Examination of Witness(Questions 1-19)
MR IVAN
LEWIS, MP
MONDAY 25 NOVEMBER 2002
Chairman
1. Welcome to the Select Committee. I do not
know how long you had been in the job the last time we saw you,
not a very long time.
(Mr Lewis) A very short time.
2. You have had a whole year in two jobs now
in the same Department.
(Mr Lewis) Yes.
3. I am sure you will be willing to take questions
on almost anything. We will try and focus most of the questioning
on what you are responsible for now rather than what you were
responsible for in the past. We would very much welcome a short
statement to open things up. There was a little comment last time
that you were so keen—I am sure it was because it was your
first meeting with the Committee—to give us full information
that some of your answers were rather long, and some members of
the Committee would rather shorter answers and more questions.
Does that sound all right to you?
(Mr Lewis) It would be a pleasure. Just to clarify,
my current responsibilities are predominantly further education
and adult skills. I see it as my role to make lifelong learning
a reality for individuals and far more a part of the culture of
our society generally. I believe it is about a fairer society
in terms of opening up learning opportunities to all and supporting
people to pursue their potential, particularly people who have
been denied the opportunity in the past. I also believe it is
central to our economic success as a better skilled work force
and it is the key to boosting our competiveness and productivity.
I believe we set ourselves fundamentally some priority objectives,
first of all more people staying on and progressing in education
and training beyond 16, improving adult basic skills Level 2 and
Level 3 qualifications, ITC skills and also quality of life learning.
To achieve those objectives we will need a variety of things,
first of all a much closer alignment between the supply and demand
for skills, an education and training system of high quality which
is far more responsive to the skill needs of our economy, both
at a national and a local level. We will need greater clarity
on the respective role and the responsibilities of individuals,
employers and the State. We will need a government-wide approach
not simply a DfES approach to skills issues. I see it as one of
my primary responsibilities to get the delivery agents right in
respect of that agenda, whether it be the 14-19 curriculum in
terms of schools and colleges, whether it be modern apprenticeships,
further education—where I believe the announcement last
week is a very exciting step forward in terms of the status and
the value that we give to further education in our country—the
development of sector skills councils, the bedding-in of the LSCs,
the University for Industry, prison education, adult and community
learning services and, of course, the ILA successor scheme. All
of those delivery mechanisms are going to be fundamentally important
if we are to achieve our objectives. I am committed to producing
next June, as, Chairman, I think you are aware, a National Skills
Strategy and a delivery plan which I hope will bring some coherence
to that agenda and assure at a national level we are adding value
to what is already happening, particularly at a regional and subregional
level. I have just completed a tour of all of the English regions
over the past six weeks, where I visited each of the regions to
begin a consultation process on what the skills strategy should
be about, the RDAs, the LSCs, business representatives, trade
unionists, training and learning providers all coming together
to talk to me very directly about the kind of issues they feel
we need to address if we are going to produce a national strategy
which adds value.
4. Thank you for that. Can I open the questioning
by saying, many of us understand your emphasis on delivery mechanisms
but what we see at the moment is it seems to be all a bit of a
mess. I know you might say that is why we need a National Skills
Strategy but here we are well into a second local government and
here you are just announcing not long ago a National Skills Strategy.
A lot of people out there might have thought we would have had
a National Skills Strategy from day one of a new government. It
does seem as though there are so many initiatives going on, as
you rightly said a very well welcome announcement on FE last week,
and the successful document. We now read in the newspapers this
morning that the White Paper following the 14-19 Green Paper is
again delayed, and the 14-19 Green Paper came out a very long
time ago, and many of us see that as a building block on which
much else will be built. If you look round at the NTOs, are they
being abolished, some of them are limping on, others, say the
Skills Sector Councils, are in place, some are not. Others say
you can have one million pounds if you start one up. Can you see
the confusions around the skills agenda? Some of the public certainly
working in the sector wonder what the government is getting up
to in this area. Can you understand if people are confused about
skills at the moment?
