Examination of Witness(Questions 60-79)
RT HON
CHARLES CLARKE,
MP
WEDNESDAY 11 DECEMBER 2002
Chairman
60. As soon as I mention skills the media leaves.
It is absolutely pathetic. Two have gone already and a third one
close on their heels. It really infuriates me we cannot get the
media to take any interest in skills.
(Mr Clarke) Chairman, I never criticise the media
myself, but I agree with you profoundly on this question. I have
tried very hard since coming into this job and I have made a number
of major speeches at skills gatherings, including the CBI, the
Association of Colleges and the Learning and Skills Council, precisely
in order to say that this is where we ought to be. The reason
why I do so is that the amount of resources involved and the amount
of commitment is the thing, at the end of the day, which will
make or break our future as a nation. I see this, personally,
as my greatest opportunity. My greatest responsibility is to schools,
my greatest opportunity is FE and schools and my greatest policy
interest is higher education.
Chairman: David, I will give you that
slight opportunity first.
Mr Chaytor
61. I do not think you answered, Secretary of
State, but the question is: are you open to the idea that we should
have a wider range of specialist schools and schools should be
able to designate—
(Mr Clarke) I am sorry, I thought I answered that.
I am in favour of a wider range of specialist schools. We are
specifically looking at the range at the moment. As far as choosing
your own specialism is concerned, when a school decides what category
it is going to go in and the support it has, it can and should
be advised because I think there is a real issue, in a city like
mine and, indeed, in a city such as yours, that there should be
a variety of different specialisms available. The other side of
collaboration between schools is that there should be some sharing
of specialist choices.
Chairman
62. Thank you, and thank you for giving your
comments on skills. I do feel so strongly about this. As soon
as we announce we are going to do a session on skills, as we did
on Monday with the Learning and Skills Council, they do not turn
up and there is tiny coverage of skills. I really want to start
a dialogue with the media on why it is they do not take an interest
in skills. As you say, it is something of great, great importance.
(Mr Clarke) Can I just say that when I do speeches
on this, one or two of our colleagues in the media did write good
pieces about it. It is true that not everybody is in that same
boat.
63. Secretary of State, there is such wonderful,
rich pickings for the media, because as far as we are concerned
on the Select Committee, the more we go into it the more we think
it is one area of your department that is a bit of a mess, in
the sense that it is the least joined-up, from the outside observer.
Can I just give you an illustration of that? The Government has
been in power for a five years. We had Chris Humphries and his
Skills Task Force; we have had the Learning and Skills Council
in the evaluation of skills needs of the country. We then find,
quite surprisingly, last summer, there is now a new national skills
assessment, and one of your junior ministers has given eloquent
evidence about the need for that to this Committee only recently.
In one sense, here we have a whole range of initiatives already
being announced—your welcome initiative on futher education
only ten days ago was one of those initiatives—but a number
of things that really do not seem to be very joined up, in terms
of "Here are the decisions being made" about resources
before you have actually got the strategy. Many of us are old-fashioned
enough to believe that you get the strategy first and then start
deploying the resources to deliver on the strategy. Do you think
that is a fair criticism?
(Mr Clarke) I do, basically, and that is certainly
an old-fashioned view I cannot disagree with. Just to give some
idea of the quantums: what struck me very much—and I said
this to the Learning and Skills Council the other day when I was
announcing an increase from about £8 billion to £9.2
billion over the three-year period to the Learning and Skills
Council—were the comparisons, which are rough comparisons,
not exact. That means the budget of the Learning and Skills Council
(which is one part of education) is twice as much as the national
budget for transport; three times as much as the Office of the
Deputy Prime Minister; three times as much as the Lord Chancellor's
Department; six times as much as the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office; three times as much as the Department for International
Development; (extraordinary to me) twice as much as the whole
Department of Trade and Industry budget; three times as much as
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; six times as much as Culture,
Media and Sport (that is all the arts, sports and everything else)
and even more than we put into Work and Pensions. I gave those
figures to the Learning and Skills Council, and I think it is
absolutely stark the amount of money that we are putting in. We
are putting it in for a very, very important reason. The leadership
of this Government—particularly the Prime Minister and the
Chancellor—have, correctly in my opinion, identified that
unless we are successful at tackling our skills problems, at the
end of the day, we are not competitive as a nation, not competitive
15 years down the line and that means we cannot support our social
structures. There has been a slight sense of those outside of
my Department saying "Can't you get a bit of a move on?"
