TUESDAY 23 MAY 2000
_________
Members present:
Mr Derek Foster, in the Chair
Charlotte Atkins
Valerie Davey
Mr Michael Foster
Dr Evan Harris
Judy Mallaber
Mr Gordon Marsden
Mr Stephen O'Brien
Mr Nick St Aubyn
Mr Barry Sheerman
_________
RT HON DAVID BLUNKETT, a Member of the House, (Secretary of State for
Education and Employment), Department for Education and Employment,
examined.
Chairman
167. Can we begin, Secretary of State. You are most welcome here
this morning. We are looking forward very much to what you have to say.
(Mr Blunkett) Thank you for your kind invitation, Chairman.
168. We are full of kindness. Would you like the opportunity to
make an initial brief statement before we go into questions?
(Mr Blunkett) No, I am very happy just to take questions, thank you.
169. I will begin, if I may, with this intriguing one. What do
you think were the advantages in keeping to the Conservatives' forward
spending plans more strictly than the Conservatives themselves had ever done?
(Mr Blunkett) I presume you are working on the comments of the former
Chancellor, Kenneth Clarke, who revealed three years on from a general
election that he might not have stuck to his own plans had he been in office.
We all know that governments under previous spending plans adjusted spending
year by year as a matter of course and they tended to do so in line with
inflation, so in terms of real terms improvements you cannot draw too many
conclusions from that. When we took office Members will recall that in the
July we had the mini Budget in which both very substantial resources were
devoted from the Windfall Levy to the employment programmes which did not
exist before the general election, so spending from my Department on the
employment front dramatically increased, and on education the œ835 million for
England that was dedicated to trying to ensure that the 1998 Budget did not
actually lead to major cutbacks and reductions. I believe that sum was
greater than would have been allocated under the previous government given the
graph and the line which would have indicated something in the region of 600
million.
170. Thank you. Have you got a figure in mind for the proportion
of the United Kingdom GDP that you would like to be seen being spent on
education (a) at the end of this Parliament, and (b) at the end of the next
Parliament?
(Mr Blunkett) I have, but I would like to share it with the Chancellor
in the Spending Review first. We are very clear that the increase that took
place from the March Budget, together with the existing Spending Review plans
for the three years through to 2001-02, will result not only in us actually
achieving the manifesto commitment of an increase but will also provide a very
substantial uplift. It depends whether you take education and training
together, but if you do you are talking about something in the region of 5.11
in terms of existing spending proposals.
171. With the seeming pre-emption by the Prime Minister of the
forthcoming Spending Review by agreeing to so much going into health, is it
any longer sustainable to claim that education, education and education are
the priorities of Government?
(Mr Blunkett) I saw the allocation to health not only as politically
sensible in terms of addressing the issues of effectiveness and policy
development in the health service but also as a very good sign for the
education skills agenda because the priority that has been enunciated by the
Prime Minister will clearly be carried forward in the July Spending Review
and, therefore, a comparator that starts with a substantial increase to the
health budget is a good precursor to the discussions I shall be having.
172. Which parts of the education and employment programme will
receive the most significant increases during 2000-01?
(Mr Blunkett) We see in the current financial year, reflected in the
proposed plans for next year as well, a substantial uplift in the budgets of
schools which reflects the priority of ensuring that the Government's targets
and priorities, and those reflected in the targets of schools and education
authorities, can be fulfilled. The 4.5 billion uplift this year is just over
eight per cent in real terms, which is the biggest in living memory, and
equals the real terms uplift in the whole of the previous Parliament and will
make a substantial difference to what schools can do, partly in terms of the
direct resources allocated even through the Standard Spending Assessment
mechanism or through the direct allocation from the Budget or through specific
fundings, such as that for the performance related promotion and the uplift
from this autumn for a very substantial part of the teaching profession. All
of those are feeding their way in over the next nine to 12 months.
Chairman: Thank you. Barry Sheerman.
Mr Sheerman
173. Secretary of State. Why is it that when your Department
addresses itself to HE and FE it seems to celebrate squeezing unit costs but
when it comes to secondary schools you have a rather different frame of
reference?
(Mr Blunkett) Firstly, I want to pay tribute to the post-16 sector,
further education in particular, for the enormous productivity gains that were
made over a period of ten to 12 years, a phenomenal change in terms of unit
costs achieved with continuing efficiency. That is why I have given such
priority to funding for further education with a ten per cent uplift next year
in terms of their spending and, of course, the new budgetary process allows
us to let them know that well in advance so they can plan and there is
continuity. I think that there has been an historic view from governments of
all persuasions that what are euphemistically called "efficiency gains" can
best be achieved by actually providing a target reduction in terms of
percentage unit costs. This bore down particularly heavily from 1989/90
onwards in both those sectors with the consequential reductions in student
funding which you will all be aware of. We are endeavouring to ensure that
we get the infrastructure and the investment and planning right for quality
but also that we can ensure with the targets that have been set for expansion,
the resources will be made available. Again, this discussion has to take
place in terms of what kinds of efficiency pressures yield the best result.
Does actually setting out the figure and then lopping a percentage off and
calling it an efficiency gain increase efficiency, or does it make people feel
better? Our view on the schools front is that bench marking, best practice,
achieving efficiency through both audit and through the targets that are being
set in terms of both targets for outcome measures and targets for improvement
in other areas such as inclusion, are a better way of achieving our goals than
giving a headline figure and then taking money away from it.
Mr Marsden
174. I would like, if I may, Secretary of State, just to press you
on that particular issue on the funding targets because, of course, we hear
all the time about the impact particularly in HE in terms of higher numbers
of students attending seminar classes and things of this nature and we do have
the Government's commitment to participation in HE, a very challenging target,
of 50 per cent before the age of 30. With the new Public Service Agreements
that are coming on board, are they going to take on board that issue of the
proportion of people taking part in HE?