(Mr Lewis) I can understand that the system itself
is confusing for many and needs simplification, that is one of
the issues that has come up time and time again, both in discussions
with employers, providers and individual learners. In a sense
my answer is to acknowledge some of the concerns you articulate,
that is the very reason why when I took this job one of the first
decisions I made was that we needed a coherent national strategy
and a delivery plan. I think people are a little bit fed up with
glossy strategies which do not lead anywhere. We do not just need
a strategy but we simultaneously want to see how it is going to
be delivered. I have to say I think we have a very good story
to tell across the skills agenda relatively speaking. If you look
at the Adult Basic Skills target and the progress towards that
target we can be very proud of that in terms of adults that do
not have basic literacy and numeracy skills. We have created a
significant new organisation to deliver much of this agenda in
the Learning and Skills Council, it was very important we laid
the foundations and allowed the organisation to begin in an evolutionary
way. Putting in place those foundations we now expect it to go
on and deliver. I think there has been significant progress but
we need to see a step-change in the months ahead and we need to
see greater coherence. I should also make a point, one of the
things we have to learn as a country is we need to do far more
bottom-up and less top-down, what I mean by that is coherent,
credible skills strategies need to be implemented, introduced,
formulated at a regional level because many of skills issues have
to respond to regional and subregional economic and industrial
issues. I think that the fact that we have encouraged and supported
each of the English regions to create its own strategy in terms
of skills and employment is very, very important. What I am at
pains to do is ensure that the National Skills Strategy does not
simply come in and undermine that work but builds on it. One of
the issues that is raised time and time again at a regional level
is there are national barriers which are getting in the way of
those local delivery agents, those local partnerships delivering
the kind of skills agenda they want to deliver. It would be a
mistake to say that we have not made a lot of progress, we have
made tremendous progress but there is a need for coherence, there
is a need to clarify the relationship between the national policy
and what happens region by region, sector by sector.
5. Some people would say, give us the evidence
of this significant progress. Many of us can see progress in some
areas of education, absolutely, but all round us we have people
coming to this Committee, people who say as we make visits, there
is a terrible skills shortage. We are constantly being reminded
you cannot get skilled workers, people to do construction work,
plumbers and electricians. We met Lord Sainsbury and he said there
is a tremendous challenge in terms of the number of technician
grade people. It just seems in your area there is not much success,
Minister, it is a disaster area.
(Mr Lewis) You would not expect me to agree with that,
would you?
6. Tell us about the successes then?
(Mr Lewis) The Adult Basic Skills target—
7. Give us a measurement on that?
(Mr Lewis) We have a commitment that by 2004 three
quarters of a million people will have basic literacy and numeracy
skills who do not currently have those skills. We are on target
at this stage of that period to achieve that. We have set ourselves
more stretching targets in terms of 1.5 million people by 2007.
That is one tangible example.
8. Anything else?
(Mr Lewis) We now have a network of UK Online and
Learndirect centres up and running. We have 6,000 up and running,
I have been to visit some of those. It is clear there are people
being attracted back into learning who previously were not having
those opportunities. In further education, and we talked about
the announcement last week, we have investment and reform. We
have seen both participation and achievement rates improving in
the last couple of years in terms of further education. I think
the idea that a government even in four or five years can address
what is a generational skills shortage is an unreasonable expectation
and it would be wrong of me to try and claim we have done that.
I believe we have put in place the infrastructure to deliver it,
we have Sector Skills Councils developing now, we have the Learning
and Skills Council, the University for Industry and we have the
reform of Further Education. All of those structures are beginning
to knit together to start delivering.
9. Is that not the problem, there are so many
initiatives and new structures that a lot of people we meet in
the skills training world are saying, we do not know what is going
on, the world is changing so fast. Just take the example I gave
you in my first question, national training organisations have
been abolished, have they?
(Mr Lewis) Yes.
10. How come some of them are still working
and employing people—whether they are in employment next
month or they will move to a skills council—it is not true,
is it? I go to conferences, where I speak or attend, and on the
attendee list it says, so and so is from a national training organisation.
(Mr Lewis) That is a legitimate problem. We have made
it clear that government support for national training organisations
is at an end and we want to replace our support for new, more
powerful, more employer-led, more strategic-led sector skills
councils. There is a transitional period where some national training
organisations are continuing because we are clear that if we did
not fill that gap with a transitional period that certain sectors
would be left behind and there would be a time lag, which would
not be productive. Overall we are determined to get this new network
right. One of the issues that we have been criticised for is that
it takes too long. We are absolutely focused on the need for quality
and the SSDA, Sector Skills Development Agency, has been established
and will make sure these new sector skill applications are appropriate.
It is not going to compromise on quality. If we simply revamp
national training organisations what the Chairman and the Committee
will accuse us of doing is simply creating the same structure
with a different name and not achieving the step-change in terms
of employer engagement.
