Examination of Witness(Questions 60-79)
MR IVAN
LEWIS, MP
MONDAY 25 NOVEMBER 2002
60. Not another discussion paper about how it
is funded?
(Mr Lewis) No.
61. Another ILA II?
(Mr Lewis) If I can take Ms Davey and the Committee
through the thought process. I was faced with a choice about the
autumn commitment and that choice was in advance of the review
of the funding of adult learning being very well developed, let
alone concluded, and in advance of producing a coherent strategy
which involves reviewing the balance between individual Government
and employer. I was faced with a choice did I in November ask
the Secretary of State or myself to come to the House and make
a statement on the successor scheme. I thought that would have
been highly irresponsible. It would have been in advance of us
having done the level of work that I would have wanted to have
done. I will tell you what I also was concerned about. I want
the successor scheme to be innovative and imaginative and as flexible
in the way that the first scheme was but with the safeguards and
the protections that were not there in the first scheme. I could
have come, I suppose, with a pretty unambitious model, a play-it-safe
type model that was not innovative, flexible and imaginative.
Yes, it would have had the safeguards, because that is the priority
and we cannot afford not to learn the lessons of the ILA I situation.
It was absolutely clear to me that intellectually and policy-wise
it was the right decision to make, even though my only reservation
was I knew it would upset the Chairman of this Committee.
Chairman
62. All of the Committee.
(Mr Lewis) I thought it was the right thing to do.
I think the Committee would expect a minister faced with those
choices to make the right decision. I think the one thing we share
is a commitment to the principles of the Individual Learning Account,
we do share them, and the worst conceivable thing that could happen
was if we introduced a half-cocked second scheme which did not
achieve its potential. If we did that then unfortunately the principles
would be undermined. We have got to take the time to get it right
and introduce it as an integral part of that National Skills Strategy
following the review of the funding of adult learning.
Valerie Davey
63. I believe you when you say that it is coming
out next June but I would like to know who is going to advise
you? How are you going to reach that position?
(Mr Lewis) There will be officials within all the
relevant departments, there is a ministerial group that I have
referred to. We must look at the National Audit Office report,
this Select Committee report, which was ahead of its time in this
respect. We should look at the Public Accounts Committee hearing.
We must learn the lessons and use the lessons from the first scheme,
understand the benefits of the principles but make sure that we
put in place the safeguards. I will get advice from as many people
as possible who can ensure that the successor scheme meets its
original intentions without putting at risk public probity and
public money.
64. Last question: who is there out there, because
as I understand it you have concluded the contract with Capita,
with the expertise and the back-up that you are going to need
to deliver this new scheme?
(Mr Lewis) I think, to be fair, I have to be able
to answer that question satisfactorily if I am going to announce
a robust and imaginative successor scheme. I promise you that
I will be able to answer that question. There are all sort of
options to consider. For example, should Individual Learning Accounts
be a regional tool for Regional Development Agencies and Local
Learning and Skills Councils? Should they be there to support
sectors to meet particular shortages within individual sectors?
What is the relationship between having a universal scheme and
having a targeted scheme? All of those issues are worthy of consideration.
65. They will be sorted by June?
(Mr Lewis) They will be sorted by June. If we are
reviewing the funding of adult learning, we also might want to
look at further rebalancing how much purchasing power we should
be giving to the customer, whether that customer be individuals
or it be employers. One of the things we need to look at (the
Chairman's comments about small and medium-sized enterprises)
is what is the scope for looking at accounts with respect to small
and medium-sized enterprises. I am being very open with the Committee
and sharing with them some of my thoughts. No decisions have been
made but I have given an absolute commitment that as an integral
part of that National Skills Strategy we will announce details
of a successor scheme.
Ms Munn
66. I was very interested that you started the
discussion on ILAs and Val nicely slipped into the second part
of our debate very well in that way. The one issue I picked out
when I was re-reading my papers on the way down on the train was
the issue about targeting which was recommendation 37 of our report
which the Department responded to by saying that the Department
agrees that the educational objectives should be defined clearly
and that these should be closely integrated with other aspects
of lifelong learning policy. That is exactly what you have just
said.