(Mr Blunkett) Yes, they will have to in terms of the development of the
programme I spoke about in Greenwich recently which was the development of
different entry levels, the Foundation Degree and the work based routes which
are being developed in universities in Glasgow and in Plymouth and the way in
which we can use alternative routes, including the very substantial increase
in the part-time route, to achieve a level of participation in higher
education whilst retaining quality. I think that balance between access for
those who are gaining new skills, both in terms of improvement of standards
in schools and the follow through that will inevitably mean in terms of
increased demand and the emphasis on Lifelong Learning, and it is Adult
Learner's Week this week, will increase both the take-up at 18-19 but also the
returners coming in with part-time jobs. It will be interesting to see from
the statistics the impact that has had given the improvement in employment.
We will probably see a greater emphasis with mature students, and we are
already beginning to see that in terms of taking up the part-time route.
175. That whole area of concern about expenditure and funding in
HE, as you well know, is developing very rapidly and that leads me on to a
more general question about your own priorities when you are putting requests
to the Treasury for greater resources. I think Macmillan said the thing he
worried most about in government was "events, dear boy, events".
(Mr Blunkett) We are all worried about those.
176. Indeed. For example, when you have issues within the
Department about where your own priorities might be between, say, early years
or higher education, I wonder how far things like the lobby campaign by the
Pre-School Learning Alliance for Greater Government Funding or, indeed, the
current debate about top-up fees enter into that process? If they do, at what
level?
(Mr Blunkett) Firstly, I try to ensure that what we have already laid
out as policy statements and values are adhered to and that we refer back to
them so that as events and pressures mount we can make a judgment by referral
back to what policy priorities we have already set. For instance, just to use
the two examples you have given, the development of pre-school learning and
child care warrants us ensuring that those who are already in place can play
a key part in the development of expansion rather than seeing places lost and
then having to reinvent them to achieve exactly the same goal we have already
enunciated and which is in the public arena. Again, it is the week for
celebrating child care so I thought I would just draw attention to that.
Valerie Davey
177. Well done.
(Mr Blunkett) On the broader front of pressures that are brought to bear
by campaigns from within particular services, if you might describe them as
vested interests, then my judgment is to challenge them as to what they are
already doing in terms of raising income. The university sector has a
capacity to raise income in a way that the schools sector does not. We read
today of the success of Cambridge in working through with Bill Gates, and my
Department will be central to this, inward investment through students coming
from abroad. Very shortly I shall be doing the same in terms of looking at
how we can extend the already successful programme of students coming from
China, which the United States are competing with us on in terms of the use
of English and the importance of English as an international as well as an ICT
based language programme. We have got some challenges to the university
sector as well as an obligation to ensure that we fund investment in expansion
of quality and research to a point where seeking new ways of funding can be
assessed in an intelligent and balanced way, working out all the consequences
to the nation and to social inclusion and to economic competitiveness and not
merely to the short-term gain of the institution.
Mr Marsden
178. Can I ask you a final question. You have already spoken in
response to Barry Sheerman and myself about the unit funding index and it is
a fact that in the 2001-02 plans that unit funding index will be squeezed
again to a unit cost of 4,700. Are you sanguine that the success you are
celebrating, for example, in the HE area in terms of universities being able
to raise extra funding will not be top sliced or discounted entirely in your
future negotiations with the Treasury?
(Mr Blunkett) We have agreed for next year a 5.4 per cent uplift for
higher education and in negotiations over the new Spending Review the targets
that we have set and the quality assurance that we are seeking will be the
prime candidate for matched funding rather than simply taking away the
successes that universities have had. This is partly because we want to
encourage universities to match those, like Warwick and Imperial, who are
doing extremely well at raising resources from their own activities.
Dr Harris
179. Secretary of State, on that question you were asked why you
rejoice, rightly, in an increase in unit cost spent per pupil in schools,
which are clearly identified in a table in your report, whereas you demand a
continued reduction over the whole lifetime of this Parliament in the unit
cost per student in higher education. What is it that makes teaching better
on less funding per student in higher education than in secondary education?
Can I also ask you, what choice do you expect universities to make, if they
feel they are forced to make this choice, between sacking staff and paying
women the same as they pay men in the sector with the resources you are giving
them?
(Mr Blunkett) Firstly, I do not think that choice exists to Vice
Chancellors at the moment, I do not think it is a fair challenge to them.
What we have adhered to is the logic and the outcome of Lord Dearing's inquiry
where he said the demand on efficiency gains of four per cent plus have not
been sustainable and have damaged the sector, therefore there should be a
reduction in efficiency gains demanded and, therefore, in unit costs to one
per cent. That is what I have adhered to. I have ratcheted down the demands
that were in operation in 1997 so that we can adhere to the Dearing Inquiry
Report. I have stuck to that rigidly because to do otherwise would have been
simply to lop off around 50 million for every one per cent efficiency gain,
which did not strike me as terribly bright. What we are able to assess is the
way in which universities have much greater flexibility than schools. We do
not set, as we do for schools, particular targets within the university sector
for outcome measures. We are not as hands-on for reasons that the Committee
will be aware, universities defend their autonomy very strongly indeed, and
as a consequence the negotiations with the sector in terms of what can be
expected of them should demand that they actually year on year improve their
productivity. There is a difference between tutorial and seminar activity and
lectures. We are all aware that the potential that exists through new
technology will be able to share the best possible teaching in a lecture
environment across universities. There is not as much co-operation between
universities on this as I would wish because they are deeply, historically
competitive institutions. Again, in the Greenwich speech I was seeking to say
that not only could we see much greater co-operation within the United
Kingdom, including Scotland, but also we could see that across international
boundaries so that people could share the expertise and the excellence that
exists using new technology. You cannot do that in a one-to-one tutorial or
in a small seminar group. I am concerned to retain the quality by ensuring
that large lecture presentations and the sharing both in teaching and in
research can then be backed up on the ground with sufficient staffing to do
the job well.
