Skillset Screen Academy Network all the necessary skills areas identified by the industry are covered. This includes craft and technical grades through to design and management, both at a further and higher education level. Screen Academies also oVer short courses designed to support professionals already in the industry.
43. The Skillset Screen Academy is one of the strategic initiatives identified in A Bigger Future, the Film Skills Strategy developed in collaboration with SKillset and the UK Film Council through consultation with the film industry. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 252 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
44. All the initiatives under A Bigger Future are funded by the Skillset Film Skills Fund, totalling around £10 million a year over 5 years, drawing from two main sources. The first is £6.5 million of National Lottery money, channelled via the UK Film Council and the second is the Skills Investment Fund (SIF), a film production levy. The levy is currently voluntary but following a widespread consultation with industry, the first steps were made towards progressing the levy to mandatory status, with the establishment of the Film Industry Training Board last month. From more information on the Screen Academies, please see: http:// www.skillset.org/film/training and events/screen academies/ 45. Skillset Media Academy network: This network was launched in Decemeber 2007 based on the recommendations from the TV Skills and Interactive Skills Strategies. The Skillset Media Academy Network is a national footprint of colleges and universities that work with industry in developing the new wave of media talent. The network is made up of 17 Academies, drawing together creative education partnerships from 43 colleges and universities across the UK. For more information on the Skillset Media Academy Network, please see: www.skillset.org/training/san/sma/ 46. Skillset is working with the universities and colleges to collaborate seamlessly with industry partners to develop new curricula, innovative teaching, world-class research and development, and enhanced business acumen. It is a model based on accessibility, flexibility, adaptability, integration and responsiveness to address the needs of a fast-paced, digitally-enhanced industry. 47. Skillset Course Accreditation Scheme: We also co-ordinate an indsutry aprroved kite-marking system for FE & HE course accreditation. At present accreditation of courses operates in animation, computer games and screen writing. Industry in those areas/sub-sectors identified this form of intervention as the most appropriate for industry input and support to Further and Higher Education courses, sign posting learners to quality provision. From more information on Skillset Industry Kitemarking, please see: http:// www.skillset.org/training/approvals/ 48. The following quotes are from staV and students involved in the Skillset Screen Academy network: “Skillset Screen Academy Status has genuinely helped London Film School to change the shape of its student intake. As a result of our status, we are now funded to provide bursaries to support tuition and living costs for a number of UK students who wouldn’t usually be able to aVord Film School” Ben Gibson, Director, London Film School. “The skills learned as a result of the 35mm Project have put our students in excellent stead for jobs in the industry. Four carpenters and three painters have moved straight from the 35mm project to Pinewood.” Rob Buckler, Director, Skillset Screen Academy at LCC & EIM. “It was an amazing experience. It completely opened my eyes to working in film. I’ve just finished working on the latest Batman film and am about to move onto the new Bond film.” Derek Holland, Carpenter and one of the participants at the 35mm Project. April 2008
Memorandum 46
Submission from the Association of Colleges (AoC) 1. The Association of Colleges (AoC) welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Committee’s inquiry into how responses to the agenda set out in the Leitch Report will aVect the broader structures of further education. The AoC is the representative body for the 400 further education colleges in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. 2. The 369 English further education and sixth form colleges: — educate and train 727,000 16–18 year olds each year (more than are in school sixth forms, private schools and private training providers put together); — enrol more than 2 million adults each year, the majority of whom achieve economically valuable qualifications. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 253
Where people gain vocational qualifications
Prisons and Other School Armed Forces Employer 7% 8% 6% 2%
Government 3%
Private Training Provider Further 25% Education Higher Education 48% 1%
Source: AoC analysis of DCSF statistics on vocational qualifications (2006–07). 3. In 2006–07 colleges received £6.7 billion a year in public funding, 79% of which came from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC).
The Leitch Review 4. The Leitch Review assembled evidence that workforce skills play an important role in raising productivity and ensuring economic growth. The review identified serious weaknesses in the English education and training system. 5. The Leitch Review’s interim report published in December 2005 showed that the skills of the UK workforce would stay behind other advanced countries in 2020 even if existing education and training targets were achieved. The review showed that the UK skills profile compares well on higher level qualifications but poorly on intermediate and basic skills. Fewer UK adults have intermediate skills (level 2 and 3 qualifications) compared to the OECD averages. The UK has more adults with low qualifications than comparable countries and is ranked 18th across the OECD. 6. Lord Leitch published his final report in December 2006. This report made eight main recommendations which are summarised in Table 1
Table 1: Leitch Review Recommendations — More ambitious Government targets to increase adult skills at all levels from basic skills to higher education; — Route all public funding for adult vocational skills in England, apart from community learning, through Train to Gain and Learner Accounts by 2010; — Strengthen the employer voice through the creation of a Commission for Employment and Skills; — Increase employer engagement in education and training through the reform of qualifications; — An employer pledge to train staV to level 2; — Action to increase employer investment in level 3 and level 4 qualifications; — Concerted action to increase individual aspirations and awareness of the value of skills to them and their families.
The Leitch review and Government policy 7. The Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and three Secretaries of State adopted the Leitch review proposals in an implementation plan published in July 2007. The recommendations were accepted with some modification but have contributed to Government policy in the following ways: — the targets for further and higher education set out in the 2007 spending review draw on the Leitch review; — the Government has a new apprenticeship strategy, set out in World Class Apprenticeships which will reform the composition of apprenticeships and the way they are delivered with the aim of trebling the numbers involved by 2020; Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 254 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
— the growth plan for Train to Gain published in November 2007 which sets out plans to attract a total 1.8 million new learners by 2010 at an annual cost of £1 billion a year. The growth plan extends the focus of Train to Gain to level 3 qualifications, to those working in big companies (as well as small) and to those who are out of work; — there are plans for the rapid introduction of skills accounts for adult learning undertaken outside work. The idea is to create greater choice over £1.6 billion in public spending for those taking skills for life and level 2 courses; — there is a new drive to improve the skills of those who are out of work set out in a joint DWP/DIUS strategy Opportunity, Employment and Progression; — the Higher Education Funding Council has allocated funds for employer-funded degree places as part of a wider higher level skills strategy; — action has been taken to liberalise the regulation of awarding bodies to allow employers and colleges to award publicly-accredited qualifications. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority has licensed McDonalds, the Army and City College Norwich among others. 8. It would, however, be wrong to overstate the impact of the Leitch Review on policy towards further and higher education. Many of the most important policies were in place before Lord Leitch completed his work, for example: — the policy towards higher education set out in a 2003 White Paper (Cm 5735) and in the Higher Education Act 2004; — the policy towards public funding of skills set out in the 2003 Skills Strategy (Cm 5810) and “Priorities for Success” paper published by LSC in 2005; — the raft of policies set out in the 2006 further education white paper (“FE Reform: Raising Skills, Improving Life Chances” Cm 6768) 9. In the sixteen months since the publication of the final Leitch report, the Government has published a number of other reviews and decisions which aVect the organisation of education and skills. These include: — the review commissioned from Sir Michael Lyons on local government which was published in March 2007 and which indirectly led to the proposal in July 2007 that funding for 16–19 education should be routed through local authorities. The Government has set out detailed proposals to make this happen and to reform the Learning and Skills Council in its “Raising Expectations” White Paper (Cm 7348) — the sub-national review of regional government and economic development published in July 2007 which recommended the reform of Regional Development Agencies and the abolition of Regional Assemblies. In March 2008, the Departments of Communities and Local Government and Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform jointly published “Prosperous Places: Taking Forward the Review of sub-National Economic Development and Regeneration”. This paper confirms a key role for local authorities in assessing the local economy, maintains support for multi-area agreements and details the new RDA responsibilities around the single integrated regional strategy. — the plan to raise the participation age by requiring young people to stay in education or training until their 18th birthday. The Leitch review briefly supported this proposal but the case was fully set out in the Raising Expectations Green Paper published in March 2007 and now forms part of the Education and Skills Bill proceeding through Parliament. 10. It is diYcult to summarise all the implications of Government policy but we believe there are a number of key themes: — a drive to increase total spending on education and training though increased Government budgets and measures to increase private spending, for example from university tuition fees; — a drive to improve the skills of all working age people by shifting public funding towards basic and intermediate skills; — an increasing centralisation of decision-making about the uses of public funding in further education to ensure that ambitious qualifications targets can be met; — the desire to give a strong role for local government in decisions in education and economic development, though, in some cases, as an agent implementing national policies and targets; — a variety of measures to give employers a stronger voice in decisions about how public funding should be used; — action to introduce greater competition for public funding between colleges and training providers; —diVerent approaches to the higher and further education sectors in the approach to funding, organisation, curriculum etc. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 255
The responses of Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) to the Leitch agenda 11. The Select Committee’s call for evidence focuses on the way in the ambitions set out in the Leitch report will be managed at a regional and local level. 12. RDAs have a key role in determining priorities but do so within an increasingly centralised system. Policy, funding and performance management of further education in England is now highly focused on national targets. Successive Treasury spending reviews have pushed the Learning and Skills Council to focus increasingly on national targets. This focus has forced organisations to work towards common goals and has contributed to quality improvement through the assurance of common standards. However the shift in funds towards the targets has come with costs. In some cases, the focus on targets means that the accreditation of existing skills is valued equally with the acquisition of new ones. 1.4 million adult learning places were lost in two years between 2004 and 2006. The emphasis on national goals has limited the ability of colleges and others to respond to local needs. 13. Although national targets and policies predominate, there is considerable scope for RDAs to make adiVerence. RDAs show leadership through: — Setting regional priorities, for example in their regional economic strategies. These priorities have a strong influence on the regional commissioning plans drawn up by the Learning and Skills Council; — Personal influence on decision-making in other governmental organisations, for example through organisation of Regional Skills Partnerships or membership of regional committees; — Delivery of the brokerage and business support services which support employer decision-making about training; — Providing financial and logistical support for capital investment in education and training, seen for example in the redevelopment of Burnley College; — Supporting training programmes through the European Social Fund and other grant programmes; 14. RDAs also enjoy considerable freedom in deciding how they meet their Public Service Agreements. To give two recent examples: — Advantage West Midlands played a strong role in co-ordinating work to help Rover workers in 2005 and 2006. — The London Development Agency has identified and need and provided funding to support English for Speakers of Other Languages in 2007 when national funding changed. 15. However, there are also cases where RDA work in drawing up strategies and plans results in bureaucratic competition and conflicting messages to those on the frontline. The Leitch review reinforced the existing trends to give more influence to employers via Sector Skills Councils while saying very little about the role of regional organisations in skills. In some places, the consequences are conflicts between national, regional and sectoral approaches to planning activities which are supposed to be mainly driven by learner and employer demand. There have been an eVort to clarify roles and responsibilities in some regions but the problems of a congested situation remain. 16. RDAs are designed to focus on employment, business growth, economic opportunity and innovation. The Leitch report encourages the education and training system to focus on the same issues. In the past 16 months, we have seen good examples of positive responses from individual RDAs to the challenges set out by Lord Leitch. There are new opportunities for RDAs to work better with the education and training system but achieving a sustained and successful partnership requires the following action: — RDAs will need to create new mechanisms to engage local partners to ensure that the abolition of Regional Assemblies does not mean they lose local intelligence. — RDAs need to work with central government and LSC to ensure that successful initiatives can be incorporated into the mainstream. RDAs have the flexibility to innovate, pilot, experiment, take risks and provide development funding but good practice is often lost when programmes end. — RDAs may need to develop their understanding and insight and level of engagement with the education and training system. There is a tendency to involve universities on an automatic basis but not colleges. Some RDA oYcers need better insight into the structural and bureaucratic drivers, enablers, barriers and inhibitors. AoC is always happy to broker meetings with college principals and governing bodies to help RDA oYcers understand core as well as developmental issues.
Case Study:Enterprise in the North Fewer new businesses are created in the North of England than in the South. Colleges in the north have been working with the three Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) in the Northern Way to address this issue. The RDAs have funded an enterprise programme in 30 colleges to encourage people to start and grow new businesses. The Association of Colleges (AoC) ran this project and called on Manchester Metropolitan Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 256 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
University (MMU) to provide staV development. Each college in the programme has nominated three enterprise champions whose job it is to introduce training sessions for aspiring entrepreneurs and to embed enterprise education in existing provision. Successes saw City of Sunderland College students creating a portable nail-bar, technology experts at Dearne Valley College launching an IT company after receiving advice from a panel of local business people; and Hull College hairdressing apprentices setting up their own salons. In all, 16,000 students were involved in the projects, learning business start-up skills and fostering innovation and social enterprise.
Regional and sub-regional structures in the Learning and Skills Council 17. The plans to break-up the Learning and Skills Council in 2010 will significantly change the role of regional organisations in the overview and planning of further and higher education. The LSC created a regional structure in 2004 which takes the leading role in delivering the regional skills agenda. The local presence was reduced 2006. In 2010, the single LSC regional structure will have as many as four replacements: — sub-regional partnerships of local authorities to co-ordinate and, in some areas, to fund 16–19 education (Raising Expectations White Paper, (Cm 7348) paragraphs 3.25 and 3.38); — a regional planning group for 16–19 education organised by the new Young People’s Learning Agency which brings together all the local authorities and sub-regional partnerships in the area. The new Skills Funding Agency and RDA will also be represented (White Paper, paragraph 3.23); — regional arms of the new Skills Funding Agency which will handle competitions for funds, capital funding and liaison with regional organisations (White Paper, paragraph 8.19); — sub-regional arms of the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) which will manage a field force and relationships with employers and other organisations (World Class Apprenticeships: Unlocking Talent, Building Skills for All, paragraph 4.11). 18. The original decisions to organise the LSC around a regional structure were made on the grounds of eYciency, coherence and ability to liaise with RDAs. Nine LSC oYces cost less than forty seven and the organisation has become more responsive to national directions. The disadvantages of a regional structure has been its occasional remoteness from local issues and a longer chain of command in which national decisions have to pass through regional oYces and then local partnership teams. However, whatever these disadvantages, the new arrangements risk becoming more complex and even less coherent.
The role of further education 19. Colleges have improved their operations in the last ten years in a way that has few parallels within the public services. Colleges have: — increased the numbers of 16–18 year olds in education and training and helping more of them progress into university and work; — massively increased the number of adults enrolling and achieving basic skills and level 2 qualifications to enable the Government to meet its targets; — managed their curriculum oVer to meet employment growth and clear demand for higher skills, for example construction and health and social care; — significantly improved quality whether measured in success rates or inspection reports. At the same time, colleges have maintained satisfaction levels above 90%, compared to 75% in universities. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 257
College Success Rates
80% 75% 77% 70% 75% 72% 65% 68% 60% 65% 55% 59% 56% 50% 54% 45% 40% 35% 30% 1998/ 99 1999/ 00 2000/ 01 2001/ 02 2002/ 03 2003/ 04 2004/ 05 2005/ 06
Case Study:The Fusion project Over the last three years, North West Colleges have developed closer links with regional business via the Fusion project funded by the Northwest Regional Development Agency and Learning and Skills Council. The project has removed the straightjacket which often comes with funding for learning, allowed colleges to develop new ways to meet business needs and supported the sharing of good practice West Cheshire College has developed an academy to support tourism in Chester, working in partnership with Jobcentreplus, Business Link and other agencies. South TraVord College is working with major employers like the TraVord Centre and Harvey Nichols to help their employees deliver world-class customer service. Merseyside Colleges are helping Liverpool’s John Lennon airport train staV in airport-related businesses. 20. Colleges have achieved these improvements with some assistance from the Learning and Skills Council and advisory bodies but not to an extent that justifies the status quo. Much government regulation of the further education system is complex and results in unnecessary micro-management, wasting hundreds of millions of pounds and sapping the morale of governors and staV in colleges. The performance of colleges on any measure—success rates, inspection results, satisfaction levels—shows that regulation could be reduced. 21. AoC’s initial thoughts on the Raising Expectations White Paper are that it is a missed opportunity to significantly simplify and reduce external regulation and planning of further education. The Secretary of State, John Denham, told the Higher Education Funding Council for England in April 2008 that “with only 295 staV, you distribute £7.5 billion annually… you free ministers from both the need and, may I say, the temptation to become involved in numerous detailed decisions”. The planning and management of the further education system requires at least ten times as many people to manage a budget which is smaller. April 2008
Memorandum 47
Submission from Universities UK
Introduction 1. Universities UK welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to this inquiry. In producing this response we consulted with the Higher Education Regional Associations (HERAs) and their replies are reflected here. Our submission highlights areas where enhanced public support, greater clarity and improved communication between universities and employers might better support the implementation of the skills agenda at regional level. Some comments on the need for improved public support for part-time student provision, which has a key part to play in meeting the Government’s higher level skills objectives, are also feature in this response. 2. Universities UK will be contributing to the Government’s consultation on a Higher Level Skills Strategy published last week, which looks to build on the Leitch Report by creating stronger and more flexible links between business and universities Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 258 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
“Responses of RDAs to Leitch and how coherent and structured these are”
3. Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) play a distinctive role in working with business, especially SMEs, with the aim of encouraging and increasing their access to universities. Through their understanding of the company base and through their existing engagements with the various groups and structures that drive priorities regionally, RDAs bring added value to the development of high level skills in the regions.
4. RDAs play an important role in facilitating, co-coordinating, and supporting relationships between universities and business, as well as facilitating the exchange of information. In responding to the Leitch report the RDAs have generally sought to match the report’s priorities to those outlined in their Regional Economic Strategies (RES) and address them either through the regional skills partnership/alliance (RSP) or through the pathfinder. The advantage of this approach is that it should ensure coherence, co-ordination of partners through the RSP, and the dissemination of key issues to subgroups that lead on skills issues (eg SEEDA has a higher level skills sub group which brings together HEFCE, HESE, FDF, LSC, and AOC). However, the RSPs and related committees may be more eYcient in some regions than in others, and their eVectiveness in delivering this agenda may need to be monitored.
5. It is worth noting that links between some RDAs and the universities in their region may need to be strengthened further and also that support varies from region to region. The impact of universities on the development of higher level skills for business is not of course confined to their regional boundaries but extends well beyond it. For this reason it is crucial that the regional structure does not act as a barrier to this wider role in skills development or indeed to innovation and R&D more generally. It would be helpful if the capability of RDAs to cooperate and collaborate across regions were strengthened in order to recognise the fact that the impact of university activity should not be constrained by regional boundaries.
Need for two-way communication
6. Universities UK recognises that the needs of employers are an important influence on university programmes although it is essential that provision reflects student demand. The interests of students and employers overlap but they may not always exactly coincide. As the Leitch report points out, “the best form of welfare is to ensure that people can adapt to change”127. The principles underlying academic disciplines change much less rapidly than the uses made of them, and so a sound grasp of the fundamentals is essential. The long-term interests of the student, for whom higher education should provide a sound foundation for an entire working lifetime—(during which they may have several careers and associated learning) may diverge from the short-term needs of an individual employer.
7. As one university commented “our curricula are influenced by employers, but not normally determined by them.” A two-way interchange of ideas is necessary. A primary aim of university courses should be to encourage the development of skills such as critical thinking and analysis rather than simply reflecting current employment needs which are almost certain to change.
8. The Leitch Report’s emphasis on employer demand, and its call for a “demand-led system”, does not adequately recognise that university decisions about course provision are determined by trends in student demand. As one university put it, “we cannot aVord to develop programmes that employers want if students do not want them”. If employers want to exert a greater influence on course provision, there needs to be a mechanism whereby they can test student demand, and share the costs and risk involved in developing provision where student demand is untested. Universities are businesses in their own right, and are required by government and the Funding Councils to ensure their solvency and success in highly competitive national and international markets.
What the existing regional structures of delivery are and what sub-regional strategies may be required
9. We welcome the evident diversity of approach by RDAs across regions which supports local business and communities with diVerent needs. However, the Government Sub-National review and related government decisions on regional skills structures remains an issue since there is currently a feeling of uncertainty over decisions on this. This review is likely to further devolve responsibility, and possibly funding powers beyond the RDAs to sub—national level but it is unclear how and when this may happen. Clarity on the likely outcomes and time-lines for decisions would therefore be extremely helpful in enabling the RDAs and other stakeholders to better plan their future activities around this agenda.
127 Prosperity for all in the global economy: World class skills, executive summary, p. 3 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:46 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 259
“The role of the Learning and Skills Council and Sector Skills Councils in this context” 10. The dissolution of the Sector Skills Development Agency and the launch of the new Commission for Employment and Skills, which became operational in April 2008, has led to some uncertainty with regard to the representation of the Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) in 2008–9. Likewise, the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) is somewhat constrained by new structures planned to succeed it, preventing it from working as eVectively as possible. 11. There is a need to have clear arrangements for the periods of transition brought about by the introduction of the Commission for Employment and Skills, and a need for clarity of purpose for the SSCs. These must be properly communicated to higher education institutions (HEIs). Those regions with higher level skills pathfinders appear to have oVered a better opportunity for higher education to engage with the LSC-led Regional Statement of Skills Priorities and correspondingly, to ensure that skills priorities are dealt with at all levels and clearly linked with the regional economic strategy. 12. There is also a need to consider the extent of SSCs’ abilities to work at regional and sub-regional levels given that they are national organisations, not all of which have regional structures. Equally, national Sector Skills Agreements (SSAs) do not necessarily fit with those sectors’ more regional and local requirements.
The respective roles of the further education and higher education sectors in delivering a region- based agenda for Leitch and their coordination with one other 13. The higher education sector believes that higher level skills did not have a suYciently high profile in the Leitch Report, which is why Universities UK has long pushed for the national skills strategy to give appropriate focus to this. The current consultation paper on the higher level skills strategy aims to reflect the importance of higher education and higher skills to this agenda. 14. Both higher education (HE) and further education (FE) have an important role to play in delivering the skills agenda, and their contributions can be strengthened by working eVectively in partnership with one another. There is a need for both sectors to be supported and connected into the developing agenda— particularly through the outcomes of the Higher Level Skills Strategy Consultation—in a co-ordinated way at regional level, perhaps through the Higher Education Regional Association (HERAs).
The impact on students of these initiatives, particularly in the context of policies for lifelong learning
15. Universities UK endorsed Lord Leitch’s recommendation that the Government should set target that 40% of the workforce should attain a qualification at level 4 and above by 2020. We welcomed the Government’s acceptance of that target, and the interim target that 36% of all adults should have a higher education qualification by 2014. Whilst we recognise that both of these targets are ambitious, it is essential to go beyond the current focus on 18–30 year olds, since this recognises that lifelong learning and older learners will play an important part in achieving the highly skilled workforce which is needed if we are to maintain our position in a competitive global economy. 16. The shift in emphasis is particularly important because 70% of those who will be in work in 2020 have already completed their compulsory education128. Moreover, current demographic projections129 point towards a moderate fall in the numbers of 18–20 year olds between now and 2019 across all four countries of the UK (with the overall decline equating to 70,000 full-time undergraduate places over the next 10 years). 17. Increasing participation in higher education by young and mature students will depend not only on universities working with employers to access larger numbers of potential students in the workplace, but also on higher education continuing to be highly responsive to student needs.
Part-time students 18. Over 40% of students in UK higher education already study part-time. We would expect that proportion to increase over time as universities work to attract older students and those who are already in the workplace. The continuing growth of part-time higher education plays a central role in meeting Government objectives, such as the extension of higher level skills, widening participation and lifelong learning, and will continue to do so if properly supported. 19. As Universities UK’s report Part-time students in higher education: supporting higher level skills and lifelong learning demonstrated, part-time students already benefit from a wide range of flexible academic provision that has been developed by higher education institutions in response to their needs.
128 Prosperity for all in the global economy: World class skills, executive summary, p. 3 129 The future size and shape of the higher education sector in the UK, Universities UK, March 2008 http:// bookshop.universitiesuk.ac.uk/downloads/size and shape.pdf Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 260 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
20. However, a high proportion of part-time students do not gain any benefit from the limited public support that is available; such support as is available only makes contribution to the total cost of being a part-time student. The reasons why a student is ineligible for public support often have little to do with their economic circumstances, but relate to one, or both, of two factors: either the student is studying less than 50% of a full time course, or the student already has some form of higher education qualification. We have therefore asked Government to re-examine the scope of public support for part-time higher education and the forthcoming review of variable fees in 2009 provides an opportunity to do this. April 2008
Memorandum 48
Submission from Barry Johnson, Learning Partners Ltd I found much in the Leitch Report that is admirable. I will therefore not deal with those items. The thing I will refer to is the underlieing beliefs of the writer—Lord Leitch. First then let me quote with what I fully concur: “our natural resource is our people—and their potential is both untapped and vast. Skills will unlock that potential. The prize for our country will be enormous— higher productivity, the creation of wealth and social justice.”
The Basic Assumption There are assumptions throughout the Leitch report that the required skills rest with the Education Sector, to some extent that must be the case. My contention is that important factor is that educational qualifications at any level are just a start point towards acquiring skills. We need to recognize that if you have an appropriate degree it is the start point of your training. Some professions recognize this. It is also self evident that the “qualification” required for entry into a skill area is often pitched much higher than the requirement for the training so eliminating many from the training. We have observed a large number of young people selected for an apprenticeship going on to university so wasting the investment made in their training. Apprenticeship associated education has much to do with educational excellence and little to do with the requirements of the job or with advancement in the skill area. Ask simple questions such as, “What education does somebody really need to be a first class plasterer?” Now ask the question, “what educational level is a person required to achieve to get a certificate in plastering?” Are the answers these two questions congruent?
The Fundamental Need The real skills are those acquired in the work environment and most people entering and many people currently working lack the fundamental skill required for continuous and rapid professional development. The key skills that the university and college and school processes are failing to develop are those referred to as soft skills and personal development skills and until they do we will continue to fail to get a “continuing development culture”. When educational institutions do attempt to development soft skills and personal development skills they are tackled at the “knowledge level” and not at the “behavioural level”. Perhaps this is because “education people” themselves lack these skills. Quote—we have tried to identify how to deliver better on what we have rather than to invent many more new structures. This approach must be correct. It is not the structures that are failing. It is the belief within the education sector and the governmental and political structures that education is delivering skills. It is not. It is delivering information, factual knowledge and operational processes when what industry requires are skills. Even when writing about skills they are couched in terms of qualifications. Herein lies a real problem. It is so diYcult to accurately describe what a person can do. Quote—The Review has concluded that, where skills were once a key driver of prosperity and fairness, they are now the key driver. Achieving world-class skills is the key to achieving economic success and social justice in the new global economy. I totally agree. Nobody ever flew and aircraft or serviced one because they had a university education. They can do it because they have been trained to do it. This can be observed throughout industry. Often the degrees and certificates people have bear no relationship to the professional or skilled job a person is doing. The failure is the belief that we have an education system that is delivering anything other than “tickets”. Quote—only 19% of adults in the UK report contributing any of their own funding towards education and training. When “education” starts to deliver skills students will select appropriate courses and the money spent on “education” will give the country a return. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 261
Associated with the idea of self-funding was the mistaken idea that the best suppliers gain the most customers. Many companies and in particular government bodies are cost driven when it comes to training. The cheapest not the one that supplies the best value is unfortunately how the suppliers are chosen. This reinforces my contention that if individuals or those in companies responsible for investing in the training of staV see little return on their expenditure they won’t spend.
Raising School Leaving Age There is a grave danger of making assumptions that there is only one education process. Forcing people into a straight jacket is bound to fail. The paper raised the issue of the extension of compulsory education. At the same time the paper raises the issue of the large numbers of young people “failing” in the education system. I will express the view that the education system’s rigidity is the basis of the failure. For many to attain high level skills it will be necessary that they start a seven year apprenticeship at fourteen with part time education tailored to the need of the skill area so that education is a reality and supports the skill growth. Many young people have rejected the constraints and lack of reality of the secondary school education system. Let me use three brief examples from one family. One who was nothing but trouble at school and fought the “system” is now a Nursing Sister in a large hospital and another who is dyslectic and loathed school is a skilled Plasterer. It was only when exposed to the reality they sought did they apply themselves. Equally there is a member of the same family who gained a history degree because he could and is now very happy working as an electrician. Straight jackets don’t work and to extend them is not a solution.
Conclusion I read the paper with growing frustration. I agree we must up-skill. To do that we must dump the attitude I observe in this paper. The “demand” led approach must be a sensible way to go. The concern is the narrowness of the concept of “demand led skill development” expressed in the paper. April 2008
Memorandum 49
Submission from the Design Council
1. Introduction
The Design Council welcomes this opportunity to respond to the House of Commons Committee on University, Innovation, Science and Skills inquiry: After Leitch: Implementing skills and training policy. This submission will focus on issues relating to the roles of the Sector Skills Councils, the higher education sector and industry bodies in developing design and innovation skills that meet the growing needs of the wider economy. Our views are drawn from the design industry’s response to issues highlighted the Leitch report, which are outlined in a report on design sector skills development: High-level skills for higher value130, and the Design Blueprint131, which forms the design industry section of the sector skills agreement for the creative industries. This work has shown that design employers perceive that the fast changing needs of the industry are not adequately catered for through design education in schools, colleges, universities and the workplace. The Leitch Review puts employer engagement and a demand-led approach at the heart of skills development. The UK design industry is relatively fragmented and heterogeneous, consisting predominantly of small businesses132, where formal higher-level training and development is the exception rather than the rule. By improving connections between industry and design skills development, the UK will be better placed to diVerentiate and add value to goods and services and stay ahead in increasingly competitive global markets. Design is a broad sector with many disciplines practising across diVerent industries. If the UK is to harness the benefits of design as a driver of innovation and competitiveness there needs to be greater knowledge sharing and co-ordination between Sector Skills Councils, universities and industry networks.
130 http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/en/Design-Council/Files/System-Files/Download/ 131 http://www.ukdesignskills.org.uk/ 132 Design in Britain 2005 http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/en/About-Design/Research/Value-of-Design-Factfinder/ Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 262 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
2. Demand-led Skills Development
Design is a potent force for innovation in manufacturing and in our services sectors133. The UK design industry is the biggest in Europe with a total turnover of £11.6 billion and an international reputation for quality and value. However, the rest of the world is already catching up fast. Developing economies like China and India are rapidly developing their design and innovation capabilities to move up the value chain- underlining the need for the UK to invest in developing high-end creative design skills over the long term134. In the modern workplace designers are increasingly expected to work alongside other specialists such as scientists, engineers, social scientists, marketers and management consultants. R&D activities in many businesses are increasingly structured along multi-disciplinary lines, requiring designers to work in teams with a stronger understanding of business and technical issues in the development of innovative new products and services. Multidisciplinary learning that puts design students alongside business, science and technology students will help develop vital creative skills and approaches to problem-solving valued by employers and vital to our future prosperity and competitiveness. Some universities are responding to increased industry demands for multidisciplinary skills through the introduction of a growing number of new centres and courses across England that bring together design, science, technology and business studies, such as Design London135—a collaboration between Royal College of Art, Imperial College and Tanaka Business School. In the spirit of demand-led skills development endorsed in the Leitch review the Design Council in partnership with Creative & Cultural Skills conducted a two-year consultation with industry to identify future skills needs and ensure that the UK retains and builds on its world-class design capabilities. The UK Design Industry Skills Development Plan, as detailed in Design Blueprint was produced as a result of this consultation and sets out practical and realistic steps to tackle the gaps in design skills education and professional development from school through to colleges, universities and the workplace. The primary mechanism for the implementation of the Design Blueprint is a new UK Design Skills Alliance which will work to ensure that the UK is the future global centre for excellence in design and professional development. Urgent priority initiatives will include a Professional Practice Framework and a programme of Continuous Professional Development. To achieve its primary objective of increasing the value and profile of the design industry by developing its professional skills, the Alliance requires continued support from Government and real investment from industry.
3. Recommendations
3.1 Improve flexibility of funding support for demand-led employer engagement
To allow faster responses by universities to the industry, greater flexibility in funding schemes is needed— including consideration of direct funding to industry bodies engaged in collaboration with further and higher education institutions on professional skills development.
3.2 Improve connections between universities and the design industry’s regional networks
Design bodies such as the DBA and D&AD have strong regional networks which should be more eVectively utilised by universities to ensure greater dialogue and industry and employer engagement regionally.
3.3 Improve collaboration between sector skills councils and knowledge transfer
Design cuts across many diVerent industry sectors including engineering, construction, retail and manufacturing. There needs to be greater collaboration and knowledge sharing between diVerent Sectors’ Skills Councils to enhance their reach and impact on the economy. April 2008
133 DCMS (2008) Creative Britain: New talents for the New Economy 134 HM Treasury (2005) Cox Review of Creativity in Business 135 http://www.designlondon.net/ Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 263
Memorandum 50
Submission from ConstructionSkills
1. Summary Of Evidence And Key Recommendations 1.1. ConstructionSkills has engaged with consultations around the Leitch Review since its inception, and we welcome the opportunity for ongoing input. This document sets out our response to key parts of the IUSS Committee’s inquiry into the post-Leitch landscape. In particular we have focused on our expertise in delivering skills training in the regions using existing and developing structures, the essential role of Sector Skills Councils, and the tangible results of a sector-based approach for the construction workforce and employers.
