Education: Further Education Colleges

Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2012 Grand Committee

Asked By

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the potential contribution of further education colleges to their local economies and communities.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I asked for this debate because I wanted to draw attention to a report which came from a commission that I chaired last year looking at the role of colleges in their communities. Our remit was to investigate the role that further education colleges,

“can and do play in their communities and the added public value they can bring to these communities as leaders of learning”.

You will see that this remit reflects the title that has been given to this debate and I am delighted that so many people have put their names down to speak in it. I am only sorry that it means that they have so little time to speak.

It is worth starting with some statistics. There are 347 further education colleges in England. They serve a total some 3 million students, 1 million aged 16 to 18 and 2 million aged 19 or over. They offer an immensely wide range of courses, from basic numeracy and literacy through to graduate-level studies. In subject matter, they range from agriculture to Zen Buddhism. The communities that they serve are widely diverse: they provide for black and white, rich and poor, public and private sector, employers and employees, helping young and old alike to gain and enhance their skills and education, and providing pathways to further and higher education and better jobs. We learnt early in the commission that there is no such thing as a typical college—each is very individual —but the best of them stand out, reaching deeply into the communities that they serve and providing leadership and encouragement, so that these communities are, in the words that the Prime Minister used to describe his vision of the big society,

“free and powerful enough to help themselves”.

As in other areas, the coalition’s aims have been to free up the college sector from the micromanagement and centralised control that dominated their lives in the first decade of this century and to give their leaders the space, flexibility and discretion to shape their own futures within broad parameters. One of those broad parameters was that they should better serve and be answerable to their communities, not only to employers in terms of local skills needs—although this is a very important priority—but also to individuals in the community in terms of opening up new opportunities and raising, and helping meet, aspirations. This is important because, as all the research shows, positive outcomes from education in turn promote health, happiness and a sense of well-being.

In our report we suggested that one of the keys to success was for colleges to work in partnership with other organisations, to link up with employers, charities, local authorities, police, youth offending teams, health services, Jobcentre Plus and all kinds of organisations. In many cases, both partners gained. It was a win-win situation in which colleges were fulfilling their primary role of promoting and extending learning and skills among young people and adults while at the same time, for example, providing youth facilities which helped limit crime and anti-social behaviour; or providing adult learning, which gave older people or ethnic minorities a sense of purpose and fulfilment far more effectively than any local authority friendship service or mental health therapy could do. We coined the term “dynamic nucleus”, because our vision was of colleges at the heart of their communities, acting as a catalyst and sparking off a whole range of such shared activities. I sometimes use the analogy of a Catherine wheel: the college is at the centre but sparks off all kinds of other activities. There was potential, we argued, to unlock “social energy” within the community which, if channelled to positive ends, could increase both economic and social productivity.

Two important factors underpin this vision. The first is leadership. In visiting many colleges in the course of the inquiry, I was impressed by the inspirational leadership to be found in the best of them. These people were not just competent administrators; they were entrepreneurs and creative thinkers, prepared to try out new ideas, take risks and perhaps, above all, find ways of getting things done. In part, such leadership is innate, but it can also be learnt by example and by training. It is vital that we nurture such leadership and prepare to train more to take up the challenge. I pay tribute to those in the sector who recognise how important training and CPD are in improving the quality of teaching and the learning experience for all students.

The second factor is to make sure that these leaders are given the scope to be creative and entrepreneurial. Last year’s Education Act gave colleges a good deal more autonomy, which was a move in the right direction, as is the move by the Skills Funding Agency away from the detailed funding formula to the single adult skills budget. We argued, however, that if colleges were to be expected to “seed” a whole lot of new activities, they needed greater flexibility on the funding front. In particular, we argued for what we called an innovation code: a funding formula that, subject to proper audit procedures, would allow up to 25 per cent of the adult skills budget to be used to meet local priorities.

In many respects the Government’s White Paper published last year, New Challenges, New Chances, provided a very positive response to our recommendations. In particular, John Hayes, then the Minister responsible for skills and adult education, shared our vision of strong, entrepreneurial colleges. There are many good things happening. Both the SFA and Ofsted recognise and will be looking for evidence of community involvement and responsiveness to local needs. The community learning trust pilots are going ahead. The new foundation code of governance comes into play this year and looks to accountability to the college’s “wider community” and an annual statement of public value. I am immensely encouraged by the support that has been forthcoming from BIS, the department with primary responsibility, and by what is happening on the ground among the colleges themselves.

I do, however, have a number of quibbles, and I would be grateful if the Minister could respond to these. First, I am very disappointed by the interpretation of the innovation code. Although we were delighted that New Challenges, New Chances picked up the idea, we should have read the small print more carefully, for what is being proposed, which has now been further developed in the guidance recently issued by the SFA, provides only very limited flexibility. Indeed it limits that flexibility to using funds to meet specific skills gaps that have been identified with local employers and where there is not at present an appropriate qualifications credit framework—QCF—qualification. The college may use funding from the adult skills budget to research and provide the course while a suitable qualification is developed. However, this is far from the idea of encouraging creative and innovative thinking to seed new projects, often to be run in partnership with others, which might in due course be developed into such a qualification, but where securing funding from, say, the ESF or the localism budget might be more important.

This in turn raises questions about the whole management of the skills budget and the development of localism. There is at present a fuzziness, it seems to me, about where responsibilities lie. Who, for example, is responsible for identifying and initiating responses to skills gaps? Is it the LEPs—on which, incidentally, colleges are still badly under-represented—or core cities? What is perceived to be the role of the employer ownership pilots? Where, if at all, do local authorities fit in?

My third and final quibble concerns the emphasis we put in our report on the benefits of partnership. I ask the Minister whether enough effort is being made to put joined-up thinking into the local agenda. Take, for example, the development of the National Careers Service. While no one disputes the need for good information, many of those seeking careers guidance want not just the website but face-to-face guidance. Is it not sensible for there to be a link-up between a college’s careers service, which advises those who take college courses, and those referred to the NCS by Jobcentre Plus? Is co-location of the two services not a good idea? Why should it not be pursued?

I will end by reiterating the general thesis of the report: there is considerable potential for colleges to play an active role in promoting growth, prosperity and well-being within their local communities, but the greatest benefits come from working in partnership with others, be they employers, the public sector or voluntary organisations. The more we can do to encourage such partnerships, and to encourage organisations to be innovative and creative in forming them, the more we are all likely to benefit.