180. With regard to the pay gap, you said it was not a fair choice
but what do you think Vice Chancellors should do about the fact that on
average women academics at all levels are paid ten per cent less? What
resources can you identify for them to use to tackle that problem, if you
believe it is a problem and an outrage?
(Mr Blunkett) I think there is an issue to be addressed. I think there
is an issue to be addressed whatever the settlement in the Spending Review and
I have said so both to Vice Chancellors and to the AUT and NATFHE. The issue
is again one of securing sufficient resources to ensure that when those
decisions and priorities are made by the employers in higher education,
because it is their job to do so, they do so with a knowledge that there is
sufficient resource to be able to balance those priorities intelligently.
Equal opportunity all the way through the system is something that is a vital
part of modernising higher education and I said so at the AUT Conference in
Eastbourne a couple of weeks ago. It strikes me that this is an issue that
has to be addressed in terms of top level management as well. There are only
five women Vice Chancellors, for instance, there are no Vice Chancellors from
ethnic minority groups. The older universities have some quaint ways of
appointing Vice Chancellors which I hope they will now review.
Mr Foster
181. In Worcestershire, one of the live education issues is the
review of the Standard Spending Assessment. What is your Department's input
into the DoE's review of the revenue support grant distribution?
(Mr Blunkett) As Michael Bichard will have spelt out last Tuesday, the
Green Paper will be out over the summer presenting a range of options. My
Department is obviously placing into that Green Paper the options and the
discussion which we think is relevant to ensuring that there is fair
transparent funding that ensures, firstly, that sums that are allocated
actually reach the point for which they were allocated, namely the schools;
secondly, that it is on a transparent and open basis; thirdly, it recognises
the rights of youngsters at different key stages across the country; fourthly,
that we take advantage of the historic debates that have taken place around
how to assess disadvantage to try to modernise the way in which we reflect
that as well as area costs or sparsity factors. We are vigorously pursuing
this because we clearly get this day in, day out, not just through our
postbags but in every visit that we make to schools or localities. I have to
say that I have never met anybody yet who wanted to see their Standard
Spending Assessment reduced in order to offer a lifeline to some other part
of the country. That is probably why the Local Government Association had
such difficulty two years ago in coming up with a programme of their own which
would have assisted Government in making more substantial change than was
possible at the time.
182. The Chief Inspector's recent Annual Report calls for a more
transparent funding mechanism. Do you think there is any educationally
justifiable reason for the current wide variation in the SSA per head?
(Mr Blunkett) There may have been historically a justification in the
way in which the system developed. Your advisers will have spoken to you
about the wonderful development of the system through the regression analysis
and I remember it well from when I was in local government. I dug out a quote
from home, not from a computer but just from an old box, which is just as
effective sometimes in finding things, a quote from Tom King in 1980 who was
then the Environment Minister, saying that the Standard Spending Assessment
which was being introduced in its new form was not intended to be an accurate
assessment of the needs of individual localities or authorities. I think 20
years on we should reflect carefully on that.
183. Finally, there is a call for extra resources that go into
education spending to be geared towards raising the bottom education
authorities' SSA per head to a median level. In your input to the Treasury
on the Comprehensive Spending Review have you put that forward as a
suggestion?
(Mr Blunkett) No, I have not got to the stage yet, I can honestly say,
which is a great relief, of actually putting forward detailed proposals to my
Treasury colleagues or furnishing the text of the Green Paper in a form that
would lead me to say that at this stage. I can honestly answer your question,
which is a great relief. Let me just make it clear, however, it is not as
simple as simply the bottom funded authorities. In the bottom 40 least well
funded authorities lie some extremely wealthy areas, just above them lie some
deeply deprived areas with very, very poor per capita allocations in terms of
schools' budgets. I want to try to ensure that we are fair to those who have
the biggest challenges in terms of the socio-economic make-up of their area.
Judy Mallaber
184. Secretary of State, following on from those questions, in
principle would it be possible to have one factor, such as a standard level
of spending per pupil, say at the current median level, outwith the regression
analysis and other factors that will be taken account of in the rest of the
SSA formulae, so that at least there is a base level of funding?
(Mr Blunkett) Yes, it would be perfectly feasible to do that. You would
have to make a judgment as to how much money was going into that uplift
compared with targeted resources in achieving other goals, including the ones
that we have already established for schools and for education authorities.
The difficulty then arises as to whether you are competing with the top-up in
terms of deprivation or area costs, or whether you are competing with a
general uplift in education and schools spend generally. There is going to
be a cost to this and it is a balance as to how far you go and how much that
takes away from your potential for doing other good things within the system.
185. Are you able to give any estimate, putting you on the spot
here, of what that cost would be, say on bringing authorities up to the
current median?
(Mr Blunkett) No, I am not.
186. If you can send that to us it would be helpful.
(Mr Blunkett) I will take a look at how that affects the ---- Yes, I
will write to you.
Mr O'Brien
187. Good morning, Secretary of State. I represent a Cheshire
seat which of course sits very low in the table you have just been referring
to. Apart from the easy headline that it is a third per capita spend on each
pupil of, say, Tower Hamlets, it is also a fifth less of equivalent countries.