1.2. ConstructionSkills has three key recommendations: 1.2.1 The demand-led, sector-based approach should remain the over-arching strategy for the delivery of skills and training initiatives. Sector Skills Councils are able to provide a coordinated industry voice about sector needs and a single channel for a joined-up approach to FE, HE and lifelong learning. In response, SSCs are well placed to oversee sector-specific delivery frameworks. 1.2.2. Employers value being able to access qualifications, provision and services that meet their needs; that are of recognised quality; and that are consistent across the English regions—particularly given the industry’s highly mobile workforce. SSCs are well placed to give employers a voice when it comes to shaping “fit for purpose” solutions to improve the skills and training provision for their industries. 1.2.3. Regionally funded skills and training provision must be monitored and assessed, and critically, must add up to delivering the total required nationally. This is also true in the context of Government being able to show progression towards the over-arching targets set out in Leitch. To ensure cohesion between national strategy and regional delivery there is a need to improve training supply data (we see this as an area where the LSC could add value through the provision of good quality training supply numbers). In addition, there is a need to streamline funding on skills. The current system is too complicated (particularly in England) and this is only likely to increase as more levels of delivery are added.
2. About ConstructionSkills 2.1 ConstructionSkills is the sector skills council for the construction industry. We are UK-wide and represent the whole industry from professional consultancies to major contractors and SMEs. 2.2 We are a partnership between CITB-ConstructionSkills, CIC and CITB Northern Ireland. All three partners are committed to working together to deliver employer-led skills and training programmes through the Sector Skills Agreement for Construction.
3. Existing Regional Delivery Structures 3.1 ConstructionSkills has a strong, and some might say unique, presence as a Sector Skills Council at the regional level. As a long-standing industry training board with a regional structure, and now as a sector skills council, we have the capability and the capacity to respond to regional variations when planning and implementing skills and training policies. 3.2 In particular we have developed the Construction Skills Network report, which is now in its third year. This report provides a sophisticated analysis of our regional data observations which provides clear signals to the construction industry about where in the UK key skills are required. In addition we have built up our regional employment engagement programme and our delivery mechanisms through our creation of the National Skills Academies for Construction, Regional Strategy Teams, Regional Business Support (Apprenticeships OYcers, Company Development Advisers and Education Teams) and the National Construction College hubs. We expand on these below.
4. The Construction Skills Network 4.1 One of Lord Leitch’s main findings was that there was a need for the development of up-to-date labour market information. Because of our close working relationship with the construction industry we have been aware that, in this sector more than any other, Leitch’s findings hold true. The movement of labour around the UK, following major construction programmes, is well documented. What was less well known was the variation in skills needs across the UK. At a time when construction projects are in such abundance, this data is the number one need in the construction industry. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 264 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
4.2 To support the industry and provide essential data for prioritisation of public funding and training provision, we developed a forecasting model that could be used to examine our operating environment and business trends, as well as identify skills priorities and highlight key labour market issues. 4.3 The creation of the Construction Skills Network in 2005 draws on the knowledge of government, sector skills councils, construction companies, education and training providers, regional development agencies and customers across the UK. The result (attached as Annex 2) is, we believe, the most detailed analysis of skills and training demand across the construction industry, designed to help plan future skills needs and target investments. 4.4 The data is broken down by region, providing a clear insight into growth areas aVecting the pattern of skills needs across the country, and setting out a call to action for the industry in those areas. By examining the required number of recruits needed in each trade over the next five years the report provides industry with the information it needs to resource and deliver its programme of works. 4.5 To give the Committee a flavour of 2008’s findings the CSN reported that: Infrastructure is the sector that will experience the most significant growth (an average of 5.8% each year) over the period of 2008 to 2012. A number of large projects are now underway or in the pipeline, including the Olympic Park infrastructure work, Thameslink expansion, a £3 billion Scottish Transport Investment Programme and nearly £600m of motorway and trunk road improvements in Northern Ireland. There will be a continuing shift in construction growth from the North to South of England over the next five years, due to major projects such as Crossrail. Although this does mean that the largest number of new construction recruits will be required in London, the South East and East of England, total percentage growth in employment will be highest in Wales and Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland’s employment growth is expected to rise by 13.3%, driven by a substantial and wide reaching public investment programme. The 13.5% growth expected in Wales is due to the strength of the labour-intensive repair and maintenance (R&M) sector, particularly housing R&M, being driven by the Welsh Housing Quality Standards programme.
4.6 The conclusions in the annual CSN report stem from data analysis as well consultation with a range of experts and practitioners who provide an invaluable reality check on the assumptions and subsequent results. This group includes a set of Regional Observatory Groups (who feed into an over-arching National Observatory Group) with members drawn from Government, education and the construction industry. The Observatory Group members feed back their observations, knowledge and insight of what was really happening on the ground in every UK region and nation, and this is used to fine tune the assumptions and data that go into the forecasting programme.
4.7 The CSN model is fed by a large number of data sources, from macroeconomic trends to federation “state of the nation” surveys, which means it is the most representative picture of skills demand available to the industry today. In order to make it more accurate, the supply-side data about the numbers of people in training must be improved, as this is currently a significant barrier to improving its value. ConstructionSkills is working with funding partners to try and improve access to this information.
5. National Skills Academy for Construction
5.1 We believe that the key to skills delivery at a regional level is through demand-side engagement. The demand-led, sector-based approach should remain the over-arching strategy for the delivery of skills and training initiatives. Sector Skills Councils are able to provide a coordinated industry voice about sector needs and a single channel for a joined-up approach to FE, HE and lifelong learning. 5.2 The project based nature of construction—and the highly-fragmented workforce—means that there is often only an opportunity to determine skills needs and deliver training on-site when large volumes of people come together on long term, large scale projects. To address this issue we created the National Skills Academy for Construction. Centred on a network of project based training centres on major construction sites, the academy concept takes advantage of both on- site training delivery and the existing training provision available regionally. We are aiming to have more than 30 sites established throughout the UK by 2010. Currently we have seven sites fully operational and we will be looking to expand this to at least 15 by the end of 2008. It was also announced that the Olympic construction sites will become Academy projects and work is underway to finalise delivery plans in accordance with the Academy process. 5.3 Working together with RDAs and other regional agencies we are able to ensure that employers can meet their training and skills obligations without disrupting or complicating construction projects further. The workforce and the employer both benefit. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 265
6. Regional Strategy Development 6.1 A network of ConstructionSkills Regional Strategy Advisors (RSAs) ensure that we engage with skills and training bodies in the nations and regions, with the aim of coordinating delivery at a strategic level. 6.2 The RSAs manage strategic initiatives in the regions and nations, including ensuring that the Construction Skills Network Regional Observatories have representation from a range of stakeholders, and bringing together the full range of partners needed to deliver National Skills Academy for Construction projects. They are also responsible for managing funding through regional provision such as Learning and Skills Council contracts and Train to Gain.
7. Regional Business Support 7.1 ConstructionSkills has a network of 100 mobile Company Development Advisors who visit thousands of employers every year, providing face-to-face advice on skills and training, from short courses and the development of Training and Development Plans. They also provide assistance with accessing funding for training, including CITB-ConstructionSkills Grant. 7.2 We have around 150 Apprenticeship OYcers based in the regions who work on the ground to bring together apprentices, employers and colleges to create training partnerships. They also work with colleges and employers to place Programme-Led Apprentices who are on full-time college courses and require on- site training to complete their qualifications. 7.3 Our Education Teams work on the ground with schools, teachers, careers advisors and young people to improve information about construction careers. They have also been instrumental in bringing together schools, colleges and employers to form Consortia to deliver the Construction and the Built Environment Diploma from September 2008, and they will continue to support its delivery. 7.4 ConstructionSkills provides the industry-recognised Health and Safety Test. One of the key ways of enabling workers to take the test is through over 150 test centres around the country, plus a fleet of mobile testing vans which can deliver the test at major construction sites to meet employer needs.
8. The National Construction College 8.1 The National Construction College is the training division of ConstructionSkills, training over 30,000 adults and apprentices every year. It specialises in providing highly specialist training to the construction industry—training which often cannot be provided by any other college because it is too costly due to expensive equipment and a high staV-student ratio, and low volumes of students. 8.2 Specialist training includes Plant Operations, Tower Crane Operations and Steeplejacking. Working with employers, industry and funding bodies, we oVer apprenticeships to young people aged 16 plus who are looking to start a career in construction. We currently have a 100% employment rate for our apprentices. Adult provision includes Health and Safety, Management and Leadership, and Assessment and Verification. We also oVer Graduate Appreciation courses to help bridge the gap between industry and academia. 8.3 The National Construction College has five campuses around the country, in Ashbourne (Derbyshire), Kings Lynn (Norfolk), Birmingham, Erith (Kent) and Glasgow. A sixth site, the Plant Training Centre at Eton Manor, is now in operation as part of the National Skills Academy for Construction on the Olympic Park. These hubs enable outreach into the regions with many courses delivered on company premises or other locations convenient to its customer base.
9. The Role Of The Learning And Skills Council And Sector Skills Councils In This Context 9.1 Sector Skills Councils play a valuable role in providing a coordinated industry voice about sector needs and a single channel for a joined up approach to FE, HE and lifelong learning. In response, SSCs are well placed to oversee sector-specific delivery frameworks. 9.2 Standards and qualifications setting is one example of a key area that requires coordination and delivery at a national level. Employers must be able to access the same qualifications and training provision wherever they are based in the country, and should be reassured that the quality of provision will meet the same standards. Employers also value their role, through Sector Skills Councils, in being able to influence fit-for-purpose training provision. 9.3 As discussed earlier, providing an understanding of sector skills needs at a national level is another essential function for Sector Skills Councils. Skills and training provision at a regional level still needs to add up to deliver the total national requirement, particularly in an industry such as construction which has a highly mobile workforce: leaving one region deficient in certain skills will result in a drain on other regions. 9.4 With Sector Skills Councils’ role in both skills needs and standard setting, they are well placed to determine which qualifications and training should be publicly funded. This was a key ambition set out in Leitch which has yet to be realised, with a significant number of courses still being funded which do not result in trainees moving into employment. One example of this is the thousands of young people on publicly Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 266 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
funded full-time construction college courses. Without ensuring they have employers to fulfil the on-site practice, these people will not be able to achieve the industry recognised NVQ standard required to work in the industry. 9.5 The Learning and Skills Council’s role and structure has changed significantly in recent years and continues to do so. One key area where they could add much more value is through the provision of good quality training supply numbers. This would help inform skills needs analyses, and sectoral understanding of how many people undergoing training enter the industry and through what routes.
10. The Roles Of Further Education And Higher Education In Delivering ARegion-Based Agenda For Leitch And Their Co-Ordination With One Another. 10.1 ConstructionSkills is working with FE colleges and employers to make courses more relevant and to improve completion rates. Through our Apprenticeship OYcers on the ground, close working relationships are developed with the colleges, the employers and the students, which help address problems and remove barriers to framework completion. Over the past few years, we have increased completion rates from below 30% to an average of 70%, higher than any other managing agency in our industry. 10.2 We are also working with colleges and employers to pick-up students on full-time college courses to enable them to become fully qualified. Our “Programme-Led Apprenticeships” provides a shorter, concentrated period of on-site practice for students. In 9–12 months, they gain the experience they need to complete their NVQs, allowing them to enter the industry as fully qualified workers. PLAs also oVer a model to enable major contractors to set up agreements with subcontractors to provide on-site practice to apprentices on major building projects. 10.3 FE Colleges need to continue to work closely with employers to deliver practical skills and experience, which is relevant to the local/regional workforce and market, as part of their courses. A continual barrier to skills progression has been the lack of a joined-up approach to course-based and practical training. Only through mutual understanding and eVective funding solutions can we address this. 10.4 As discussed earlier, one key element which would help improve the eYciency of matching demand and supply would be the provision of good quality training supply numbers from the Learning and Skills Council. 10.5 More recently, ConstructionSkills has been the lead partner in developing the Construction and the Built Environment Diploma. Central to the delivery of this qualification is the development of local consortia—partnerships between schools, colleges and employers—which will work together to deliver the curriculum. We have been very impressed with how well this model has developed, and feel with the roll- out of the C&BE and other subject Diplomas, there will be a significant opportunity to build on this model, and certainly to involve High Education more closely.
Annex 1
The Sector Skills Council for Construction
This evidence is presented by ConstructionSkills. ConstructionSkills is the Sector Skills Council for the construction industry. It is a partnership between, CITB-ConstructionSkills, the Construction Industry Council (CIC) and CITB Northern Ireland and as such covers the whole industry from craft to the professions, the whole of the UK, and all of the skills and training issues that the industry faces. CITB-ConstructionSkills is the construction industry’s Industry Training Board and has levy raising powers. CITB-ConstructionSkills helps the industry in England, Scotland and Wales in all aspects of recruiting, training and qualifying the construction workforce. It also works with partners in government and beyond to improve the competitiveness of the industry as a whole. CIC is the umbrella body for all professional services (such as architects, engineers and surveyors), research organisations and specialist trade associations. It represents more than 450,000 professionals and over 23,500 firms. CITB Northern Ireland is the equivalent to CITB-ConstructionSkills in Great Britain, with powers to raise a Levy on employers in the Province. ConstructionSkills has a leading role in: — Providing sector skills intelligence — Defining the skills strategy for the sector—including a sector qualifications strategy — Increasing employer engagement in skills and training — Skills and training brokerage — Facilitating and leading skills and training delivery Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 267
For more information on ConstructionSkills recent activity and forthcoming plans, please see our Progress and Plans report (attached as Annex 3) which was published in April 2008.
Memorandum 51
Submission from the Equality and Human Rights Commission 1. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (the Commission) was established on 1st October 2007 under the Equality Act 2006. It champions equality and human rights for all, works to eliminate discrimination, reduce inequality, protect human rights and build good relations, and to ensure that everyone has a fair chance to participate in society. 2. The new Commission brings together the work of the three previous equality commissions, the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) and the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC). The Commission’s remit now covers race, disability, gender, gender reassignment, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief and the application of human rights. Working across Britain, the Commission has oYces in Manchester, London, CardiV, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Introduction: the potential of skills to improve life chances 3. The potential of skills acquisition to improve employment opportunities, tackle disadvantage and poverty and to change lives for the better is well evidenced. If skills can be secured even for those currently most distanced from them, then these ambitions could become a reality. Leitch proposals for increasing skills levels and subsequent implementation plans, have set out an exciting agenda for delivery of change by 2020. 4. It is encouraging that the implementation plan recognises the equality and diversity agenda that needs to be set and addressed through implementation policies and practices: “The skills deficits in England are heavily diVerentiated by age, disability, ethnicity, and gender, but also by geography and socio-economic group. We will ensure that our policies, collectively and individually, act to narrow gaps in attainment and participation where these gaps are detrimental to social justice and economic success.” Equality and Diversity section in implementation plan. 5. In our evidence, we set out some of the key equality challenges, the extent to which current implementation arrangements for skills and progression opportunities will be delivered for individuals and groups identified, and suggest where additional actions are needed to catch those falling through the implementation “gaps”.
Assessing the equality impact 6. The Skills Strategy Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) identified a risk that existing inequalities will not be reduced by a one size fits all approach, particularly for people who experience multiple disadvantage. It recognised that other vulnerable groups, while not covered by equality legislation, may also experience disadvantage in terms of skills and employment and ought to be able to benefit from the Skills Strategy. 7. The EIA identified groups aVected by multiple or other disadvantage as including: — part-time and temporary workers — people with caring responsibilities, — women in certain communities, particularly of Bangladeshi or Pakistani heritage — people on welfare benefits, especially incapacity benefits as a result of mental health problems — people over the age of 50 — people employed in businesses lukewarm to training — migrants especially from EU accession countries and/or with English language needs —oVenders and ex-oVenders — young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) — adult with literacy levels at or below entry level 2 8. The EIA explained that some of the most serious inequalities are long standing and are aVected by a wide range of factors which can not be fully addressed by the Skills Strategy on its own. “Nor can they be removed overnight. These include deep-seated patterns of gender segregation throughout the labour market, and high levels of unemployment amongst disabled people and certain ethnic minority communities.” 9. It also identified that data that is collected often gives a broad picture but does not capture the finer- grained distinctions that can aVect equality and diversity. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 268 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
10. It is therefore disappointing that despite recognising the data limitations, and the persistent and wider challenges of skills inequality, the Leitch implementation plans include no equality strategy or action plan to focus skills initiatives on those most in need. 11. We recommend that as a matter of urgency an equality impact assessment should be made available for the Leitch implementation arrangements and new delivery initiatives for skills. We also recommend that the evidence in the Skills Strategy EIA and our own evidence to this Select Committee raises suYcient concerns about the impact of initiatives on disadvantaged groups to warrant the development of a separate equality strategy and action plan. (For more information on the skills issues and challenges for particular groups, please see annex 1).
The impact of Leitch Implementation Initiatives
12. Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver (the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and Department for Children, Schools and Families consultation document), regards the advent of Skills Accounts and the growth of Train to Gain as heralding a radically diVerent model of organising the skills system, where the role of government is to make sure customers are well-informed and supported so that their demand for learning leads supply. 13. The Commission is concerned about how this demand-led system will serve to support those currently deficient in skills, the hard-to-reach, and those at the margins who have failed to make—or be heard in— demands for skills acquisition and progression opportunities to date.
Employers
14. For example, employers will be responsible for the skills of those in work (approximately 29 million people ). However, evidence to date suggests that the delivery of skills by employers has not been a major driving force in tackling disadvantage and inequality. — Evidence shows that employers have very negative attitudes to training the over 40s. — Small employers (employing more than 58% of the private sector workforce and 12 million people) are less likely to train, as is the service sector—both of which are most likely to employ low-paid workers, dominated by women and ethnic minority workers. 15. Articulating the training and progression needs of workers and those returning to the labour market —including those trapped in low-skilled jobs and under-using their skills -and the pay-back to employers, needs to be a key focus of discussions between skills brokers and employers and should inform the delivery plans of all the partners to work-based training. Currently there is little evidence to show that this is happening. 16. We would also like to see more emphasis on sectoral initiatives, with Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) and employers, particularly where there are skills shortages, targeting low-skilled and under-represented groups for training. Also, diVerent regions face diVerent demographic challenges so geographically–based initiatives should be created through Local Employment partnerships and Forums. 17. Train to Gain, because of its focus on low-skilled people, and employer support, has the important potential to engage employers and reduce inequalities. A key area of concern at the end of the precursor Employer Training Pilots (ETPs) was disability, given the low take-up of only 5% against a background population of 12%. 18. This data raises questions about results for other groups, even for those where take up was a closer match to the background population. For example, we know that the ETPs were regarded as beneficial to women, but in fact, training had no impact on job segregation. It is therefore important to carry out further analysis against the proportion of low-skilled people in the background population. We are pleased to note that the LSC (or the new Skills Funding Agency) with responsibility for planning and implementing the Train to Gain service will be working with its partners, including Sector Skills Councils and Regional Development Agencies, to ensure that all information on the programme is carefully monitored, to check that all learners and potential learners are benefiting, particularly those aVected by multiple disadvantage. We look forward to seeing this data. 19. In addition, the Train to Gain brief should be extended to give funding and brokerage support to employers for skills training for diVerent groups at diVerent levels to secure progression and best use of employees, not just skilling at levels for current roles. Where union learning reps are working with employers to draw up action plans for delivering the pledge, we would like to see an explicit focus on skills proposals for all workers at all levels, with targets for groups under-represented. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 269
Those not in work or on welfare 20. Public policy focuses on those in work (approx 29 million) or those on welfare (approx 5 million). In addition, there are approximately 4 million people neither working or on benefits—but this group, silent rather than vocal in their skills demands— is the hardest to reach and potentially the most in need. The make-up of this group, their skills and work potential, barriers and needs, should be identified and directly addressed in delivery arrangements. This group will include, for example, women taking time out for caring, Bangladeshi women, and older people. 21. We do have concerns about the extent to which the new adult careers service and advancement agency, and Skills Accounts, will capture the voice and potential of this silent group and create appropriate arrangements for securing skills and progression throughout the lifecycle. We know that within the resources available for the universal adult careers service, more intensive support face to face will be targeted on particular groups such as benefit recipients, the low-skilled, those cycling between welfare and work, and others at key transition points in their careers. The service has to recognise that many people face multiple barriers to re-entering work, gaining new skills and better jobs and the extent to which the arrangements will permit outreach and tailor-made solutions is unclear, particularly for those not falling clearly into the target groups.
Skills across the lifecycle 22. The link between skills and employment is vital and should be developed further, with a lifecycle approach delivered through skills accounts and the adult careers/advancement agency to support acquisition and use of skills. Focusing funding at front-loading young people with skills is important, but life-cycle-sensitive skills initiatives need to be developed, recognising the importance of re-skilling so that people are able to move in and out of work without losing ground, to stay longer in work, improving individual prosperity and contributing higher levels of productivity to the fast-changing global economy. 23. We welcome the proposal for further work between DIUS and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to define a clear prospectus for Jobcentre Plus (JCP) and the careers service which acknowledges the range and nature of the problems people face and which recognises the diVerent customer journeys which will be undertaken according to need. We look forward to seeing more detail of this.
Advancement agencies 24. We also look forward to more information about the role of the advancement agencies. As well as tackling persistent movement in and out of low level work, advancement agencies provide an exciting new opportunity to identify ways of securing progression for all groups.
Targeting and entitlements 25. The specific and urgent priority for skills delivery is identified as tackling the skills and employment needs of those out of work or who have low skills, with entitlement to a first full level 2 qualification. While we recognise the need for this entitlement, we are concerned that the importance of enabling people who have been out of the labour market to re-fresh outdated skills to improve their employability is not recognised through current proposals. We suggest that consideration should be given to extending the entitlement to support lifelong learning and re-training in skills that have currency in the labour market for people to support eVective re-entry and progression into sustainable work. 26. Similarly, we have concerns about the impact on many adult workers of entitlement to level 3 training only for first level 3 and for those up to age 25. We note that women currently are under-represented in those holding level 3 qualifications but over-represented in those at level 2. The importance of creating progression routeways suggests that more consideration should be given to targeting the level 3 entitlement more broadly. 27. We welcome the Women in London, level 3 Train to Gain pilots as an example of this. These are aimed at supporting women to qualify at level 3 in occupational areas where they are currently under- represented, and place an emphasis on engaging women in ethnic minority communities. Early data indicates that 15.5% of learners were from such communities, with the highest single proportion of these (5.6%) being of South Asian heritage. We are also aware of the successful Ambition–energy scheme for women and recommend that consideration is given to how these successful skills programmes can be rolled out more widely. 28. National Skills Academies (NSA) are expected to apply high standards on equality and diversity in all their provision. NSAs will be evaluated after an initial period of operation, in early 2008. The evaluation will determine whether the NSA programme or a specific NSA has promoted equality and diversity, and attraction of under-represented groups in the sector into provision.”This will include attention to issues relating to age, disability, ethnicity and gender. NSAs will be expected to record data relating to equality as part of their on-going management information. We look forward to this equality evaluation and we would like to see NSAs having equality targets for participation and progression. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 270 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
29. The Commission welcomes the entitlement to apprenticeships, recognising the benefits that quality apprenticeship programmes can bring. However women are more likely to participate in Apprenticeships at level 2, and men are more likely to participate in Advanced Apprenticeships at level 3. This is partly because the sectors dominated by women are less likely to oVer apprenticeships at level 3. Latest figures show that of the 100,000 young people on Advanced Apprenticeships in England, just 30 per cent are female. The EHRC has recently responded to the Review of Apprenticeships. In particular, we have highlighted the need to address overt gender segregation and diVerential pay rates across sectors, creating a significant gender pay gap. We have also provided data on wider diversity issues. 30. We also welcome the new Commission for Employment and Skills and recommend that delivery of equality and diversity should be a key strand of its remit. In addition to reporting on progress towards skills ambitions across all groups, the new Commission should monitor equality impact, best use of human capital, return to education and skills, and matching of skills to jobs.
Under-use of skills 31. The National Adults Learning Survey points to the need to extend flexibility of training provision and to extend support to help people to overcome wider barriers currently limiting advancement in their careers, such as lack of childcare. Trends in average earnings over a lifetime show that women often fail to progress, and lack of skills is not necessarily the barrier. However, Leitch implementation plans and funding arrangements do little to address redundant skills and under-use of skills. 32. Recent EOC research found significant evidence that education and skills investment was leaking out of the system with women particularly trading down and under-using skills. Irrespective of qualification levels and career aspirations, there is a mismatch between the quality of jobs people hold and their qualifications. This is a key feature of the labour market, particularly for women: — 4 out of 5 part-time workers are working below their potential. — 12% of women with level 4 qualifications or above are working in the bottom 25% jobs — The proportion of graduates in good quality jobs has decreased significantly from 72% in 1995 to 54% in 2005. — 6.5 million people are working in jobs below their skills levels or outside the labour market because they are unable to find suYcient flexibility in work. — people with level 3 and above qualifications have no source of guidance or support to place them in jobs commensurate with their skills. HEIs don’t provide careers advice and support beyond the present cohort—former graduates have no where to go for careers advice. 33. An important part of the progression agenda is recognition that acquiring skills and moving up the skills ladder needs to be supported by opportunity to re-skill for opportunities in the changing labour market and to use skills at the right level, to deliver the pay return and therefore the increase in social mobility. The role of new flexible ways of working in translating skills acquisition into use and reward need to be much higher on the agenda for employers, the new advancement agency, skills brokers and JCP. Other barriers to progression need to be identified and addressed in delivery initiatives. These include prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping, lack of flexibility, and childcare. April 2008
Annex 1
Skills issues and challenges for particular groups
Ethnic minority workers People from diVerent backgrounds and communities do not all enter the labour market with similar levels of qualifications. Attainment is lowest amongst young men of African-Caribbean heritage—in summer 2005 only 21% obtained five A*–C passes, compared with a national averages for young men of over 38%, and for all young people of 43%. People from South Asian, black and other ethnic minority backgrounds are almost twice as likely to be unemployed as the national average. The employment rate amongst white people is 77%. For people of Indian and African-Caribbean heritage it is 70% and 69% respectively. For those of Pakistani heritage it is 44% and for those of Bangladeshi heritage 39%. The greater percentage of people from ethnic minority backgrounds in post-16 education is not reflected in the numbers that enter employment or government-sponsored training: only 4% are enrolled in work- based training or apprenticeships as compared with 10% for white young people. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 271
Skills challenges — reducing and removing inequalities in success rates between diVerent communities — increasing the participation of people from ethnic minority communities in work-based learning — ensuring that issues of religious identity, faith, values and aYliation are taken into account in race equality policies and projects — enhancing the quality and coverage of statistical information, for example by providing breakdowns by region and gender as well as ethnicity.
Older workers The over 40s make up 50% of the working age population and 65% of those without level 2 qualifications.
Skills challenges — reversing the decline in the numbers of adults in their 40s, 50s and 60s taking part in training and re-skilling, particularly to support change and transition in mid- and later career — challenging and removing prejudice against providing training for older workers — enabling older people to update their skills in order to remain in, or return to, the labour market — establishing ICT skills as a major priority for development and investment by employers and funding agencies, to support retention and recruitment of older people — developing forms of skills training particularly appropriate in the late-working and early- retirement ages — increasing the number of older people in the workforce as the pool of younger workers declines
Disabled people Disabled people account for a third of all those without formal qualifications. 21% of disabled people aged 16-24 have no qualifications, compared with 9% of non-disabled people of the same age. Only 8% of disabled people have a degree-level qualification, compared with 17% of non-disabled people. Participation in learning in the last three years is lower amongst those who are disabled (73%) than among those who are not (84%), although the proportion of disabled people participating in learning has increased. Only 44% of disabled people are economically active compared with 79% of non-disabled people.
Skills challenges — increasing the meaningful participation of disabled people in higher and further education — ensuring that disabled people are more actively involved in the design, development, review and delivery of policies that aVect them — ensuring that capital funding covers reasonable adjustments and specialist support services to enable access to learning for disabled learners — developing information, advice and guidance (IAG) for disabled people, including those with learning diYculties, so that they are fully aware of learning, career and work opportunities, and of funding and assistance available to them — addressing low levels of awareness and understanding of disability issues amongst the general public and amongst employers, employees and providers of skills training,
Women and men Men are under-represented in nearly all adult learning programmes. Although men may need more encouragement to learn at Level 2 and Level 3, overall they still have higher qualification levels than women. Amongst people of working age, women are slightly more likely than men to be qualified to Level 4 and above (27% of women, 26% of men) and women are also more likely to be qualified to Level 2 (23% of women, 21% of men). Men are much more likely than women to be qualified to Level 3 (23% of men, 16% of women) and women are more likely than men to have no qualification, or qualifications below Level 2 (33% women, 29% men). Fewer than half of female graduates are now in high-level jobs and the trend is getting worse (45% qualified to Level 4 compared with 65% 10 years ago). Women generally work in a narrow range of lower-paying occupations, mainly those available part-time, that do not make the best use of their skills. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 272 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Skills Challenges — closing the gender gap in pay — removing barriers to women working in occupations traditionally done by men — addressing the educational underperformance of young men, particularly those in low socio- economic status categories — addressing the under-representation of women in science (including computer science), engineering, construction and technology (SECT), as learners, teachers, researchers and practitioners, and on SECT-related public bodies — improving the participation of young women in government training schemes such as apprenticeships, particularly in construction and engineering — improving the information base, for example by collecting and analysing data which cross- tabulates gender with age, disability and ethnicity.
Memorandum 52
Submission from the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils 1.1 The Alliance thoroughly supports Lord Leitch’s recommendation that government funding prioritise “economically valuable skills”, achieved through a delivery system which is driven by demand, as opposed to what providers choose to oVer. Lord Leitch also made clear that the skills system must have a sectoral approach in order to deliver economically valuable skills. He endorsed Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) as the key organisations to deliver this sectoral approach. 1.2 Since the publication of the Leitch report there has been significant movement towards a demand- led system. However there are areas where more needs to be done, or where change needs to proceed faster. A better connection between the sectoral approach and the geographical approaches will help the UK meet the Leitch targets. 1.3 SSCs need to be given a consistent role which is understood and recognised by all partners. 1.4 SSCs have produced evidence-based strategies to meet sectoral skills needs (Sector Skills Agreements—SSAs), and qualifications needs (Sector Qualifications Strategies—SQS). These strategies have the support of employers and must be central to implementing a demand-led approach. 1.5 There is a need for a strategic interface between SSCs and Regional Development Agencies (RDAs): leaving 25 SSCs to negotiate independently with 9 RDAS is a recipe for confusion. This strategic interface needs to include an agreed approach to the use of Labour Market Intelligence (LMI) so that SSC research properly informs the work of RDAs and vice versa. We accept that the regional approach to economic development will lead to competition between regions, but it is important that this does not prevent a joined up approach to skills at the national level. 1.6 There are currently too many consultative and planning bodies at the regional level and below, and the development of Employment and Skills Boards (ESBs) threatens to make the confusion worse. This proliferation is ineYcient and is likely to lead to employer “consultation fatigue”. The UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) needs to take an overview of the system and licence ESBs to ensure accountability for delivery at the local level. 1.7 Train to Gain brokers typically need to develop their understanding of sectoral learning needs and opportunities. Learning and Skills Council’s (LSC) Plan for Growth committed it to a new compact with each SSC to tailor Train to Gain to meet individual employer needs. The sector compact approach is valuable and must be pursued vigorously if Train to Gain is to meet its potential. 1.8 Although there are advantages to making local authorities responsible for 14–19 education and training, it is crucial that sectoral standards should continue to be set at a national rather than local level. 1.9 SSC LMI should influence decision-making on skills at the regional level and in some instances at sub-regional level. However, stakeholders need to be mindful of the practical and resource constraints that aVect SSCs’ ability to provide reliable quantitative data at sub-national level. Nonetheless SSCs have valuable insights to oVer, based on engagement with employers, even when fully robust quantitative data is not available for a given geographic area. 1.10 Local Authorities should provide SSCs with good quality data about the courses chosen by young people, and their employment outcomes. There needs to be a central repository for this intelligence and SSCs need to be consulted over the specification for collecting it. 1.11 The Alliance is concerned that many Diploma Delivery Consortia have not yet secured suYcient employer involvement to make Diploma delivery a success. 1.12 All 14—19 qualifications should be brought under the umbrella of Diplomas to achieve an all- encompassing high school diploma, as recommended by Tomlinson. The sooner this is announced the more likely Diplomas are to succeed. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 273
1.13 Leitch recommended that Further Education (FE) funding be fully demand-led by 2010. The Government is moving in a demand-led direction, but is moving slowly in order not to destabilise FE colleges and it is not clear when a fully demand-led system will be in place. More rapid change is necessary. 1.14 Currently, government funding is tied to whole qualifications, which often do not match specific skills needs, and the vast majority of SSCs consider this puts learners and employers oV further training. The Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) will allow learners to take modules which are specifically relevant and, in time, build these towards a whole qualification. The QCF needs to be supported by a funding policy which allows support for part qualifications and the introduction of this funding policy should not wait for its full roll out. 1.15 We are concerned that the ambitious expansion target risks diluting the quality of apprenticeship delivery. The volume of apprenticeships should be driven by employer demand. 1.16 The move towards an increasingly demand-led system requires a step-change improvement in the quality of Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) oVered to potential students, whether at 14, 18, or as a lifelong learner. Currently many people are studying in areas where they stand little chance of employment, whilst there are skills shortages in other areas. SSCs’ LMI is key to meeting this requirement. 1.17 SSCs capacity is stretched in performing their current roles. Many of the recently announced changes will require more from SSCs, and SSC funding needs to be reconsidered for the new context.