(Mr Lewis) That is a relief!
67. There you go! What I am interested in is
looking at some of the other aspects of this scheme to get your
thoughts on how that can be achieved without being so rigid that
it removes one of the factors which was very attractive about
the original scheme which is that it was very simple and was open
to anybody, and that as well as catching the imagination of fraudsters
which was unfortunate, it did capture the imagination of the wider
public beyond what the Department thought was likely. Having again
read half the Committee of Public Accounts hearing, which through
a photocopying error we got every other page instead of every
page, I note the departmental officials were saying that they
worried about getting enough people into the scheme so there had
not been a sense it was going to catch the public imagination,
but it did. What is your thinking about getting that balance at
this stage?
(Mr Lewis) We have got to achieve it. The irony is
that everybody calls for constantly bureaucracy and regulation-free
initiatives. This was a bureaucracy and regulation-free initiative
but it was far too free and left far too much to chance and unfortunately
a brilliant idea was undermined at delivery. We have said repeatedly
at every level of the Department that we regret that, we think
we have got lessons to learn from it, and serious mistakes were
made. So my job is to learn from those mistakes, but recognise
that stifling the innovative and imaginative nature of ILAs would
defeat the purpose. We may as well not re-introduce the scheme
if they are not innovative and imaginative and they are focused
in a way that we would want them to be. I also have a duty to
protect the integrity of public money. I have to get that balance
right. If you are asking how I am going to do it specifically—
68. No, what I am thinking of is one of the
areas which we explored was the number of people who were attracted
in who did not have any qualifications or whose qualifications
were too low as opposed to, say, the number of people who even
had degrees who perhaps were looking to move into a new area.
There were some discussions that if you were targeting scarce
resources you might want to limit it in terms of people's qualifications.
That would cut out both those people who were doing it because
it is nice to do but perhaps those people who have degrees but
maybe for various reasons are seeking a complete change in direction.
Do you have any initial views on that?
(Mr Lewis) My initial view—and I am not being
evasive—is it is one of the things I have got to consider
as part of the design and announcement of what the new scheme
should look like. There is a balance between saying it should
be a universal opportunity for all, which some people say was
a strength, maybe this Committee say was the weakness of ILA I,
and saying that we have clear priorities in terms of skills shortages,
in terms of attracting back to learning disadvantaged groups in
society generally. So it is the economic and social objectives
and it is getting that balance right. I have not made a conclusive
decision on that. If I had I would share it with you. It is one
of the fundamental issues that we have got to resolve.
69. You have said you have thought about perhaps
other ways of ILAs coming in through businesses or the like. Are
there any other new ideas or different ideas that you are able
to share with us rather than me going through a whole list of
things that you are not able to share with us?
(Mr Lewis) I think my officials have probably had
a heart attack at the amount of information I have already shared
with you! I have talked about the case for considering regionalisation,
the case for employer accounts and how they might operate, the
case for putting more power into the hands of the purchaser in
that respect—the customer in relation to SMEs particularly.
I have talked about specific sectors like construction and some
of the sectors where it would be a unanimous view that there are
serious skills shortages holding back our economic performance.
Then there is the issue of not losing sight of the fact that Individual
Learning Accounts were also for socially excluded communities
and socially excluded individuals who have been denied access
to learning traditionally and wanting to bring those people back
in. If we are talking about a review of the funding of adult learning
that issue is back to are we getting best value for existing spend?
One of the questions that has to be asked in that is if it was
somebody or many people who already have high-level qualifications
that were using Individual Learning Accounts to brush up, was
that good use of resources? You could argue it might be that many
people with higher level qualifications, for example, have very
poor ICT skills which affects their capacity to do their jobs.
I would believe it. The number of people who are very well qualified
who still have a mental barrier in terms of computers and ICT.
There are all those factors of which to take account. Those are
all the things I am actively considering and actively asking officials
to explore.
70. What about the issue the Committee felt
was quite important which is this provision of intermediaries,
as it were, to help people? One of the major criticisms which
we make and also the Committee of Public Accounts made is if you
were trying to attract people who had not been in learning they
were perhaps the least well-placed to judge whether the courses
met their needs.