That is causing great concern because there is a widespread belief among
schools and teaching staff that there is an in-built bias under the Standard
Spending Assessment, particularly when you take into account the serious
pockets of deprivation in catchment areas around schools, such as I have in
parts of Winsford. One of the questions is how much can the review take
account of school catchment areas rather than simply being measured by the
areas which reflect political and administrative authorities?
(Mr Blunkett) Of course there are two elements to this. Firstly, the
distribution within authorities and what flexibility they are currently using
to respond to those pockets of deprivation, to use your term. The second is
a question of how hands-on and centralist we should be in picking up the
discussion we have just been having in terms of a per pupil entitlement and
how that might then be uplifted in terms of schools or school communities with
the deprivation. It does vary enormously. You will recall this very well,
that when I came to the by-election I went to the most wonderful school that
had a swimming pool. They were doing very well and they took a very large
number of special needs children but they did so because the head and the
staff were committed to doing that, not because anyone was directing them to,
it was a gesture of commitment on their part. I wonder, given that the
councillor who is in charge of the Local Government Association's finance
education picture is here this morning because I met him as I came through the
door, just how much that would take into account pressure on authorities to
be much more imaginative about how they share resources that are available to
them between schools?
188. I happen to know the school you are referring to and there
are some issues about the refusal of a Lottery application to do just that,
to try to improve school facilities so they belong much more in their
community.
(Mr Blunkett) I claim no control over the Lottery.
189. I fully accept that, Secretary of State. The concern that is
coupled with all that is the rise in the Standard Spending Assessment in real
terms is at a lower rate as announced by Government than the overall budget
because of the amount that has been kept under central control which the Local
Government Association Report, which is being published this week, does
criticise the Government on for its bureaucratic and inflexible approach to
this. Certainly on many of the visits I am making teachers are feeling that
a lot of this grant bidding approach is very much on a whim, ad hoc and often
late for them to take full advantage of it. Are you aware of these
difficulties and tensions that are penalising what many schools feel is their
ability to access what are announced new funds?
(Mr Blunkett) Yes, I am aware of the pressures and the need for change
and I will address those. There were two reasons why we felt that it was
important to develop the Standards Fund. Firstly, because it enabled us to
overcome the historic inequity of the distribution factors within the SSA,
which we have just spent quite a few minutes addressing, and enabled us,
therefore, to be able to target resources where they were most needed.
Secondly, it enabled us to ensure that the agenda for raising standards and,
therefore, the focused attention on literacy and numeracy on the one hand,
inclusion for instance on the other, would be achievable because we would be
able to put the resources in directly in a way that would not be possible
through other funding mechanisms. I make no apology at all for the Standards
Fund. However, I do accept that there is a need to address the issues around
the way it is administered, the bidding system and its subsequent
distribution, so that we can slim it down. I will be addressing that shortly.
I have to say, and Members may not be aware of this, there are fewer bidding
channels now under the Standards Fund than there were under the former GEST
Programme - the Grants for Education, Support and Training. It is interesting
that whilst the issue of bureaucracy and pressure is understandably and
rightly on the agenda, it is worth taking historic looks at what actually was
happening in the past rather than people simply taking a snapshot of the
present.
(In the absence of the Chairman, Mr Barry Sheerman was called to the Chair)
Mr Sheerman: Secretary of State, we are not trying to confuse you but
it is Barry Sheerman in the Chair for the moment. I am going to call
Charlotte Atkins.
Charlotte Atkins
190. Secretary of State, following on from that answer, is it
possible to break down total school spending by pupil as with the SSA? If
that has been done, does it demonstrate that those LEAs disadvantaged by the
SSA are compensated by other Government monies, like the Standards Fund? Has
that exercise been done by the Department?
(Mr Blunkett) That exercise is being done at my request by the
Department taking into account the specific funding, for instance, the 50
million that I allocated from our own internal savings that was added to this
year's schools budget as well as the earmarked funding of the 296 million from
the Budget in March as well as the development and delivery of the Standards
Fund which, if my memory serves me correctly, forms eight per cent of the
total. Added to that, of course, will be the specific funding for the
teachers' pay uplift from this autumn. All of these items together make quite
a complicated assessment of how individual schools and their host education
authority have benefitted, because it does vary between schools within
authorities as well as between education authorities. For the reason that was
enunciated a moment ago, there are substantial pockets of deprivation and
challenge that are receiving extra funding in areas of relative affluence.
(Mr Derek Foster returned to the Chair)
191. Will those figures be published and when can we expect them?
(Mr Blunkett) I am happy to publish the figures when they are available.
I have got no problem in terms of open government on that front.
192. When can we expect them?
(Mr Blunkett) I cannot give you an answer to that. I will write to you
and give you an indication.
Charlotte Atkins: Thank you.
Valerie Davey
193. The discussion we have just had on the Standards Fund and on
direct allocation seems to leave a huge question mark over the future of LEAs.
Can you tell us where in your Department the future of LEAs is being
considered and is it being done in the context, as you mentioned earlier, of
transparency in funding or in raising of education standards?
(Mr Blunkett) It is being taken collectively by myself and ministers
together with our colleagues in DETR and, of course, at No.10 where
undoubtedly a period of tranquillity is allowing a great deal of reading and
thinking to take place at this very moment.
194. Concern about education perhaps.
(Mr Blunkett) Education is critical. The future of education
authorities is critical to their contribution to the role of the authority as
a whole. I spelt out some principles at an Education Network Conference a
couple of weeks ago that received virtually no publicity, just to show that
we do not spin everything, although they have put the speech on the Internet
so Members undoubtedly will be rushing out desperate to read it. The
principles are that if we did not have education authorities we would have to
invent them but we would invent them for the 21st Century, not for the
beginning of the 20th, and we would do so in terms of the changes that have
taken place over the last 15 years with the introduction of a national
curriculum, with the development of local management of schools and its
further refinement under this Government, the way in which schools clearly
control schools and are responsible for the delivery of their targets.