2. Introduction 2.1 Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) are employer-led organisations which speak for employers in their sector on skills and training issues. They are licensed by the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, in consultation with Ministers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. 2.2 This response is submitted on behalf of the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils (the Alliance). The Alliance is a UK-wide organisation and a legally-constituted collective, which will drive forward the employer-led skills agenda. Together, the 25 SSCs form the members of the Alliance. On the 1st April 2008 SSCs formally took over the responsibility for their own collective action from the Sector Skills Development Agency, which closed on 31st March. 2.3 All 25 SSCs were consulted in the preparation of this response and the views they expressed were taken into account. However Government Skills chose not to comment on this inquiry as it does not make comments on Government policy. 2.4 All comments in this response should be taken to refer to England only unless it is explicitly stated otherwise. 2.5 This paper takes into account Raising Expectations, published since the launch of the inquiry, as well as addressing the current situation and other proposed developments and the current situation.
3. Regional Skills Delivery 3.1 The connection between regional structures and the sectoral approach is crucial to the success of skills delivery. We expect that the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) will make recommendations on how these can be improved. 3.2 Recently, the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) have shown a greater willingness to engage with sectoral skills issues; but in the past the picture has been patchy. 3.3 Many SSCs represent employers with establishments across the UK and in some cases across the world. Many of these larger employers cannot understand why government support for skills should vary region to region. 3.4 Currently each RDA chooses a limited range of economic sectors to prioritise. SSCs who are on the priority list often build good working relationships with the RDA. But in each region the majority of sectors will not be a priority and will eVectively be “shut out”. This approach risks the disillusionment of employers who are not part of a favoured sector and makes it harder for SSCs to engage employers. 3.5 An example of an unintentional consequence of the regional strategy adopted in England for the distribution of European Union (EU) funds is as follows: — The EU allocates various funding streams with various objectives, and these funds have a list of potential industries the funding should support. — The English share is devolved to RDAs who set their criteria according to their objectives within the EU framework. — Anyone who meets the criteria can bid for these funds in a competitive process, but with employers in some eligible sectors spread evenly across England they do not have the critical mass to become an RDA priority. As a result these employers do not get any support from an EU programme which was aimed at them. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 274 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
3.6 The process of selecting priorities adds to the concern. Priorities are selected based on an RDA’s vision of a successful future for the region. They are plan-led, not demand-led. Regional skills funding must be demand-led in order to meet Lord Leitch’s ambitions. 3.7 Therefore there is a need for a strategic interface between SSCs and RDAs; leaving 25 SSCs to negotiate independently with nine RDAs is a recipe for confusion. This strategic interface must include an agreed approach to the use of Labour Market Intelligence (LMI) and Sector Skills Agreements (SSAs) so that SSC intelligence properly informs the work of RDAs. We accept that the regional approach will lead to competition between RDAs, but this cannot be allowed to prevent a joined up national approach to skills. 3.8 It would be helpful if the regions had a developed and consistent approach to cross sector skills like employability and literacy, language and numeracy. SSCs are well placed to advise on these issues. 3.9 There are currently too many consultative and planning bodies at the regional level and below, and the development of Employment and Skills Boards (ESBs) threatens to make the confusion worse. This proliferation is ineYcient and is likely to lead to employer “consultation fatigue”. UKCES needs to take an overview of the system and licence consultative bodies in the same way that SSCs are licensed. 3.10 The Raising Expectations paper envisages that the commissioning of 14–19 education will be influenced by the combined regional plan, prepared by the RDA. It is important that this commissioning is influenced by evidence of sectoral skills needs rather than RDAs vision for the future.
4. Brokerage 4.1 The Train to Gain brokerage service is the Government’s primary method of developing a demand- led Further Education (FE) system and directing employers to appropriate skills. The Alliance is fully supportive of the principle behind Train to Gain, but there are areas of its operation that require improvement as the Learning and Skills Councils (LSC) recognised in Plan for Growth (December 2007). 4.2 The Plan committed government to “a new compact with each SSC which will tailor Train to Gain to and meet individual employer needs”. This will be necessary in order to ensure that brokers visiting companies have a firm understanding of the skills needs of individual sectors and the training courses and qualifications that are available. The sector compact approach is valuable and must be pursued vigorously if Train to Gain is to meet its potential. 4.3 By April 2009, Train to Gain is due to fully merge with Business Link, the RDA-run business support service. The Alliance supports the principle of bringing business and skills support together because business support often generates training needs. However it is crucial that these changes do not adversely aVect progress on the sector compacts. It is important that the merged organisation operates a demand-led model and that an unreformed RDA plan-led agenda does not impinge on the brokerage oVer.
5. New arrangements for 14—19 education 5.1 SSCs welcome the new role for local authorities because international experience demonstrates that the local level is best for matching skills training and employer needs. 5.2 However, it is crucial that sectoral standards should continue to be set at national level. A proliferation of sectoral standards at regional and local levels would create confusion. 5.3 Local Authorities will need expert input from employers to assess the quality of vocational provision, in terms of the qualification delivery and content. 5.4 The unification of funding for 14–19 year olds fits neatly with the intention to raise the education and training leaving age to 18. 5.5 The Raising Expectations paper proposes that FE funding for under 19-year-olds will go through local authorities. It is important that this does not lead to FE colleges losing the freedoms they have gained in recent years. The proposed funding regime also creates new challenges for FE colleges because funding for young people will come from a diVerent agency to core funding for the college. 5.6 Planning at sub-regional level has the potential to provide greater coherence. However, the Young People’s Learning Agency will need to ensure a strategic approach is taken and local interests are eVectively mediated. 5.7 SSC LMI should influence key decisions at regional level and in some instances at sub-regional level. However, stakeholders need to be mindful of the practical and resource constraints that aVect SSCs’ ability to provide reliable quantitative data at sub-national level. Nonetheless, SSCs have valuable insights to oVer, based on engagement with employers, even when fully robust quantitative data is not available for a given geographic area. 5.8 The Raising Expectations paper envisages a central role for the regional plan in influencing the commissioning of courses for 14–19 year olds. It is important the commissioning is based on evidence of sectoral skills needs rather than RDA prioritisation. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 275
5.9 In order for SSCs to further develop LMI and skills solutions they require access to good quality data about the courses chosen by young people, and their employment outcomes. Past experience shows that it has been diYcult to get this data from the LSC. There needs to be a central repository for this intelligence and SSCs need to be consulted over the specification for collecting it. 5.10 Employer engagement should primarily be through SSCs; careful consideration should be given when creating employer boards at regional and sub-regional level. Uncontrolled proliferation of these bodies creates unnecessary duplication and risks employer “consultation fatigue”. 5.11 The Raising Expectations paper suggests that Local Authorities will commission education and training provision on the basis of the profile of demand from 14–19 year-olds. This approach depends on 14 year-olds being oVered greater amounts of, and higher quality, Information Advice and Guidance (IAG) than at present. A clear message from SSCs is that young people often do not make informed and realistic choices about career options and appropriate courses. This leads to a huge over-supply in some occupational areas that are superficially attractive to young people. Nonetheless, employers encounter skills shortages for these occupations because many courses lack the necessary technical content. 5.12 SSCs can support high-quality IAG by providing up-to-date and accurate information on careers within their sector. SSCs disseminate this information through training courses for careers advisers and careers websites. 5.13 It is important that young people are oVered IAG which is free from bias towards academic subjects. Therefore the role of schools in delivering IAG must be carefully considered.
6. Further Education (FE) 6.1 Leitch recommended that FE funding be fully demand-led by 2010. Government is moving in a demand-led direction, but is moving slowly in order not to destabilise FE colleges, and it is not clear when a fully demand-led system will be in place. More rapid change is necessary to meet Leitch’s ambitions and to retain the engagement of employers. 6.2 SSAs outline employers skills needs by sector. There are significant gaps in the ability of FE colleges to meet these needs both nationally and in specific areas. A faster move towards a demand-led system will incentivise colleges to meet these needs. 6.3 National Skills Academies, where in place, will provide funding to support capacity development and help FE meet employers skills needs. Funding in this area will also be necessary for sectors without Academies.
7. Higher Education (HE) 7.1 HE in England oVers world-class teaching, and research, but there is room for improvement in businesses skills needs and engaging employers. 7.2 HE must also more eVectively meet the needs of non-traditional learners, who may be in employment. This may require work-based learning and accreditation, short courses, e-learning, accreditation of prior learning and credit-based learning. 7.3 Government is currently developing HE’s businesses-responsiveness by increasing the amount of funding which is demand-led. The Alliance supports this shift and calls for it to be accelerated. 7.4 Increasing the amount of funding going through Train to Gain would increase the amount which was demand-led. However Train to Gain is in need of further development. (see section 4) 7.5 The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) scheme to co-fund HE places with employers is a positive step in a demand-led direction. The proposal in Higher Education at Work to expand this scheme, and for SSCs to be co-purchasers of provision in HE is welcomed by the Alliance. 7.6 The Alliance welcomes the Higher Level Skills Pathfinders as a step towards HE meeting employer needs. 7.7 The Higher Education Innovation Fund will support increased flexibility in the delivery of support to employers. 7.8 HE courses vary widely in the degree to which they develop skills valued by employers, but potential students are often not aware of this. Potential HE students need better IAG with a clear understanding of the economically valuable skills that employers demand. IAG must also raise awareness of the diVerent jobs available in sectors that HE entrants may be unaware of. 7.9 Some SSCs also plan to organise industry endorsement of courses to help potential students choose wisely. In the longer term the employer perspective needs to be strengthened in terms of HE quality assurance arrangements. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 276 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
7.10 HE is much better at engaging larger business than smaller businesses, which are crucial to the health of the UK economy, and this is an area that needs developing. 7.11 In order for businesses to have an incentive to collaborate with HE, institutions need to allow businesses to part-own the resulting Intellectual Property.
8. Collaboration between FE and HE 8.1 FE and HE are increasingly working together, and this is to be encouraged because it contributes to flexible options for learners and allows progression to the next level of qualification. 8.2 Bringing the funding regimes for FE and HE closer together would assist joint working. 8.3 The funding changes proposed in Raising Expectations could make joint working more diYcult, because FE under 18 will be funded separately from FE over 18. 8.4 Some institutions in HE and FE are forming regional groupings. This is a positive step and will make it easier for regional partners and SSCs to engage with HE/FE. A good example of collaboration is the Creative and Digital Industries Consortia in the North West. Regional University Associations can perform a useful role in mediating between SSCs and universities. 8.5 HE/FE co-operation on Foundation Degrees also contributes to meeting employer needs. The lifelong learning oVer of FE and HE should as far as possible be accredited through Foundation Degrees and, where possible, professional bodies should be engaged with the process as a validation route to career progression.
9. Qualifications 9.1 Through the UK Vocational Qualifications Reform Programme, SSCs are currently reforming and updating vocational qualifications, on behalf of, and in conjunction with employers in their sector. This is a central recommendation of the Leitch report. As part of this reform programme SSCs are developing Sector Qualification Strategies for each country of the UK. This reform is essential if employer up-take of vocational qualifications is to be increased. 9.2 SSCs are also playing a central role in the development of Diplomas, working with employers to ensure that they provide the skills required to work successfully in the relevant sectors and oVer an exciting introduction to it. 9.3 If SSCs are to meet employers’ need for economically valuable skills they need to be able to influence the full range of qualifications. 9.4 Flexibility in assessment frameworks is required to allow employers to make use of work-based expertise. This will require a culture change from some awarding bodies, but is essential to secure significant take up of qualifications. 9.5 The Alliance supports the development of the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF), which will allow employers to select only the relevant modules and build these towards a relevant qualification. However, qualifications must be designed so that they still form a viable whole, and ensure that key skills are not missed out. 9.6 The developing European credit framework will allow the transfer of qualifications across member nations. The Alliance supports this as it will aid mobility of labour within Europe.
10. Diplomas 10.1 England has suVered for decades from an unhelpful division between academic and vocational education and lower esteem for vocational education. Diplomas have the potential to change this. It is therefore very important that they are successful. 10.2 To date, SSCs’ role has been to inform the development of the content of Diplomas. The Alliance is concerned that many diploma delivery consortia do not yet have secured suYcient employer involvement to make Diploma delivery a success. 10.3 Diploma Development Partnerships should in the future be resourced to ensure that consortia are ready to deliver the more technical elements of the Diploma. 10.4 Greater recognition and support from HE Institutions for Diplomas as entry routes to HE is also required. 10.5 Account needs to be taken of the fact that security, safety and legal issues will limit the ability to provide work placements for young people in a number of sectors, such as the care sector. 10.6 Diplomas will allow young people to specialise at a young age. This will make good quality IAG imperative. IAG will need to cover relevant job roles and progression routes from the Diploma. SSC LMI will be crucial to delivering good quality IAG. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 277
10.7 All 14–19 qualifications should be brought under the umbrella of Diplomas to achieve an all encompassing high school diploma, as recommended by Tomlinson. The sooner this is announced the more likely Diplomas are to succeed.
11. Apprenticeships 11.1 The Alliance welcomes the Government’s focus on apprenticeships, with its aim of economically- relevant skills leading to productive employment. 11.2 However, the Alliance would prefer apprenticeships to be expanded to meet employer demand, not to achieve government targets. We are concerned that the ambitious expansion target risks diluting the quality of apprenticeship delivery. 11.3 The Government is committed to an apprenticeship entitlement. This means that if demand for a particular apprenticeship outstrips supply, Programme Led Apprenticeships may be used to fill the gap (Programme Led Apprenticeships are apprenticeships without an employer). 11.4 The Alliance believes that Programme Led Apprenticeships should be subject to strict conditions so that they do not undermine the apprenticeships brand. Employers in each sector, through their SSC, should be able to choose whether Programme Led Apprenticeships are relevant to their needs. Programme Led Apprenticeships should be approved by SSCs and have clear links to apprenticeships with employed status. 11.5 Funding levels for adult apprenticeships are currently lower than those for young people. This is a problem for many employers who wish to upskill older staV. Making the funding levels equal would support Leitch’s aim of upskilling the current adult workforce. Simplifying the apprenticeship oVer would encourage employers to engage with it. 11.6 Apprenticeships are diYcult for Small and Medium-size Enterprises to take on, and flexibility is required to support them in this. Allowing Group Training Associations to host apprenticeships is a potential solution. 11.7 There is great demand from employers for higher level apprenticeships, particularly at Level 3. The Alliance therefore calls for greater funding in this area. 11.8 Apprenticeships at Level 4 should be explored where the normal entry level for the sector is Level 4. This could raise the status and esteem of apprenticeships whilst meeting specific needs in the labour market. 11.9 The quality of the IAG received is important to Apprenticeships. 11.10 The relationship between SSCs and the new National Apprenticeship Service will be central to the success of the apprenticeship programme, particularly with regard to employer engagement. It is crucial that SSCs are given high-quality data returns from the new National Apprenticeship Service. This should be broken down by sector according to specifications that meet SSC needs. It should also report activity within each sector, even where the apprenticeship framework lies outside the sector. 11.11 Security and legal issues will limit the ability to provide apprenticeships in some sectors, such as the care sector. 11.12 National Skills Academies, in the sector that have them, should contribute to the take up of apprenticeships.
12. Skills Accounts 12.1 The Alliance welcomes the principle of encouraging employee self-motivated skills development. It is important to ensure that users are fully informed over their career choices and their implications. Unionlearn has an important role to play here due to its presence in the workplace. April 2008
Memorandum 53
Submission from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) welcomes the opportunity to submit its views to this inquiry The FSB is the UK’s leading non–party political lobbying group of UK small businesses, existing to promote and protect the interests of all who own and manage their own businesses. With over 211,000 members, the FSB is the largest organisation representing the self-employed and small businesses in the UK. Lord Leitch’s review on skills was a constructive first step towards providing businesses with the capable workforce that it needs. However, it is still too early to declare it an overall success. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 278 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
The requirements of small business must continue to be a priority because they employ 58% of the private sector workforce. Our average member employs four people. Small businesses require bite-sized courses, located in (or close too) the workplace, to avoid losing a significant proportion of their workforce when only one member of staV is being trained. This will enable small business to train their staV and will also avoid the need for heavy-handed Government compulsion. The FSB’s biennial survey of its membership in 2006136 found that many employers are keen to train their staV and that: — 45% of businesses responding stated they had encountered literacy or numeracy shortages amongst new staV. — 52% of small businesses say that with financial incentives they would be able to pursue more training for employees. — 18% of small businesses are seeking to grow through investment in staV training. The ambition of Leitch to raise the skills levels of the UK has led the Government to introduce the Education and Skills Bill. The FSB supports the increase to 18 of “staying in education or training”. Businesses have a duty to train their staV in the skills needed to function in their day job—preferably to stay in the business that has invested time and resources in their development. The Government are advocating a move towards 280 hours of training for every 16–18 year old in full employment; however the training must be accredited for the needs of small businesses, implying targeted and bite-sized delivery of training and not a system which is geared towards providing young people with formal qualifications to meet Government targets. On Apprenticeships, the review recommended that Government should consider creating a new entitlement to allow every young person the opportunity to take up an Apprenticeship place. The Government is introducing a new delivery system and the FSB places significant value on an apprenticeship. We have supported the Trades Union Congress’s (TUC) ambition for Apprenticeships to be paid the minimum wage for a young person in employment, so long as the Government extends the oVer of wage contribution towards apprenticeships through Train to Gain137. The FSB hopes that the new curriculum will go some way towards achieving Leitch’s ambitious targets at levels two and three. Diplomas and Apprenticeships oVer young people alternatives to traditional academic routes. We are keen to see vast improvements in literacy, numeracy and softer skills to ensure that individuals receive a better grounding in employability and life skills to ensure i) a more fulfilled adult life, and ii) a greater contribution to the economy. Lord Leitch advocated a Commission for Employment & Skills to oversee the reform and re-licensing of Sector Skills Councils (SSCs). The FSB supports this measure as we have concerns over many SSCs who lack small business representation. Leitch recommended that Leadership and Management funding for SME’s be extended to firms between 10 and 20 employees. However, we believe that the new Commission should be lobbying the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and SSC’s to extend Leadership and Management to micro businesses. We are pleased that Leitch advocated a demand-led system which we hope will ensure a stronger business voice. The funding changes soon to come into eVect will give greater credence to regional skills priorities. Whilst the regional agenda is critical for skills, national priorities must remain the key focus if we are to meet Leitch’s skills ambitions. We trust that you will find our comments helpful and that they may be taken into consideration. The FSB is willing for this submission to be placed in the public domain. We would appreciate a copy of the synopsis of responses and of being kept apprised of further developments and consultations on this issue. April 2008
Memorandum 54
Submission from Yorkshire Forward The core strategy and policy for Yorkshire and Humber is set out by the Regional Skills Partnership (RSP) in its planning document—Delivering a Skilled and Employed Region. This plan aims to create a demand led approach to skills and employment in the region, in line with the Regional Economic Strategy (RES) and the Government’s response to the Leitch Review. Yorkshire Forward is a key partner in delivery against each of the plan’s priorities but also supports the Partnership with high quality economic and labour market intelligence and strategy development support. Delivering a Skilled and Employed Region sets out the roles and responsibilities of the RSP as a whole and its partner organisations. These include:
136 FSB Biennial survey: Lifting the Barriers to Growth 2006 137 Train to Gain (TtG) website http://www.traintogain.gov.uk/What!Is!Train!To!Gain/ It says that small businesses are entitled to wage contribution towards a first level 2 qualification. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 279
— Leading on the development of quality and meaningful labour market intelligence for the region based on sectors and geographies, and making this information available to those that require it; — Sharing excellence and assisting the region to implement innovative approaches to improving skills; — Influencing the use of resources and lobbying for additional resources where this may be required; — Making Government aware of any barriers that prevent improvement of the region’s performance with regard to skills and qualifications; and — Supporting and encouraging sub regional and local employment and skills bodies to work to deliver the regional infrastructure. The RSP, strongly supported by Yorkshire Forward, sees a clear role in delivering the Leitch ambitions and targets in the Yorkshire and Humber region. However, the scale of the challenge is significant, and on many measures, exceeds many of our RES targets. Our challenge in terms of achieving Leitch targets is significant, this includes a need to: — Secure literacy and numeracy qualifications for some 750,000 additional people; — Get an additional 986,000 individuals qualified to level 2 or higher of which there will need to be an additional 583,000 qualified to level 4. This rises even higher as people retire from the labour market; and — At level 3, we are likely to need an additional 190,000 people qualified to this level to meet Leitch and we need to find some additional 50,000 apprenticeships. To achieve these targets the policy and plan for the RSP is to move towards a demand led system for skills and employment. The RSP has identified the following steps,crucial to achieving this: — Creation of an environment in which a demand led model can flourish; — Demand for skills from the current employer base, ensuring suppliers can respond to this demand; — Consideration of the future demand for skills and ensure partners work together to develop strategies to meet their demand; and — Ensuring the region has the infrastructure to develop high quality opportunities that will meet the demand for skills in the regional economy. The sectoral priorities for the RSP mirror those that are detailed in the current Yorkshire and Humber RES138 and include those sectors where we expect to see highest economic return and highest levels of productivity improvement. However, in terms of employment, the RSP has identified further sectoral groupings which we know will generate and absorb additional labour in high volumes over the next 10 years, these include: Health, ICT and telecommunications, retail, construction and the built environment, public services and leisure and hospitality. To deliver the challenging Leitch agenda, three priorities have been identified which form the heart of regional skills and employment policies and the shared priorities of the RSP partners: These are: — Employability—to enhance the employability of individuals by giving them the skills to take up employment opportunities including improving skills for life and job readiness. — Deliver RES and PSA target associated with employability — Work with sector based labour market information and prioritise support for identified sectoral areas. — Developing enterprising people — Develop an integrated approach to employment and skills — Higher level skills—to promote, develop and deliver the up-skilling of those in employment through higher level skills training and development in line with labour market needs and future economic opportunities. — Work with Work and Skills boards locally to stimulate the demand for skills — Engage with the supply side to deliver high quality provision in response to demand — Utilise the national skills campaign to improve the marketing of skills in the region. — Business support—to refine and develop the oVer to employers, providing integrated business support in response to customer needs designed to deliver the skills which will enhance productivity and growth. — Scope and articulate the regional workforce and skills oVer to business, enhancing this to reflect business demand more fully. — Lead the development of a single regional gateway for business support by bringing together information, diagnosis and brokerage services delivered through Business Link with the Train Brokerage service.
138 Advanced manufacturing and metals, food and drink, digital and new media, healthcare technologies, financial and business services and environmental technologies. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 280 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Case Studies:Yorkshire Forward examples of implementing the plan
Promoting the Skills Pledge in Leeds As an example of implementing the RSP plan and stimulating the demand from employers for skills, Yorkshire Forward has support Leeds Chamber of Commerce and the Leeds Skills Board to promote to employers the benefits of signing the skills pledge. A marketing campaign has been commenced, which is starting to promote not only the pledge, but also apprenticeships and engagement of employers in new diplomas.
Learning at Work Days Yorkshire Forward has supported the TUC and the Campaign for Learning in Yorkshire through funding trade unions and their learning representatives to put on “learning at work” days. In May 2007, for no more than £300 per workplace, 75 workplaces across the region put on events. These attracted 7068 people to participate in learning with 1,185 going on to enrole on courses. In 2008–09 just under over 150 workplaces will stage similar learning events. April 2008
Memorandum 55
Submission from Rolls-Royce
Background 1. Rolls-Royce is a global business providing power systems for use on land, sea and air with leading positions in civil and defence aerospace, marine and energy markets. The Company employs around 38,000 people worldwide in 50 countries with an annual turnover in 2007 of £7.4 billion. 2. Rolls-Royce invests significantly in its people in order to maintain its reputation as a world class engineering company. Each year, the Company invests around £30m on training and vocational education. 3. The Company currently has 323 graduates on our Graduate Programme worldwide, of which 296 are based in the UK. Around 145 graduates were recruited in the UK last year and we plan to recruit a further 171 in 2008. 4. Rolls-Royce has 550 Advanced Apprentices on its programme worldwide (446 in the UK). In 2007, we recruited 183 apprentices in the UK and in 2008 we plan to recruit a further 205. For our Apprenticeship Scheme we received 2,203 applications for 185 vacancies in 2007 and in the current 2008 cycle, we have received 2,119 applications. Our success might be judged by our 98% retention rate or perhaps that ex- Apprentices occupy that 30% of our senior management roles. 5. Rolls-Royce invests around £750k pa in supporting further/higher education for our apprentices. The result is that over 50% of UK apprentices enter higher education courses before the age of 30, including Foundation Degrees. In Derby, Rolls-Royce apprentice training is delivered by the Centre of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) in Lean Manufacturing which is a partnership between Rolls-Royce, Derby College and Unite (the Union). Similar arrangements are in place with other colleges across the UK.
Skills and training agenda 6. The company welcomes the Leitch Report and the attention to the skills and training agenda it has brought. We believe the principles to underpin delivery are key to meeting its ambition, with the final point being critical; — build on existing structures. Don’t always chop and change. Instead, improve performance of current structures through simplification and rationalisation, stronger performance management and clearer remits. Continuity is important. 7. The FE sector works well with Rolls-Royce and its training partners in the locations we operate. In the last two years we have moved to standardise our apprenticeship programme across the UK, the FE Colleges have been very willing to work together with us to deliver this objective. We now need a simple supporting framework to work with in England and Scotland that enables this activity. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 281
8. Rolls-Royce also has the industry wide problem of an aging population with 36% of our works populations over 50 years of age. This is expected to increase steadily to nearer 50% in the next five years with attrition rates, which have always been low for this population, tripling to circa 6% per annum. As a result, the Company would need to recruit 500 a year to maintain current headcount levels. There is a clear need to focus development of those currently employed in the sector by up-skilling. 9. One solution is an adult apprenticeship scheme. Rolls-Royce has a few adult apprentices and has trained nearly 100 adult apprentices in recent years. However, these are very much more expensive to train than young apprentices because of the diVering levels of government support and employment costs. It costs around £60,000 plus pay and benefits to deliver apprenticeships in engineering over three to four years, and although government funds around £14,000 for 16–18 year olds, this sum decreases for those over 18 years of age. 10. The LSC has moved to fund this older age group and the sector now needs to embed the training of apprentice at any age as the norm, confidence in a predictable higher level of funding would help to achieve this. 11. We have some concerns about the wider pool for apprenticeships and to help address this, we began in 2003 to train apprentices from supplier companies in Derby. In 2008, 24 apprentices were recruited on this community apprenticeship scheme. We now work with 22 companies in the area and believe others wish to join with us on this activity. 12. The company applauds the drive by Government to increase the number of apprenticeships but this policy needs to be aligned to industry. Around 1 million manufacturing jobs have been lost in the last ten years eroding the regional presence which provides the demand for such schemes—typically Rolls-Royce apprentices are recruited from within 10 to 25 miles of the Rolls-Royce operations. 13. We agree with the approach of looking to large employers with training facilities and apprentice programmes in place to “over training” for the sector and look forward to seeing how this will be funded to ensure no extra cost to the hosting company. 14. The company has been involved with training approximately 100 Young Apprentices over the last three years and has found the programme to be outstanding both for the young people involved and raising the profile of engineering within schools. We are concerned that the proposed changes in the programme will undermine the “brand” and broader educational results now being achieved. 15. We believe the Engineering Diploma, along side the Young Apprenticeship, has an important role to play in oVering students a wide choice in programmes into employment or HE. For many young people these programmes leading into Advanced Apprenticeships are truly the start of lifelong learning. 16. Rolls-Royce plc works closely with our SSC (SEMTA) on a wide range of skills and training issues such as the Sector Qualifications Strategy. We have some concerns that the SSC does not yet seem to have the authority to manage, own and implement the strategy. 17. We are concerned by the proposed changes to the qualification system with the possible loss of well- known items such as NVQ’s and BTEC both of which are now understood and used by our management. This change is not part of the Sector Qualifications Strategy. 18. The loss of known qualifications and the resulting reworking of training frameworks at a time when wishing to significantly increase the numbers of apprentices can only put more pressure on the limited training infrastructure for our sector. 19. While apprenticeships are generally local, the make up of our Graduate recruitment in the UK is increasingly international in flavour. Around 27% of our Graduate programme intake was from overseas students (up from 23% in 2006). On a positive note, by employing an international mix of people we can better reflect the global nature of our business and our customer base. However, foreign nationals are diYcult to deploy on major UK projects in the sensitive defence sector. May 2008
Memorandum 56
Supplementary evidence from Dr Roger Bennett, Principal, North Lindsey College following oral evidence session on 14 May 2008 Good to meet with you on Wednesday and further to our discussions I enclose further points I would like to share with you and members of the Committee. SMEs need incentives if they are to successfully take up the challenge of skills training, ie some financial incentive would help. Colleges throughout the UK strive to be responsive to employer needs, our sector delivers flexible programmes, many employer based, but take up amongst SMEs is modest. Notwithstanding what Leitch says, SMEs will need to play a full role if an impression on targets are remotely to be met. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 282 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
The FE Sector is constantly challenged with change, General FE colleges are complex organisations and whilst we manage change well we never seem to have stability. The LSC ceases to be in 2010, yet huge changes to the Funding Methodology are being rolled out with 2 years to go, it’s madness and is causing great diYculties across providers. Train 2 Gain; because it is target driven and qualification driven its market place in practice is primarily large employers. Taking a delivery team into a large factory and enrolling learners is a good model, ie high numbers of employees accessing “on the job” training, particularly Level 2. However, the same employers are not as responsive when you talk to them about Level 3, Level 4 skills. The brokerage system for Train 2 Gain has been a complete shambles and another waste of public money. Higher Level Skills; colleges in Yorkshire & Humberside deliver 12% of HE, across the FE sector college, (many of mixed economy) are playing a pivotal role in the delivery of Foundation Degrees and actually take the lead role in this regard. The university sector is not as responsive as colleges in the delivery of Level 4 skills. Skills Position; it may interest you to know that the American Community Colleges are currently considering a report from the National Commission on Community Colleges, entitled Winning—The Skills Race and Strengthening America’s Middle Class—an action agenda for community colleges. I attended the conference of American Community Colleges in April (Philadelphia), the report was considered at the conference. It is my opinion we are well ahead of the USA in championing skills, they have vey similar problems to the UK, but I believe our “action plan” is better. I have recently partnered with 2 USA colleges, one in California, one in Nebraska, and in terms of best practice North Lindsey has much to oVer both of them. I have also set up a transatlantic project with the college in California, part of the project works with the Bill Gates Foundation, the project is aimed at 14–16 yr olds. In February this year I and the college delivered 4 papers at the World Congress of Polytechnics and Colleges, New York, North Lindsey was peer referenced (36 countries) as being “World Class” in 14–16 provision / school partnerships; and in Employer Engagement. Across the FE sector in the UK we have some excellent practice, our problem is we don’t shout about it, it’s about time Ministers woke up to this fact. The way forward is through Apprenticeships; for young people and for adults. Apprenticeships are more than a set of targets and statistics, they are the real route to delivering the skills needs for tomorrows businesses. Apprenticeships allow a real opportunity for employers (through Sector Skills Councils) to take up the challenge of our own Skills Race. Colleges, like North Lindsey want to work with employers on this challenging agenda. Ministers need to understand that there is a real diVerence between qualifications and skills. An NVQ is a measure of competence, that is, a competence based qualification. Whilst NVQs should help towards developing skills it is Apprenticeships that have the real capacity to develop young people and adult skills. Simply measuring a college’s NVQ outturn performance will not in itself boost the countries performance in the skills race. Partnerships, collaboration and/or alliance is key, successful ventures will only materialise through trust, commitment and a cocktail of government incentives. We can win our own Skills Race but first we need to step back and assess what we have, Ministers will be pleasantly surprised I believe in hearing of the best practice models in our sector, FE and HE. LSC demise 2010; in my view this poses a real risk to our sector in terms of transitional arrangements and continuity, if it is not handled appropriately it may adversely aVect providers capacity to deliver against the skills agenda and of course all our other programme based targets. I believe RDAs could and should play a more prominent role in overseeing the skills agenda particularly in the light of my previous point. They need to do more in championing enterprise and entrepreneurship and to work with colleges in addressing local and/or sub-regional initiatives. For example, in North Lincolnshire I want to develop an Enterprise / Entrepreneurship Academy, the county does not have one and I have support from my Local Authority and lead partner University and I hope to be working with the RDA on the project. This idea will build on the Colleges excellent 14–16 Skills Centre (badged by Ofsted as Exemplary) it brings together, schools, employers, learners and importantly parents. If each local area had its own Skills Centre it has the potential to make a real diVerence. My college has also recently launched a Talent Academy.