and one of the biggest messages I have sent to my Department is
that we cannot be in this position, we have to be in the lead,
really delivering and moving forward, and really dealing with
this issue. I will also concede, Mr Sheerman, that I have had
a large number of comments about the operation of both the FE
system in general and the Learning and Skills Councils, which—to
put it at its politist—raises questions about the efficiency
and effectiveness with which we deliver this resource. Some of
the Ofsted examinations of FE colleges, for example, are just
nothing like as good as they need to be. We have got quite a sharply
varying system of awarding colleges that do well and penalising
those that do not. The biggest problem for me is that it is clear
that much of the education system is not listening to what either
(a) students or (b) employers are looking for out of the education
system. It was very revealing to me, personally, the other night
when I went to the Guildhall to the presentation of National Training
Awards and I spoke to a large number of people who won those awards,
from things as diverse as laying railway track, cutting jewellery,
running call centres, bakery and a range of different things.
I said to all of them individually "How much help do you
get from the education service and local FE college?" and
I would say that of the ten that I spoke to, two or three had
a genuine, good story to tell about their relationship with FE,
but five, six or seven had no part in that whatsoever. That is
scandalous, quite frankly and it is a massive indictment of what
we do and how we operate. Final thing, I had a very early meeting
with my colleague, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry,
Patricia Hewitt, because it struck me that we simply were not
working closely enough with the DTI in each of these areas. You
have skills, which we are responsible for, but you have also got
innovation, competitivity, productivity, which they are responsible
for, with a whole series of initiatives and approaches. We have
not had a strong enough common strategic approach in each of those
areas. That is why my speech to the CBI focused on three areas
of co-operation between ourselves and the DTI: one, information;
two, universities (which is a point I have personally campaigned
about for a long time) and, three, the skills agenda as a whole.
If you talk to employers, far too many feel that what happens
in the education system simply is not helping them operate in
the way that we do, and we tend to see marketing of education
as saying to employers "You will like these qualifications,
will you please do it?" rather than saying to employers "What
kind of qualifications would help you operate and how can we modify
the curriculum?" I am sorry if I am responding at too great
a length, but I absolutely welcome your inquiry into this and
I want to say that for me this is a major opportunity and a major
priority. When I finish this job I want to be able to say, genuinely,
that we have made a difference in this area, we have got good
delivery mechanisms, and that we have got a strategy in place
working with our other colleagues in Government, particularly
the DTI, in order to crack this. I think you have an open goal,
in my judgment, if you are going to go into this. As I say, the
amounts of money are so enormous and the question, therefore,
how well you do is an absolutely legitimate and correct question
for you as a Parliamentary Committee to address.
64. Thank you. Just before I open the questioning,
we had the Learning and Skills Council before us on Monday and
we saw some improvement, there is no doubt about it. It does not
actually help when out of the department comes behind-the-hand
criticisms of "Were we right about the Learning and Skills
Council?" The one that really worries people is the temporary
nature of any structure that is established, because at the moment
there are still NTO organisations drifting along, there are Sector
Skills Councils half-formed or part-formed and there is a lot
of instability. The second point is, in terms of joined-up-government,
one of the weakest things we got from our responses was, almost,
the lack of contact that seemed to be going on between the learning
and skills world, represented by the LSC, and Work and Pensions
and Job Centre Plus. All that training that is going on in terms
of the New Deal intermediate labour market, and all that stuff,
has to be joined up. I do hope you will include that department,
particularly Job Centre Plus, when you talk to both the DTI and
to the Department for Work and Pensions.