Clearly they would be responsible, and will I hope in the future be clearly
responsible, for issues which cannot be dealt with, whatever speeches are made
by politicians or others, by individual schools, such as the development and
delivery of special needs education or, for that matter, school transport,
which in rural areas would be in complete chaos if there was not an overall
organisation. We learnt a lot from the Funding Agency for Schools, a lot of
good things and a lot about what an agency based nationally cannot do or is
unable to do in terms of operating not 1,100 but 24,000 schools. We will want
to take that into account in working with the Local Government Association and
others in terms of ensuring we get it right. Getting it right means that the
education authority of the future, the education service, has to be a vehicle
for both delivery of support to schools but also in terms of being able to co-
ordinate and work on initiatives. It may well be that authorities would want
to facilitate the availability of a service and not necessarily, as was the
case in the past, consider that they had lost their role or their purpose or
their status if they did not deliver it themselves. For instance, Shropshire
and Telford share the delivery of some of their services consequent on local
government reorganisation, so one undertakes special needs for both
authorities, the other undertakes the library and the development of the
information and communication technology services for both authorities. There
are authorities now directly providing services to schools in other
authorities, which is an interesting development. There are schools in
Islington buying services from Cambridgeshire.
195. I am encouraged by what you say. How can we get this
positive debate going and not simply have something subsumed in the Green
Paper this summer on finance?
(Mr Blunkett) I think the debate is out there and I understand that all
parties are about to engage with it, so it should make it an interesting few
months. I would like to do so in a way that actually addresses the needs of
pupils and the school community and the broader role in terms of Lifelong
Learning, the contribution that will be made alongside the Learning and Skills
Councils, because the development of family learning and of adult learning is
now re-emerging from a dark period, so that we recognise what is taking place
around a school and in co-operation with a school can have an impact on the
effectiveness of the teaching in the classroom, which is the central feature
of raising standards. There had been a drift away from the recognition of
both, I hope we can get that balance right.
Chairman: Secretary of State, we are going to turn our minds to some
questions on Public Service Agreements now.
Mr Sheerman
196. Secretary of State, I wonder if I can push you a little on
the whole emphasis in the Department on measurable targets. I know in the
past your Department has been very keen on measurable targets and I understand
that, my management interests suggest that the mantra of "if you cannot
measure it, you cannot manage it" applies to education as it does to much
outside education. How helpful is measurement? Do you think measurement
takes you away from some of the essence of what education services ought to
be delivered?
(Mr Blunkett) I like the old adage "we should learn to measure what we
value and not just value what we can measure", I think that is quite a neat
way of summing up how I feel about it. The importance of service agreements
is to have very clear bench marks as to what it is we are aiming to achieve
and the calculations on the level of resources to make that possible. I am
entertained by the agonies which officials in Government Departments and the
Treasury go through in order to be able to prove their own particular point
of view. One day, subject to the 30 year rule of course, memoirs will deal
with such esoteric matters in great detail. It does strike me that the
emergence of both PSAs and Service Development Programmes, so there are
internal and clear routes and targets, are focusing minds in a way which is
extremely helpful both in terms of making people think through what it is they
are trying to do but also in terms of trying to assess whether they have
delivered it.
197. Is there a sense out there that the Department does not
really trust LEAs to measure accurately enough for your purposes and in fact,
and I have heard this out there, what the Department is building up is an
alternative delivery of measuring the system through the Learning and Skills
Council that into the 21st Century might be the alternative to using LEAs?
(Mr Blunkett) I just want to make it clear, so there is no doubt, we are
not establishing Learning and Skills Councils to deliver education authority
services. We are developing Learning and Skills Councils to provide a co-
ordinated, coherent route for funding, planning and delivering of skills for
post-16 and for the nation as a whole. To take the central point,
historically there has been very poor data collected in terms of its relevance
to standards. There was lots of data collected within education authorities
and for central Government, but not a lot of it related to the requirements
internally. For instance, asset management plans, which are now being
developed as part of the overall Education Development Plan, are actually for
the first time in some authorities assessing the real need for investment in
property and in the environment in which people do their jobs. The Rainbow
Pack, which was developed by the Funding Agency for Schools, and we had long
discussions with those who were involved with it when we were first elected,
was a very, very good piece of work in terms of what was required to
understand what was happening in the school and the need for support. I have
now got the alternative, the update of the Rainbow Pack, out through education
authorities and my next step is to get education authorities to use that pack
with schools in an effective fashion. This is not some sort of tirade or
centralist approach, it is desperately trying to get what is best practice
applied across the country so that, for instance, authorities providing
specifications for contracts do not feel that they have to have multiples of
particular elements to assess the type of grass or the size of a tree, so we
can get a bit of sense into all of this and people do not feel it to be a
threat.
Mr St Aubyn
198. Secretary of State, may I apologise for being slightly late
coming to the meeting.
(Mr Blunkett) I thought I had missed your dulcet tones.
199. Regrettably I was detained by my health authority with the
latest health cuts imposed by this Government. May I ask the Secretary of
State, you say we should measure what we value, but how much importance do you
attach to the skills gap?
(Mr Blunkett) I attach extreme importance to it. It was with great
regret that I discovered when I first went into the Department, consequent on
the dismembering of the Manpower Services Commission and then the changes that
subsequently took place, that the Department did not even have a unit dealing
with the development of skills and the work that needed to be done. We now
do have that and we will have a Basic Skills Unit in place in the next few
months as well specifically geared to this approach. The Learning and Skills
Councils will enable us, with business, to be able to focus directly on the
gap that exists in particular sectors and particular regions and localities.