Memorandum 57
Submission from TUC
Introduction 1.1 The TUC welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Select Committee’s inquiry into how responses to the agenda set out in the Leitch Report will aVect the broader structures of learning and skills. The inquiry will provide an opportunity for a range of stakeholders to provide a critique of the implementation of the Leitch Review of Skills and also to consider what should be prioritised as implementation continues. Please note that all TUC learning and skills policy documents referred to in this submission are available on the TUC’s website at: www.tuc.org.uk/skills. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 283
TUC Responses to the Leitch Review of Skills
2.1 The TUC submitted a detailed response to the initial consultation undertaken by the Leitch Review in 2005 and followed up on this by publishing another report—2020 Vision for Skills—in autumn 2006. In the 2020 Vision report the TUC agreed with Lord Leitch that there needed to be a major step change in skill levels in the workplace to meet both social and economic objectives and argued that reforms in the following five areas would help greatly: — Increasing investment in skills by employers and government and specific policy reforms to achieve this, including new regulatory mechanisms; — Developing a strengthened social partnership approach on skills—especially at the sectoral level— giving equal weight to the skills needs of employers and employees; — Introducing a right to paid time oV to train in particular for employees without a Level 2 qualification; — Tackling the significant skills discrimination faced by certain groups in the labour market; and — Giving unions greater rights to bargain on skills and also strengthening the capacity of union learning reps to support learning and skills in the workplace. 2.2 Following the publication of the Leitch Review report in December 2006 the TUC published a briefing setting out its initial reaction. In summary, the TUC welcomed the scale of ambition on skills set out in the report. It was also welcome that this ambition was backed up with clear targets for increased acquisition of accredited qualifications rather than promoting a more nebulous concept of an improved skills base. In particular, the TUC welcomed the aim to virtually eradicate low skills by 2020 and also for the UK to become a world leader on intermediate and higher level skills by then. The TUC also supported the degree of specificity in the report about the necessary levels of investment required to move the UK up the international skills league by 2020. 2.3 Whilst the Leitch Review certainly did not fully endorse the TUC’s recommendations that the Government should introduce new individual employee rights and collective union rights on workplace training, it did make one significant proposal on this front. The TUC welcomed the recommendation by Lord Leitch that the Government should “introduce a statutory entitlement to workplace training at Level 2 in consultation with employers and unions” if employers failed to utilise the Skills Pledge to voluntarily upskill employees at a suYcient rate by 2010. 2.4 In relation to young people, the TUC welcomed the commitment to move to compulsory education and training up to the age of 18 and to expand Apprenticeships on the grounds that these measures would do much to tackle the UK’s dismal failure when it comes to post-16 staying on rates and the low status attributed to the vocational route for young people. Also welcome were the proposals to establish a new careers service for adults and to improve the financial support system for adults who are independently pursuing vocational qualifications. 2.5 However, the TUC also noted a number of key concerns about the thrust of the Leitch Review report. One related to the emphasis placed on moving to a largely employer-led skills system and the danger this posed to marginalizing the needs and aspirations of the workforce. At the time the TUC said that it would continue to argue for building a more inclusive approach underpinned by social partnership arrangements, which would address the importance of strengthening both employer and employee demand for skills. In relation to this, the TUC also highlighted concerns about the presumption in the review that employers would increase their investment in employee skills once the skills infrastructure had been made more employer-friendly.
The union role on learning and skills
3.1 As regards the union role on learning and skills, Lord Leitch did not endorse the TUC’s proposals for strengthening the collective union role by making training a collective bargaining issue in the statutory union recognition procedure. But this was not too surprising considering that the Government had already rejected this policy reform when the DTI reported earlier in 2006 on its review of collective bargaining. And whilst the Leitch report did concur that initiatives such as Learning Agreements and Workplace Learning Committees were helpful in supporting the union role, especially by giving greater strategic direction to the role of Union Learning Representatives (ULRs), it refrained from supporting the TUC’s call for some form of statutory underpinning for these workplace arrangements. 3.2 The Leitch Report also gave support to the Collective Learning Funds initiative that the TUC and unionlearn, in collaboration with DIUS, is currently trialling. The CLF initiative aims to optimise contributions to broad workforce development that fall outside the direct responsibility of employers (eg job-specific training) or Government-subsidised provision (eg Skills for Life, Skills Pledge, Train to Gain). During 2007 and 2008, unionlearn in the North West, supported by DIUS, have been trialling the establishment and development of CLF models in a number of workplaces in the region. At this stage it has Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 284 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
been agreed to continue with the trials in the north west and also to extend the trials to a second region on the basis that there is scope not only to develop the project more broadly within the north west region, but also in other regions that have diVerent sectoral compositions. It is anticipated that a progress report will be published in summer 2008 to inform lessons learned to date and as the project develops, a key aim will be to look at how the CLF model can be integrated with key government programmes, such as Train to Gain, the Skills Pledge and the new Skills Accounts. 3.3 The union role on skills has of course been transformed in recent years as a result of the establishment and growth of ULRs—there are now in excess of 18,000 and they are continuing to prove to be highly eVective intermediaries in engaging and supporting employees to take up learning and training opportunities in the workplace. The establishment of unionlearn in 2006 has helped to build the union role further by supporting the development of a more coherent framework for union-led activity on learning and skills, in particular via the role of ULRs. The TUC is continuing to press the Government that it would make sense to provide ULRs in the workplace with a strategic presence which would fully exploit their capacity to support learning and skills development that enhances organisational performance and the wider development of individual employees. 3.4 Building the collective role of union learning reps would also go some way to addressing the need to tie skills initiatives in the workplace with other aspects of working life, in particular productive employment relations. Research by a number of influential academics, including Ewart Keep, has highlighted the inter- relationship between skills deficiencies and organisational deficiencies and that strategies to tackle the former cannot be undertaken in isolation from the latter. In addition, the TUC believes that the Government’s skills strategy needs to be linked to an active national industrial strategy that supports and directs the work undertaken by Regional Development Agencies. The importance of these relationships for ensuring that any improvement in skills has a significant impact on productivity in the coming years has been persuasively set out by Ewart Keep and colleagues, who argue that “this gap in public policy is liable to prove costly, and to minimize the productive impact that publicly funded upskilling initiatives can have.”139
Implementing the “Leitch Vision”
4.1 The Government’s implementation plan for taking forward the recommendations of the Leitch Review was clearly set out in World Class Skills published last summer. The TUC welcomed a nuanced change in tone in this document, with the skill needs of individuals and employees being more centre stage than in many previous skills policy statements. In particular, the TUC welcomed the vision of a new demand-led skills system set out in the implementation plan—“What all our reforms have in common is that they are trying to put the customer—in this case, adult learners and employers—first. We call this our ‘demand-led’ approach” (World Class Skills, paragraph 10). This is a much more balanced view of a demand led skills system compared to previous policy statements and it quite rightly gives due recognition to individual demand as well as employer demand. 4.2 The TUC also welcomed the decision to “bring forward new legislation to strengthen the current funding entitlement for adults to free training in basic literacy and numeracy skills, and to achieve their first full level 2 qualifications” (paragraph 15). While this entitlement will not immediately create any new obligations on employers, it does go beyond the proposal by Lord Leitch to review the need for a new statutory right in 2010. In principle it prepares the ground for the introduction of a full legal right to training in 2010 if employers fail to support enough employees to access training up to level 2 by supporting the Skills Pledge. 4.3 The TUC is currently giving its full support to the Skills Pledge and unionlearn is taking forward a strategy to support the capacity of unions and ULRs to work in partnership with employers to maximise take-up and implementation of the pledge in as many workplaces as possible. However, this support remains on the basis that the Government remains clearly committed to introducing a statutory right to training if the pledge does not lead to a suYcient rate of improvement in investment in training by employers by 2010. The trade union representatives on the Commission for Employment and Skills will be ensuring that this remains a clear priority of the Commission’s work programme over the next two years. 4.4 Two major policy proposals in the Leitch Review report were to develop a more demand-led system for employers and individuals via the continued expansion of Train to Gain and the introduction of Skills Accounts and also to bring about a greater integration of skills and welfare to work provision. In order for this new employment and skills system to operate eVectively, it is crucial that employees and trade unions are empowered to ensure that individual demand is being raised and also that such demand is being fulfilled eVectively by the supply side. In addition, it is important to remember that trade unions can have a significant impact on employer demand and employer behaviour as regards supporting learning and skills in the workplace.
139 Keep, E., Mayhew, K., and Payne, J. (2006) “From Skills Revolution to Productivity Miracle: not as easy as it sounds?”, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, vol.22, no.4 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 285
4.5 At the enterprise and workplace levels, it will be important that unions influence the new demand- led system. The TUC therefore welcomed the proposals in World Class Skills that ULRs would be encouraged to work with employers to draw up action plans for delivering the Skills Pledge and for helping more employers and employees access Train to Gain provision. The TUC is also currently engaged in a strategy to strengthen the role of trade unions and ULRs in supporting the welcome expansion of the Apprenticeship programme over the coming years.
5.1 Funding Priorities and the Role of FE Colleges 5.1 The TUC has welcomed the increased investment in learning and skills by the current Government and especially the increased spending on workplace skills training. For example, the TUC gave a positive welcome to the skills settlement in the latest Comprehensive Spending Review and in particular the focus on increasing government investment in work-based training programmes. However, a number of stakeholders have expressed concerns that the Government’s focus on “economically valuable” skills risks undermining other educational provision delivered by FE colleges. 5.2 The TUC has therefore welcomed the Government’s decision to undertake a wide-ranging consultation on informal adult learning in order to address such concerns and also to develop a new strategy on supporting a culture of lifelong learning that embraces all forms of learning and personal development. The TUC will shortly be submitting a response to the consultation and this will particularly focus on what measures the Government could utilise to maximise the contribution to informal adult learning at the workplace level, whilst also recognising that trade unions have a crucial role to play in promoting and delivering adult learning across the wider community. For example, are there ways of levering up greater investment by employers in lifelong learning provision delivered by FE colleges? There is a strong case for considering this on the grounds that many more employers will be receiving state-subsidised vocational training via the expansion of Train to Gain over the coming years 5.3 The TUC had been concerned that Lord Leitch’s recommendation to move to a fully demand-led skills system by 2010 would destabilise the FE sector. It was therefore welcome that the Government clarified in World Class Skills that this “would create unacceptable risks to the performance and stability of colleges and providers, which in turn would damage the quality of education and training oVered to learners.” However, it is important that the Government continues to closely monitor the impact of the expansion of the demand-led skills system on the ability of colleges to deliver a broad range of learning and training that supports both economic and social priorities nationally and also in all our local communities.
6.1 The institutional skills framework 6.1 While the TUC welcomed the revised demand-led skills framework highlighted in World Class Skills, it is crucial that this is translated into reality by ensuring that employees and trade unions have a significant voice in the new institutional skills framework. It is welcome that three trade union Commissioners have been appointed to the Commission for Employment and Skills although this needs to be viewed in the light that employers still make up the majority of the Commission. This is very diVerent to the social partnership arrangements which underpin the institutional skills infrastructure in other leading European economies, such as France and Germany, which continue to perform better than the UK on workforce skills. 6.2 The implementation of the Leitch Review of Skills has endorsed the view that Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) should play a major role in driving forward the new demand-led skills system. The TUC has supported the development of the SSCs in recent years and unionlearn is playing a central role in coordinating the union input, in particular around the development of Sector Skills Agreements. The sectoral approach in particular has the potential to deliver some of the key elements of a post-voluntary skills framework, but this would need to be accompanied by a much more robust form of social partnership than simply obliging Sector Skills Councils to have at least one union Board member. 6.3 For example, a report by the Sector Skills Development Agency (Lessons from Abroad, SSDA, 2006) highlighted the benefits of sectoral approaches in other countries entailing more regulatory levers/fiscal incentives than in the UK but also stronger employee voice to ensure “that both the wider public functions of qualifications and the sector-specific needs of employees are met”. The Commission for Employment and Skills needs to consider the huge potential for developing a sectoral approach along these lines under its remit to reform and re-license the SSC network. Clear consideration needs to be given to the potential for sectoral levies and Licence to Practice arrangements to drive up demand. It is also particularly important that the workforce, through trade union representation, is able to have a significant influence on the new powers that Sector Skills Councils are to be given around the design and approval of vocational qualifications. 6.4 Most recently, the Government has set out its plans for further reform of the skills infrastructure in England (Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver) involving abolishing the LSC and transferring its remit for young people to local authorities and its remit for adults to a new Skills Funding Agency. The TUC will be submitting a response to this consultation and will be supporting the move to give local authorities a greater strategic role for young people. However, with two in five workers still not getting any regular training at work, it is crucial that this further organisational reform does not divert attention from Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 286 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
the wider skills challenge—getting more employers to oVer quality apprenticeships and training opportunities. It will also be important to ensure that as well as meeting the skills needs of employers, more individual employees are helped to get new skills under these new arrangements, and this will require a clear role for unions in articulating employee demand for skills and supporting its fulfilment. The TUC will also be stressing that the Government ensures that the expertise built up by LSC staV is utilised in any future arrangements, without recourse to redundancies.
7.1 The Regional Dimension
7.1 The regional dimension to the implementation of the Leitch Review of Skills and related reforms (eg the Sub-National Review and forthcoming abolition of the LSC) is crucial. As highlighted earlier in this submission (paragraph 3.4) the TUC believes that the Government’s skills strategy needs to be closely inter- linked to the regional economic strategies undertaken by the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs). To date there have been concerns that delivering the Government’s skill strategy at the regional and sub- regional levels has been a very challenging exercise due to necessity of coordinating national, sectoral and regional skills priorities and integrating these within the regional economic strategy. The Regional Skills Partnerships (RSPs) have been the main conduit for coordinating regional skills strategies and the RDAs have quite rightly played a central role in this area.
7.2 However, the future role of the Regional Skills Partnerships is very much dependent on how the Government takes forward the proposal to develop the new Employment and Skills Boards (ESBs) proposed by Lord Leitch. When the Regional Skills Partnerships were originally announced in the 2003 Skills White Paper, the TUC did question whether their structure and membership really did lend itself to delivering on the needs of demand-side partners in the regions. This has remained a concern, in particular as the role of Sector Skills Councils has grown in importance and it has sometimes proved diYcult to align sectoral and regional skills priorities.
7.3 In World Class Skills the Government said that it did not believe that it would be right to give the Commission for Employment and Skills a role in licensing ESBs. It was also clarified that the Government did “not intend to prescribe one standard model for an ESB” and that “in all cases any new ESBs should build on what already exists” with a key aim being to simplify the range of existing local bodies. While it will be important that ESBs build on existing arrangements and simplify coordination and strategic decision-making (eg as in the case of the London Skills and Employment Boards) it will also be important to ensure some key principles are applied to the ESB model, in particular by ensuring that equal weight is given to employer and employee demand.
7.4 The ongoing Raising Expectations consultation highlights that, as regards young people, the proposed new arrangements will require a highly collaborative approach by local authorities, RDAs and other stakeholders in order to deliver a coherent education and skills oVer for all young people, especially the most disadvantaged. There is a potential danger that this degree of collaboration will not evolve as quickly as required in some areas and there is a clear role for the RDAs to drive forward collaborative working in all regions to make sure all young people can access suitable education or training opportunities that will enable them to fulfil their potential.
7.5 However, it is also important that RDAs begin to assess their role alongside SSCs in supporting the new skills system that will come into place in 2010 when the new Skills Funding Agency is established. RDAs and SSCs will need to work even more collaboratively if the new demand-led system is to operate eVectively, especially as the planning role of the LSC will no longer exist. RDAs, SSCs and the new regional LSC Councils only have two years to prepare for this scenario and they need to focus on building a stronger demand-led system for adult skills at the regional level. This means giving employer and employee demand a greater role and working even more closely with employers, trade unions and other stakeholders to achieve this change.
7.6 However, there is a danger that the focus on further institutional reform at the regional level will divert attention from the range of skills challenge that need to be met now, especially the need to expand high quality Apprenticeships and also to enable all eligible adult employees to benefit from the Skills Pledge and Train to Gain provision. RDAs, SSCs and the LSC Regional Councils should be focused on working in partnership now in order to raise demand from employers and employees to meet the Government’s aim of achieving a rapid expansion in take-up of these training opportunities. June 2008 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 287
Memorandum 58
Submission from Unite the Union Unite is the UK’s largest trade union with 2 million members across the private and public sectors. The union’s members work in a range of industries including manufacturing, financial services, print, media, construction, transport and local government, education, health and not for profit sectors.
Executive Summary —Skills and training must be enshrined within collective agreements; —Introduction of a training levy; —Expansion of ULRs and increase in funding to ULF; —Trade union seats on delivery and funding bodies; —Paid time oV for training; —Increase in apprenticeship minimum wage and encouragement of atypical recruits; —Apprenticeship targets on all public procurement projects.
Collective Bargaining 1. Unite has witnessed a lack of investment in training by employers across a number of industrial sectors and a lack of commitment to training, as identified by the limited number of employers who have signed up to the Governments skills “Pledge”, first proposed by Lord Leitch. If we wait until 2010 as Leitch recommends, or later as has been proposed recently, and for a mere right to training to level 2, we are in danger of doing too little too late. 2. Therefore, a fundamental issue for Unite is the right to bargain with employers on learning and skills. While the proposals put forward in the DCSF/DIUS Raising Expectations: Enabling the System to Deliver consultation is for a more strategic and coordinating role for local authorities, this may prove ineVective if employers fail to engage with the learning agenda with either the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) or as is planned, Local Authorities. 3. Engaging employers in the skills agenda may also prove diYcult, particularly in times of economic downturn, with some employers espousing rhetoric rather than action when it comes to training their workforce. 4. That is why Unite is campaigning for skills and training to be enshrined within collective agreements in order that trade unions can negotiate with employers on this key element which is vital for the success of the business.
Funding for training 5. Despite CBI figures which indicate that billions of pounds are spent every year on training at work, it is recognised that a significant proportion of this is spent on health and safety training or other statutorily or regulatory required training. It is also evident that training is not evenly distributed throughout the working population, with those already with advanced skills and those in more senior positions, gaining disproportionately more training than those on the lower rungs of the career ladder with less skills.140 6. Therefore in order to ensure an even distribution of funding and to ensure employer buy-in, Unite proposes a statutory training levy is introduced. This will act to ensure adequate funding; that training is made available to all and that the current system is not overstretched. It will also ensure employers take their responsibility to train seriously.
Paid time off for training 7. Unite is also campaigning for a statutory right to paid time oV for training. 8. It is evident from the skills gap between the UK and our competitors that employers are failing to provide an adequate level of training to compete with our economic partners. Indeed Lord Leitch has identified this problem in his review of skills. 9. Unite welcomes the proposals for the right to request time oV for training outlined in the Education and Skills Bill however believes that this could be enhanced further by providing paid time oV for the training delivered.
140 TUC Report: Training who gets it? November 2005 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 288 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
10. It is vital that employers bear a significant proportion of the costs associated with training people when in work, given that it will be employers who have the most to gain from an educated and skilled workforce. This is especially true when the training involves sector specific training. 11. Given that the majority of employers in the UK are SME’s, Unite also accepts that some smaller employers may have resource implications and find it more diYcult financially to provide training. Government funding should be made available to assist SMEs in ensuring that SME’s and their employees do not lose out in the global skills race.
Demand-led training and the role of ULRs 12. Unite believes that the demand-side approach put forward in the DCSF/DIUS141 consultation paper could be enhanced through recognition of the role trade unions and specifically Union Learner Reps (ULRs) play in working with employers to support and deliver learning in the workplace. Employer/employee engagement works most eVectively in workplaces where there is recognised trade union involvement. Unite therefore identifies a strong role for trade unions in a demand-led training environment in articulating the needs of learners. 13. The positive impact of ULRs in encouraging take-up of training opportunities is well documented, particularly among under represented groups. Unite and the wider trade union movement have been instrumental in driving a demand-led skills agenda within the workplace, with over 18,000 ULRs in the UK engaging with workers on both vocational and non vocational training everyday. 14. Unite will continue to actively recruit, train and support ULRs. Whilst welcoming the additional £3 million of funding made available to the Union Learning Fund (ULF) by the Government last year we would argue that this increase in demand must be met by further such increases in funding in the future.
Stakeholder engagement 15. It is vital that the voice of trade unions and other stakeholders interested in the learning agenda is heard. Unite would therefore wish to ensure that trade unions are given a leading role in articulating and supporting employee demand for learning by ensuring a trade union representative is on the board of all skills delivery and funding bodies. This would include the new arrangement which is put in place following the abolition of the LSC in 2010, and that this is mirrored at a local level where appropriate.
Apprenticeships 16. Lord Leitch’s proposals, “for a significant increase in apprenticeship places for every suitably qualified young person by 2013”, is welcomed. However, delivery of this ambitious plan requires co- operation between a number of groups, not least of all employers, with questions still unanswered on responsibility for delivery, issues over quality of provision and inevitably, over funding. 17. Unite is unsure that these questions have been addressed and would wish to explore this issue further. — Unite would propose high quality employer places together with a firm commitment from Government to guarantee the resources to provide an apprenticeship at the appropriate level to those with appropriate qualifications. — More must be done to encourage completion rates, which in manufacturing stands at 63%. Unite needs to see a clear and strategic programme of work, both inside the company and at any centre of learning. — Unite would also wish to see wages for apprentices more closely linked to the minimum wage and a real eVort to acknowledge and address the current gender inequality in apprenticeship pay. For example, the TUC has evidence of female apprentices being paid £1.54 per hour142. — Wider equality and gender segregation issues within the apprentice system must also be addressed to encourage equity and diversity and create a more representative labour market reflecting the communities where firms are located. — Unite also believes that ULRs could provide a mentoring role within the apprenticeship system to support apprentices and is keen to work with the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) to encourage entry by under represented groups. — Unite would also support a scheme whereby financial support could be given to apprentices who have to travel away from home to take up apprenticeships. Perhaps similar to a student grant or travel bursary. — Unite would also wish to see government targets on apprentices involved in all public procurement projects with the continual promotion of equality and diversity within apprenticeship programmes.
141 DCSF/DIUS Raising Expectations: Enabling the System to Deliver 142 TUC Report: Decent Pay for Apprentices Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 289
Education and Skills Bill
18. Unite has concerns about the proposals contained within the Education and Skills Bill regarding education or training post-16 which emphasises a compulsion on young people to participate or face penalties. Unite is not convinced that the compulsory nature of the duty to participate will be successful. 19. The government seems intent on doing everything other than compelling employers to train their workforce. It would seem a perfectly reasonable request, if we are to ensure all young people are given the right skills before adulthood, to compel firms employing these young people, to train them. 20. It is also essential that adequate resources are put in place in order to fully support this initiative. eg if a young person “drops out” of the system—then they are re-engaged as soon as possible. This may be a role for the guidance function within the education system or when in employment, a role for union workplace representatives, in particular ULRs. ULRs can and do provide a supportive function for learners in the workplace and this role could be expanded further looking specifically at a “pastoral care” role. June 2008
Memorandum 59
Submission from NUS
Introduction
1. The National Union of Students (NUS) is a voluntary membership organisation comprising a confederation of local student representative organisations in colleges and universities throughout the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland which have chosen to aYliate and which pay a membership fee. We have nearly 750 constituent members (CMs)—virtually every college and university in the country. 2. NUS is one of the largest student organisations in the world and represents the interests of around seven million students in further and higher education throughout the United Kingdom. NUS provides research, representation, training and expert advice for individual students and students’ unions. We deal with over 15,000 welfare enquiries each year and train over 3,000 students’ union oYcers. 3. NUS welcomes the opportunity to provide written evidence to the Innovation, Universities and Skills Select Committee’s inquiry After Leitch: Implementing Skills and Training Policies. NUS believes that education is one of greatest forces to improve social mobility, social justice and individual enrichment. We also believe re-skilling and up-skilling the population will have a major impact on productivity and the creation of wealth.
Summary
4. NUS believes the voice of the learner should be at the heart of any attempt to act eVectively on the recommendations in the Leitch Review of Skills. With 70% of the UK’s 2020 workforce having already completed their compulsory education, the Review highlighted the importance of further education, the “Cinderella” of the education sector, as well as the role of higher education. Both sectors need to become more flexible to meet the challenge of providing skills and higher-level skills to those already in employment. 5. From a student perspective, NUS is concerned to ensure that greater regional specialisation in further and higher education course provision should not limit opportunities for individuals to attend the institutions and study the courses that best suit there needs, particularly given that an increasing number of students are based at home due to financial pressures or other commitments. 6. The need to address lifelong learning requires changes to financial support of part-time students. NUS believes this must change to cope with the increasing demand for part-time provision in both further and higher education, particularly for those returning to education to re-skill and up-skill. On this basis, NUS criticised the Government’s decision to phase out funding for equivalent or lower qualifications (ELQs). 7. NUS is pleased that the Government is consulting students on higher level skills through the Higher Education at Work—High Skills: High Value initiative. Equipping students with the skills they will need as graduates is vital, so long as we remember that higher education is not just about skills—it is also about gaining a broad education. A careful balance needs to be struck if we’re to avoid reducing the role of higher education institutions (HEIs) to simply becoming “graduate factories” for businesses. Economically valuable skills should be explicitly defined to include generic transferable skills that graduates gain throughout their period of study. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 290 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Qualifications Frameworks
8. NUS were involved in and supported a number of the recommendations of the Burgess Group Report on higher education qualifications. Reform of existing credit frameworks is vital if flexible lifelong learning is to be made available and accessed by an increasingly diverse student body, particularly with more mature students wanting to study locally and more learners returning to education or juggling learning with other work and family commitments. HEIs need to provide diVerent types of continuing professional development (CPD) and the flexibility of credit in order to deliver learner-centred work based learning. However, it is also funding for institutions that needs to be flexible and based on credit rather than purely on qualifications.
9. NUS believes that further education and lifelong learning also requires a simple, unified and coherent qualifications framework that oVers diverse and engaging learning to all types of learners. A simplified and standardised system should be developed to include all level two and level three qualifications following the creation of the Qualification and Credit Framework (QCF)
User Voice—Employer and Learner
10. NUS is hopeful that progress will be made in the development of the role of learner voice in Sector Skills Councils (SSCs). This initiative needs the appropriate resources if the voice of the learner is genuinely to be placed at the heart of the post-Leitch agenda and the structures through which it is implemented.
12. The employer voice is strong in the Employment and Skills Commission and the National Apprenticeship Service. Yet problems exist for the learner voice in being heard and in being taken seriously in each of these bodies, and space must therefore be built to accommodate it.
11. NUS believes the structures emerging in the wake of the Leitch Review must, in partnership with learner representative bodies and providers, be in a position to deliver Foster’s “learner imperative”. A significant amount of work is required if the sector is to build on the new legislative and statutory support for learner voice and personalisation and make this a reality in providers across the diversity of the learning and skills sector.
12. To this end, NUS recommends the addition of an aim to deliver a truly responsive system that empowers learners, employers and communities to articulate their needs and enabled them to act upon them eVectively. Since the publication of the Foster Review, NUS has worked with working with partners including the DfES Personalisation Project Group, DIUS, the QIA, LSC, AoC and CEL to help develop good learner involvement and engagement practices. However, these practices need more support if they are to be firmly embedded.
13. NUS believes businesses are of strategic importance to the future provision of skills and should have a role in supplying provision to meet their needs. However, we would question proposals to allow businesses to decide on the curriculum. The importance of transferable skills is growing and flexibility is vital if individuals are to be equipped for a working life during which they may change career several times. A simple “predict and provide” model is not necessarily in the best interests of the learners or their future careers.
Structural Changes
14. NUS believes a balance must be struck between general and specialist provision in the wake of the Leitch Review. NUS is concerned that proposed future changes to the delivery of 14–19 education in local authorities will throw this into sharper relief, with young people being required to make decisions concerning their working lives and careers at an earlier age. The standard of provision must be consistent across the board and the appropriate information, advice and guidance (IAG) should be provided to all. The benefits of local strategies should not eclipse the need for genuine choice and flexibility in order to ensure that learners access the courses and institutions that are most appropriate for their needs.
15. NUS believes a universal, accessible and consistent further education complaints system that guarantees timely and just resolution of learners’ complaints, including, at its final stage, an independent adjudicator or ombudsman to ensure the consistency of provision and support. June 2008 Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 291
Memorandum 60
Supplementary submission from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) 1. This note provides information on HEFCE funded HE institutions (HEIs) income from business. 2. The data is taken from the Higher Education—Business and Community interaction survey (HE- BCIS) 2006–07. The survey is published annually by HEFCE. Data from 2006–07 was published on 10 July 2008. 3. The 2006–07 data was included in the earlier HEFCE data annex submitted on the 27 June 2008. 4. At the evidence session on 9 July 2008, HEFCE Chief Executive Professor David Eastwood provided data on HEI revenues from the following four areas of HEI activity. — collaborative research; — contract research; — consultancy; and — Continuing Professional Development (CPD) courses. 5. We provide below a time series for the increase in income in these areas, together with other activities measured by HE-BCI between 2000–01 and 2006–07. It should be noted that the HE-BCI survey is conducted in two parts. Financial information is accurate up to the period 1 August 2006–31 July 2007. Qualitative data on employer engagement is taken as a snapshot of activity in January 2008. 6. Financial data is shown in real terms rather than cash terms. 7. For the four specific areas of activity, between 2005–06 and 2006–07 there has been an increase in income to HEIs of 14%.
Income in 2005–06 to HEFCE Funded HEIs from: — Collaborative research—£454 million. — Contract research—£571 million. — Consultancy—£208 million. — CPD—£346 Total: £1,579 million.
Income in 2006–07 to HEFCE funded HEIs from: — Collaborative research—£488 million. — Contract research—£664 million. — Consultancy—£239 million. — CPD—£402 Total: £1793 million.
Figure 1
TIME SERIES SUMMARY INFORMATION OF HE-BCIS FOR HEFCE FUNDED HEIs BETWEEN 2000–07
Income from HEFCE funded 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04 2004–05 2005–06 2206–07 2007–08 HEIs/£ Millions (real terms)
Collaborative research 374 407 398 432 432 454 488 n/a Consultancy 96 107 140 180 203 208 239 n/a Equipment services 24 33 40 64 68 72 72 n/a Regeneration 110 114 124 178 166 177 183 n/a CPD n/a n/a n/a 276 334 346 402 n/a Contract research n/a n/a n/a 537 558 571 664 n/a IP (including sale of shares) n/a n/a n/a 30 49 47 41 n/a Total 1,697 1,810 1,875 2,089 % HEFCE funded HEIs which provide: Distance learning for businesses 52% 53% n/a n/a 66% 68% 70% 68% Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 292 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Income from HEFCE funded 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04 2004–05 2005–06 2206–07 2007–08 HEIs/£ Millions (real terms) Short bespoke courses on client’s 65% 68% n/a n/a 79% 82% 86% 84% premises Enquiry point for SMEs 82% 85% n/a n/a 89% 90% 92% 92% Required contracting system for 54% 62% n/a n/a 63% 66% 73% 73% all consultancy
July 2008
Memorandum 61
Supplementary evidence from Million! Following the Committee’s evidence session of 9 July the university think-tank Million! would be pleased if the following supplementary evidence could be considered.
Current and Future Impact of Leitch Report on HE and FE
1. Million! welcomes the Leitch vision to attract more working age adults into higher level learning— the UK does need to do more to unlock productivity, innovation and potential in a competitive global economy and universities are key to this agenda. 2. The current Leitch debate should focus on how best we deliver for individuals, employers and the economy. There are five over-arching issues which need to be addressed: — Who is in the driving seat—the individual or the employer? — What is the role of the institution in driving the agenda? — How far can employers be relied upon to meet Government ambitions for co-funding, bearing in mind that the latter is predicated on a reduction in the unit of public resource? — How should part-time higher education be funded (students and institutions)? — Do the current full-time student support arrangements work as well for older students ie students who are more likely to have mortgages/rents or care responsibilities and may be more risk adverse to debt? 3. Universities which subscribe to Million! operate in a national and international market for higher level learning, while contributing to the regional agenda in terms of access, graduate supply and applied research. It would be a mistake to place too much emphasis on the “regional” nature of universities in the delivery of the Leitch agenda. 4. Regional Development Agencies can and do work helpfully with and alongside universities but RDAs are variable and have variable funding. Accordingly, we can see no merit in either funds for Leitch or planning functions related to Leitch being channelled through RDAs. 5. Universities which educate the majority of the UK’s higher education students have a long tradition of supporting and progressing Leitch objectives. The key question in terms of the impact of Leitch in the future is whether funding regimes and other policy initiatives will assist and enhance this work.
Are the targets set by the Government following the publication of the Leitch report achievable?