11. We hear what you say on that, can you put
yourself in the position of an employer or an employee of a small
to medium sized enterprise and they are looking at all of the
changes that are taking place, they will say, how did this SSDA
relate to the Regional Development Agencies that I am involved
with and its far funded empire, the Learning and Skills Council
nationally and locally? You are saying that the structures are
simple and knitting together on the one hand, where a lot of our
constituents and people working in the sector are saying it is
not knitting together for us.
(Mr Lewis) The reality is in terms of the interface
between the customer, that is either the employer or the individual
learner, this set of agencies, our job is to make that as simple
and as straightforward as possible. That is one of the fundamental
objectives of the National Skills Strategy which I am setting
out to develop. One of the primary purposes is to ensure that
at that interface we have maximum cohesion, maximum clarity and
if you are running an SME you know clearly in the future you can
go through one door or ring one telephone number and you will
get the range of support that you need. It is not just about skills,
it is not just about DfES, it has to be about a package of support,
for example, for small and medium sized enterprises, they do not
want somebody turning up on a Monday to talk about skills, somebody
on a Tuesday to talk about business plans and on a Wednesday to
talk about capital investment. What we need to do is have an integrated,
streamlined approach, which is why what is unique about some of
the work that is now beginning to go on in terms of the National
Skill Strategy is that it is a holistic approach involving our
department, DWP, the Treasury and the DTI all working together
to actually produce a coherent, cohesive strategy which then reflects
in a cohesive interaction with the customer at the end of day,
whether that be an individual learner or an employer.
Chairman: I am not so sure if I am not deeply
suspicious when somebody mentions coherence, cohesive and holistic
in the same sentence!
Jonathan Shaw
12. I would like to talk to you about bottom-up
and top-down, Minister. The Chairman mentioned small and medium
sized enterprises and they are seeking out the Learning and Skills
Council and various different agencies. I was at the Kent Partnership
conference recently and the only business that was represented
there were the large businesses that are typically always represented.
What was concerning both the public sector and these large businesses
was how they got the SMEs, which account in Kent for something
in the region of 90% of businesses, on board, particularly linking
up with the education and business partnerships in order that
they might influence LSCs and particular training, et cetera.
Have you considered when discussing these issues with the DTI
and Treasury what role government, local government and those
winning large contracts have in terms of when they are subcontracting?
It seems to me that the power lies with the client and it surely
fits in to the best value regime that is, if a company is seeking
to get a contract that then there should be a requirement to say,
we are going to take so many people from New Deal, this is our
history, we are going to take so many youngsters from schools
and we are going to have input into the local community. Is that
in your thoughts, requiring large public or private companies
getting contracts where there is public money involved setting
down expected standards. We do so on environmental contracts.
(Mr Lewis) It is one of things that we will consider.
I have always believed that as part of the public sector in whatever
role we fulfil we need to take a lead, whether as an employer
or a contractor, on apprenticeships and/or basic skills. We need
to look at what government and local government are doing to offer
opportunities there but we also need to look at our expectations
in terms of the skills opportunities that people we contract will
provide. We have not made any concrete or tangible decisions on
that but it is forming part of our considerations. In response
to the point about small and medium sized enterprises, the PIU
Report, Work Force Development last week talked about the way
that we penetrate small and medium sized enterprises and I am
very frustrated because for years we said that we have needed
to do this and I think we have singularly failed overall to manage
to do it. The small business service has had some successes but
by no means enough successes. I think there are a variety of measures
that we need to take, one is the public sector as a procurer of
services, we have to look at that and how we can influence more.
We have to look at the role of intermediaries, people that small
business people deal with on a day-to-day basis, on a regular
basis, that they feel comfortable with. The PIU Report identifies
that. I firmly believe that accountants, solicitors and business
advisers need to go through those people. We have to do a lot
more in terms of big business and their supply chain. As I go
round the country I see lots of very innovative, exciting examples
of some of our bigger companies being signed up to invest in the
skills of their people and one of the things they say is in principle
with some public investment support they would be willing to do
far more than simply invest in the skills of the people that we
need for our business because we recognise it is in the interests
of the regional and subregional economy that we function in to
have a higher skilled workforce to draw upon. The final point
I would make is about incentivisation, we have employer training
pilots in half a dozen Learning and Skills Council areas, where
we are saying to employers, we will subsidise you, we will give
you some resources to support some of your staff to have time
off to train up to Level 2. That is a pilot, we are seeing how
that works, it is early days yet but we are particularly focusing
half a dozen pilots on the small and medium sized enterprise sector.