(Mr Clarke) Absolutely. On the instability point,
I think it is a fair observation. All I can say from this point
is that this is structurally what we are going to do. In particular,
on sector Skills Councils, I think it is important that we move
forward more quickly than we have done and take some steps to
accelerate the process of delivering the sector Skills Councils.
Nobody should be in any doubt that the current system exists and
what we will do with that system is to try and make it work better.
I think there needs to be more effective power at local level
and the ability to address the local labour markets and local
businesses, and that is what we are going down the path towards.
You certainly will not get any back-of-the-hand comments from
me saying that we are going to change the structure, what you
will get (and it will not be back-of-the-hand, it will be completely
straight—and I said this to all Learning and Skills Councils
directly) is that we expect delivery in these areas, both nationally
and in every Learning and Skills Council in the country. I agree
with you it is improving; I think there is good work which has
already been done, but to be frank it has to improve faster, and
I was very direct in that matter with the Learning and Skills
Council. In fact, you may not recall, there is a power in the
legislation for the Secretary of State to direct the Learning
and Skills Councils in certain areas, and I was advised by my
officials of that power. I told the Learning and Skills Councils
that if I have any hesitation about the speed of improvement in
what we have to do I will have no hesitation in directing them.
I am sorry to sound like a boring old record, but with this amount
of money and this amount of vital interest for the nation, we
cannot have any tolerance of not delivering what we have to do
in these areas. On joined-up, I completely agree. I would not
only mention the hard work of Work and Pensions but, actually,
the DTI is the most important initiative here, because what you
have is a series of initiatives they are taking, for example,
on innovation, which would appear to be completely unrelated to
what we are doing on skills, and this seems to me to be completely
batty, and the Secretary of State and I agree about this and are
taking steps to try and make sure we work hand-in-hand.
Valerie Davey
65. So you are investing £1.2 billion in
further education in the next three years. What are you expecting
as a result of that investment?
(Mr Clarke) We are investing £1.2 billion more.
It is a very large amount. What am I expecting? I think I would
summarise it by saying that further education colleges and the
further education system as a whole are producing products which
students want to study and employers want to use. Although people
work very hard in FE and there is a great deal of pressure on
FE, there is not enough done for employers, there is not enough
attention paid to the needs of the local economy, and I think
there is too much scepticism in the outside world about the quality
of what is going on in further education. That has to change.
Within that, the second tier issue is that there are too many
poorly performing FE colleagues according to Ofsted and they,
in particular, have to improve their game.
66. How are we going to change that whole ethos,
because we have had college principals coming to the Committee
who, I think quite genuinely, have said they have been over-inspected,
assessed and audited. They give you a long list of the days that
they have inspectors or outside bodies in scrutinising. Yet, as
you say, we are still in a position where some colleges, at least,
are not giving the best to young people and the wider community.
So there has to be a change of ethos, it is just not any good
sending in more and more people to assess what they are doing.
(Mr Clarke) I agree. I think it is probably the case—and
this is a rash statement to make—that this is the most over-inspected
sector of the public sector in Britain. The reason for that is
there are so many different agencies doing courses and so on.
As you know, Sir George Sweeney produced a report on this which
I said we would implement to dramatically reduce the amount of
bureaucracy and inspection that goes on, although Sir George,
even in his report, does not go far enough to address the point
you make. All I can say is that I simply accept the point you
make and I think it is very important to address it. Inspection
will not be the key solution here; it will be part of the solution,
as always, but the key solution is a change of culture and a genuine
dialogue with employers.
67. I would suggest, perhaps, leadership. Is
the teaching college for leadership training in schools going
to embrace or take in the colleges?