6. The targets are useful as headline figures but their achievement will require: — a cultural change from many employers; — much better time-oV rights for employees and workers; — funding regimes which recognise that this is not necessarily a cheap option for institutions; and — a significant adjustment in student funding regimes to ensure that those who study part-time or who are mature students are properly supported. Government does need to strike a balance between asking employers and incentivising individuals. A proper review of the 16 hour rule for those reliant on benefits and a fees review for higher education which recognised that university is not just for young people would also help. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 293
How does the principle of “demand led” education fit with HE? What does this mean in practice? How does it work? 7. Universities already operate in a “demand-led” environment in which they respond to the needs of the student and this does not always map neatly onto the needs of the employer. Some employers also want to train graduates “on the job”. They are looking for employees with capacity to be innovative and be thought leaders ie they want a mixture of relevant knowledge and relevant skills that they will build on as employers. Trade union learning reps have also encouraged “demand”. Along with a statutory framework to facilitate individual rights to time-oV for education and training, there is a case for enhanced representation rights along the lines of the health and safety legislation which was backed by statutory rights of representation. 8. Employer engagement and demand-led education have many facets that cannot be conflated, for example, there is: — employer engagement in curriculum development; — full cost courses; — co-funding; and — work-based learning. In addition many universities have employability, business and entrepreneurial skills as integral parts of courses, live projects (with employers) as part of the curriculum and employability centres to assist students in maximising their job and employment prospects. 9. While Government and Hefce can try and articulate their policy objective in each area, universities have to translate these into courses and qualifications that potential learners (students) want and feel able to access. Employers do not always anticipate the market and so-called demand-led education which is over- reliant on employer demand can have its own instabilities for students and institutions. This applies to the public as well as the private sector eg NHS workforce planning. 10. Universities, students and other agencies also have to consider whether employer demand is for existing skills ie is it proven demand or future demand. One of the key challenges is anticipating eVectively requirements in the future. Universities such as those which subscribe to Million! play a very important role, linked with their applied research, in anticipating and promoting qualifications for tomorrow’s world ie “sunrise subjects” and interdisciplinary as well as intra-disciplinary programmes. For example, the first undergraduate business course (now one of the most popular choices for home and international students) was developed at Middlesex University; In 1997, Abertay University in Dundee launched the first digital games technology masters degree in the world. 11. The individual route is also very important. Some demand-led models can ignore the many part-time students in higher education who are “hidden” to employers because they are looking to move on from a current employer, are part of the flexible workforce or are seeking to move back into paid work. If “demand- led” means exclusively employer co-funded and employer demand and if the availability of public funding is restricted to this narrow definition, there is a real risk that, rather than demand being incentivised, demand will be dampened with opportunities to access higher level skills being further restricted rather than expanded.
Is the current skills structure too complicated? Are there too many bodies involved? 12. The current skills road map is very complicated and it is in danger of getting more complicated with Local Authority commissioning, a Skills Agency and a separate agency for apprenticeships. It will be important that progression to higher education (level 4) is emphasised in any new arrangements. 13. There is also potentially further complexity in terms of qualifications. The Government is rightly looking to review the number of qualifications. Proposals to allow Sector Skills Councils and colleges agree new qualifications (and to make public funding dependent upon SSC accreditation) are counter-intuitive to this agenda. Higher education is working with other partners to ensure that diplomas deliver progression to HE. A plethora of SSC accredited units and qualifications without any cross-reference to HE or without the considerable investment required to deliver progression will only add to the complexity of the skills agenda at a time when the overall qualifications framework requires simplification.
How well do FE and HE work together and with employers? How should things change? 14. The relationship between universities and colleges should be one of collaboration not competition. Government cannot aVord to sidestep clarity about respective roles. Only 5.5% of HE is currently delivered in FE. Any proposal to significantly expand this must take into account quality. Higher level learning is done most eVectively when done in partnership with the expertise of a university. Experience suggests there is a minimum geographical and demographic footprint for an HEI and there are important economies of scale that increase quality for students. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 294 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
15. There is also confusion and a false distinction between academic and vocational qualifications. Relevant skills need relevant knowledge and need to be backed by practice-based learning or live projects. Government should not underestimate the amount or extent of the learning that currently takes place in Universities linked with employment eg foundation degrees, placements, accredited work experience, accrediting a company’s own training or delivering in-company accredited training and degrees directly linked with specific employment.
Funding 16. Co-funding: In developing proposals to expand co-funding arrangements, Government must be realistic about the extent to which economic uncertainty aVects employers’ decisions to invest in skills as well as the prospects of those employed in SMEs to engage in co-funded higher level learning. The Government’s intention to expand higher education through employer co-funded student places and reduce the unit of the public resource for these students could have unintended consequences similar to the September 2007 decision to withdraw public funding from ELQ provision. 17. Many Universities are working to enhance employer engagement but demand side measures remain weak and there are also regional variations eg in some regions traditional manufacturing industries are being replaced by smaller less capitalised companies and microbusinesses. Co-funding should therefore not replace mainstream funding as a model to deliver expanded access to higher level skills and qualifications. To do so would run the risk in particular of promoting significantly diVerent and less well-resourced funding and resource regimes and access routes for older students compared to those available for younger full-time students who progress to higher education from school or college. 18. The full cost of work based learning is likely to exceed that of “face-to-face” delivery solely on university premises. These hidden costs to the institution need to be considered: employer-engagement / work based HE should definitely not be considered a cheap alternative to full-time conventional HE delivery or be used to undermine the unit of public resource. 19. A shift to the demand-side model of funding, through Skills Accounts, recognises the individual route, but also has the risk to institutions of undermining the unit of public resource by underestimating administration and overhead costs, the needs of particular students and the need of institutions for stability in year-on-year funding.
Do Government programmes such as “Train to Gain” work well? What about the role of apprenticeships? 20. The jury is very much out as to whether overall Train to Gain will deliver additionality on a consistent basis—or whether it is a model which is best value for taxpayers or learners or employers. 21. The Government’s support for apprenticeships is welcome—but again these can be subject to the vagaries of the market. There may also be a case for graduate apprenticeships in some areas. However, it is crucial that apprenticeships are not seen as an easy answer to disaVection at school and apprenticeship qualifications must open and oVer routes to progression including to higher education. July 2008
Memorandum 62
Submission from Electronics Yorkshire
Response to the IUSS Select Committee Electronics Yorkshire is a support organisation for the electronics sector, based around a membership network (over 500 members) and providing services such as training, access to technology, consultancy and information services. Our services are focussed within the Yorkshire and Humber region, however around half of our client group is from outside the region. The electronics sector within the region is predominantly SME businesses ((90%) and within that, mainly at the micro to small end of the size range. They are responsible for around half of the employment in the sector. Whilst percentages may vary, this is not atypical of the UK in general. It is worthy of comment here too, that electronics is not so much a sector as a technology—underpinning virtually every kind of engineering/manufacture/process in every sector, for example, 40% by value of a family car is electronics, so the real number of people aVected is even greater. Whilst we recognise that at the upper (Degree) level of electronics qualifications, proceeding down a traditional route is essential, shorter, specific courses satisfying the fast changing demands of industry must also be identified and then provided. Electronics Yorkshire is uniquely positioned to fulfil this need through both its Membership Network and Training and Technology Centre. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 295
There are a number of issues in relation to training provision, below the HE level: There is a consistent blurring and confusion in use, over the terms “skills” and “qualifications”. There seems to be no disagreement about the need for a skilled workforce, including re-skilling and up-skilling at various appropriate points throughout a working life. However, public funding used in mainstream FE type provision is aimed very firmly at qualifications, not skills. Frequently, employers and hence employees, need new skills, not new qualifications. There is a clear mis-match here between some qualifications funded by mainstream initiatives such as Train to Gain, and the skills required by industry. Very often the qualifications on oVer are not in demand and the skills in demand are not oVered through the public purse. One way to address this might be through accrediting short, technical courses, however the process to gain accreditation can be extremely long-winded and time consuming, in some cases, the elapsed time needed outstripping the “life time” of a course in a fast moving industry. Even with an accredited course, there is still no guarantee of funding being available. Even new initiatives can miss the mark, such as the new Sector Compact recently announced by SEMTA. This purports to be new but uses Train to Gain funding and is very much the same oVer. There is a diVerence in that a second Level 2 or Level 3 can be funded, but only if it is one specific NVQ! Hardly demand-led. As described above, the electronics sector mainly comprises micro and small businesses, a fact which in turn may lead to a systemic deficiency in the whole process of assessing need, and making provision. The issues encountered by SME businesses are very often diVerent in nature to those of large businesses and more importantly the way in which they are able to react is also diVerent. Aside from issues of cost, releasing employees for training can be a substantial problem. In a business of say six employees, there is no spare capacity to replace an absent worker. The longer a course, the more intense this becomes. Short courses are therefore much easier in this respect. These needs are not that often articulated either. For similar reasons to those above, SMEs are often poorly represented or not present on the councils of the “decision making bodies”, so their voice remains unheard. Previously, some of the European Structural Funds (which do focus on SMEs) such as ESF have been used to facilitate some short course provision, but this has been of a discretionary nature and not on a systematic, long term basis. July 2008
Memorandum 63
Supplementary evidence from the Alliance Employment & Skills Board following oral evidence session on 25 June 2008 As requested, please find attached a tidied up version of the diagram I produced on the proposed complex changes in the Employment and Skills landscape. I have also added a few explanatory comments on the employer issues relating to these changes, which I hope is helpful. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 296 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Annex
PROPOSED CHANGES—EMPLOYMENT AND SKILLS LANDSCAPE JULY 08
•Na onal E mployer s Tar geted Appren ceship Young Service Commission •NAS People’s •Na onal Skills Funding for •Adult Careers Employer Service Agency – Employment Learning •Train to Gain - Agency pro vis io n and •Adul t Adult Skills & Skills Advancement Post 19 14 -19 brokerage and Careers Provision •Skills Pledge Service •IiP •Skil ls Accou nts •Work Related • FE and SSC’s Le arni ng – E nte rpri se Providers •EBLO’s •Re gio nal •ESB’s Economic •Di pl oma s Strategies •Co VE ’s •Bu si nes s Sup por t Government •Appren ceships RDA’s •Business Link • Train to Gain Offices Bro kerage •Re gio nal 14 -19 Pl anni ng Gro up
Strategic Educa on Sub-Regional Business Link Par tner shi ps Employment Local Organ’s & Skills Boards Au thori es •LAA’S •Schools •Diploma Delivery Employer Led •11 – 19 Employer Led Partnerships • Connexions
Supporting Comments: — The Employer led mechanism has multiple entry points into the “system”—should there be one? How do we avoid mixed messages to employers? — Services will potentially be funded from multiple sources—how will this be mediated? — How is employer demand going to influence supply in this system? Is it going to be by representation on Boards/Commissions which may or may not have influence on financial flows and service design? Or are those who design and commission services going to be made more directly accountable to employer views? — In the “demand-led” approach, what is the balance between demand from employers (who supply the jobs) and demand from individuals (who supply the labour)? To which does “demand-led” refer or is it both? They could be incompatible/send diVerent signals. July 2008
Memorandum 64
Supplementary evidence from the Alliance Employment and Skills Board following the evidence session on Wednesday 25 June 2008 The Committee asked for views on employer willingness to contribute to funding higher level skills provision. I have now had an opportunity to discuss this further with those heading up the Collaborative Higher Education Alliance Partnership, an initiative here in North Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire, aimed specifically at raising demand for higher level skills amongst both individuals and employers in key sectors to the local economy. The information is below. Experience at a national level indicates that employers are more willing to contribute for their existing workforce rather than their potential one, ie Continuing Professional Development rather than Under Graduates. Moreover, they are willing to pay, often in full, for that which is tailored for them in terms of negotiated content and mode, but less so for ‘oV the shelf’ provision.
The notion of co-funding has been negative for both providers and employers in that it raises false perspectives of what is being sought. Providers think they are going to get less funding from HEFCE, and employers think they are being asked to pay for something they previously got free. Neither is necessarily the case. Within Train to Gain there is a problem in moving from lower levels where provision may be subsidised, to higher levels where employers are expected to pay. Employers don’t always understand the diVerence. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 297
The employment sectors focused upon by the Collaborative Higher Education Alliance Partnership— Logistics; Health and Social Care; Food and Drink Manufacturing—are being impacted upon by the economic slowdown and in this climate, it will be diYcult to get employers to invest, particularly SME’s. July 2008
Memorandum 65
Submission from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills
1. How do you see the role of UKCES developing? What can the UK Commission do that its predecessors could not? The global economy is continually changing and facing ever increasing challenges and intensifying competition. In such a context, skills are becoming a growing source of competitive advantage and of increasing importance to government, business and trade unions. Governments across the UK have challenging ambitions to make the UK a world-class leader in employment and skills.143 The ultimate goal they seek to achieve is to raise UK productivity, economic competitiveness and prosperity, and to improve social cohesion. Launched on 1 April 2008, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills is a key recommendation in Lord Leitch’s 2006 review Prosperity for All in the Global Economy: World Class Skills. The UK Commission for Employment and Skills is a genuinely employer-led organisation, with Commissioners drawn from the highest levels of the private, public and voluntary sectors, supported by trade union leadership. The UK Commission aims to raise UK prosperity and opportunity by improving employment and skills. Its ambition is to benefit individuals, employers, government and society by providing independent advice to the highest levels of the UK Government and Devolved Administrations on how improved employment and skills systems can help the UK become a world-class leader in productivity, in employment and in having a fair and inclusive society: all this in the context of a fast-changing global economy. Ultimately, the benefits of the UK Commission’s work will be: For individuals: — increased employability and good careers advice; — the transferable and specialist skills to remain employed; — enabled by employers to utilise and develop the skills they have, bringing greater job satisfaction; and — the opportunity to develop further skills to enter higher paid employment or to retrain for another career (career progression). For employers: — an employment and skills system and qualifications that provide employees with good basic skills plus entry level expertise appropriate to the company and a willingness to learn more; — the ability to influence the system so that it continues to meet their needs; — increased ability to access appropriate training to upskill their workforce bringing a return on their investment; and — an evidenced business case for investment in and utilisation of the skills of their workforce. For the UK Government and Devolved Administrations: — robust, evidence-based advice on what works to inform decision-making regarding the skills and employment system, resulting in more co-ordinated, targeted, eYcient public provision of services; — qualifications and workforce development led by employer needs; and — the workforce and economy moving towards government targets for increased employment and upskilling of the workforce through a better employment and skills system and increased employer investment. For society: — Increased prosperity, with employment opportunity and sustainable careers for all.
143 As set out in World Class Skills: Implementing the Leitch Review of Skills in England; Skills for Scotland, a Lifelong Skills Strategy, Success through Skills (Northern Ireland) and Skills that Work for Wales. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 298 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Because employers, whether in private business or the public sector, have prime responsibility for the achievement of greater productivity, the UK Commission will strengthen the employer voice, provide greater employer influence over the employment and skills systems and promote employer investment in people. As part of this, the UK Commission has been asked to take direct responsibility for funding and performance-managing; and advising Ministers on the relicensing of Sector Skills Councils. It will also have a lead role on the work SSCs and others are doing to improve our education and training system so that the available qualifications better reflect the skills employers need. The UK Commission will assess annually our progress towards making the UK a world-class leader in employment and skills by 2020. Recognising diVering aims and priorities in the four UK nations, it will work across all four to support this world-class ambition, advising the relevant ministers on the strategies and policies needed to increase employment, skills and productivity. To meet the challenge, the UK Commission will be dependent on its reputation and influence, built on its specialist knowledge and rigorous research and analysis, if it is to eVect the practical change necessary to meet the UK’s ambitions. As an employer-led organisation responsible for championing the development of a demand-led skills and employment system and encouraging greater employer investment in people, the UK Commission will: — draw on the expertise and understanding of employers who are already heavily engaged in building eVective skills arrangements across the UK for each sector of the economy; — develop its reputation as a credible and relevant voice and influential expert by fostering eVective relationships with employers, the UK Government and Devolved Administrations and other partners; and — undertake a comprehensive stakeholder mapping exercise to ensure that UK Commission staV engage eVectively and appropriately with relevant interests to inform work in pursuit of UK Commission objectives. In forming its advice to the UK Government and Devolved Administrations, the UK Commission will: — monitor and challenge the performance of parts of the national employment and skills systems in creating sustained employment and career progression; — recommend systematic improvements in policy and delivery—including the better use of skills at all levels—through strategic policy development, evidence-based analysis and the exchange of good practice; and — suggest further innovations and advise how employment and skills related services, working together, can deliver a more eVective and integrated service for employers and individuals. In conducting its work, the UK Commission will provide vigorous and independent challenge, advising the UK Government and Devolved Administrations at the highest levels on employment and skills strategy, targets and policies. It will take account of the devolved nature of skills policy in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and employment in Northern Ireland and negotiate how it operates in the nations with this political context in mind. All UK Commission work will consider issues of equality of access and opportunity for all in building a sustainable economy, and will be underpinned by a strong evidence-base from research and analysis of policy and practice to ensure that the advice and recommendations put to Ministers are robust and of the highest quality. The far-reaching agenda of UK Commission, covers both employment and skills, and crosses the four UK nations. This allows the UK Commission to take a genuinely strategic, overarching view and to pool knowledge, and draw from best practice, across the nations for the benefit of the UK as a whole. It also gives it the legitimacy to explore and tackle issues that cut across policy boundaries, and, thus, to shift the centre of policy analysis beyond skills supply alone to include broader issues such as skills use, retention and demand and the role of skills in employment and economic development. For instance, it enables the UK Commission to tackle important questions, namely: why, when there has been significant progress on the UK skills front since the 1980s, has this not been matched by a comparable productivity miracle? The key to answering this lies in examining and understanding the complex interplay between the supply of and demand for skills and the interrelationships between economic development, employment and skills.
2. What are the key questions that UKCES is trying to resolve? In its first year, until the UK Commission develops its Strategic Plan, which will set out its priorities for the next five years, the immediate priorities for the UK Commission have been largely driven by its sponsors. These have been articulated in detail in the UK Commission Business Plan144 and include: — publication of “a state of the nation” report assessing progress towards making the UK a world leader in employment and skills by 2020, and monitoring progress against international competitors in the context of the aims and priorities of the four nations;
144 As set out in World Class Skills: Implementing the Leitch Review of Skills in England; Skills for Scotland, a Lifelong Skills Strategy, Success through Skills (Northern Ireland) and Skills that Work for Wales. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 299
— preparatory work towards publication of the 2010 review of the Employment and Skills System, including establishment of the terms of reference, in negotiation with the four nations; — advising the UK Government on how we might make it simpler for employers and individuals to access the employment and skills system in England; and — substantial progress on reforming, re-licensing and empowering Sector Skills Councils (SSCs).The UK Commission needs to fund and manage SSCs to deliver an eVective network focussed on continuous performance improvement against the revised SSC remit using the standards set down in the re-licensing Prospectus. The UK Commission is currently in the process of developing its Strategic Plan and this will be published by the end of 2008-9. Current emerging themes include: — simplification and clarity—systems, customer interactions/“journeys” and funding, sub-UK (spatial), and integration with business support; — learning from and developing best practice/what works; — address the employability of the UK workforce, and new workforce entrants; — focus on vocational qualifications, apprenticeships and recognition of non-accredited/workplace/ informal/training not leading to qualifications; — need for development of leadership and (middle/ people) management skills leading to improved skill utilisation and HPWP; — employer and individual driven/commitment/participation; — diversity of employers and their needs; — equality and diversity of individuals; — SSCs—measures of success and transparency of performance; and — development of appropriate system measures—based on outcomes (not input/output).
3. What progress has been made with the relicensing of the SSCs? How will this process be organised?
The SSC relicensing programme is organised in the following key phases: 1. Development, consultation and publication of the SSC relicensing employer document and technical prospectus. 2. Appointment of independent Third Party Assessors who will assess SSCs against the assessment framework set out in the technical prospectus. 3. Submission and review of Expressions of Interest (EOIs). 4. Assessment of individual SSCs proposals by Third Party Assessors and reports produced for Commissioners on their findings. 5. Commissioner meetings with SSCs, SSC Committee panels and recommendations to Government. The SSC Technical Prospectus [insert ref] is the key document for SSCs to use in preparing for relicensing. It describes the role and remit of SSCs in some detail, highlights a range of key policy issues, works through each stage of the relicensing assessment process and provides an assessment framework, setting out the key tests each SSC will need to meet if they are to maintain their licence. The Employer Document, [insert ref] provides a shorter summary of the role of SSCs, outlines the assessment process and asks employers to both get involved with their SSC and, where they are involved, to oVer their views on SSC eVectiveness. The UK Commission has established a high level SSC Committee, chaired by Charlie Mayfield, (Chairman of John Lewis), to oversee the process and advise the full Commission on the formal recommendations that should go to Government. A member of the Committee will visit each SSC as part of the process and the Commmittee will hold panel sessions with each SSC once it has received the formal report form the third party assessors to review the evidence and prepare it’s recommendations. The UK Commission has been working very closely with DIUS and sponsoring Governments across the UK to agree and publish these documents. We have also been in close contact with the TUC and employer organisations to gain their endorsement for the relicensing strategy and to seek their help in achieving widespread circulation of the Employer Document. The TUC, CBI, CiPD, FSB, IoD and BCC have all endorsed the approach to Relicensing. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 300 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
All key activities of the Project are currently on track and the following milestones have been achieved:
Phase 1 — The Employer document and SSC Technical Prospectus were launched at the UKCES Summer Reception on 7 July 2008. They have been well received. — Our stakeholder management and communications strategy has ensured positive support and endorsement from the leading representative bodies and across UK Governments. — We are beginning to receive feedback on SSCs from a range of individual employers and representative organisations.
Phase 2 — The National Audit OYce (NAO) has been appointed as the independent Third Party Assessor to support the UK Commission in undertaking SSC relicensing. It was felt that NAO would bring the experience and credibility to ensure the process is robust, professional, fair and consistent. — Detailed plans are now being agreed with the NAO, including a three day training programme for assessors to take place in September 2008.
Phase 3 — All SSCs submitted their four-page Expression of Interest (EoI) on time by 15 August 2008. — Each of the EOIs has been assessed, key issues have been identified and a timeline has been drawn up for the assessment phase, taking full account of when each SSC would wish to start the process.
Phase 4 — The assessment of SSCs will start in October 2008 and will run through to summer 2009. The work will be organised in five tranches of five SSCs, each of which will conclude with a SSC Committee panel. The panel will meet each SSC and make recommendations.
4. Should generic issues such as management skills be addressed by UKCES, rather than each SSC? The Government is committed to improving how the skills system supports employers through Sector Skills Councils and identifying and responding to sectoral skill needs. There is a concern however that such a focus may inadequately address important generic skills needs that cross the economy. To avoid this potential pitfall, the UK Commission recommends a dual approach to addressing such issues, involving SSCs and the UK Commission itself. The UK Commission needs to take a lead strategic, advisory role on shaping skills policy on key generic skills such as management and leadership, where recent policy interventions have had limited sustained impact. In the case of management and leadership specifically, we would expect this issue to be one of the top five priorities for the UK Commission given its importance in driving productivity improvement, public service eVectiveness and modernisation, and the eVective deployment of skills across the economy. Further work will therefore be required to review interventions to date and to consider what further action is required moving forward. The UK Commission is also looking carefully at the complex set of issues relating to other generic and cross cutting skills and will come forward with detailed proposals following consultation with the SSCs and other sector skills bodies that currently sit outside the SSC network. The UK Commission will need to take a firm strategic role in helping to shape delivery and practice to respond to wider generic skills needs. In this regard, through its executive function it needs to ensure qualifications reform work meets the same standards in generic skills areas as it does in the SSC network. Our initial analysis has shown that a number of generic skills relate to occupational areas such as Accounting and Publishing—as these align well with some specific sector interests, these skills needs have been incorporated, or are in the process of being incorporated, within specific SSCs. Other generic skills such as administration and marketing and customer services are genuinely pan sectoral. It will be important that the UK Commission works with the lead organisations in each area to formulate the strategic agenda for skills, to contract with whomever can best oVer occupational standards and qualifications reform work for each of these occupations outside the SSC network and to encourage the Alliance of SSCs to actively coordinate the dissemination and use of generic skills across the SSC network. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 301
5. Should there be an SSC for small businesses? No. The purpose and remit of SSCs is to bring together employers from strategically significant sectors of the economy based on coherent patterns of employment and skills. They are not structured by occupation or by thematic issue. The relicensing prospectus does however make it very clear that SSCs are charged with bringing together a coherent voice on skills which represents all types of employers in their sector and that to achieve relicensed status they will need to demonstrate the confidence, support and influence of employers from each part of their sector, including smaller and larger organisations and from each part of the UK. This does not mean, as small organisations themselves, they can be expected to reach out to every small firm in their “footprint”. But it does mean that they should actively consult small and large businesses in establishing their strategies, they should involve small and medium sized employers (SMEs) appropriately in their governance, they should ensure their work on qualifications is appropriate for SMEs and they should be building partnerships to ensure the priority skills needs they identify are picked up by the wider skills system.
6. How important is the relationship between UKCES and the further and higher education sectors? How are you working to develop this? The FE and HE sectors are fundamental to the UK achieving its world class skills and employment ambitions, and thus the relationship between the UK Commission and these sectors is key. The FE and HE sectors will play a key role in future delivery. The qualification reform process is rolling out concurrently with important reforms in FE and HE, following the afore-mentioned reviews. The experience and expertise within and across the FE and HE sectors is a critical resource for the UK Commission to draw upon to understand whether the intended consequences of education and qualifications reform can be translated into eVective learning and training experiences, which, ultimately, enhance the UK’s work-class standing. In general the approach taken to the work of reviewing delivery system processes will be highly collaborative, drawing directly on the experience of practitioners. We will establish a number of expert panels to guide system review work, drawing on experienced professionals from FE and HE and beyond. There are also two prominent Commissioners from these sectors. The UK Commission needs to establish relations with a range of strategic and delivery stakeholders in the FE and HE to take into account the challenges and opportunities the sectors face. For instance: — It is important to gauge how the range of products that are being developed within the Qualification reform programme can be delivered in diVerent contexts and environments including regions, sub-regions and localities. — Qualification reform in England covers both compulsory and post-compulsory learning, delivered through distinct public programmes, ie 14–19 reform (including Diplomas) and the Vocational Qualification Reform. The FE sector and, perhaps to a lesser extent, HE are expected to respond (ie to deliver these high profile programmes whilst also oVering new flexible approaches (eg “bite sized” training and the achievement of credits). In some instances these may be competing demands in terms of provider resources and user expectations. It will be important to understand how well compulsory and post-compulsory initiatives are coming together as a balanced and rounded oVer. It is also important that in the desire to achieve world class ambitions, provision, and associated funding streams, do not become too “target-driven”, leading to distorted and unintended outcomes, and under-supply in critical skills areas. — Recent mergers and the formation of partnerships and networks are bringing about changes to the provider infrastructure, especially within the FE sector, following the recommendations of the Foster Review. How these emergent ‘supply chains’ can work with the new qualification oVer will be important if aspirations for increased mobility, better progression and enhanced skills are to be realised. — The products of qualification reform include not only new qualification types such as Diplomas and redesigned VQs but also the strategic documents such as Sector Skills Agreements, Sector Qualification Strategies and Sector Compacts, all of which are designed to assist the transition to a more demand led system of provision. The usefulness of these strategies to decision makers and the readiness and willingness of the sectors to use them is a key element in bringing about this change. — The strong policy emphasis on Apprenticeships, coupled with changes to the compulsory leaving age potentially represents a significant change to our understanding of the transition from compulsory education to working life and further learning. We would hope to learn more about how this transition is working, from those in the field and the customers they work with, ie employers and individuals. — We are also mindful of the increasing range of activity at sub-regional level, for example attempts to strengthen sub-regional progression from further to higher education and highly skilled employment through the Lifelong Learning Networks. Looking at the rate of growth of higher education delivered in those FE Colleges who have pursued the ‘mixed economy’ approach to Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 302 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
provision may also be important. Collaboration and, in some cases, competition between the FE and HE sectors in what may come to be considered as new terrain may be increasingly important in drivers of growth of intermediate and higher level skills called for by Lord Leitch.
In addition there may be specific issues that the UK Commission needs to specifically monitor in the FE and HE sectors following recent policy reviews and reforms. For instance: — Commitments to progressive self regulation for the FE sector are an important post-Foster development and UK Commission will need to be aware of how this process is impacting on quality, success and responsiveness to employer and learner needs. — In a broader context, the role of the FE system in the progressive integration of employment and skills services may be significant, as the aspiration for a growth in the percentage of adults of working age who are active in the labour market will require provision of specific training and opportunities for recognising new skills for the returners to the labour market and those leaving the benefit system. Groups targeted by recent policy interventions, such as lone parents and Incapacity Benefit claimants may be new customers of the FE system. These reforms may also bring new providers into the FE sector. Therefore, the relationship between a broader and increasingly self regulating FE sector and an aspiration to integrate the FE service into the wider employment and skills system could be an important one. How the advice and guidance provided by the Adult Advancement and Careers Service links with advice provided “in-house” among learning providers may be an important aspect of these changes. Advice and guidance on new qualification oVers, progression routes and the use of credit as the new currency of achievement across all qualification frameworks will also be significant to learners and to employers. — The strong policy emphasis on promoting workforce development amongst adults who have left compulsory education also raises important challenges for the HE sector and requires HE institutions to move away from their traditional customer base. There is a role for the UK Commission to monitor the extent to which the HE sector can meet employers and employees needs to access high quality, high level learning, optimising the use of technology and maximising opportunities to fit learning around the demands of work, family and community. In this context it will also be useful to assess the eVectiveness of new co-funding arrangements with employers. — In addition, in a knowledge-driven economy, it will be important to consider what role HE can and does play in stimulating on-going innovation, and suYcient levels of research and development. In this regard, it will be useful to monitor the links between the HE and business sectors, the degree of partnership working, levels of sustained investment, and knowledge transfer.
7. What are the chief problems identified so far in the simplification project?
The simplification project being led by the UK Commission has identified six concerns from employers: —diYculties of access for employers to the system—relating to the extent to which employers understand the system, feel competent to seek to engage, succeed in finding the right organisation and/or service to meet their requirements, and find the initial contact welcoming and responsive; — complexity of programmes and initiatives—the extent to which the employers understand, or are confused or even overwhelmed by, the range of programmes and initiatives on oVer, are able to assess the potential for a particular initiative to meet their requirements, and be sure that their choice is the most appropriate of those available; — too restrictive constraints on individual programmes and initiatives—the extent to which the eligibility rules and limitations on programmes unduly restrict the ability of individual employers to participate in a programme, or a suYciently wide range of employers from engaging with it; — excessive bureaucracy in administrative arrangements for programmes or initiatives—the extent to which the administrative rules and reporting requirements of programmes are unduly demanding, time consuming or burdensome on employers, disproportionate to the real accountability requirements; — complexity of structures and organisation—the extent to which the sheer number and range of skills and training organisations, and/or the extent to which they seek to engage directly with employers, confuses or overwhelms employer interest; and — rapidity of change—the rate of changes in programmes, initiatives, organisations and procedures adds a further dimension of confusion for employers, who can find it extremely diYcult to keep up with change and even become aware of new developments, let alone understand them. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 303
8. What would an ideal system of skills planning and delivery look like? The simplification project is about simplification of the English skills system from the perspective of the employer. The wider question of what the skills planning and delivery system should look like has to be much wider than that. It has to be more than England. It has to be more than simplification of access—to include simplification and/or improvement of processes, objectives, governance etc. And it has to be about employment—because a fundamental premise is that there is a need for greater integration between employment and skills. It would be premature to answer this question in detail. This is a subject to which the UK Commission will be devoting considerable thought and energy in the coming years. It will develop a picture of how the delivery system should ideally be structured in the course of preparation of its 2010 review. But in broad outline, the system of skills planning and delivery should have the following characteristics: 1. Integrated. To include: — Integrated with economic development. Recognising that skills are a derived demand—that the reason we need skills is to support economic activity. — Integrated with employment. This is much more than just creating an eYcient interface between Jobcentre Plus and the SFA. It’s about ensuring that all parts of the skills system have as a major priority (in many cases the overriding priority) helping people get and progress in work, through meeting the needs of employers for skilled staV. So it is as much about integrating the aims of skills and employment as it is about integrating employment services with skills services. — Integrated, to some extent, with the wider social support network—recognising that the barriers to obtaining skills and putting them to use in the labour market are not purely skills barriers but often include issues related to disability, caring responsibilities, discrimination etc. 2. Simple to understand. Fewer brands that change less often; less cumbersome processes; etc—the points covered under simplification above. This also needs to be true for individuals as well as employers. 3. Driven by outcomes not processes. — A strong focus on articulating goals that promote the achievement of long term valuable goals. — This may mean doing the necessary work and taking the necessary risks to set targets that are challenging to measure—for example: — it is far easier to measure whether one has hit a target of getting someone into full time employment (of any kind, with a minimum duration of 13 weeks) than it is to measure whether one has got a client into a long term, sustainable job with job satisfaction and good prospects for progression and pay increases. But the latter is actually what we want. So targeting the former is probably not the best way to get it; — targets for distinct skills outcomes and employment outcomes, allocated to diVerent bodies with the system, are easier to establish but will not drive an integrated employment and skills system. — It should also mean driving performance more and more by telling people what to do but not specifying in detail how to do it. 4. Responsive to the varying challenges and opportunities oVered by diVerent: — people; — places; and — employers.
