Education: Further Education Colleges

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Sharp for initiating this debate and for raising such an important matter. The House has benefited many times from my noble friend’s knowledge and experience of the further education sector. Her report, A Dynamic Nucleus, has provided a seminal contribution to our understanding of the pivotal role played by further education colleges in their local economies and communities, helping millions of young people and adults to gain and enhance their skills and education. Both the quality and the number of contributions that we have had to the debate today indicate just how seriously we take it in this Chamber. One of the other things touched on by my noble friend was the fact that FE promotes well-being, while the right reverend Prelate mentioned the promotion of citizenship and social engagement. Those are factors that we must not neglect in the role of further education colleges in the community.

The report celebrates the work that colleges up and down the country are doing to support their communities and employers and sets out clearly the challenges and opportunities for the further education sector, local partners and commissioning bodies, as well as central government and its agencies. At the heart of the report’s recommendations is a recognition that there needs to be a shift away from accountability upwards to the Government and outwards to college communities, learners and employers. This view is central to the Government’s further education reform plan, New Challenges, New Chances, published in December last year. I join in the tributes paid to the Minister, John Hayes, who has been working with us on these issues for a long time.

Through these reforms we have stripped back the number of intermediary bodies that had flooded the further education system. We have removed top-down targets and prioritised funding on those who need it the most. Learner and employer demand drives the system as funding follows the learners. Through the Education Act 2011, we have also removed restrictions and barriers around college governance. I know that these are issues close to the heart of my noble friend and, indeed, to many others who have spoken. Colleges are now able to consider different, innovative delivery models and partnerships, including joint models with academies and universities, and mutualisation models to offer greater choice and diversity to learners and employers. Perhaps I may pick up this point in connection with the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria. In addition, we have responded to the Public Accounts Committee’s concerns about the level of bureaucracy in the system, with a comprehensive cross-government simplification plan. By delivering this plan, we seek significantly to reduce the red tape faced by colleges and providers.

Many of the recommendations in the report were for the sector itself to deliver, including sector bodies, and some progress has been made. In respect of those recommendations for the Government, we have supported and actioned them all. In order to support effective planning, the Skills Investment Statement 2011-2014, published last December, set out budgets for two years: an indicative budget for the 2013-14 financial year alongside the actual budget for 2012-13. In addition, resulting from my noble friend’s report, the Skills Funding Agency launched the Innovation Code to enable colleges to respond rapidly and flexibly to local business and employer needs and to meet current and emerging skills gaps. I have noted what my noble friend said about the feeling that that has not been implemented in the way and to the extent that she envisaged in the report. What I can say is that the agency is planning a communications campaign for November 2012 to promote the code with colleges and other training providers. This is under review and we hope for comments under that consultation to come back and inform it. The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, mentioned the point about 25% of colleges’ annual adult skills budgets being devoted to locally assessed priority needs. In fact, the Government’s recommendation is that there should be no target for this; it should be a more flexible provision.

For the sector, the report called for greater involvement of employers and the local community in the design and delivery of the curriculum. There are some terrific examples of colleges working with their communities to develop their learning offer. We heard about some of them today. The noble Baroness, Lady Wall, talked about what is happening at Liverpool with green technologies and so on. There are other examples. Hull College Group uses local groups and forums to develop its learning offer and to shape the organisation. Barnet and Southgate College targets its learning offer to families in disadvantaged areas by working with regeneration groups and faith groups. I stress to the right reverend Prelate that faith groups come into these projects, and rightly so. Local libraries also come into the work of Barnet and Southgate College. Derby College’s Employment World supports adults to enter or re-enter employment, again working with employers.

Colleges are working to deepen their engagement with their communities and employers and are becoming more transparent about their performance and future plans for meeting the needs of their communities and employers. They are stating these aims most clearly. I know that colleges and providers recognise that they need to do more to foster effective working relationships with local strategic bodies, for example local enterprise partnerships—they came up from time to time in the debate today—core city regions and local authorities. To do this, they will assess local labour market needs, agree skills priorities and shape their local skills offer to support local economic development and growth. Leeds City College has a particularly strong link with the local area: the chair of governors is also the chair of the local enterprise partnership. It seems to be a very happy arrangement.