(Mr Clarke) Not at this stage, but we are going to
develop a leadership function for colleges in exactly the same
way as we have with the schools. Leadership was an important element
in the speech I made to the Association of Colleges, but I think
we need to focus on that very specifically as a talent. There
are some outstanding FE colleges and there are very many who are
very good indeed, often juggling a horrendously large number of
balls, which they have to try and keep in the air. Our job is
to make it easier for good leaders to lead and our job is to get
many more people leading better in the different areas. I have
not got the figures to hand but the figures of the early Ofsted
assessments on further education show an exceptionally high number
of FE colleges which, if they were schools, you would say they
are in special measures. The truth is it is very difficult to
manage the FE situation because there are so many different demands.
It is not surprising that some go under. Our job is to try and
find a way of helping them.
Valerie Davey: Can I just add, as you
have done, that in my own constituency, the City of Bristol College
is doing very well.
Ms Munn
68. I just briefly want to ask you about the
14-19 strategy, and, obviously, the paper is due out in the future.
This Committee, in looking at access to higher education, knows
how important achievement during those years is to young people
going on to study further—whether that is at higher education,
further education or the like. There is a group of young people
who become disaffected with schools and I know there are some
suggestions in the Green Paper about how that is dealt with. One
of my concerns has been that in looking for other opportunities
which might better meet their needs—perhaps experience of
vocational courses etc—there can be a tendency to shove
young people whose level of maturity is not really good enough
to cope with it into a college environment and thereby, perhaps,
turn them off learning in other subjects. What is your view on
this issue?
(Mr Clarke) This is a very deep problem. If I may
say so (and I think this is an area where your Committee can help)
we have a very, very difficult and mounting problem here. On the
one hand we have to maintain stability in the system. It is very
important that we are stable and that we are seen to have a reliable
set of assessment regimes which people can have confidence in,
which implies a large amount of change for some considerable amount
of time, as Mike Tomlinson said. On the other hand, as he also
said, there is a real issue about the appropriateness of the curriculum
to people in both school and college in the 14-19 age range, and
more and more people are raising serious issues about the balance
between the amount of testing and the amount of learning in this
process. So there are questions for all children and young people
who come through and feel there is nothing for them in school
or college and they become alienated, with all that can flow from
that. There are people who feel not stimulated enough in what
is going on. All of that implies that we need quite a serious
change in our 14-19 system. That is, as you say, something on
which we will publish further thoughts following the Green Paper
at the beginning of next year. How we manage that process of change
while not jeopardising the stability that I think is also important,
is a really tough call. Although we have talked about this question
we have not yet got very clear answers. If we simply said freeze
the system for five years there would be quite serious difficulties
about that. On the other hand, if we said that next year we are
going to shift it and change it around in different ways, there
would also be difficulties. What we will do and can do now is
have more flexibility and more ability to dis-apply the subjects
and so on. But, still, some of the fundamental issues you raise
are absolutely there. I think until you get a situation where
local employers in particular are engaged with the school in proper
work experience, I think it will be difficult to crack it. I think
it is still the case, for example, that work-related learning
or work experience is seen as something for less academically
talented children, which is completely stupid. It should indicate
that something is beneficial right across the whole range, but
we simply have not developed those kinds of relationships with
employers.
69. Obviously a number of areas have felt that
they could not wait for the Government to come out with its 14-19—
(Mr Clarke) Sheffield and Leeds?
70. Sheffield, two weeks ago, launched its 14-19
strategy, which includes the Learning and Skills Council, colleges,
etc. One of the options, perhaps, given that authorities are dealing
with these problems day-in, day-out and are looking at how they
can deal with it, is to have a look at what is working across
the country and look at what people are doing in order to try
and support that, and how well that is doing.
(Mr Clarke) Absolutely. I was not aware of the Sheffield
initiative but I will now look at it carefully following the recommendation.
It used to be what Manchester does today the rest of the world
does tomorrow; it is now what Sheffield does today the rest of
the world does tomorrow.