8. What progress has been made in identifying how to measure and encourage the development of employability? The UK Commission is leading on a project examining employability skills, seeking to identify best practice in this area. The concept of employability has been debated for many years amongst policy makers and researchers, and there are dozens of diVerent definitions. In 1989 the CBI published Towards a Skills Revolution, the report of its Vocational Education and Training Task Force, which put a clear emphasis on these skills. In the two decades since, numerous reports have articulated the need for these skills, and have provided definitions under a range of diVerent headings, including Core Skills; Key Skills; Essential Skills; Functional Skills; Skills for life; Employability Skills; Generic Skills; and Enterprise Skills—to name but some. Research for the UK Commission identified 135 reports that touched on the nature and value of employability skills, broadly understood. Little in this material contradicts the proposition that these skills Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 304 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
are of wide value and are in short supply. However, close scrutiny of these shows that whilst there is no shared agreement on a definition, and/or measurement, and the concept has been used with a variety of meanings and in diVerent contexts, the reality is that 80–90% of the definitions are common. There are some definitions that command quite wide acceptance. The CBI definition and the definition developed by the Canadian Conference Board and subsequently adopted by the Skills for Business Network are probably among the most authoritative. But, although at the level of fine detail there is considerable diversity, all reputable definitions overlap to a great extent. There is very clear “clumping” around personal communication skills, using numbers, words and technology, problem solving, team working and customer care, for example. Nevertheless diVerent definitions command a loyalty out of proportion to the their distinctiveness. Our conclusion from this overview is that the challenge with employability skills is not to define them, or to prove that employers want them, or to show how they fit in with the aspirations of individuals. The challenge is to help people acquire them. So the question the Commission is focusing on is not “what are employability skills?”, or “why do we need employability skills?”, but “how do people learn employability skills?” The UK Commission will produce a detailed document before the end of 2008 setting out the results of a review of practice in teaching employability skills in over a hundred FE colleges, universities, employment providers, non-profit organisations and businesses. This document also draws on a survey of the existing academic literature on the subject. The purpose of the document is to draw together such a consensus as there is on what is good practice in inculcating employability skills, and to form the basis for further work necessary: (a) to develop teaching/training and assessment approaches where necessary; and (b) to establish ways of motivating and equipping the employment and skills system to adopt these approaches. October 2008
Memorandum 66
Updated submission from the Government
Introduction 1. The Government welcomes this further opportunity to report to the Committee on the progress it has made in realising the world class skills ambition described by Lord Leitch.
Vision 2. Our vision is for a prosperous and fair Britain in which the talent of every individual is used to build a skilled, resilient and innovative workforce that rivals the best in the world. 3. Leitch showed that skills are a key driver for both economic prosperity and fairness in the new global economy. Investment in skills is key to enabling people and businesses to make the most of opportunities and to increase their resilience to external shocks such as a changing economic climate. Supporting people to gain skills also ensures that their opportunities are not pre-determined by their background but that everyone can play their full part in society.
Leitch Targets 4. In order to achieve this vision, we committed to achieve the following targets:
By 2020 — 95% of working age adults will have functional (level 1) literacy and (entry level 3) numeracy skills; — more than 90% of working age adults will be qualified to level 2, with a commitment to achieve 95% as soon as possible; — 68% of working age adults will be qualified to level 3 (represents an additional three million); — 400,000 apprenticeships in England; and — over 40% of working age adults will be qualified to level 4 and above. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 305
Leitch Recommendations 5. Leitch pointed out that, with a majority of the 2020 workforce already in the labour market, we needed to direct much of our eVort towards these people and made recommendations about how we should do this. These included: — increase adult skills across all levels; — route all public funding for adult vocational skills in England, apart from community learning, through Train to Gain and Learner Accounts by 2010; — strengthen the employer voice; — increase employer engagement and investment in skills; — launch a new “Pledge” for employers to voluntarily commit to train all employees up to Level 2 in the workplace; — increase employer investment in Level 3 and 4 qualifications in the workplace; — increase people’s aspirations and awareness of the value of skills to them and their families; and — create a new integrated employment and skills service.
Progress towards Leitch Targets 6. We have interim targets for what we should have achieved by 2011: — Level 1 literacy (2011 indicator) is 597,000 achievers. Although actual performance will not be measured until 2008–09, current performance is on track to achieve the 2011 indicator. — Level 1 numeracy (2011 indicator) is 390,000 achievers. Again, performance will not be measured until 2008–09 academic year, but latest data from 2006–07 also indicates that we are on track, albeit with a steep trajectory to 2011. — Level 2 (2011 indicator) was to have 79% of working age adults qualified to at least Level 2. We are only at the beginning of the measurement period and the proportion of adults qualified to Level 2 or higher now stands at 70.6%. The target is very stretching and we are continuing to expand Train to Gain through recently announced Sector Compacts in key industrial sectors, including manufacturing, construction and processing. — Level 3 (2011 indicator) was to have 56% of working age adults qualified to at least Level 3. The actual level now stands at 50.3%. As happened with Level 2 there has been a slow initial take up of Train to Gain. We expect to see an upturn, following the introduction of the free entitlement for learners aged 19–25 and the roll-out of Sector Compacts.
Progress against Leitch Recommendations
Increase adult skills across all levels 7. In his report, Leitch said that “progress towards world class is best measured by the number of people increasing skills attainment. The raised ambitions will require additional investment by the state, employers and individuals. The Government is committed to increasing the share of GDP for education and skills. Additional annual investment in skills up to Level 3 will need to rise to £1.5—2 billion by 2020.”
Investing in adult skills 8. We are making significant investment in programmes such as basic literacy and numeracy and full level 2 and full level 3 qualifications that provide adults with the skills needed to participate fully in an economically successful and cohesive society. This is a planned and continuing strategy to respond to the skills challenges we have as a country, and is relevant to all adult learners in particular those across the lower socio-economic groups. 9. Funding for adult participation will reach £3.6 billion per year by 2010–11, an increase of 17% compared with 2007–08. This will support on average over three million funded adult learners per year over the next three years. We have realigned funding from a high number of shorter and low quality courses to those that oVer the greatest opportunity to gain the skills for employability and further progression in learning. This strategy is working with increasing numbers of adults gaining basic literacy and numeracy, level 2 and level 3 courses and gaining the skills they and their employers need to succeed in an increasingly competitive economy: — 2.28 million learners achieving their first Skills for Life qualification in literacy, language or numeracy since 2001; — by the end of 2007 there were 1.78 million more adults in the workforce qualified to Level 2 than at the end of 2001; and Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 306 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
— recent research shows that of those learners who have completed their Train to Gain course 43% had received better pay and 30% promotion. 10. It is also worth noting that the latest National Adult Learning and Adult Population Survey, which covers learning outside of LSC-funded provision, also shows that adult participation in learning has remained steady over the last few years.
Skills for Life 11. Skills for Life is a radical and successful strategy that, since its launch in 2001, has transformed the teaching of adult basic literacy, language and numeracy skills in England. Skills for Life introduced—for the first time ever—national standards and curricula for literacy, language and numeracy, and a national test. 12. Skills for Life covers literacy, numeracy and language (ESOL) from pre-entry level up to Level 2— see annex A for an explanation of the various levels. Literacy and numeracy learning is free of charge to all adults (people aged 16!) with literacy/numeracy skills below Level 2. Fee remission for language (ESOL) learning was ended in August 2007 as part of our ESOL reforms, though learners on income-related benefits are still able to access free provision: — since 2001, 5.7 million adult learners have taken up 12 million Skills for Life learning opportunities, with over 2.25 million adults gaining a first qualification counting towards the target; — our Public Service Agreement (PSA) target to improve the literacy, language and numeracy skills of 2.25 million adults by 2010 was met in June 2008, two years early; — our long term ambition is for 95% of adults with functional literacy/numeracy skills by 2020, up from 85% literacy and 79% numeracy in 2005; — since 2001 we have invested £5 billion in Skills for Life w £660 per achievement; — over the period 2007–08 to 2010–11 planned expenditure is £3.9 billion; and — we have spent over £1 billion on ESOL since 2001; helping two million learners improve their English language skills.
Routing all public funding for adult vocational skills in England, apart from community learning, through Train to Gain and Learner Accounts by 2010 13. Leitch said that the skills system must meet the needs of employers and individuals and that vocational skills must be demand led rather than centrally planned. Consequently we are routing much of our investment through Train to Gain to meet employer demand and are developing Skills Accounts to empower learners.
Train to Gain 14. Train to Gain has been developed as the Government’s premier service to support employers in England of all sizes and in all sectors, to improve the skills of their employees, unlock talent and drive improved business performance. 15. Through Train to Gain, employers can now access: — government funding, to sit alongside their own financial contribution, including a subsidy of up to 100% for certain training; — quality-assured, impartial advice from skills brokers with expertise in the employer’s business area to help identify skills needs at all levels; — help in identifying and sourcing the training and qualifications at all levels that will best address those needs; — advice on wider business needs, provided by the Business Link network, into which the Train to Gain brokerage service will be integrated from April 2009; — high-quality, vocational skills training, delivered at a time and place to suit the employer, from a wide range of further education and other providers; and — for small employers with fewer than 50 employees a contribution to wage costs for the time they release employees for training. 16. Train to Gain operates on the assess/train/assess model approach to development; this approach is more eYcient and cost eVective for employers. An initial assessment identifies the individual’s existing skills and skills gap against the qualification sought. Training provision then meets the needs identified in that initial assessment. Lastly, there is a follow-up assessment to determine the extent to which the training need has been met. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 307
17. Since it was fully rolled out in the autumn of 2006, over 100,000 employers have engaged with Train to Gain. It has supported over 570,000 learners to begin their learning programmes and over 291,000 learners have achieved a qualification of which over 254,000 are full level 2 and almost 16,000 full level 3 achievements. 18. Funding for Train to Gain will increase from £520 million in 2007–08 to over £1 billion by 2010–11. This makes a significant contribution towards the Government commitment to increasing the proportion of adult skills funding that is delivered through demand-led routes. In addition, by 2010-11, we expect adult learners with Skills Accounts to be able to access £500 million of adult funding, increasing to around £1.5 billion. But we need to go further still. Train to Gain: A Plan for Growth, published in November 2007, described how we are making the service more flexible to ensure it meets the needs of employers and employees.
Train to Gain Evaluation 19. In the development of Train to Gain we have sought to minimise any deadweight ensuring that the Government investment in Train to Gain secures additional training and does not replace employer investment. There is a target that 51% of employers engaged through Train to Gain are “hard to reach”. This is defined as not having Investors in People accreditation and not having a recent history of training leading to a qualification. This target is currently being exceeded with 73% of employers being “hard to reach”. Evaluation also shows that of employers engaged in Train to Gain 72% reported training staV who had not been trained before, 67% said they trained more staV than they would otherwise, and 55% trained more junior/less experienced staV than they would otherwise. 20. 27% of employers did have some training history outside Train to Gain, but the Train to Gain training led to those employers increasing the number or range of employees involved, or enhancing the quality of their workforce training. This suggests that just under half of all employers who have been in contact with a Train to Gain skills broker (47%) have carried out additional training that could be attributed to the Train to Gain service. 21. Employers confirm that their employees have gained new skills through Train to Gain, in the evaluation 74% of employers report they have noticed an improvement in the skills of employees in relation to their specific job role. Employers also reported positive impacts on business performance: 51% reported some increase in staV productivity, 42% reported an impact on the bottom line, and 25% said that the training had supported the introduction of new products or services. 22. For individuals the evaluation showed that most learners were gaining new skills not just having existing skills accredited; 73% of learners say they had acquired skills to do their current job better as a result of training through Train to Gain and 81 per cent reported that they had gained skills that would help them do a better job in the future. Employers clearly value these new skills as 43% of Train to Gain learners reported they had gained better pay and 30% had gained a promotion as a result of their training. Even for individuals who did not gain new skills the accreditation of their existing skills is of value both personally for example in increased confidence and in the labour market, allowing them to demonstrate their skills to other employers.
Sector Skills Compacts 23. To help ensure that the Train to Gain oVer meets the needs of every sector, we have been developing “sector skills compacts” with employers in key sectors of our economy which tailor the Train to Gain oVer to their specific needs and circumstances. The sector compact sets out the specific oVer to employers in the sector within Train to Gain and makes a reality of the “something for something” deal called for by Leitch. In return for additional flexibilities in Train to Gain secured through the compact, the Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) or sector body will work with employers to stimulate demand for higher volume of skills in their sector. 24. We have already agreed compacts with SSCs for five sectors Semta, ConstructionSkills, People 1st, Proskills and Skills for Justice, together worth some £440m over three years. A second tranche of sector compacts are in development.
Skills Accounts 25. A Skills Account will give learners access to a new range of services which will help them take control of their learning and working life. Through a Skills Account, individuals will receive greater choice and support, and will therefore have a sense of ownership over their own future. They are designed to provide a gateway through which learners can access personalised careers advice including details of courses in their area, and their eligibility for Government funding to meet the costs of learning. In introducing Skills Accounts we are not altering any of the existing eligibility criteria or entitlements. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 308 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
26. A Skills Account will also include a confidential record of an individual’s achievements so that they can share these with employers, careers services or others who may find it helpful. As the service develops the range of products and services will increase so that a Skills Accounts becomes the one-stop-shop for learning. 27. As a first step towards Skills Accounts we are making sure that, from age 18, depending on existing qualifications, all young adults who do not go to university will now have access to a range of entitlements up to Level 3. 28. Universal Skills Accounts trials will begin in September 2008 in the South East and East Midlands regions, building on the trials of Adult Learner Accounts which were also trialled in these regions. The focus of the Skills Accounts trials will be on building and testing the core products and support services. The key success factor is to ensure a quality service and an experience that works for learners and providers and which in turn has a positive impact on both learner motivation and provider responsiveness. 29. In year one (academic year 08/09) we will focus on product development and testing systems, progressing to a phased introduction of Skills Accounts across England in year two (academic year 2009–10), with full national roll-out beginning in 2010. We expect Skills Accounts to be fully rolled out by 2015. By 2010–11 £500 million Government funding will be accessed by learners with Skills Accounts. This will rise to £1.5 billion by 2015.
Strengthening the Employer voice 30. Under this heading, Leitch recommended we rationalise existing bodies, strengthen the collective voice and better articulate employer views on skills by creating a new Commission for Employment and Skills, reporting to central government and the devolved administrations. The Commission will manage employer influence on skills, within a national framework of individual rights and responsibilities.
UK Commission for Employment and Skills 31. The Commission came into being on 1 April 2008, and in July published its Business Plan for 2008–09. We have asked the Commission to advise Government on what more we should be doing to simplify the system in England. We are not, of course, just thinking in terms of skills development but also about recruitment, retention and the eVective utilisation of skills. 32. Areas of advisory work set out in the Commission’s first Business Plan include: — the first State of the Nations Report, detailing progress since the Leitch report and/or against each nation’s skills strategy, current trends and projections. The Commission will deliver this report by 31 March 2009; — a programme of projects on employment and skills services, including publishing a basis for the 2010 review of whether more radical change is needed to integrate employment and skills services (including Higher Education) in England, Wales and Scotland, and a project on simplification of employment and skills services in England; and — a series of Commission projects to give a clearer picture of the development and use of skills in the workplace, including a UK-wide project on the role of skills utilisation and high performance working in business success. 33. In addition the UK Commission has responsibility for funding and managing the performance of SSCs and for advising the UK Government and Devolved Administrations on SSC Relicensing. The Commission published the Relicensing Prospectus and a supporting employer facing document in July, and aims to make substantial progress on relicensing during this year, completing the process in 2009. Re- licensed SSCs will have a new remit sharply focussed on raising employer investment, articulating the future skills needs of their sector, and ensuring that the supply of skills and qualifications is driven by employers. 34. The UK Commission is currently consulting on the Five Year Strategic Plan which it will develop by the end of 2008–09, setting out its longer term goals for the period 2009–10 to 2013–14. It has also commenced a major review of the “collective measures” available to Government to stimulate employer investment in skills and is engaged in work to report on the eVective utilisation of skills. Finally, the Commission is leading on the development of a “Talent Map”, an interactive web-tool to help employers easily find and engage with publicly funded education, employment and skills systems. The prototype is currently being tested with employers, intermediaries and representative bodies.
Increasing Employer Engagement and Investment in Skills 35. Under this heading, Leitch recommended we reform, relicense and empower SSCs and deliver more economically valuable skills by only allowing public funding for vocational qualifications where the content has been approved by SSCs. Expand skills brokerage services for both small and large employers. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 309
Sector Skills Council Re-licensing 36. The Government is clear that a strong and highly eVective network of employer led SSCs is crucial to the successful implementation of its long term skills strategy. They are a key link between employers in each part of the economy and the education and training system and provide vital intelligence to help ensure that the system continues to develop to meet employer needs. Since the publication of World Class Skills, Government has worked with key stakeholders and developed an approach to re-licensing SSCs which the new UK Commission for Employment and Skills will implement. The UK Commission for Employment and Skills issued a re-licensing prospectus on 14 July 2008 setting out a refocused remit and the challenges SSCs will have to meet to be re-licensed. The UKCES will make recommendations to Government on which SSCs should receive a new licence, and we expect that all new licences should be issued by the end of 2009. 37. All SSCs have now completed their first full Sector Skills Agreements (SSAs). These are a key mechanism for setting out the skills needs of each sector, and help underpin the move to a more demand- led system. They provide the framework for SSCs to work with employers, key delivery agencies like the LSC, and with Government to address priority skills issues in their sectors. SSCs’ work in developing SSAs provides a platform for working with SSCs on how their identified skills needs can, in future better be met through the Train to Gain service. Discussions on this are taking place with a number of SSCs with the intention of agreeing with them ‘compacts’ to help tailor Train to Gain provision to meet the needs of employers in their sector and thus boost skills and improve productivity. In developing their SSAs, SSCs recognise the increasingly important role played by the English regions in the skills agenda. Regional Development Agencies contribute sectoral intelligence held in the regions and provide examples of good practice in sector development work that have already been tested in the regions. 38. All SSC have, based on their SSAs and labour market intelligence completed their Sector Qualifications Strategies (SQSs). Eighteen Standard Setting Bodies are also developing Qualifications Strategies (QSs). SQSs and QSs outline the current and future learning and qualifications needs by employers in sectors or occupations. Specific qualification needs are then identified and detailed in SQS/QS Action Plans, which help direct the vocational qualifications (VQs) developed by awarding organisations. 39. Based on these qualifications strategies and plans, SSCs now lead the process of ensuring that VQs fully meet the needs of their sector and are consistent in terms of standards and transferability. To fulfil this role, SSCs have been piloting a process of “approving” VQs prior to accreditation; a final approval process is currently being developed and will be in place by early 2009. SSCs are also responsible, in England, for advising the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) on those VQs that should be priorities for public funding.
A new “Pledge” for employers to voluntarily commit to train all employees up to Level 2 in the workplace 40. Leitch recommended we launch a new “Pledge” for employers to voluntarily commit to train all eligible employees up to Level 2 in the workplace. He suggested we review progress of employer delivery in 2010 and, if the improvement rate was insuYcient, introduce a statutory entitlement to workplace training at Level 2 in consultation with employers and unions. 41. The Skills Pledge has been introduced and is a public commitment by employers to support their employees to improve their skills and gain qualifications. It not a product or service—it’s a philosophy which signals an employers’ understanding of the value of skills to their business and to their employees. Launched in 2007 we are making excellent progress. Already almost six thousand employers have committed to the Skills Pledge covering 4.8 million people.
Right to request Time to Train 42. We have just completed a consultation and are now planning legislation to introduce a new right to request time to train to millions of workers. This will give employees a legal right to ask their employer to give them time away from their mainstream duties to undertake relevant training. Employees can request time to undertake any training—whether nationally recognised qualifications, or shorter, more targeted, and unaccredited courses. 43. This new right would help encourage and support adults to develop their skills and rise as far as their talent will take them. That empowerment will be particularly valuable for those employees who don’t currently receive training. And, by helping to raise their employees’ awareness and aspirations in relation to skills, the proposed right would support and encourage employers to invest in the skills of their employees as a driver of future business performance.
Increase Employer Investment in Level 3 and 4Qualifications in the Workplace 44. Under this heading, Leitch recommended we extend Train to Gain to higher levels, dramatically increase Apprenticeship volumes and improve engagement between employers and universities. He also suggested we increase co-funded workplace degrees. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 310 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
Apprenticeships 45. The Government has made a record amount of funding available for the Apprenticeships programme, which is planned to increase by almost a quarter between 2007–08 and 2010–11 to over £1 billion. Apprenticeships are a high-quality route to success; they rely on the appropriate mix of practical and theoretical learning. Our Apprenticeships system has been revived and rebuilt over the past decade. With the advice and support of Sector Skills Councils, we now have more than 180 available and in more than 80 diVerent occupational areas. Apprenticeships enable businesses to develop people with the right skills at the right time and are a mechanism for developing the talent which employers need. We are making good progress in implementing “World-class Apprenticeships”. The Government has more than doubled the number of young people and adults starting high-quality Apprenticeships, with 184,000 starts last year. Completion rates are at the highest ever at 63%. 46. Work is now underway to expand and strengthen Apprenticeships. For example—we have developed a strategy for public sector engagement and are making it easier for employers to have their own training accredited. In July 2008 the Government published an Apprenticeships draft Bill to underpin and help sustain the improvements in the quality of the programme. This draft Bill will ensure that Apprenticeships are a badge of quality skills for young people and adults and for employers. Apprenticeship starts are projected to grow to almost 210,000 by 2010–11. Legislation will drive forward the provision of suYcient Apprenticeship places to meet the entitlement for our young people to have an oVer of an Apprenticeship place by 2013 and we anticipate one in five young people will start an apprenticeship by 2020. 47. From this autumn, DIUS will require that successful contractors for college construction projects take on apprentices, we are also working to ensure major developments such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games include opportunities for Apprenticeships. Our recently published Manufacturing Strategy gave a renewed focus on Apprenticeships with 1,500 new manufacturing apprenticeships, in addition to the 9,000 places announced earlier this year which will increase the total number of manufacturing apprenticeships by over 10%. We will expand the new places by inviting bids from larger manufacturers to train additional apprenticeships, including for their supply chains thus creating further opportunities.
Increase People’s Aspirations and Awareness of the Value of Skills to them and their families 48. As part of our overall response to the Leitch Review, a key element of our strategy was to raise awareness of the importance of skills. A cultural shift in approaches to learning is the aim of the campaign ‘Our Future. Our Hands. Our Success’ which was launched in July 2008. It has proved successful by stimulating an increase in the appeal of learning new skills and is prompting people to explore opportunities and actually do a course. By tackling the main perceived barriers to learning—time, cost and employer support, we are encouraging yet more people to acquire new skills. Our evaluation has shown that employers and individuals across the piece—including the hard to reach pre level 2 group—are responding very positively. Awareness of Train to Gain is much increased and an econometric analysis undertaken by Learndirect has shown the 12% uplift in calls to the careers advice line attributed to the Skills Campaign equates to around 37,000 calls.
Create a New Integrated Employment and Skills Service 49. Leitch recommended we create a new integrated employment and skills service based up existing structures, to increase sustainable employment and progression.
Integration of employment and skills 50. As noted by the IMF, our labour market is flexible and responsive and is one of our key strengths, but we cannot be complacent, we need to continue to be ahead of our competitors in reacting flexibly to changes in the economy and the market place. As set out in World Class Skills and in Opportunity Employment and Progression DIUS and DWP are working closely together to create an integrated welfare and skills system. This led to the Work Skills command paper, published in June 2008 which set out how the Government would overhaul the Skills and Welfare systems. 51. In the West Midlands in September 2008, and in other areas from November 2008, we are trialling a more coherent and joined-up service to help people get into and on in work. The trials of an integrated employment and skills (IES) service will cover a range of measures such as Skills Accounts and careers advice. As a package they will include earlier and more thorough identification of skills needs, access to financial, training and other support to address any barriers, improved referrals and exchanges of information between careers advisers, Jobcentre Plus and skills learning providers. 52. In Manchester and Birmingham the systems will be decentralised with traditional distinctions between adult training and Job Centre Plus broken down and services redesigned with the interests of individuals and employers at the centre. We expect these reforms to help up to 75,000 people in the Birmingham city region and 30,000 in Greater Manchester Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 311
Further Initiatives to achieve the Leitch Vision 53. In addition to implementing the recommendations made by Lord Leitch, we have developed a range of additional policies and programmes to help us achieve the Leitch vision. The most important of these are set out below.
Adult advancement and careers service 54. We are developing an adult advancement and careers service to deliver tailored employment and skills advice and support to adults, empowering individuals with the information they need to identify the training and gain the skills that will enable them both to find jobs and to advance in their careers. 55. The new service will provide more coherent support for individuals, merging the enhanced nextstep and learndirect advice services and working in partnership with Jobcentre Plus. The advancement and careers service will have a key role in supporting the delivery of Skills Accounts, and will provide an integrated service for identifying individuals training needs through Skills Health Checks. 56. Key elements of the service will be trialled progressively from 2008–09 to 2010. Prototypes will test ways of joining up wider sources of advice such as housing, employment rights and childcare as well as skills, jobs and careers providing “no wrong door” access to advice on the full range of barriers to learning and getting on those individuals, in and out of work, may experience. The prototypes will run from autumn 2008 in North West, London, South East and West Midlands regions. A skills health check tool is being developed and trialled from autumn 2008 in the West Midlands. The tool will be available online, initially aimed at Jobcentre Plus customers, with subsequent releases throughout 2008–09 enhanced to meet the needs of the higher skilled user. When fully developed the skills health check will be available to all, linked to their skills accounts and information and advice from the adult advancement and careers service.
UK vocational qualifications reform programme 57. We are supporting demand by introducing reforms to improve flexibility of qualifications to better suit the needs of employers and employees and to allow people to request time to receive work related training. The next two sections set out how we are tackling these challenges. 58. The UK Vocational Qualifications Reform Programme (VQRP) was set up in 2005 with the aim of ensuring that the system of developing vocational qualifications (VQs) is led by demand. It aims to create a system: — based on learner and employer needs; — with greater clarity and more flexibility and choice; — encouraging a more skilled and productive workforce; — allowing individuals to fulfill their potential; and — supporting greater social justice and opportunity. 59. To encourage individuals to undertake more qualifications, and to increase employers’ support for training, we are reforming the vocational qualification system to give accredited vocational qualifications the flexibility to meet learners’ and employers’ needs in a more responsive and inclusive manner. The Qualification and Credit Framework (QCF) for England, Wales and Northern Ireland has been tested and trialled over a two year period and detailed plans for its roll-out are now being developed for Ministerial approval in autumn 2008. 60. Through SSCs, employers have a leading role in reforming vocational qualifications for their sector. We are making it easier for employers to have their own training programmes nationally accredited. Around 40 have had their training accredited by working with existing awarding organisations, a further four employers, two employer representative organisations and 1 further education college have been accredited as awarding organisations in their own right. The employer trade bodies between them represent hundreds of employers, particularly SMEs. More than 50 other employers are currently discussing the options for having their training accredited.
Responding to employment and skills needs in particular places 61. The Sub National Review, published in July 2007, highlighted the importance of place and the role of skills in economic development. The SNR placed an important focus on the sub region, particularly the city region, as a key economic driver and changed the balance between the region and the sub region. The SNR gave Local Authorities a greatly enhanced role as key strategic partners for the RDAs. 62. Because of the economic development role of Local Authorities, DIUS is engaging more closely with them, notably through the inclusion of skills indicators in Local Area Agreements and the emergence of skills as a key theme in Multi Area Agreements. MAAs are emerging as the key tier with regard to skills— they cover geographical areas which make real sense in terms of skills and travel to work and provide a vehicle for significant interaction between central and local government in a number of policy areas. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 312 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
63. An MAA brings together central government, local authorities and other partners to agree new approaches for their local economy, in return for a commitment to deliver progress on the ground. The flexibilities which have been granted by Government Departments through MAAs have been widely welcomed by LAs and others. This is seen as a genuinely devolutionary approach which is making the system more responsive and enabling groups of LAs to deliver challenging outcomes in the sub region. 64. The Government has progressively made the employment and skills system less top-heavy by devolving responsibility to those much closer to the ground. The Working Neighbourhoods Fund, for instance, is providing £1.5 billion over three years to support local authorities with concentrations of deprivation to do more to tackle worklessness and low levels of skills and enterprise in their communities. The City Strategy is also passing more responsibility to local level to address worklessness, raise skills and reduce poverty.
The Delivery System
A responsive further education sector 65. A high quality and responsive further education sector is essential if we are to deliver the skills the country needs and give greater control to employers about the training they receive. We are widening the provider base to deliver greater choice for employers but only by ensuring high quality delivery will we increase employer trust and investment in FE. All colleges and work based providers will be assessed on employer responsiveness as a performance indicator in the Framework for Excellence. Those who fall short will be oVered encouragement to raise their performance. The Training Quality Standard is a quality mark which has been introduced to demonstrate that a provider has achieved excellence in working with employers. 66. The latest Learning and Skills Council survey of employers found that: — nine out of 10 employers that use further education say that it has benefited their business; and — half say it has specifically increased productivity, boosted employee motivation, job satisfaction and employee retention. 67. The National Learner Satisfaction Survey 2007 showed 91% of Work Based Learners (WBL) satisfied (26% extremely satisfied) with their learning experience, this compares to 90% (27% extremely) satisfied with Further Education. This has remained broadly flat since 2001 (92% 2001, 90% 2002, 2003 and 2004), but the proportion of extremely satisfied learners has risen from 17% in 2001 to 26% in 2007 for WBL learners. Satisfaction with WBL teaching remains high (at 90%). 68. 94% of WBL learners agree that their learning programme has given them skills that they can use in a job (86% for FE learners), 94% agree that taking part in their course will help them move forward in their careers, and 71% feel that their course is essential for their current job.
The learning and skills improvement service 69. In creating a system which is responding better to employers and learners the FE sector is developing a culture of self improvement—enabling leaders, teachers and trainers to access the support and advice they need to improve performance and meet the needs of learners and employers. We have created the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) to bring together the Quality Improvement Agency and the Centre for Excellence in Leadership. This brings the responsibility for quality improvement with management and leadership development together, in a single organisation, for the first time. The LSIS was announced on 10 June and the merger will complete on 1 October. LSIS’ focus will continue to be on learners and supporting providers to become excellent and maintain successful sustainable performance. Learning Providers are being supported in the delivery of the Vocational Qualifications Reform Programme and the Foundation Learning Tier by a Qualifications Reform Support Programme which will be led by the LSIS.
Developing links and promoting progression from Further Education to Higher Education 70. There is already much close working between FE and HE with over 150 FE colleges currently providing HE and around 190,000 students taking HE options in FE colleges. In taking up the powers to award Foundation Degrees, colleges will need to continue working with other institutions, particularly at a local and regional level, to make sure that students can identify progression routes if they wish to go on to further higher-level study. 71. A prime example of successful collaboration between FE and HE is in the West Midlands, where the sectors have developed progression agreements through Lifelong Learning networks LLN). The LSC has strengthened this process by appointing a Train to Gain HE coordinator within each LLN in the region to facilitate better understanding of the HE oVer, and to develop links between employers, the brokerage service and FE. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 313
72. The University of Brighton has developed particularly successful progression routes with an FE college: the University’s campus linking to the college with which it has developed joint curriculum planning and cross institutional partnership. 73. Traditionally HE has been driven by demand—from students, typically young people seeking full- time Honours Degrees. The approach set out in our consultation document Higher Education at Work was intended to lead to an HE system which is more demand-led in terms of responding to business as well as prospective learners. 74. Many employers express their demand in their graduate recruitment activity and early responses to Higher Education at Work confirms that, as employers’ preferred way of building up a highly skilled workforce. But we will not meet the Leitch targets for Level 4 and above if employers do not engage more seriously in providing their existing workforce with high level skills. We are targeting messages on employers to convince them of the necessity, and the benefits, of workforce development on the basis that it will stimulate the step-change we require.
Future reforms 75. Whilst the current landscape has worked well, the ever increasing pace of change means that the learning and skills infrastructure needs to be reshaped to ensure the best quality and most responsive supply of learning for young people and adults. The Government’s White Paper: Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver, proposed substantial transformation of the system. 76. The consultation on the proposals in the Raising Expectations: Enabling the system to deliver White Paper closed in June 2008. There were a range of considered written responses and good attendance from stakeholders at a series of consultation events around the country. The Government published the first stage of its response on 30 July in following two documents: — Raising Expectations: Enabling the System to Deliver—Summary of the Events and Written Responses; and — Raising Expectations: Enabling the System to Deliver—Update and Next Steps—which lays out the next steps following the consultation. 77. The reforms set out in the white paper will require legislation, which will be included in the Education and Skills Bill (session four) due to be published in draft later this year. 78. The plans are to transfer responsibility for 16–19 funding to local authorities, supported by a new Young People’s Learning Agency. Local Authorities will come together in sub-regional groupings to plan and commission the full range of 16–19 provision enabling them to meet the challenges involved in raising the participation age and to deliver new entitlements. For young people, the demand for apprenticeships will be aggregated at a sub-regional and regional level to agree requirements with the new National Apprenticeship Service. 79. In addition, the new Skills Funding Agency (SFA) will support the move to funding which responds to demand. It will route funding swiftly to learning providers and will be a single point of intervention where performance pre or post 19 does not meet standards. The SFA will have a national and regional presence and will be responsible for joining up delivery of the system and services at every level to respond to users needs. This will be through the delivery of Train to Gain for employers and through Skills Accounts for individual learners. The latter will also be linked to the new adult advancement and careers service to ensure that more people have access to high quality information and guidance to enable them to get the skills they need to enter into and progress within employment. The proposed changes will be implemented over a number of years. 80. Work is underway to develop the specific organisational design of the Skills Funding Agency and to develop an implementation plan by the end of October. 81. In addition, we are setting up a National Apprenticeships Service to take end to end responsibility for the Apprenticeships programme, including ultimate responsibility for the delivery of targets. It will be a discrete coherent service, led by a Director and reporting to the Secretaries of State for DCSF and DIUS and managed within the Learning and Skills Council LSC and subsequently by the Skills Funding Agency.