All this work means that colleges need to be ready, and supported, to respond to the reforms—and the sector is stepping up to the challenge. For example, the Association of Colleges report, Thinking Outside the College, provided guidance to support continuous improvement in community engagement and accountability. Many colleges have participated in the work undertaken by NIACE on community curricula. The 157 Group is leading on work looking to the future at what colleges and providers will need to adapt to the changing needs of learners, employers and communities. I pay tribute to the AoC, NIACE and the 157 Group for the tremendous work that they do in this area.

I will pick up on one or two points made in the debate. The issue of local enterprise partnerships was raised by my noble friend Lady Sharp and others. The primary role of LEPs is to articulate and raise employer demand for and investment in skills. They work collaboratively with a wide range of interested bodies in their areas, including local authorities, which play a very important part in this, and independent providers. In core cities and in London we provide city regions with targeted funding to support collaboration with local providers.

My noble friend Lady Brinton, the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, and others raised the issue of funding. In a time of limited resources it is critical to prioritise investment where the impact will be maximised. That has been towards individuals who would not otherwise have undertaken training and where market failures are strongest. We focus full government subsidy on the young, on those lacking basic English and maths skills and on the unemployed. We have also protected the £210 million a year budget for informal adult and community learning. I think we would all agree that that is a very important part of the offer.

The noble Lords, Lord Bilimoria and Lord Young, mentioned the possible impact of loans on adults. The introduction of loans repayable on the same basis as those for higher education will maintain access to advanced and higher-level learning for adults aged 24 and over. We will monitor that to ensure that there is no disadvantage in the system.

The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, and the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, talked about the progression from further education to higher education. FE already provides 40% of new entrants to higher education, hosting around 180,000 students on HNCs, HNDs, foundation degrees, apprenticeships and other entry-level qualifications. Many colleges have long and established track records in offering level 4 and above. However, some of this was neglected in the past.

I noted the reference to TVU. I come from that part of the world and remember when it was a high-ranking catering college and how much the provision was incorporated within the university. I was fascinated to hear that students were working in Buckingham Palace, but I am not sure how many apprentices Her Majesty can take on. Obviously it is a very good route for those who choose to go that way.

There is provision to support learners following the ending of the EMA scheme and to target that funding more appropriately. My noble friend Lady Brinton mentioned hairdressing and plumbing. When I started work at City and Guilds, I dealt with hairdressing qualifications and I have great admiration for those skills. The work that is being doing with digital technology in Dundee is definitely one of the skills of the future.

The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, mentioned care leavers. That is a very important area that we need to look at in all sorts of respects, in particular their ability to go on and have fruitful lives, as the records of care leavers are currently woefully below those of others. The other point raised by the noble Baroness, and by the noble Lord, Lord Young, concerned colleges helping SMEs through the ATA.

I am conscious of time. My noble friend Lord Shutt mentioned the proposal of the Maltings 16-19 free school. If I may, I will write to him on the specific points of that case, but it is out for consultation at the moment, so he will be able to feed into that consultation. The noble Lord, Lord Jones, raised, quite rightly, the issue of manufacturing and how further education is very well placed to support manufacturing. This is certainly an area that the country will need to increase in order to pull us out of the recession.

My noble friend Lady Maddock raised the issue of Berwick. We are publishing a report with Defra on community learning in rural areas, considering issues such as transport, class sizes, rural broadband and so on. Several of our community learning trusts are based in or include rural areas, as acknowledged in Defra’s recent report. My noble friend and, indeed, my noble friend Lady Sharp mentioned the National Careers Service. I regret that I do not have more time to go into that but I hope that I can write to them on that matter and where there are gaps in that funding.

This is a new and exciting phase for further education colleges, and their communities and employers have high expectations of them. I am confident that colleges will meet those challenges head-on and continue to deliver a rich and diverse choice to their learners, employers and local communities. I believe that the quality of this informed and incisive debate has contributed to the issues that we will all need to address and bodes well for the future of this particular sector. I once again thank my noble friend Lady Sharp for securing this debate and thank all the noble Lords who have contributed on this important issue.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

I commend all noble Lords on their amazing temporal self-discipline. We have finished three minutes early. The Committee stands adjourned for three minutes.