We will be able to direct resources to where they are needed, we will be able
to stimulate from providers the modern up-to-date forward looking approach
which trains people for the years of the 21st Century rather than
historically, which is to train people for things that are just going out.
I remember the Treaty of Paris arrangements for the coal and steel areas which
were very imaginative and trained people just in time for something that was
just about to make thousands of people redundant in the same area.
200. So if it is that important, which PSA targets do you think
relate to the skills targets?
(Mr Blunkett) When we work those out with the discussions on the
spending review from July, we shall be able to publish them. People will then
be aware of what we are setting in terms of the development of the new
learning and skills council programme, including the actual direction.
201. So there are no targets at the moment?
(Mr Blunkett) We have a range of targets which were established by
NIESR, obviously with information and data from Government, but they were
established with business in terms of targets for achievement of intermediate
and advanced-level skills. Those targets are still being worked on at this
moment in time, but the resources devoted to them will make a difference to
their achievement. However, unlike the schools or early-years sector, we do
not have direct control over the resources which are being applied by
businesses themselves, although businesses are rightly seeking a substantial
say over the six billion resources which from 2002 we shall be devoting to
skills education.
202. Can I come in on that?
(Mr Blunkett) Yes, I just wanted to finished my answer.
203. In fact, you have some control, because you seem to have
borne down on franchising in the FE sector, to such an extent that the number
actually completing FE courses is probably half a million less over the last
three years than if you had sustained the number going into FE at the level
you inherited. Does that not worry you, at a time when the number of
vacancies in the economy is at an all-time high?
(Mr Blunkett) It is possibly 200,000 less.
204. Full-time equivalent.
(Mr Blunkett) And no, it does not worry me, because reading out two-hour
courses provided by a franchisee 50 miles away, on a subject area and on a
discipline of no relevance whatsoever to the economic prosperity of that
locality, did not achieve a bridging of the skills gap; and weeding out that
lack of quality and those spurious franchising deals is something that I am
proud of and not something to apologise for.
Mr St Aubyn: I do not think we would dispute that.
Chairman: We need to move on, because time is getting very short.
Dr Harris
205. There has been a lot of stress on reducing class size. That
has brought to light issues to do with teacher supply, which relate to that.
How worried are you about teacher supply in, for example, the sciences and
maths?
(Mr Blunkett) I am worried enough to have invested the substantial sums
from the March Budget in the new programme of œ6,000 bursaries for
postgraduate trainees, the additional top-up to make œ10,000 for those
shortage subjects, including science, and of course the œ13,000 training
salary for those going into training schools, which I think is a very
imaginative and effective programme. There has already been a substantial
uplift over the last six weeks, in comparison with the six weeks this time
last year, of over a fifth in terms of applications, which is very
encouraging.
206. If that works, do you wish you had done it a year or even two
years earlier, because it is an admission that the previous policies had not
worked in a significant way?
(Mr Blunkett) There has been a graph from 1992/93 onwards of just making
targets in the primary and failing substantially to meet targets in secondary
recruitment. If I had the resources and I had been in a position to do so,
would I have liked to have done it earlier? The answer is yes.
207. So sticking to those spending plans famously, perhaps
infamously, may have stored up problems for the future, for the future supply
of teachers, is that what you are saying?
(Mr Blunkett) No, I am not, because each individual element that this
Committee, myself and Ministers would like to spend on would have had to have
been weighed against each other. Clearly, if you take a view that at any
moment in time you would like to have done everything possible, you would have
done absolutely nothing; in other words, you can only get so much even out of
œ1 billion extra.
Judy Mallaber
208. May I ask about the Objective 3 PSA targets on helping people
without a job into work. Specifically, I would like to ask you how you
interpret the achievements on those targets. Are they showing that the
Employment Service has been performing well, or were the targets too easy, or
is it just that there is a healthy job market, or is there some other factor
which we should take into account in why there is success in achieving those
targets?
(Mr Blunkett) I do not think we should make the mistake that people make
on A Level and GCSE reports that every time you do well there must be
something amiss. I think that actually achieving targets at a time when
920,000 additional men and women are in a job, and when we have claimant
unemployment down to levels of January 1980, is something to be really proud
of and is successful. I think the change in the operation of the Employment
Service, including the operation of the various New Deal programmes, has been
very effective. I think that the change in culture and attitude has been
effective. We still think there is more that can be done, which is why we are
transferring resources for work-based learning to the Employment Service from
next April, so that as with the New Deal programmes for 18 to 24, we can link
skills and training. We are looking very closely, as Members will be aware,
at how we can link into employers with induction and training, so that there
can be specific programmes linked to a particular sector or company, rather
than simply training people and hoping that within the market they will be
picked up.
209. Can I move on to asking about your relationship with the
Treasury, because clearly employment policy in getting the unemployed back
into work is one of the apples of their eye. Can you tell us something about
how that responsibility is shared, and would it in any sense be fair to say
that it is the Treasury that decides what the target should be and makes the
important policy decisions?
(Mr Blunkett) No, it would not be fair to say that. I am in constant
negotiations with the Chief Secretary about what is achievable, and that is
understandable. Fortunately for me, he understands these matters very well.
The macro role of the Treasury is crucial in terms of being able to achieve
our employment objectives. The ability of my department to deliver - and it
is our job to deliver both through the Employment Service and through the
development of the skills agenda - is made possible by the role of the
Treasury in terms of their overall macro policy, not simply in terms of demand
within the economy, but the changes which are worked through with myself and
with the Secretary of State for Social Security on a more responsive and
reflective welfare state and benefits system, which is why the amalgamation
of the Employment Service and the Benefits Agency is a sensible and natural
process which in retrospect probably ought to have been done years ago, but
where the computer facilities probably would not have been up to it.