71. I am glad you have quoted that.
(Mr Clarke) Joking aside, the fact is that there is
some outstanding—and I really mean outstanding—work
being done by some colleges, some schools, some employers and
some education authorities, which really shows how you can crack
these problems, but it is extremely patchy and it is mostly in
spite of the system rather than because of the system. What we
need to do is exactly as you say: really to examine what is going
well and try and pack in behind it and generalise it. Obviously,
if we can reach the same high standard that Sheffield attains
in most things we can at least learn from it. My father was at
school in Sheffield and my grandfather taught at a school in Sheffield
and so Sheffield is a favoured city.
Jonathan Shaw
72. You mentioned engaging local employers,
Secretary of State. I have attended numerous meetings within my
area and it is often the same few employers who turn up to particular
initiatives, are willing to take on students for work experience,
are willing to get involved in training programmes and are willing
to engage the public sector community to develop the sort of strategies
that we are seeing in Sheffield and elsewhere. You are the head
of a big department now that spends billions of pounds. I wonder
if, when you let contracts, you look at the commitment of those
people who want to get those contracts to providing school placements
and being willing to engage the wider community in terms of skills?
I wonder if you have considered that? I wonder if you have talked
to the DTI, although there are legal issues. Companies will vouch
for themselves by saying they have certain environmental standards,
they will vouch for themselves by saying they are a member of
the Guild of Master Plumbers or whatever. What about a badge for
saying "We are part of the New Deal. We are taking on school
student placements"? What I am saying is it is the supply
chain. The supply chain could affect people's commitment to getting
involved in skills. If you consider somewhere like Kent, and we
have been there quite a number of times this morning, 90% of the
employers are SMEs and they will say "We simply do not have
the time". However, if people are after a contract it is
a case of "You play the tune and we will dance to it."
I wonder if you have considered that?
(Mr Clarke) The true answer, Mr Shaw, is that I have
not, but what I will say is I think it is a very good idea and
I will consider it and I will look at it, as it is something very
much worth doing. I agree with your analysis that only a relatively
small number of employers see some value in this. My own assessment
is that there are a lot of employers who want to be involved,
and who would like to be involved but they just do not know how
to do it. There are relatively few employers who are so focused
on the bottom line—there are some and whether there are
a particularly large number of those in Kent in your constituency
I do not know—but what it is is that we do not make ourselves
accessible to them if they wanted to do so. I will also look at
the sanctions end of it.
Mr Chaytor
73. On your earlier remarks about relationships
between skills and competitiveness, is it not logical that the
skills strategy ought to be a joint publication between the DfES
and the DTI?
(Mr Clarke) The point of the skills strategy is it
has skills, competitiveness and innovation in a number of different
areas. I do not think the logic is the skills strategy should
be a joint publication, though I am not against that, I think
the logic is that all of it—innovation and so on as well—should
be a joint approach. That is what Patricia Hewitt and I are working
towards. What I will say is that we have, since I have been appointed,
raised significantly the level of our dialogue with the DTI. So,
for example, on setting up the Sector Skills Councils, which I
was considering yesterday, I will not publish a result until we
have comments from the DTI. So without going into the technicalities
of who publishes what, I completely accept the thrust of your
point.
74. The Skills Task Force, I think it was in
their third report, said that about a third of the British workforce
is not equipped to compete in the modern economy. What is the
single most important policy change that could help that third
of the workforce to compete better?
(Mr Clarke) Creating courses and qualifications which
are attractive to employers and for employment. That is what I
see is the key thing we have to achieve. What I believe has happened
is that we have been doing our stuff, exhorting employers to want
what we offer, whereas I think we have to be completely different
and we have to create courses and qualifications which employers
and, therefore, potential employees want.
75. What about the financial arrangements and
the arrangements in terms of the time available to do the training?