13. A message from Government to the public
and private sector could be, if you want anything to do with a
large contract that involve lots of public money part of your
bidding process will be to say what you are going to put back
in the local or national community.
(Mr Lewis) A message could be. That is one of the
things we are currently considering as part of the development
of the supply chain.
14. Influencing the supply chain.
(Mr Lewis) That is part of the things we are considering.
15. There are certainly SMEs that do get involved
where they feel aggrieved that many others do not give up their
time. They believe, they support, they are involved with youngsters
and colleges and schools and others do not. They say they put
themselves at a disadvantage because of their altruistic method.
(Mr Lewis) Can I go back to the Chairman's point,
the Chairman talked about the complex system and how you simplify
it. My view on this is quite clear, I think it is about rights
and responsibilities. I think employers have the right to expect
a skills and training system which is as simple and as accessible
as possible. I think our job is to try and create such a system
and I do not think we are there yet. In return for that, however,
when we have made some of those changes they have a responsibility
and duty to invest in their workforce particularly—and it
is back to the Chairman's point—it is they who constantly
make the point, quite rightly, that one of the biggest issues
holding their competitiveness and productivity back is serious
skill shortages. If employers' SMEs complain about the complexity
of the current system they have a very legitimate case. Our job
is to simplify some of that, but then to say to them, you have
a real responsibility here to invest in your workforce and to
invest in skills more generally and form partnerships with local
schools, for example, and you need to make your contribution.
Jonathan Shaw: Thank you.
Ms Munn
16. On Friday I went to the launch of Sheffield's
strategy for 14-19 year olds and they clearly decided they are
not going to wait for the Government to pronounce. Presumably
they were working on the hints that were in the Green Paper and
they have developed their own strategy. What I am interested in
is to pursue this issue about vocational routes of training for
young people in that age group, which is obviously an important
option. What are your views about strengthening those roots in
terms of that level of skill development at that age group?
(Mr Lewis) I am very passionate about it. We have
to do something about the status and the value we place on vocational
education and training in this country. We are uniquely snobbish
about vocational education and training. No group of educationalists
or politicians or industrialists in this country have been able
to make vocational education and training work. I think we should
put it alongside academic progression as an equally valid way
that a young person can develop and succeed, whether that is into
skilled employment, going down to modern apprenticeships or higher
education. We should also make the point if you go down the vocational
route there is not the opportunity to go into higher education,
there is through foundation degrees and other vehicles. I think
we have to do a lot more. I think we have to change the attitude
of some of the people who give advice in our schools on these
issue. Through the connexion services and other organisations
and teachers we have to change parental attitude, which can be
quite negative. We have to talk far more about vocational education
and training as a pathway through success and into progress. Also
the other side of this is that industry has got to try and reach
out to young people in a way that it has not done before and make
the case. When you talk to people and say as a plumber, electrician
or joiner your earning potential can be far more these days than
a professional—it is interesting how we use the term professional
in this country, because you may argue that the people who do
those jobs are professionals—make the case that in terms
of their life chances vocational education and training is of
equal stature. The problem is that in the past the vocational
routes have been regarded as second rate and second tier and we
have a big job to do to raise the quality of modern apprenticeships
as well as changing perceptions.
Ms Munn: You have raised a number of problems
there. Can I also put to you one of the problems that was put
to me yesterday by a teacher at the Yorkshire Regional NASUWT
conference where she was saying, we as a school are doing a lot
of what the Government are talking about in terms of what you
said and we have a lot of young people who are having a couple
of days at college and doing work-based learning but because of
this the number of children passing their GCSEs at A to C will
be at a much lower percentage and the other kind of qualifications
and the route they are going down are not valued in terms of assessing
how the school is doing. She was very concerned they would be
considered to be a failed school, what discussions are you having
with other colleagues to address this? Surely part of raising
the value of vocational education is how that is valued in terms
of those levels of resources?
Chairman
17. Your colleagues are biffing you all over
the Department, are they not, Minister?
(Mr Lewis) Never. That is not something that happens
at all, not at all. I think we are having a very adult and very
long overdue debate on these issues within Government. A lot of
innovative work is going on out there long in advance of the Green
Paper we published. Can I respond to the point, we have introduced
GCSEs in vocational subjects this September which I think will
be very important provided we get them right as we roll them out.