Mr O'Brien
210. Following on the previous line of questioning, if one looks
at the New Deal, and particularly with the youth unemployment, certainly on
the statistics which appear to have been accepted and published between April
1993 and May 1997 when long-term youth unemployment was falling 5,000 a month
and is now 2,700 a month, and even on the Government's own figures where they
variously range in terms of the spend to date on New Deal for young unemployed
people between œ750,000 and œ1 billion, could you give some indication of your
understanding of the number who have actually moved into new jobs, those who
would have got jobs anyway and those who stay in jobs beyond the 13 weeks, so
that we can actually get a real readout in sustainable employment?
(Mr Blunkett) Unfortunately I have not checked what you asked the
Permanent Secretary last week. I am able to assure the Committee that in the
just over two years the New Deal programmes have been up and running, for the
New Deal employment there has been a 70 per cent drop compared with a 52 per
cent drop for the equivalent period prior to that, so there has been a
substantial improvement in terms of that cohort. I am particularly proud of
that, because we are dealing with a difficult cohort under the New Deal
programmes and those who have been unemployed for a substantial period of
time, and we are dealing with an increasingly challenging group within that
cohort, because the greater the propensity to get people into jobs, the easier
it is to get those jobs for those who have already got skills or are able to
present themselves well, therefore the greater the challenge for those who
remain. But yes, we are pleased. The figures will be brought out this
Thursday or possibly next Thursday on the next monthly cohort. Under the last
monthly cohort we got just under 2,000 or 3,000 18 to 24 year olds into work,
three-quarters of them in sustained jobs, and on the NIESR analysis - which
you will be familiar with - which was only for the first period of the full
New Deal programme in its 1998/99 run, there was an analysis that at least 40
to 50 per cent of those who got jobs would actually not have found themselves
in work had it not been for the New Deal programmes. I think in any
comparator with previous schemes - and this is not a job scheme, it is a
preparation for employability - those figures are very good.
211. If I can follow that up briefly, Chairman, it seems to be
easy to bandy about figures, so I shall try to avoid that. It does seem,
though, that if you take into account the number who would have got jobs
anyway or, as you put it, those who would not have got jobs anyway, that is
a proportion of the overall number, so what assessment have you made of the
training and education option for those who did not get a sustainable job?
I am very mindful of the number who are not sustaining their job beyond the
first 13 weeks.
(Mr Blunkett) I think it is a very fair question. We are having a look
at what happens to those on the education and training full-time option when
they subsequently continue education and come out at the other end. In other
words, the analysis of the figures at the moment is inadequate, and I do not
think we make any bones about this. My colleague, the Employment and Equal
Opportunities Minister, was, I think, giving separate evidence on a separate
day last week and may well have referred to this fact that we need to refine
the statistics so that we actually find out when someone has got the first
part of qualifications under their belt and they go on, because of that
opportunity, to take a qualification which requires a second or subsequent
year, whether that has actually assisted them directly to get a job which is
relevant to, and can therefore be assigned to, having taken that particular
qualification. We have not got those statistics yet, and when we have I think
we shall have a much better idea as to whether the full-time education option
has been more successful than would apparently be the case at the moment.
Judy Mallaber
212. You have referred to the fact that we are now trying to deal
with those young unemployed people who are the hardest to place, and we have
had some comments from the Employment Minister, in giving evidence on seeking
to tackle the problems of numeracy and literacy in that group. How optimistic
would you be that we can tackle that seriously, once they have got to that
stage in their development without those skills? What would you see as the
key things which we need to be doing to tackle that within the New Deal
programme?
(Mr Blunkett) I am optimistic, but I think that the delivery of those
basic skills needs to be seen in the context of the very substantial number
of those young people who have other challenges, and therefore we need to
ensure that in providing rehabilitation support services we take co-ordinated
action rather than simply saying, "We'd like you to take a numeracy course",
important as that is. I also think that looking into competence with
information and communication technology can help, partly because young people
in particular are interested in learning and are turned on by, are enthused
by, engaging with ICT, partly because obviously you can then develop the kind
of software programs which are being so successful in reading recovery and in
numeracy recovery in schools. In other words, we can apply to adults the
lessons that we are learning in terms of integrated learning systems.
Valerie Davey
213. I think every fair person must say that New Deal is a good
news story, especially for those young people and now older ones who are now
finding employment again. Can I come back to your relationship, though, over
another PSA agreement with the Treasury? Is there a good news story for you
when you go back to the Treasury for the next spending review? Are you told,
"Right, here are higher targets", and if you have not achieved the target you
have got less money? How does it work when it is now put on the table in
front of the Treasury?
(Mr Blunkett) I need to be very careful how I answer your question. We
establish targets in our department with the partners who have the
responsibility for delivering them. We indicate what can be achieved with a
given resource. We then talk through with colleagues whether that is robust,
and we have the normal discussions about the robustness of our expectations
within that given sum of money, given the historic delivery, what has been
managed in other areas, what comparators we can use elsewhere. So they are,
and have been, our targets. Fortunately, we have done a lot of work in the
past on what could be expected within the system, and we have stretched very
hard those who are our partners in delivering them, whether it is in schools
or whether it is in the Employment Service, in delivering on the ground.
214. The implication, however, is that you reward those who
clearly are doing well, but in education terms there is a problem there,
because those who do not achieve or do not necessarily do so well have
traditionally been those who have received most money. There is a conundrum
here which I do not understand for the now very clearly defined PSA and
targets which you yourself are setting and also the Treasury.