Improving the Flow of Skills and Qualifications of Young People coming into the Labour Market
Young people 82. In developing the adult skills response to Lord Leitch’s recommendations we are taking into account the future workforce. As young people take the challenging step into further or higher education or into work, we are aiming to ensure that they have the right skills they need to succeed and that the economy needs to prosper. To achieve that we are reforming 14–19 education. The programme of reform for the 14–19 phase of education has three clear goals: — to ensure that all young people enjoy an education that fulfils their potential and stretches and challenges them so that they can go on to further or higher education or employment; Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Ev 314 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence
— to give young people the knowledge and skills that employers and the economy and the nation need to prosper in the 21st Century; and — to close the achievement gap so that all have an equal opportunity to succeed, irrespective of gender or race, disability or background. 83. Building on the secondary curriculum, young people will be able to choose from a range of learning routes and qualifications which are key to raising participation and achievement so that they can see clearly the options that are on oVer to them; make an informed choice that will enable them to fulfil their potential and progress further with the knowledge and skills that are recognised and required by HE and employers. 84. At the core of this system will be four learning routes so that all young people can make a choice that engages and motivates them and gives them these skills and qualifications vital to future success: — strengthened and reformed General Qualifications (GCSEs and A levels); — 17 lines of the new Diploma that combines theoretical with more applied learning; — apprenticeships that will become a mainstream option for all young people who are suitably qualified; and — the Foundation Learning Tier with progression pathways to improve on the current complex array of provision below level 2. 85. Whatever route young people choose, they will gain skills needed to apply what they know and to operate confidently, eVectively and independently in life, in further and higher education, and in work. Functional Skills in English, maths and ICT and personal, learning and thinking skills will be a core part of all 14–19 qualifications. 86. And where young people need our help the most, we will provide additional support. For example, young people out of education, employment or training (NEET) between the ages of 16 and 18 are wasting their own potential and their potential to contribute to society and the economy. 87. Our target is to reduce the proportion of 16–18 year olds who are NEET by two percentage points (from the 2004 baseline of 9.6%) by 2010. To achieve this we have set out a strategy and toolkit that will help local areas and their delivery partners to re-engage these young people, for example through careful tracking of NEETs and those at risk of becoming NEET, through motivating learning opportunities that meet their needs and interests, and through more personalised guidance and support
Migration 88. We are working hard to ensure that we are increasing skill levels and the ability of the population to gain jobs in growing and successful industries. However, in the shorter term there is a key role for managed migration to fill those jobs that cannot yet be filled by British workers or workers from the European Economic Area (EEA). The recent independent Migration Advisory Committee report to Ministers has identified a number of skilled occupations where there is currently a shortage and also a reason to recruit migrants from outside EEA. 89. We are working with the sectors covering these occupations to help each sector to ensure they are equipping their workforce with the skills they will need to deliver the jobs of the future. One of the most powerful ways is by ensuring that the public support and funding available through the Train to Gain service is tailored to meet those needs.
Conclusions 90. We committed, by 2020, to achieve: — 95% of working age adults to have functional (level 1) literacy and (entry level 3) numeracy skills; — more than 90% of working age adults qualified to level 2, with a commitment to achieve 95% as soon as possible; — 68% of working age adults qualified to level 3. (represents an additional 1.9 million); — 400,000 apprenticeships in England; and — over 40% of working age adults qualified to level 4 and above. 91. In respect of the first three, to plot progress, the interim indicators set out below were set for 2011. (The baselines for Leitch started at 2006.) It should be kept in mind that we are still at the beginning of the three-year period where the Skills indicators will be measured; it is early in the day, but overall signs are positive that we will make progress towards the 2011 targets. The scale of ambition for some indicators is significant and we are taking further action to raise demand and increase learner numbers. There are also some concerns that the Labour Force Survey may be under-reporting achievements at this stage. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 315
92. The Leitch review illustrated a huge task for the nation. Since its publication, global economic problems mean that businesses and individuals are facing challenging times. We need to ensure that we equip British business and the greater population to respond to these changing circumstances and a key tool will be improving their skill levels to aid productivity and competition. The targets we have set will need the continued commitment of Government, employers and individuals themselves. 93. We have set out a range of measures designed to achieve these targets. From changes to the skills landscape and the infrastructure; strategies to tackle quality improvements including in capital buildings, revised funding mechanisms; targeted programmes to raise participation and achieve higher level qualifications and importantly action to tackle our perception and approach to skills development. 94. The rates of return to learning at higher levels are good and the incentives are there for both employers and individuals. The costs of becoming a world leader in skills and sustaining high levels of employment is significant, but the cost of failure is greater –social exclusion, higher levels of unemployment and the cost to industry and the economy of an unskilled workforce, insuYciently equipped to compete in a globalised economy. 95. We have come a long way in a short time. However, the challenge is still there to be met. We, the nation as a whole, are providing the investment to meet the skill needs for 2020. But there is still much to do and we will remain relentless in our pursuit of attaining the goals Lord Leitch set out for us. We have no other option September 2008
Annex A
STATISTICAL Overall, England’s skills profile has increased significantly since 1997, with a substantial reduction in the proportion of working-age adults with no qualifications, and an increase in the proportion qualified to level 4 or above.
Highest level of qualification held by population aged 19-59/64, England (Source: Q4 LFS) 100%
90% 22.3 25.2 27.9 30.9 80% 70% 18.2 L4+ 19.5 19.5 60% 19.8 L3 50% 20.5 L2 20.2 20.1 40% 20.1 Within that overall national picture, the picture varies by region, although the overall trajectory remains upward. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Ev 316 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Proportion qualified to level 2+ by region England, 19-59/64 (Source: Q4 LFS) 80 70 60 50 2001 40 % 2004 30 2007 20 10 0 London North East North West South EastSouth West East MidlandsWest Midlands East of England Yorkshire & Humber Proportion qualified to level 3+ by region England, 19-59/64 (Source: Q4 LFS) 60 50 40 2001 % 30 2004 20 2007 10 0 London North EastNorth West South EastSouth West East MidlandsWest Midlands East of England Yorkshire & Humber Proportion qualified to level 4+ by region England, 19-59/64 Source: Q4 LFS) 45 40 35 30 2001 25 % 2004 20 2007 15 10 5 0 London North East North West South EastSouth West East MidlandsWest Midlands East of England Yorkshire & Humber Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 317 In recent years, Learning and Skills Council expenditure has been increasingly focused on national skills priorities, ie skills for life, and first, full level 2 and 3 qualifications. The number of adults studying on those national skills priority programmes has increased in recent years, including a 42% increase in the numbers studying towards a full level 2 qualification between 2005–06 and 2006–07. Number of LSC funded adults (19+) studying on key programmes in England 500,000 450,000 400,000 350,000 300,000 2005/06 250,000 2006/07 200,000 150,000 100,000 50,000 0 Skills for Life Full Level 2 Full Level 3 1. The headline success rate in Further Education colleges has improved dramatically since 1997, from 53% in 1997–98, to 78% in 2006–07. Success Rates in FE Colleges (LSC funded FE provision) 90% 78% 80% 75% 77% 72% 68% 70% 65% 59% 60% 55% 53% 53% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 1997/98 1998/99 1999/00 2000/01 2001/02 2002/03 2003/04 2005/05 2005/06 2006/07 Source: Learning and Skills Council Benchmarking Data. Note: Figures exclude external institutions. 2. Since its national roll-out began in April 2006 (full national coverage was reached in August of that year), Train to Gain has grown quickly. Over 101,000 employers have engaged with Train to Gain, over 570,000 learners have started learning programmes, and over 291,000 have achieved qualifications. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Ev 318 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Train to Gain Employer Engagements, Learner Starts and Achievements 600,000 500,000 400,000 300,000 Volume 200,000 100,000 0 Jul-06 Jul-07 Jul-08 Apr-06May-06Jun-06 Aug-06Sep-06Oct-06Nov-06Dec-06Jan-07Feb-07Mar-07Apr-07May-07Jun-07 Aug-07Sep-07Oct-07Nov-07Dec-07Jan-08Feb-08Mar-08Apr-08May-08Jun-08 Month Cumulative Employer Engagements Cumulative Learner Starts Cumulative Learner Achievements The LSC grant letter for 2008–09 sets out how funding will be allocated over the next few years, with a continued emphasis on national skills priorities. LSC funding for priority areas 2008-2011 1,200,000 1,000,000 800,000 08/09 600,000 09/10 £000s 10/11 400,000 200,000 0 Skills for Life Full Level 2 Full Level 3 Apprenticeships Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 319 The number of Apprentices is forecast to increase over the three year period 2008–09 to 2010–11. Apprenticeship Starts and Completions 250,000 200,000 150,000 Volume 100,000 50,000 0 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 (planned) 2008/09 (planned) 2009/10 (planned) 2010/11 (planned) Academic Year Total Starts Total Framework Completions Earnings returns People with higher qualifications earn more on average than similar individuals with lower qualification levels. In general, higher qualifications carry higher earnings returns and academic qualifications earn more than their vocational counterparts Chart 1—Earnings returns to selected qualifications Academic Qualifications Old NQF Level New NQF Level Female Male Higher Degree 5 7–8 12% 9% First/Foundation Degree 4 5–6 29% 26% 2! A Levels 3 3 14% 14% 5! A*-C GCSEs (or equivalent 2 2 9% 11% Vocational Qualifications Vocational higher degree 5 7–8 52% 40% HNC or HND 4 5 9% 13% RSA (advanced diploma or certificate) 3 3 10% "5% Source: Jenkins et al (2007): The Returns to Qualifications in England, Updating the Evidence Base on Level 2 and Level 3 Vocational Qualifications. CEE Discussion Paper no 89. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Ev 320 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence The return to most qualifications has remained relatively constant over recent years. Chart 2 below shows graphically the returns by qualification levels/types from 1997 to 2006. This would suggest that the supply of skilled labour has been keeping pace with employer demand. Chart 2. Returns to qualifications 1997—2006 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% return 10% 0% -10% -20% 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Higher degree First / foundation degree A-level, voc A-level, equiv (more than one) GCSE, vocat GCSE ([>4 in total]) GCSE, vocat GCSE (<5 in total) Vocational degree HNC or HND NVQ or SVQ (highest @ level 3) BTEC etc (highest @ 1st / gen diploma level) NVQ or SVQ (highest @ level 2) Source: Jenkins et al (2007): The Returns to Qualifications in England, Updating the Evidence Base on Level 2 and Level 3 Vocational Qualifications. CEE Discussion Paper no 89. While a number of studies have found the returns to lower level vocational qualifications to be negligible at best, two recent studies based on longitudinal data have found strong positive returns to vocational qualifications at Level 2. Jenkins et al found substantial positive returns to vocational level 2 qualifications gained in adulthood, see chart 3 below. Chart 3—Earnings returns to level 2 qualfications by age gained 25+ 2 under 25 NVQ Level 25+ 2 under 25 BTEC Level 25+ 2 under 25 RSA Level 25+ 2 City & City under 25 Guilds Level 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 % return Source: Jenkins et al (2007): The Returns to Qualifications in England, Updating the Evidence Base on Level 2 and Level 3 Vocational Qualifications. CEE Discussion Paper no 89. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 321 Forthcoming research by the Center for the Economics of Education also finds substantial positive returns for individuals gaining NVQ2 qualifications in their 20s and 30s. This research also finds higher returns for individuals of lower ability, with returns as high as 37% for low ability women. Other research has also found a positive return for those who leave school with poor qualifications. McIntosh (2004) found that women who leave school with poor GCSEs (or equivalents) who later go on to achieve Level 3 vocational qualifications in their 20s earn 14% more than otherwise similar but unqualified school leavers who do not achieve further qualifications. However, for men the gain from further learning is even greater at 25%.145 Returns from qualifications are also dependent upon occupation and industry sector.146 Employment returns Individuals with higher qualification levels are more likely to be employed (see chart 4). Almost 90% of the population of individuals with NQF4 or above are in employment compared to just slightly less than 50% of those individuals who have no qualifications. Equally individuals with higher qualifications are less likely to be unemployed. Chart 5 shows the associated unemployment levels for economically active individuals by qualification level. Data extracted from quarter 4, 2007 Labour Force Survey. Chart 4. Employment rate by highest qualification level 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% No Quals Below Level NQF Level 2 NQF Level 3 NQF Level 4 2 & above 145 McIntosch 2004 Vocational Qualifications. CEE Discussion Paper no 89. 146 Jenkins et al (2007): The Returns to Qualifications in England, Updating the Evidence Base on Level 2 and Level 3 Vocational Qualifications. CEE Discussion Paper no 89. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Ev 322 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Chart 5. Unemployment rate by highest qualification level 12% 10% 8% 6% 4% 2% 0% NQF Level 4 NQF Level 3 NQF level 2 Below level No Quals & above 2 Wider benefits Returns from gaining qualifications are not simply limited to financial gains. There are also important wider gains to both individuals and the wider society. For example improvements in levels of depression and obesity are associated with gains in qualifications.147 This research showed that the most significant eVects were experienced by those who moved from no qualifications to gaining a level 1 qualification. Strong significant eVects were also experienced by individuals moving to level 4 qualifications. Other research has highlighted the association between level 2 qualifications and women’s cervical screening behaviour. This research showed that women with level 2 qualifications had a 5.7 percentage points higher probability of having more than two cervical smear tests in 11 years compared to women with qualification blew level 2148. Society also benefits from the growth of skills in the population. Research has found that a one percentage point increase in the proportion of the working age population with O level or equivalent qualifications reduces the costs of crime by £10m–£320 million, through its eVects on wages.149 The benefits of skills and qualifications are not just accrued by the individuals but by employers and wider society. Evidence has shown that employers often capture some benefit of training for themselves. For example, while not directly comparable in formal qualifications, two studies have suggested that the productivity impacts of training are approximately double the wage benefits.150 It is also important to note that the skills profile of the UK workforce has improved over time (see one of the graphs in original memo) and this has contributed to the economic growth of the UK. Analysis suggests that improvements in the skills of UK workers have contributed to around one fifth of annual growth in the UK economy over the past 25 years.151 Gaining higher qualifications seems to lead to the increased likelihood of undertaking further learning. Analysis of the Labour Force Survey (Q4, 2007) clearly showed that more qualified individuals are increasingly likely to undertake further job related learning (see chart 6). 147 Feinstein, L (2002) Quantitative Estimates of the Social Benefits of Learning, 2: Health (Depression and Obesity) Wider Benefits of Learning Research Report. 148 Sabates, R and Feinstein, L (2004) Education, training and the take-up of preventative health care, WBL Research Report No 12. 149 Feinstein, L (2002) Quantitative estimates of the social benefits of learning, 1: Crime WBL Research Report No 5. 150 Dearden et al (2000) Who gains when workers train? Training and corporate productivity in a panel of British industries, IFS; Dearden et al (2005) The impact of training on productivity and wages: evidence from British panel data. 151 Bell et al (2005) A Quality Adjusted labour input series for the United Kingdom (1975-2002) Bank of England Working Paper 280. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 323 Chart 6. Percentage of working age population who have undertaken job related education or training in the past three months, by highest qualification 40% 38% 35% 30% 27% 25% 25% 20% 20% 15% 9% 10% 5% 0% NQF Level 4 NQF Level 3 NQF level 2 Below level No Quals and above 2 Higher Education There, in general, are real economic gains to individuals who go on to study for a degree. The graduate earnings premium is comfortably over £100,000, after tax, compared to those with two or more A levels. Graph X, below, shows the graduate earning premium by age.152 These data take into account real earnings growth and employment probabilities and is discounted, so that equivalent to today’s valuation. However, these returns do vary considerably according to the subjects studied. Gross lifetime earnings premiums for Medicine are almost £350,000 but the earnings premium for arts degree graduates is less than £50,000. However, the lifetime earnings premium for a graduate is approximately £150,000.153 Graduates also enjoy better health and are more likely to vote and be actively engage in their communities.154 Graph 7. Graduate lifetime earnings profile 14000 THE EARNINGS PREMIUM (WHAT THE AVERAGE GRADUATE TAKES 12000 HOME) ……MINUS….. 10000 (WHAT A SIMILAR INDIVIDUAL WITH 2+ A LEVELS TAKE HOME) £s 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 45 48 51 54 57 60 Age 152 Internal DfES analysis. 153 PwC (2007): The economic benefits of a degree. 154 Bynner et al (2003). Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Ev 324 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Annex B PROGRAMME FOR THE INTERNATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF ADULT COMPETENCIES (PIAAC) DIUS is making a contribution to the costs of the OECD’s international development work for 2008. The Department is represented on the PIAAC Board of Participating Countries and at meetings of the national project managers. PIAAC (fieldwork 2011) will allow a benchmark of adult literacy and numeracy against a much wider set of industrialised countries than in the International Adult Literacy Study (IALS, fieldwork 1996), and to look at what has changed in the intervening fifteen years. (No part of the UK took part in the Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey, which ran in the middle of the current decade.) By combining a direct measure of key cognitive skills with measures of formal educational attainment, PIAAC will oVer a more complete picture of the stock of human capital than has yet been available by way of comparing OECD countries. The OECD’s annual collation of qualification statistics is a useful monitoring tool, but provides only a rough proxy for actual cognitive skills. PIAAC will include: — testing for functional literacy skills; — testing for functional numeracy skills; — an assessment of the skill requirements of jobs for the employed members of the sample; and — a background questionnaire on individual characteristics and other contextual information. PIAAC will provide an important measure for Government in the context of the Leitch ambition for the UK to be a world leader in skills by 2020, benchmarked against the upper quartile of the OECD. Memorandum 67 Letter from Lord Young of Norwood Green, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills and Apprenticeships INNOVATION, UNIVERSITIES, SCIENCE AND SKILLS SELECT COMMITTEE SUB-COMMITTEE ON AFTER LEITCH: IMPLEMENTING SKILLS AND TRAINING POLICIES I recently wrote to you on 24 October providing supplementary information to address a number of issues raised by the Committee. The supplementary information among other things set out the DIUS vision for skills. However, I would like to bring to your attention to a speech delivered by John Denham, Secretary of State, to the CBI on 24 October entitled “Strategic Skills”. In this speech the Secretary of State outlined his strategic vision for how the skills system needs to develop and re-iterated his commitment to a demandled system driven by the needs of individuals and employers. He outlined his concerns that individual employer demand may not be suYcient to create a critical mass of the requisite skills and as such Government needs to do more to influence demand not only through policy and regulation but through procurement and purchasing. Employers need to be supported in organising their demand for skills particularly at sub-regional, regional and a more local level. All of which has to be underpinned by a radical simplification of the system with the minimum of bureaucracy. I have attached a copy of the speech for your information155. Tony Young Lord Young of Norwood Green October 2008 155 Not printed, http://www.dius.gov.uk/speeches/denham cbi 241008.html Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 325 Memorandum 68 Supplementary submission from the Higher Education Funding Council for England I noticed a discussion of the role of HEFCE in the regions at the Select Committee’s session with David Lammy and Stephen Marston earlier in the month (8 October 2008). The specific issue appeared to be whether HEFCE is adequately equipped to make an active contribution to developing higher level skills in the regions. As HEFCE was not represented at the session, a short briefing may be helpful. HEFCE conducts its responsibilities in a highly eYcient and eVective manner. In 2008–09, we will allocate a grant of £7,073 million and spend £20.2 million (of which £17.7 million is provided by DIUS) on our own operations in doing so. Within this, we will spend £1.5 million on our accommodation in Bristol and London, and £12.4 million on salaries for around 230 (full time equivalent) staV. Running costs from DIUS are restricted to 0.25% of grant. HEFCE has a national role and focus. It does though take account of regional and local aspects in how its policies are implemented. Our engagement with the Higher Education Institutions and Further Education Colleges delivering higher education, and with regional partners such as the Regional Development Agencies and Skills Partnerships, is managed by three Institutional Teams headed by Associate Directors. 50 staV are currently based within these teams, including seven Regional Consultants with identified regional and institutional responsibilities. The teams are nominally based in our head oYce, but spend a substantial proportion of time engaging directly with partners in the regions for which they are responsible. Higher Education is delivered by a high performing sector, which is to a significant extent characterised by large and highly capable organisations. This drives our regulatory framework and funding system, and it also informs our approach to strategic engagement within the regions, which secures change through incentives within the funding system and selective use of our Strategic Development Fund. This approach has been successful in reshaping higher education provision in places like Cornwall, Cumbria, East Lancashire and SuVolk, and it has underpinned the partnerships now being developed by HEls throughout the country to deliver employer-relevant provision on a greater scale. I am confident that HEFCE’s way of working is the best fit to the sector for which we are responsible and I cannot foresee a situation in which it would be possible or appropriate for us to incur the running costs necessary to operate regional oYces in the manner of, for example, the Learning and Skills Council. I hope that this helpfully clarifies the position, but please do not hesitate to contact me if you or any members of your Committee would like further information on this issue. Memorandum 69 Supplementary evidence from the Government following the evidence session on Wednesday 8 October 2008 INNOVATION, UNIVERSITIES, SCIENCE AND SKILLS SELECT COMMITTEE SUB-COMMITTEE ON AFTER LEITCH IMPLEMENTING SKILLS AND TRAINING POLICIES Note 1 A note on the Analysis of the Trends in Employer Spending on Training 1. We know that around one third of employers still do not train their workforce and persuading them of the business benefits of investing in skills is a big challenge. However, there is evidence from the National Employer Skills Survey 2007 (NESS 2007—see table at end of this section) of a positive trend with more employers now providing training for their workforce; it has risen from 64% in 2004 to 67% in 2007. 2. NESS 2007 also showed that employer spend on training had increased from £33.3 billion in 2005 to over £38.6 billion in 2007—a real terms increase of £3.5 billion after inflation. The average spend per employee on training increased to £1,725, up from £1,550 in 2005. Fees to external providers accounted for 7% of total spend, trainee labour costs accounted for 47% and trainer labour costs for on-the-job training for 22%. 3. NESS 2007 http://research.lsc.gov.uk/LSC!Research/published/ness/ also indicated that more employers are taking training seriously with 48% of employers having a training plan and 35% a separate training budget up from 44% and 34% respectively. 4. Although these are positive indications we recognise the challenge we face to raise employer engagement and investment in skills. A number of measures are in place to encourage and support employers to invest in training. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Ev 326 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence 5. Through Train to Gain we are raising employer demand for skills by providing a service to support employers in England of all sizes and in all sectors, to improve the skills of their employees, unlock talent and drive improved business performance. Latest management information shows that 74% of employers engaged through Train to Gain are “hard to reach” and do not have a recent history of significant investment in training. Evidence from independent evaluations of Train to Gain published in May 2008 shows that it is encouraging more employers to put more staV forward for training than would have otherwise: 72% of employers reported training staV who had not been trained before. 67% of employers said they trained more staV than they would otherwise. 55% of employers trained more junior/less experienced staV than they would otherwise. Employer Evaluation Report can be found at http://readingroom.lsc.gov.uk/lsc/National/nat- ttgemployerevaluation-may08.PDF Learner Evaluation Report can be found at http://readingroom.lsc.gov.uk/lsc/National/nat- ttglearnerevaluation-may08.PDF 6. Train to Gain is a developing service with new measures and flexibilities to ensure it more closely meets the specific needs of employers of all sizes and in all sectors. Most recently, on 21 October we announced further flexibilities to provide private sector SMEs with better support for training in the current economic climate. By 2010–11 we plan to invest over £1 billion public funding in skills through Train to Gain. 7. One key new flexibility we are developing is “sector compacts” with employers in key sectors of our economy which tailor the Train to Gain oVer to their needs and circumstances, including the specific needs of SMEs. These are three-way agreements between DIUS, the Learning and Skills Council and Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) or sector bodies. In return for additional flexibilities in Train to Gain secured through the compact, such as sector-specific joint marketing with LSC and funding for repeat learners on prioritised full qualifications, the SSC or sector body will work with employers via the Train to Gain brokerage service to stimulate demand for higher volume of skills in their sector. This focuses on increased take-up of the skills pledge, apprenticeships, full level 2 and 3 qualifications and Skills for Life. 8. Sector compacts have so far been agreed with five SSCs and sector bodies, SEMTA, ConstructionSkills, People 1st, Proskills and Skills for Justice were announced by the end of June 2008. Included in the anticipated outcomes for those compacts are: — 50,000 Skills for Life achievements. — 18,000 Apprenticeships starts. — 32,000 Management and Leadership outcomes. We expect five more to be announced shortly. Further tranches of sector compacts are in development and all compacts agreed will be reviewed regularly to ensure that they continue to be responsive to new employer needs and the impact of the changing economic landscape on diVerent sectors. 9. The Skills Pledge forms part of our strategy to create a culture in which every employer sees up-skilling and re-skilling their workforce as one of the most powerful things they can do to drive their businesses forward. The Skills Pledge is a public commitment by an employer to their workforce that they will develop the skills of their employees, including all employees lacking basic skills or a first full Level 2 qualification. 10. Since it was launched in June 2007 over 6,800 employers have made the Skills Pledge, covering over 4,900,000 employees. Early results from a recent survey (the survey has not yet been published, we will provide the Committee with details on how to access the survey in due course) of 800 of the first 1300 employers to make the Skills Pledge show that it is driving increase training: — three in five respondents have increased the breadth of their training provision which means people have a wider range of skills and increased prospects; — 63% of employers are providing more training opportunities than before; — 28% of respondents have had no previous involvement with either Train to Gain or Investors in People; — 34% of employers now have a training plan that they didn’t have before which means they are more focussed on the skills they need for business success; and — 53% are oVering more level 2 training than they did before which is giving more people a platform from which to progress and achieve. 11. We acknowledge that the current economic downturn could have a negative impact on levels of training. The measures described above will help to counteract this and we will do everything additional we can to support continued investment in training. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 327 Table NESS Training Activity and Expenditure NESS04 NESS05 NESS07 Training Expenditure Total training expenditure over the n/a £33.3m £38.6m previous 12 months (16% increase) Per capita training expenditure (total n/a £1,550 £1,725 workforce) Per capital training expenditure n/a £1,800 £1,975 (training employers’ workforce) Per trainee training expenditure n/a £2,550 £2,775 Training Activity % of establishments training staV over 64% 65% 67% the last 12 months % of establishments with a training 44% 45% 48% plan % of establishments with a budget for 34% 33% 35% training % of employees receiving training 61% 61% 63% Note 2 A note on the evidence that co-funding at Level 4 will work in the UK context, including details of other countries where the HE system delivers a substantial amount of Level 4 training in partnership with employers 12. There is very little comparative international evidence available on employer involvement in the delivery of higher education (HE), or on employer co-funding of HE/Level 4 training, though there is evidence, from the OECD, on the broader issue of the proportion of HE that is privately funded (see table below). What does exist, and this has to be treated with some caution due to definitional diVerences between countries and missing data, indicates that, across the OECD, around a quarter of expenditure on tertiary education comes from private sources, and that this share has been gradually increasing in recent years. The UK is slightly above the average, at around a third. However, in some countries there is a much higher private share—up to around three quarters in one case. Even though we cannot say how much of this share is attributable to employers it does indicate that there may be some scope for increasing support from private sources. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: CWMEM1 [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Ev 328 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence 1 sources sources educational institutions and 2005 in expenditure on 1 2000 Index of change between 2000 n 76.7 23.3 129 116 n 97.6 2.4 115 161 n 97.2 2.8 114 162 m 88.2 11.8 102 131 m 38.5 61.5 93 115 m 66.6 33.4 193 135 m 85.4 14.6 147 199 m 92.5 7.5 101 582 m 99.7 0.3 228 2,911 m m m 118 m m 96.3 3.7 117 m mmmmm m 94.9 5.1 170 307 (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) 2.3 84.4 15.6 106 113 0.9 79.4 20.6 119 206 4.8 79.2 20.8 109 79 0.4 91.2 8.8 127 387 0.3 23.3 76.7 136 129 2.3 96.3 3.7 129 255 4.6 91.5 8.5 101 113 1.8 74.4 25.6 119 99 0.7 51.0 49.0 115 130 4.6 77.5 22.5 100 151 0.8 61.0 39.0 105 134 1.2 78.2 21.8 110 114 which, sources sources subsidised Tertiary education 1 m m 8.8 3.9 7.1 9.4 3.3 3.3 (4) 16.0 22.7 75.7 22.1 14.7 66.3 52.2 30.4 26.0 18.8 44.9 22.4 31.9 21.5 40.3 16.4 31.0 2005 private entities Private sources Private: of Public All private Public All private mm mm (2) (3) 3.3 n 8.8 m 0.4 2.9 6.9 14.6 9.4 9.4 9.1 13.6 5.5 1.6 5.0 4.4 x(4) x(4) x(4) x(4) 36.3 15.9 18.0 12.5 26.0 m 14.1 1.9 22.3 22.6 12.0 10.4 40.3 m 18.7 3.4 52.1 23.6 23.4 8.5 10.3 6.1 53.4 12.9 30.6 0.5 Household Expenditure All private expenditure of other sources m m (1) 68.1 78.5 83.6 85.3 33.7 47.8 69.0 69.6 74.0 84.0 81.2 77.3 55.1 77.6 92.9 59.7 96.1 90.6 77.9 96.7 91.2 24.3 96.7 Public sources 3 3 2,3 3 3 Slovak Republic OECD countries Australia Greece Hungary Iceland Finland Germany Korea Netherlands Portugal Ireland Austria Denmark Czech Republic France Luxembourg New Zealand Mexico Norway Poland Italy Japan Belgium Spain Canada Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: CWMEM1 [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 329 1 sources sources educational institutions and 2005 in expenditure on 1 2000 Index of change between 2000 a 91.3 8.7 111 155 nmmmm n 67.7 32.3 148 153 m m m 133 m m 95.4 4.6 m m m m m 228 m m 31.1 68.9 132 111 m m m 118 m (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) 5.3 56.5 43.5 93 127 6.0 m m 113 m 3.9 19.5 80.5 92 117 which, sources sources subsidised Tertiary education 1 m m m m (4) 65.3 30.1 11.8 17.5 1.3 85 15 127 334 23.5 84.1 51.3 26.9 1.4 78 22 126 286 33.1 2005 private entities Private sources Private: of Public All private Public All private n 11.8 mm mm mm mm xx xx (2) (3) 26.9 3.3 34.9 16.5 36.1 29.2 17.2 6.2 83.0 1.1 24.6 8.4 Household Expenditure All private expenditure of other sources m m m m (1) 66.9 88.2 69.9 48.7 34.7 76.5 15.9 Public sources 4 Sweden 1. Including subsidies attributable toTo payments calculate to private educational funds institutions net received ofTo from subsidies, calculate public subtract total sources. public public subsidies funds, (column including2. 5) public from subsidies, Year private add of funds public reference (column subsidies 2004 4). 3. (column instead 5) of Some to 2005. levels direct of public education funds4. are (column included 1). Year with of others. reference Refer 2006Source: to instead OECD. “x” of See code 2005. Annex in 3 Table for B1.1aPlease notes for refer (www.oecd.org/edu/eag2008). details. to the Reader’s Guide for information concerning the symbols replacing missing data. United States OECD average 73.1 EU19 averagepartner countries Brazil Chile 82.5 Turkey Switzerland United Kingdom Israel Russian Federation Slovenia Estonia Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Ev 330 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence 13. To move forward in an internationally competitive economy we need to equip more working adults with high level skills. 14. Our strategy builds on the targets and principles of Leitch—for at least 40% of the workforce to be qualified to level 4 or above by 2020. But this cannot be achieved through school leavers alone as around three-quarters of the 2020 workforce has completed compulsory education—hence the need to reach out to those in the workforce. 15. To this end we are working, via HEFCE, with a growing list of institutions to develop more Higher Education that is flexible, relevant and responsive to the needs of learners and employers and explore models and practices that work well whereby employers fund part of the teaching and learning costs associated with their employee’s development. As employers, and employees, will be the main beneficiaries of high level skills its right that they share in the cost of the provision. 16. To support this activity, via the 2008 HEFCE Grant letter, we allocated £15 million of new resources in 2008–09, £40 million for 2009–10 and at least £50 million for 2010–11. Through this pilot funding, HEFCE will support 5,000/10,000/20,000 new co-funded entrants, infrastructure development and facilitate wider employer engagement activity. 17. We expect to meet the target for 2008–09 as HEFCE has agreed proposals to deliver around 8,000 places. Note 3 A note on how Skills Accounts will work, with particular reference to individual entitlements 18. Skills Accounts will raise the demand for learning amongst adults by giving them better information up front about what public funding they are entitled to for skills development; and will empower individuals to make better choices about the learning that meets their needs by both providing access to better information and advice on courses and careers, and by giving them a tangible mechanism for registering their interest in a course with a provider. 19. Skills Accounts will be a universal oVer available to all adults from autumn 2010. We will oVer accounts to 18 year olds alongside a progressive roll out of accounts to adults—both those in the workforce and jobseekers. By 2015 the majority of funding for individuals in FE will be accessed through Skills Accounts. 20. An individual with a Skills Account will have: — a unique learner number, acting as their “account number”; — an online record of their skills and qualifications, which over time will have the same eVect as an online CV, could if the individual wished be shared with current or prospective employers, and can also be used to plan future learning; — access to an online system enabling them to find out how much public funding they are entitled to for training, and in due course to find out how much funding they can get for additional support with the costs associated with training; — the ability to generate a “voucher” for a particular course, setting out the amount of public funding they are eligible for; — an online statement of the funding invested in their learning, either by the state, their employer, or themselves, which will become increasingly populated over time; and — access to information, advice and guidance on careers and skills to help them make the right choices about learning and work. This will initially be delivered by the current Careers Advice Service and local nextstep services, but over time will be delivered by the new adult advancement and careers service. The advice will be oVered each time an individual finishes a course. 21. Skills Accounts will not be “real bank accounts” which contain money to be used as required by the individual. They will provide information about the public funding that an individual is entitled to, based on their circumstances and their choice of course. Once they have then formally registered that interest with a provider, and begin the course, funding will flow direct to the provider to cover the Government subsidy to the cost of training, as it currently does. In this way, funding will stay within existing systems rather than flowing outside them. In this sense, the “voucher” is a “virtual voucher”, without any direct monetary value. 22. The one exception to this rule is where Skills Accounts will be used to get information about eligibility for learner support funding—ie. money which is paid direct to the individual, such as the Adult Learning Grant, rather than to providers to support the cost of delivering learning. In this case, existing payment systems would still be used, but funding would flow directly to the individual. 23. Skills Accounts will be the main mechanism through which people unlock their entitlements to public funding, rather than the entitlements themselves. The entitlements oVer was set out in the joint DIUS/DWP publication, Work Skills, in June 2008 http://publications.dius.gov.uk/workskills/downloads/ Workskills command paper.pdf Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 331 24. From age 18, depending on existing qualifications, all young adults who do not go to university will have access to a range of entitlements up to Level 3 to spend on their vocational training, be it at a local college, training provider or in work through Train to Gain. For those not already qualified at this level, these entitlements—which will be accessed through Skills Accounts when they are rolled out—would typically be worth some £7,000. This is the average amount an individual without any qualifications could be entitled to enable them to gain basic skills, first full Level 2 and first full level 3. The actual amount will vary depending on the chosen course. 