(Mr Lewis) Let us keep the good things about scheme
I. The intermediaries worked on the whole. The community groups
and voluntary groups and trade unions—and I have not had
the opportunity to mention the Trade Union Learning Fund in this
evidence hearing which has been amazingly successful in terms
of skills generally—are getting to the non-traditional learner
in environments where normally people would not associate with
learning but feel more comfortable, of course we must keep that
element of the scheme. I strongly believe that.
Jonathan Shaw
71. I want to bring you back to regionalisation.
I was very interested in that, Minister. Is part of your thinking
that the Learning and Skills Council would determine which ILAs
were available within a certain area within their locality? Part
of our thinking might be that a Regional Development Agency would
work with local Learning and Skills Councils, so they would say
we have got shortages in plumbers if it was the St Albans LSC,
shortages in escapologists if it was the Huddersfield LSC and
a shortage of dinosaur hunters in Chesterfield LSC.
(Mr Lewis) And a shortage of members of the Committee
in Bury's case!
72. And Tories as well! So they would determine
what was going to be on offer. Is that right, is that your thinking?
You are being quite evasive and vague. If you are sending out
the message that you want consultation by June, that you want
people to come forward, obviously people will read the transcript
of what you have said today, Minister. Do you want people to be
exercised in spending time giving you feedback about this?
(Mr Lewis) Yes, I do. I would be happy to hear from
RDAs, LSCs, the CBI, the TUC and others on this particular issue.
I do not think I am being evasive, I am being honest. I am talking
about the issues which I am weighing up and considering in terms
of the best way forward. In terms of a regional model, to be very
specific, RDAs and LSCs working together to say, "Within
our region we have the following priority needs. Here is an amount
of money to stimulate learning and employer demand through an
Individual Learning Account type model". I am not announcing
that today, I am saying that is one of the things I am interested
in exploring and actively considering at the moment.
73. You are announcing that you are interested
in exploring it?
(Mr Lewis) Yes.
Chairman: At least he is doing it in the House
of Commons.
Jonathan Shaw
74. Indeed.
(Mr Lewis) Not quite.
75. If I am living in Huddersfield and the only
available ILA account is on escapology but what I am seriously
interested in is becoming a plumber in St Albans, would I have
to move to St Albans to get that assistance? What comes first,
the regional regeneration or the individual's ability to choose
what they want, or do you want the best of both worlds?
(Mr Lewis) As long as the reason wasn't that you wanted
to change your MP, I am sure you would basically have to move
in those circumstances. The serious answer is—
76. Those are the two points that you are going
to have to weigh up or are you going to have the best of both
worlds?
(Mr Lewis) I am going to have to weigh that up. I
am going to have to weigh up the balance between saying that the
priorities should be each region being different, starting from
a different point, having a different socio-economic profile and
therefore giving the regions the power to make the right decisions
in terms of what their priorities are and having a universal type
scheme so wherever you live you could access the same type of
system. That is one of the things I am going to have to weigh
up.
77. They would not then be Individual Learning
Accounts, would they, they would be Regional Learning Accounts
to meet the needs of your area because I could not get plumbing
if I lived in an area where there is escapology.
(Mr Lewis) It depends whether you believe in devolution.
If you believe in devolution you accept that things are done differently
in different regions.
78. But this is a top-down scheme. This has
always been a top-down scheme.
(Mr Lewis) It has historically. I have said very openly
that I am weighing up a number of options to deliver an innovative
and imaginative and exciting scheme with the protections that
were not there the first time around. I am thinking about a variety
of options in order to achieve that. One of them is a national
scheme which is accessible to all with whatever focus I would
decide to put on that. The other option would be a regional type
system or we may even look at sectoral type opportunities.
79. You want various people to try and influence
your thinking but if I were a business person I would be thinking,
"How will I influence the minister's thinking? I have not
got a clue which way he is going or what his priorities are".
There are three ways that you have described.
(Mr Lewis) Why could you not have a combination of
those options.
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