(Mr Blunkett) There is an interesting debate about whether you set PSA
targets, whether you lay down objectives and maybe floor targets and then you
simply leave people to get on with it. We have adopted the notion of
intervention in inverse proportion to success. We have, as you know, been
accused of being very hands-on and centralist. I think that is necessary and
at the moment remains necessary in order to provide greater equality of
opportunity, to ensure best practice is spread and used and that we do not
simply allow those who are failing within the system to continue failing those
who rely upon them, given that whether it is children in school or whether it
is unemployed people attending a job centre, they have no control mechanisms
over the failure of those who are delivering. We do, and we are now using
them. The difficulty of governments in the past, of all persuasions, was that
they pronounced, they appealed, but they had no mechanisms - certainly from
the previous Department of Education and Science and the Department of
Employment - actually to ensure that there was a delivery mechanism. From the
1998 Act and from the changes in the Employment Service and New Deal, we have
put those in place. Inevitably, that brings cries from people who believe
that we are being too hands on. I hope that we will reach a position before
very long where the changes are effective and where the system is working well
for all those who rely on it.
Valerie Davey: Thank you. I hope the Treasury thinks so too.
Chairman: Very quickly, Secretary of State, perhaps we could move on to
a couple of questions on red tape in schools.
Mr Sheerman
215. There is no doubt that if spending is going to be effective,
it has got to be effective at the chalkface, in the school, where the
education is delivered. In this Committee we hear, as we go round the
country, two complaints. One is about red tape, and it is certainly borne out
by Lord Haskins' suggestions and inquiry. The other is that there is an
initiative fatigue there. Indeed, an impeccable source over the weekend seems
to have said that "sometimes it looked as though the Government strategy was
just one damned initiative after another". At the chalkface it does seem
sometimes that the communications system is overloaded, so that even though
there is a desire for Government to make things happen at the chalkface, it
is communicated in not quite the form that makes the people on the ground feel
highly motivated - in other words, they get demotivated because they are
getting a mixed message or the wrong message. Is there anything your
Department could rapidly do to clear up that lack of communications which Lord
Haskins put his finger on?
(Mr Blunkett) If there is perceived to be a problem, then there is a
problem, therefore we should address it, and we will. The working party that
was established with the involvement of the teacher unions went part way to
addressing the issue of bureaucracy, but not the whole way. The issue of
communications was a point well made by Chris Haskins and those who were
working with him. Incidentally, there were nine head teachers, I think, on
the group, so it is not surprising that their views were fairly predominant.
I accept the thrust of what was being said. Not only do I accept it, we were
actually working on it and working alongside the investigation material which
they were drawing on. So I will take action in these areas. I do not accept
the point about the "initiative-itis", although I do plead guilty to having
asked those in the system, throughout the Education Service, to do an enormous
amount in a very short period of time. The youngsters do not have another
round, they will not come round again in the schools system, so we have to
move as fast as we can. All I can tell you is that these initiatives that
people complain about are enormously popular, people are scrabbling to get
them; they want Excellence in Cities, which I have not heard anybody criticise
yet, although I am sure that there are Members who will get round to it
eventually. I have far more schools than we can cope with wanting specialist
school status, working with their neighbouring schools in the community, far
more wanting to work on the Beacon School initiative than we can cope with,
far more schools wanting mini education action zones as part of the
development of their programme of co-operation, and a tremendous enthusiasm,
both from pupils and teachers, for the literacy and numeracy programmes.
Therefore, when we get down to identifying which initiatives it is that they
like and dislike, there seems to be a great enthusiasm for taking up the
plethora of initiatives enthusiastically,
Chairman
216. Finally, a very brief question from Nick St Aubyn.
(Mr Blunkett) You are not going to criticise Excellence in Cities?
Mr St Aubyn
217. There are some things we do agree on, Secretary of State,
including the value of small class sizes in the early years, but according to
a recent letter received from your Department, it would appear that you are
now claiming that the full costs of funding the early years infant class
pledge is to be funded by the savings from the assisted places scheme - not
just the marginal cost of the assisted places scheme, but the full cost. Do
you think it is a price worth paying to have smaller class sizes in the first
three years, when we are now seeing larger class sizes in secondary schools,
partly because children who would have been on assisted places are being
absorbed into those schools, and according to this analysis there is no extra
funding for extra teachers to provide for them?
(Mr Blunkett) Of course, in answering the last part of your question I
was working on the presumption of the previous Secretary of State, Ken Clarke,
who made it absolutely clear that the marginal cost of absorbing a particular
pupil into a particular class was so small that it could not be taken account
of by Treasury allocations.
218. If you let the class size rise.
(Mr Blunkett) We have not been letting the class size rise. Firstly,
the assisted places scheme - and this was a clear manifesto proposal - has
assisted very substantially in enabling us in the medium and long term to be
able to sustain those lower class sizes which are effectively being put in
place. Secondly, clearly there has not been shown to be a knock-on in Key
Stage 2 for the 7 to 11 year olds which people said there would be, because
we have seen for the first time in ten years an adjustment downwards in both
class size and PTR. Thirdly, the amount that was allocated to secondary
schools from this year's Budget alone, as part of the major uplift of over 8
per cent in real terms, would have allowed secondary schools to employ an
extra 3,500 teachers. We are not pressing secondary schools to spend the
money on additional teachers; we are giving them flexibility to make choices
about how best to address the standards agenda. If we did, however, if we
were centralist enough to determine a class size pledge for secondary, we
could cut class sizes in secondary by 0.4 of 1 per cent now, from this
September, thereby reversing that decade of year-on-year increase.
Chairman: It is now 10.45. We must keep faith with the Secretary of
State. Can I thank you, David, on behalf of us all, for giving us this time.
We have only scratched the surface of the subjects we wanted to explore with
you, but it has been a very productive session, if I may say so. Thank you
very much indeed.