25. The Skills Accounts model takes account of the lessons learnt from the Individual Learning Accounts scheme. Only accredited providers will be eligible to receive funding for learners accessing training using Skills Accounts. 26. Skills Accounts trials commenced in the South East and East Midlands on 29 September 2008 with individuals opening accounts at selected colleges across each region. From November, learners in these regions will also be able to open and manage Skills Accounts online and through the Careers Advice Service and local nextstep services. Skills Accounts will be trialled on a national basis from September 2009, before rollout in September 2010. Additional Questions Question 4. What is the DIUS vision for the skills picture of the future? What will the delivery framework look like? 27. The vision for skills was set out in detail in the Government White Paper, “World Class Skills, published in July 2007. The strategy for reform of the further education delivery framework was set out in the White Paper: “Further Education: Raising Skills, Improving Life Chances” of March 2006. 28. The further education (FE) and skills system has a crucial role to play in enabling this country to meet current and future challenges. Our vision for the system is therefore an ambitious one: FE is at the heart of our actions to unlock the talent of individuals; build strong and inclusive communities; and develop the skills and innovation employers need to compete successfully. 29. The FE system needs to engage those who are most disadvantaged and disaVected—including those who are most excluded from the labour market and society. Increasingly, it will also have to support those who are newly unemployed and who may need to update their skills and navigate their way though a changed labour market. And, at the same time, the FE system needs to support employers, and those already in work, providing the high level skills, enterprise and innovation this country needs to compete successfully, now and in the future. 30. To deliver this, it has to be diverse and it has to be flexible; able to adapt to changing needs and circumstances, and oVer high quality provision for learners of all ages; employers from all sectors; and communities across the country. 31. We expect to see colleges and providers working together in new and innovative collaborations and partnerships to deliver this challenging agenda. 32. Our ambition is for a rich and diverse FE sector, comprised of a whole range of organisations working locally, regionally and nationally. 33. We recognise that the FE system is undergoing radical change; driven by the twin imperatives of creating a demand-led system, and the more eVective integration of employment and skills. 34. The introduction of Skills Accounts, alongside the expansion of the Train to Gain programme, will enable the system to become even more demand-led. In this way, we will see real consumer power placed in the hands of individuals and employers, who will choose where and when they will take up the learning and training opportunities available to them. The FE and Skills system will continue to adapt to this— developing its strengths and specialism’s, bringing in new providers as required, in order to expand its customer base. 35. The integrating employment and skills agenda—which will strengthen and grow in the coming years—also requires a refreshed approach. In particular, it will require ever closer co-operation and alignment between the activities and agencies of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), as set out in Opportunity, Employment and Progression [give full weblink reference]. 36. Within the FE system, we also want to recognise the particular role that colleges have to play– as leaders in their community—not just in education but as institutions that can respond to the needs of communities; helping businesses and individuals to adapt and prosper. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Ev 332 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Question 5. The DIUS departmental report identifies two key areas of risk (failure to engage employers and learners and reform overload in FE) which would aVect the Government’s delivery of the Leitch agenda. What assessment have you made of the probability of these risks occurring? 37. High level risks are monitored on a quarterly basis by both the Skills Public Service Agreement Programme Board and the DIUS Risk Sub Committee. Risks are assessed based on likely impact and probability. Both risks are currently assessed as Amber/Green (medium probability and impact). Countermeasures are in place to manage the risks. 38. On the risk of sector instability and reform overload key countermeasures include: — The establishment of a Machinery of Government Joint Programme Board, jointly chaired by DIUS and DCSF, which meets monthly to oversee delivery of the machinery of government organisational reforms, monitor stresses on the FE sector and manage risks associated with sector overload. — A MOG Capability Strategy has been developed which is focused on sustaining delivery during the transition period and ensuring we have the right people in the right place to build the capability of the new organisational and funding framework. 39. On failure to engage employers and learners countermeasures include: — Implementation of Skills Accounts and the Adult Advancement and Careers Service to help stimulate learner demand—Skills Accounts trials commenced in the East Midlands and the South East in September and the AACS prospectus will be launched in October. Fuller details are given in Note 3 above. — Communicating a clear vision and case for action through all communications channels. High profile marketing campaign activity for Train to Gain and Apprenticeships is designed to inspire greater investment from employers and learners. — The wider picture on employer engagement is covered in Note 1 above. Question 6. What assessment would you make of your progress so far? What are the obstacles to faster realisation of the Leitch vision? 40. The statistical annex to the DIUS supplementary memorandum submitted to the Committee in September set out a range of relevant data on progress. The following data oVers a picture of the progress made against key Leitch targets. Level 2 and level 3 (Labour Force Survey) There are PSA Targets referring to two distinct cohorts: To reduce by at least 40% the number of adults in the workforce who lack level 2 or equivalent qualifications between 2001 and 2010; working towards this, one million adults in the workforce to achieve level 2 between 2003 and 2006. This requires an additional 3.6 million adults in the workforce to be qualified to level 2 or higher by 2010. Latest position — In the Labour Force Survey (LFS) Quarter 2 2008, the proportion of economically active adults in England qualified to at least level 2 or equivalent was 74.4%. This represents around 18.2 million adults from an economically active population of 24.5 million. — There are 2.1 million more adults in the workforce qualified to Level 2 than at the end of 2001. The interim PSA target for the number of adults achieving Level 2 was met. To raise levels of attainment for men aged 19 to 64 and women aged 19 to 59 so that: (i) 79% are qualified to at least level 2 by quarter 4 by 2011. (ii) 56% are qualified to at least level 3 by quarter 4 by 2011. (iii) 36%are qualified to level 4 and above by quarter 4 by 2014 with an interim milestone of 34% by quarter 4 2011. Latest position (Q2 2008, LFS) — 70.6% qualified to at least level 2. — 50.3% qualified to at least level 3. — 30.2% qualified to at least level 4. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 333 Skills for Life In addition, the Leitch Review of skills recommended that the Government set a target of 95% of adults to achieve the basic skills of functional literacy and numeracy by 2020. In 2004 the Government set a PSA target to improve the basic skills of 2.25 million working-age adults (19 and over and 16–19 and not in full-time education) between 2001 and 2010 with a milestone of 1.5 million adults in 2007. Latest position — By the end of 2006–07 2.276 million learners had achieved their first Skills for Life qualification. So the previous 2010 PSA target has already been met, two years early. Apprenticeships In support of the Leitch Review of Skills, the Government set a PSA target to increase the number of apprenticeship completions (all ages, 16 plus) to 130,000 by 2010–11. Latest position — In 2006–07, 184,000 apprenticeship starts and 112,000 apprenticeship completions. We are on track to achieve the 2010 completions target. The targets from the Leitch report for 2020 are already extremely ambitious. Accelerating them is unlikely to be realistic. The major constraints on the speed with which the targets can be achieved include: (i) The rate of increase in employer engagement and investment in training (see notes 1 and 2). (ii) The rate of increase in individuals’ willingness to train. (iii) The capacity of colleges, universities and training providers to oVer education and training programmes to the necessary number of learners. (iv) The speed of implementation and growth for the major programmes that will deliver high quality, demand-led services for employers and individuals—particularly through Train to Gain, Skills Accounts and the Adult Advancement and Careers Service. Question 7. Will the Government provide additional funding to assist the Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) to fulfil the new roles assigned to them (eg with regard to qualifications)? 41. The SSCs core remit covers i) raising employer engagement and investment in skills, ii) ensuring authoritative Labour Market Intelligence, and iii) ensuring qualifications and standards meet employer needs. This is a clearer and more focused remit for SSCs. They are not new roles. This remit builds on activity which has been central to SSCs’ purposes since they started. Through the UK Commission’s Grant-in-Aid letter DIUS is providing recurrent core funding to SSCs of £48 million in 2008–09 to cover the core remit. For additional roles SSCs receive targeted programme funding. Examples of additional funding include Information Advice and Guidance, Women in Work and the 14–19 Diplomas. 42. In addition to the core funding for SSCs the 2008–09 UK Commission Grant in Aid letter has £2.1 million for SSC work on National Occupational Standards, £11.7 million of National Vocational Qualifications levy funding for SSCs and £1.1 million to cover qualifications work specific to the Devolved Administrations. From 1 October 2008 the NVQ levy is being replaced by Grant In Aid funding to SSCs, to give SSCs a reliable source of income for their work on qualifications. 43. Overall Grant in Aid funding for SSCs through the UK Commission for Employment and Skills in 2008–09 is £76.7 million. The Government believes this should be suYcient to enable the network to carry out its core remit eVectively. 44. There are 25 SSCs. Each SSC receives an average of £5.2 million through UK CES through a three year contract. The level of funding varies across SSCs from £3.9 million to £7.2 million across the three year contracts. SSCs also receive additional funds from other sources, including: (i) Funding from Government Departments which sponsor the relevant sector (eg the Department of Health and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport). (ii) Funding from employers through membership and service activity. (iii) Levy funds in those cases where training levies exist, notably the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and the Film Industry Training Board. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Ev 334 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Question 8. What can be done to increase collaboration between FE and HE and to ease progression from one sector to the other? How do you see the role of Lifelong Learning Networks developing? 45. We agree that it is important that further education and higher education work together eVectively in the interests of customers—both learners and business—and we therefore want to strengthen partnership and facilitate progression. 46. This has to take into account that both sectors are diverse, with institutions having a high degree of autonomy, determining their own mission in relation to market opportunities and demand. 47. A proportion of HE is delivered through FE colleges with on average about 140,000 enrolments in each academic year. Around 280 FE colleges (FECs) collaborate with HE Institutions (HEIs) in the provision of HE taught in colleges. Most of them include foundation degrees in their oVer, which facilitates progression to HE for students following vocational and professional courses in a college. This provision and collaboration is supported by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), with institutions having the opportunity to increase their student places. 48. Foundation degree forward (fdf) is involved in work to increase progression for students on advanced apprenticeships to HE. Having identified the common elements of apprenticeship programmes that facilitate progression to HE, fdf are working to produce a commonly understood and applied recipe for apprenticeship progression, and will use this in working with the Sector Skills Councils and employers to support progression to HE for apprentices. 49. HEFCE is investing approximately £105 million of development funding across 2005–11 and over 15,000 additional student numbers in 30 Lifelong Learning Networks (LLNs), incorporating 120 HEIs and over 300 FECs. This is a substantial investment and represents national coverage of LLNs. The interim evaluation of the programme is indicating that LLNs are making real progress in tackling the progression opportunities for vocational learners. 50. HEFCE funding for LLNs sought explicitly to help institutions work collaboratively by putting in place a number of processes and procedures, primarily around advice and guidance provision, curriculum adjustments, and progression agreements. The intention from the start was that the initiatives of the LLNs must become embedded in the core business of institutions in order to survive long-term. 51. The key future role for LLNs will be to sustain the practices and processes they have developed that contribute to institutional and cultural change with regards to vocational learners as part of what the institutions themselves do. In addition, LLNs will support their partner institutions in implementing the employer engagement agenda. 52. The HEFCE consultation paper on the New University Challenge acknowledges that FECs as well as HEIs have an important role in developing locally-based HE, supporting progression routes to HE and working with local businesses to develop skills. It is likely that most proposals for HE centres will involve collaboration between HEIs, and between HEIs and FECs. 53. As the HE context evolves, we will want to ensure that improvements in collaboration and progression between FE and HE are maintained. The HE Debate is providing an opportunity to address such questions. The FE sector as a whole has an important part to play in our strategy for higher level skills, building on its links with smaller businesses and traditionally strong focus on work-related learning including its expertise in delivering Foundation Degrees. Question 9. Does it make sense to have one body dealing with FE funding and another with HE funding (and another funding stream for pre-19)? 54. To support our key adult policies of creating a demand-led system for employers and learners and integrating employment and skills, we propose to put in place a new dedicated single Skills Funding Agency which builds on the success of the Learning and Skills Council but is better placed to respond quickly and flexibly to national, regional and local skills needs. The new Skills Funding Agency will be a focused, streamlined agency with a closer relationship to Government than currently exists between DIUS and the LSC, more analogous to the DWP/Jobcentre Plus relationship. 55. This approach for further education and skills would not fit with the existing arrangements for higher education funding delivered through the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). The purposes and operations of higher education are not the same as those of further education. We need to retain funding and administrative frameworks that are suitable for the circumstances of the two sectors, while also ensuring co-ordination and progression between them in the interests of learners. As set out in the response to Question 8 above, Higher Education and Further Education are increasingly working together with much HE already delivered through FE colleges. 56. FE colleges are used to receiving public funding from a variety of sources. As recognised in the DIUS/ DCSF consultation paper earlier this year (“Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver”), it is important that any information provided to separate funding bodies only needs to be provided once and can be shared; that decision making and administration is kept streamlined; and that progression in learning is encouraged between the pre-19 and post-19 phases. That paper explained the rationale for, and proposed Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 335 operation of, the new organisational arrangements that will route funding for pre-19 learning through local authorities working with a new Young People’s Learning Agency, with post-19 education and training and the Apprenticeships programme funded through the Skills Funding Agency. 57. For young people, the Government is putting in place local accountability to deliver the right level of education and training for every 14–19 young person. Through transferring commissioning responsibility to local authorities for pre -19 year olds, we are moving resources and decision making powers away from central government to place leadership of the system, accountability for outcomes, duties and the funding to deliver, at a local level. The main purpose of the Young People’s Learning Agency will be to provide support to local authorities so that they can carry out their new responsibilities eVectively. Principally a funding body, it will also perform a number of functions that make most sense to be done nationally for reasons of cost eVectiveness, eYciency and administrative simplicity. 58. The SFA and YPLA will work closely together to avoid unnecessary duplication and we expect them to seek eYciencies, for example, through shared services. Question 10. How do your policies reflect the need to focus on those who have already left compulsory education and who wish to reskill or refresh their skills? What are you doing for part-time students? 59. Supporting individuals who have already left compulsory education is a key priority for the Government. Around three-quarters of the 2020 workforce have already left compulsory education, so we recognise the need for more people currently in the workforce to acquire better skills and qualifications. 60. We are increasing our investment in support at all levels for adults to acquire the skills they need to find and progress in work. Following the announcement in Work Skills of the extension of the 19–25 Level 3 entitlement to Train to Gain, we now have a universal oVer of free education and training up to Level 3 for individuals aged up to 25. This will support large numbers of individuals who have left compulsory education to continue developing their skills through a range of routes and applying them in the workplace, particularly to acquire the crucial technician, associate professional and advanced craft skills at level 3. 61. Through support for the FE service, the Government supports a large number of older learners who are already qualified to at least Level 2 or Level 3, who are re-skilling to meet new skill needs at work, or changing their career paths. 62. We are increasing flexibility for individuals to reskill in the workplace to meet employers’ needs. In May 2008, John Denham announced the first five Sector Compacts, which tailor the Train to Gain oVer to the needs of employers in a particular sector, in exchange for a commitment to promote employer engagement with the Train to Gain service. The Compacts include relaxations of “firstness” of up to 30%, in order to meet employers’ strategic skill needs in those sectors. The first five compacts are expected to deliver an additional 150,000 first full level 2s over three years, alongside a significant number of learners who are re-skilling at Level 2. Likewise, Compacts include similar relaxations for Level 3 skills. The first five compacts are expected to deliver an additional 57,000 first full level 3s over 3 years, with a significant number of learner’s re-skilling to achieve 2nd Level 3 qualifications. 63. The package of support for private sector SMEs announced on 21 October, to help sustain training in the current economic downturn, represents a further significant step in extending flexibility within the Train to Gain programme, so that we can support more adults to reskill and refresh their skills. 64. Part-time students are able to freely access FE provision, with a wide range of courses designed to meet their needs. In 2006–07, there were around 1.8 million part-time adult FE learners, constituting around 87% of all adult learners. Question 11. Are you monitoring the impact of your policies on those involved in lifelong learning? 65. The Department uses a range of information to monitor the impact of its policies on learners. These include the following: a) Data collected by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) through the Individualised Learner Record (ILR). This is published through Statistical First Releases (SFR) and provides information on the number of learners participating on LSC funded courses and achievement of learners on particular courses. The SFRs enable the Department to monitor the impact across a range of learner types, including age and ethnicity. b) Labour Force Survey (LFS)—this is a very large household survey designed to give information about the number of people with jobs, the details of these jobs, the job-search activities of those without work, and levels of qualifications held by those in the labour force. It is used to measure progress against the Government’s PSA targets. c) Learner Surveys—these cover both work-based and non work-based learning. For example the FE Learners Longitudinal survey which examined the experiences and destinations of FE learners aged 19 or over who took a FE course in 2003–04, and the Train to Gain Employee Evaluation which collects evidence from employees undertaking training under Train to Gain. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Ev 336 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Are you concerned by the downward trend in participation? 66. Our strategy has been to realign funding from a high number of short courses and non-qualification bearing programmes to qualifications such as Skills for Life, full level 2 and full level 3 that oVer the greatest opportunity for adults to gain the skills necessary to participate fully in an economically successful and cohesive society. This is a planned and continuing strategy to respond to the skills challenges we have as a country. This strategy is working: — We have met our interim Skills for Life target with over 2.25 million learners achieving their first Skills for Life qualification in literacy, language or numeracy since 2001. — There are 2.1 million more adults in the workforce qualified to Level 2 than at the end of 2001. — More adults are gaining the skills they and their employers need to succeed in an increasingly competitive economy. 67. It is also important to consider learning outside of LSC-funded provision to represent the full levels of adult participation in learning. The latest National Adult Learning Survey showed that adult participation in learning has remained steady over the last few years. 68. We will be spending on average around £1.5 billion per year through the LSC to protect a full range of first step and progression programmes encouraging adults back into learning. As well as improving skills levels and employability this learning will help strengthen families and communities, oVer opportunities for personal enrichment, and improve social justice and community cohesion. 69. We value informal adult learning (“non accredited learning for leisure, pleasure and personal or community development”) and recognise its role in empowering individuals and we have safeguarded a budget of £210 million per year up to 2010–11. 70. We have conducted a wide consultation in order to develop a new vision for informal adult learning in the 21st century—one in which more people have the information and support to choose what, where and when they want to learn. We have received 5,500 responses from a wide range of organisations and individuals. The responses make it clear that, as well as attending the traditional LSC-funded adult education classes, people are now learning in a multitude of ways, including through: — activities funded by a range of Government departments and NDPBs; — classes organised and delivered by third sector organisations; — informal learning oVered by national organisations like the National Trust, RSPB and English Heritage; — self-directed and self-funded learning activities, such as 5,000 ! reading groups and 700 University of the Third Age (U3A) groups with 207,014 members; and — learning available through internet websites, digital TV and mobile technology. Question 12. What would be the obstacles to developing additional targets for participation, progression and diVerent groups? 71. We are working to ensure that our programmes are eVective in meeting the needs of all groups in the population. — Our CSR PSA indicators are based on whole working-age population targets. The previous 2010 Level 2 target was focused on the economically active population only, so we have broadened our focus to include the economically inactive so we can go further in supporting the most disadvantaged to progress. — Both DIUS and LSC have published Single Equality Schemes—these are not target driven but identify the need to address the barriers faced by particular groups. — The LSC remits colleges and providers to set their own Equality and Diversity Impact Measures (EDIMs). These reflect the fact that national targets can be too imprecise whereas locally determined EDIMs can oVer a more sophisticated and diVerentiated response to identifying and addressing the needs of those disadvantaged groups within local communities. — The LSC supports this through dialogue with providers and via a major support programme, commissioned in 2008, which is helping providers to develop single equality approaches, and to improve how they monitor data and set targets. 72. We are not convinced that it would be useful at this point to introduce additional targets to focus on diVerent groups. — Adding an additional target would be likely to add burdens to the FE sector, at a time when we are trying to reduce bureaucracy and promote greater self-regulation. — Nationally set targets are unlikely to reflect the needs of diverse groups which will vary massively, across localities. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 337 — At present there are a number of issues concerning the collection of relevant data which would limit the validity of additional targets: — limited availability of reliable data in some domains such as sexual orientation or religion/ belief. — under-declaration of disability/learning diYculty — statistical issues when dealing with high levels of disaggregation, where small variations in numbers of learners can create major fluctuations in figures — A lot of what we are doing focuses more on “soft” issues—ie behaviour, attitude and culture change (eg encouraging more Bangladeshi girls into apprenticeships). Setting targets would not necessarily be an eVective way of addressing the barriers some groups face. October 2008 Memorandum 70 Submission from Kevin O’Leary, Education Management Consultant After Leitch:Implementing Skills and Training Policy I have just read with interest the minutes of evidence of the above meeting (to be published as HC 505–iv). I have carried out extensive Doctoral research into the reasons why SMEs do not engage suYciently in education or development of their staV and am impressed and encouraged by the focused and probing nature of your questions. Given my knowledge of SME behaviour and attitudes I wonder if you and your Committee might find it helpful if I add some comments. I would happily comment on most of the questions raised but I will confine myself to a particular few. Q280 “. . . Somebody writes a report and says, ‘Woe is us; the world is coming to an end,’ and then 10 years later we write another report that says, ‘Woe is us..’Surely Leitch is just one of those, is it not, it is just a passing fancy?” Unfortunately my research lends support to the view that Leitch will be just another “passing fancy”. The National Skills Task Force was set up in 1997 “to provide advice to the Government on the nature, extent and geographical and industrial pattern of skills and shortages” and “how best to ensure that the education and training system responds eVectively to identified need”. The Task Force produced several main reports and 29 research reports. Does anyone remember its recommendations? And will the UK Commission for Employment and Skills go the same way? (I am currently preparing five reports on my research and findings, and have enclosed a copy of the first draft of the first volume, SME Resistance: What does the Literature Say?, which summarises the work of others, including the findings of the National Task Force. It is a draft so I would ask you to bear that in mind if referring to it. You may be interested to know that the second volume describes a proposed Model of Engagement. Volume Three addresses the issue of Trust and Brand Prejudice, and how to overcome the latter and create the former. Volume Four describes the engagement structure, processes and mind-set change FE colleges will require to be able to engage SMEs; and Volume Five oVers the same remedies for private training providers. If you are interested I will happily send you copies of all five volumes when they are finalised). Q282 “But you are delivering qualifications; you are not delivering skills”. The Economist Newspaper answers this question succinctly; “Qualifications are a poor proxy for skills”. Qualifications are not the same as skills. If one uses the widest possible interpretation of a definition of skills—the ability to perform a particular task—then all qualifications impart or demonstrate at least one skill—the ability to gain a qualification. If we accept a more common interpretation, which tends to focus more on demonstration of practical motor-skill abilities, such as sawing a piece of wood into required shapes, welding pipes together or carrying out a surgical procedure to swap human hearts, then we begin to see that qualifications are not necessarily the same as skills. Some qualifications, eg some ‘A’ Levels, and possibly some degrees, will impart only academic knowledge. But all of this is to miss the point. When owner/managers say they want skills rather than qualifications, what they are really saying is “Possession of a skill is proof of ability to perform a relevant task—but possession of a qualification, even one that purports to include the teaching of this skill, is not”. The skill may not have been taught eVectively, it may not have been taught at all, or, if taught, may not have been learned. Owner/managers will happily regale us with examples of employees who have an alleged “appropriate” qualification but not the expected skills! When I was lecturing I recall spending the first three Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Ev 338 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence two-hour lessons of a particular module in a recognised qualification teaching my 17 year old students how to write a health & safety policy document, knowing full well that at their expected level of employment in industry they would not be required to do so! And there is another facet. Sometimes when employers talk about skills they may well be including “attitude” and “behaviour”. They will not be impressed by college-leavers who do not manifest an appropriate work ethic. A young employee with an “appropriate” qualification who sees no wrong in frequently not turning up for work on Monday morning because he had a “heavy night” the night before helps to reinforce his employer’s suspicion of “college courses”. For colleges to persuade employers that “qualifications” are very close to representing a collection of appropriate skills they must first ensure that they are, and then find ways of convincing employers that it is so. In the wider context, if we accept Leitch and ensure that all his target groups achieve the recommended qualifications, we will be failing the people of this country if we then tell them the British workforce is now appropriately skilled! Q285 “. . . David, you must answer the question: I am right, am I not? (whether in fact they—universities and FE—actually upskill the nation and increase productivity is a by-product rather than the driving force)”. Yes, you are right. In my time in FE, and more latterly with the LSC, our principal pre-occupation and driving force was to deliver whatever the government (or its relevant agency) said we should deliver. From time to time a colleague might mutter “how can we be sure we are teaching our students what we should be teaching them?” but I cannot recall a single time when any of my colleagues pursued the question seriously. Q295 “David, this is fantasy land is it not, employers have never banged down the doors of universities or FE colleges with cheque books?” I agree with you. But I must emphasise that my research with employers reveals that just as they are prepared to pay for modern computerised machine tools or stock for resale, they are prepared to pay for training if they believe that particular training will add value to the business! Just as they would not buy inappropriate machine tools or the wrong stock, they will not pay for training which they believe will not or may not add value. Why should they? Q299 “...Isnot‘demand led’ the same kind of thing? What does demand led mean, for goodness sake?” Dr McVicar is right to point out that there are diVerent forms of demand: demand from employers; demand from employees; demand from students; demand from government. Demand-led in the sense that it means “being led by demand” is of course as old as man’s time on the planet. When a fisherman caught more fish than he needed and a crop grower grew more crops than he needed and each wanted some of what the other had they each responded to the other’s demand by swapping some of their surplus! But the expression “demand-led” in the current context may have come into existence around the time of the publication of the Learning and Skills Council’s Draft Workforce Development Strategy (2002). I have to quote from my own research, “The report’s main elements were a determination to create what it called a demand-led system” and that “the creation of a demand-led system requires that demand, whether by employers or individuals, be well informed advised and guided” and “then went on to describe the product and services it wants to promote to employers”. I then ask “How can the strategy be ‘employer and demand led’ while the nature of the products to be promoted is already decided? The clue lies in the statement that the creation of a demand-led system requires that demand be well informed, advised and guided. The most likely explanation, and one that removes the apparent contradiction, is that when the LSC talks about ‘demand’ it does not actually mean what the employers already know they ‘want’; it means ‘advise and guide them to make sure they want what we have decided we want them to want!’” In other words the LSC is choosing to ignore, or is unable to understand, the age-old, undeniable, natural human characteristic of “wanting” something, and instead is choosing to believe that demand can be decreed! Sadly, while Parliament allows this process to continue, substantial amounts of tax-payers’ money are being wasted. Q301 “...itistheemployers who control the planet who want the employees educated in their interests. Is that what Leitch is all about? Is the demand coming from employers in both further and higher education?” I am struggling to understand why employers might want their employees educated not in their interest and haven’t got an answer! Yes, there is demand in the market-place, from employers, at FE and HE level. But it is a mistake to assume that because employers buy FE and HE education programmes that these programmes are determined by employers or that they are precisely what employers want. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [O] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Ev 339 Many years ago I was a member of two working bodies set up by an awarding body (which shall be nameless) as a response to enquiries from several employers who wanted some enterprise programmes to be created. After the first meeting of the two bodies (working jointly at the beginning) the representative employers left and never returned. We learned later that they were so disenchanted by the nature and progress of the meeting that they resolved not to return! We continued without them, and when the two programmes were designed and published as two new qualifications, the industry attendees were named in the credits! For another opinion I need to refer you to my research again. “Matlay’s (1999) examination of the criticism levelled at some NVQs led him to lay at least some of the blame for SMEs’ less-than-enthusiastic attitude to them at the door of the government and civil servants. He questioned the claimed extent of employer involvement and in citing Field (1995) did not fight shy of observing that “the emergence of S/ NVQs in Britain seems to owe more to the aspirations of a small group of modernising civil servants and training professionals than to a genuine government concern for the Vocational Education and Training needs of the workforce”. Q304 Dr Collins suggests the Government should make it a right for employees to access training, certainly up to Level 2 If the Government goes down this road it must be prepared for an employer backlash. After all, employers pay Corporation Tax and Income Tax which help to fund the schools system which is supposed to educate our young people to a level akin to Level 2. It is as if the Government is saying “we used your money and failed to use some of it appropriately so we want you to bear a cost again, by paying for your staV to be trained or to give them time oV work at your expense, or both”. This aside, how would a system of compulsion work? Who would select a chosen course for an applicant member of staV? How would the employer know it was an appropriate course? How would he know it represented the best value for his money? Who would recompense him if the member of staV failed the course or withdrew part-way through? How would the employer cope if too many of his staV applied at the same time? How would he rank such applications in terms of who goes first and who goes second? However well the legislation might be drafted we can be confident employers will become education and training averse. Q320 “. . . Whether you think we have made the present system of qualifications for skills and training too complicated?” I am not qualified to comment on HE but, currently, the number of qualifications available at FE level is somewhere between 17,000 and 24,000 depending on which government figures one relies on. I do not suppose even practitioners in FE are conversant with more than several hundred. How are potential students and employers expected to cope? But it is not just the sheer number of qualifications. The entire education infrastructure is overwhelmingly complicated and not designed to meet the needs of students or those who pay. Far too much of our education system is designed to meet the needs and aspirations of providers, ie schools, colleges and universities, and government. A massive overhaul is long overdue, but first I would recommend that the present system is examined to remove the most obvious and unnecessary complications and barriers. It might look somewhat piecemeal but it can be done relatively quickly, without setting up a whole new review body. And to help the reformers I recommend that as they examine each rule or procedure they ask, “how does this add value to our students or those who pay?” Q333 “How do you relate to the sector skills councils because they almost cut across the new structure? Do you think there are too many representative bodies for employers?” I am not at all sure that Sector Skills Councils are needed. I cannot emphasise enough the many and various ways in which SME owner/managers have expressed dismay, anger or open contempt for the plethora of bodies that successive governments create. Perhaps if we ask the question “what do Sector Skill Councils do that was not being done by other agencies or bodies, and what do they do that is unambiguously necessary?” and/or “What meaningful benefit did we not enjoy before we introduced SSCs?” we might be surprised by the answers. The Leitch Review of Skills claimed that “employers collectively articulate their qualification needs through their Sector Skills Council”. This claim conflicts markedly with the findings of a survey conducted for the Sector Skills Development Agency (Skills for Business network: Survey of Employers, 2006). The survey found that only one in seven employers is aware of Sector Skills Councils generally and only one in seven of establishments aware of their SSC have had any dealings with it”. Processed: 07-01-2009 20:21:47 Page Layout: COENEW [E] PPSysB Job: 403720 Unit: PAG1 Ev 340 Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee: Evidence Q338 “. . . Manchester University tutor, Etienne Wenger, who has developed this concept of communities of practice”. It is fascinating that you should raise this. It is an area of study that has not been given enough attention. No, I don’t believe Leitch allows for this sort of learning—flexible and workplace learning as you put it. There is evidence that for a given work-orientated learning target such learning is more readily and eVectively achieved in the workplace than away from it. Leitch tends to focus principally on conventional qualifications (which he repeatedly confuses with skills, as already discussed) and conventional delivery. As an aside, it would be interesting to be able to compare learning outcomes and attitudes of apprentices who successfully completed old-style Apprenticeships, which were in-house devised and an embedded practice of the work community, with Modern Apprenticeships which are not devised in-house and probably seen as an add-on rather than something embedded in a firm’s culture. The challenge and diYculty with communities of practice is knowing how to tap into the process and somehow, with the agreement and support of particular ‘communities of practice’, determine if and how we and the wider community can benefit from them. December 2008 Printed in the United Kingdom by The Stationery OYce Limited 1/2009 403720 19585