When I came to the Department I was told I was going to be introducing
vocational GCSEs. Within a week I said, "Why are we calling
them vocational when they are GCSEs like any other", clearly
there ought to be GCSEs in vocational subjects. I am delighted
we finally got agreement and we introduce them into the system
as GCSEs. It is very important but people are still using the
vocational language. The point you make about performance measurement,
whether it be further education colleges or schools, you have
to have a sensible alignment between your policy framework, your
financial regime, the outcomes you say that you want and the targets
that you set, therefore we cannot introduce a new 14-19 approach
which has any credibility. We are talking about introducing 14-19
over a period of years, we are not talking about a revolutionary
change from next September or the September after, we never said
that in the Green Paper. As part of that process of course we
have to ensure that we do not disincentivise but we incentivise
the acceptedness of vocational routes as an equal status and equal
relevance and that means that we have to look at the way we measure
performance. Before the Chairman gets too excited I am not announcing
the abolition of league tables but I am saying what you measure
has to be consistent with what your policy objectives seek to
be. The other big change in FE and in schools, which a lot of
people are not picking up on as much as they need to be, is we
are moving from a competition culture to a collaboration and a
partnership culture and that has implications as well in terms
of incentivising collaboration and partnership within the system.
There will always be a snapshot in time where there is not an
alignment in the way I have just described because we are at the
beginning of this journey in terms of reform in 14-19 in education.
I do not think we should apologise for that. We cannot radically
change everything overnight.
18. In the meantime you have teachers who are
sitting there doing exactly what the Government is asking them
to do and feeling nevertheless somebody is pointing at their school
saying it is a failing school or a school that is not doing well.
What in addition to GCSEs—because that is one way of measuring,
we know that some young people are going to struggle to achieve
that whatever happens but they are still being put through routes
of developing skills which will get them some sort of qualification—could
we be measuring which might bring those things into alignment?
(Mr Lewis) We are committed more generally to integrating
more into the way we measure the concept of value added. It is
not easy to do that. It is easier to say than to do. We are committed
as a matter of course to introducing far more value added into
the way that we measure performance. Whether we roll out 14-19
as a new approach to 14-19 education in this country we have to
have this. I do not believe the argument because a small minority
of institutions are being judged harshly at the moment because
they are doing the things that the Government wants them to do
and that leads them to being labelled as failing or under performing.
19. That is not what they are saying, that is
characterising wrongly. What they are saying is, we know we have
problems with some of our pupils achieving, we know that for some
of them vocational routes and education in different matters is
the better route, given that we are doing that why is there no
recognition of that? It is not a matter of saying, we are only
doing this and getting hit over the head, it is saying we looked
at the problems we have and we are finding answers to them, when
is the system going to catch up with that and recognise we are
achieving for young people?
(Mr Lewis) There is included in performance measurement
in schools vocational qualifications, they are included as part
of the schools and the system that we currently have. What I think
some teachers are arguing is, what do we do about disengaged kids
that we are beginning to turn on through imaginative and innovative
approaches and how do we measure that when maybe it does not manifest
itself in orthodox qualifications? What I am saying to you very
honestly about that is that that is part of the challenge in terms
of the 14-19 proposals which will come in early in the new year.
I am quite strong about this, we have to keep our eye on the ball
in terms of if you want to progress and succeed in life and in
employment in a modern world qualifications with a currency with
employers or higher education are really, really important. I
think we must not let ourselves off the hook in terms of that
particular issue. I agree with you, we need to look at the qualifications
framework and the way we award people qualifications—there
is a whole debate for adults as well about unitisation, but I
would not want us to give an impression to young people or anybody
else that it is very clever in terms of the labour market and
further and higher education not to have a qualifications framework
that is credible, but does it need to be different if 14-19 is
to work? Absolutely.
Paul Holmes: Very specifically on what Meg was
just saying, as one of the dinosaurs that used to advise children
in schools that has changed their attitude, in the last school
I worked at we ran a very successful GCSE City & Guilds course,
it was vocational and it was for kids who were less academic.
It was brilliantly successful, they got loads of distinctions
and merits however that had to be scrapped because it did not
count for the GCSE table, rather than teachers saying, how do
we deal with this, there is an example of a school that was dealing
with a vocational course but it got strapped. Secondly, we were
one of the very first institutions in the first 30 to pioneer
the intermediate and advanced GMVQs, they were run very successfully
and then it was said the way they are assessed is far too much
based on practical skills and vocational skills, they have to
be assessed like A levels, much more academically, and the courses
started to struggle thereafter.
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