(Mr Clarke) I think there are issues there. What the
CBI will tell you is they spend, in terms of time, about £20
billion a year and it is usually the case that the major or larger
organisations/employers do put quite a lot into training, mostly,
I think, at the top levels of their organisation, and right through
their organisation it is a serious issue for us. In fairness,
Mr Digby Jones, the Director General of the CBI has genuinely
focused, in particular, on the issue of the 7 million adults who
do not have level 2 skills in literacy and numeracy. I think it
is difficult for us to force this through until we have a genuine
offer to employers. I think the anecdote I told about going to
the National Training Awards was rather shocking to me. It was
clear how far off the pace we were, and until we have got an offer
which is real, which is what Sector Skills Councils are all about,
I think it will be difficult to talk about sanctions.
Paul Holmes
76. Can I very briefly take you back to what
you were saying about the number of colleges that are failing
to deliver a decent education. There were a lot of headlines last
year when the Minister said the same thing and a lot of colleges
felt very aggrieved about that because they said it was based
on a very small, unrepresentative, early Ofsted sample and that
the later Ofsted inspections were not bearing that out. Have you
got a hard figure, after the year or more of Ofsted inspections?
How many colleges would you say, as a percentage.
(Mr Clarke) I have not got a figure in my mind. I
did give figures in the speech I gave to the AOC conference in
the first year of Ofsted inspections. I am speaking by memory
now, so please do not hold me to this, but I think it was that
15% of FE colleges would have been in what are called special
measures in those circumstances[3]
which I think is too high. I think there is a fairness in some
of the resentment you are describing, in that I do not think we
have been clear enough in what we are looking for out of the sector.
So the essence of my speech at the AOC conference was to say we
are prepared to put in more resources—an extra 19% in real
terms over the period of the Comprehensive Spending Review period—but
only if you really deliver. I think there has been an element
of doing it on the cheap that has gone on, so the fact that I
was able to announce some extra resource going in, in turn means
that I think I am entitled to ask for a better result coming out.
That is the process we are now going through.
Chairman
77. Moving swiftly on, Minister, can we push
you very briefly on the events of the saga of A levels, and AS
and A2 levels? What is your view in terms of the lessons that
have been learned from the experience? Do you think the lessons
have been fully learned and we are equipped to face next year's
A levels with confidence?
(Mr Clarke) I think the short answer to that question
is yes. Anybody who reads through Mike Tomlinson's two reports
must see the vast number of lessons that have been learnt and
that we need now to apply. I have very great confidence in the
leadership of the QCA. I think they are responding in a positive
way. I think the fact that I have asked Mr Tomlinson to continue
keeping his eye on this over the next period should give some
reassurance, I hope, to this Committee and, also, to the country
more widely of its obligation to report if he thinks anything
is going wrong. I can tell the Committee that the QCA has reacted
very positively to his appointment and will work closely with
Mr Tomlinson, so that will enable Mr Tomlinson to make his assessments,
if he wishes to do so, over a period. So famous last words, of
course, but I am fairly confident about the process. I do think
bigger long-term issues were raised about the status of the QCA
and its relationship to this Committee; for example about the
issue we talked about earlier about testing and learning in schools,
about the nature of examination boards, how they work together
and how that operates, about the future structure of the post-16
examinations. There are a series of important questions which
will inform the policy that we put forward and, also, to assure
the system for the present. I feel confident that the recommendations
we have put in place will achieve that.
78. It did seem, from the evidence we have taken
so far—and we have only had a short inquiry—that one
of the things coming out of that was that it would be beneficial
to the department to be slightly more arm's length from the QCA
rather than the much more intimate relationship that we picked
up on back in May, before the turmoil began.
(Mr Clarke) I think there is a good case for that.
Mr Tomlinson was very restrained in what he said on this relationship.
He talked about the memorandum of understanding, which we are
working on. I will say to this Committee that the whole future
relationship of some aspects of the QCA—not all of them
and we set them out in this report—and this Committee and
the independence of it is something which I certainly do not rule
out and I think is a matter for future discussion. As I said in
relation to the other area that we talked about, I am constantly
torn between the need for stability at this time and the need
to change in the direction which takes us the right way. I am
very concerned not to get into a state of affairs where we seem
to be putting up trees again in different ways. Finding that balance,
I think, is quite a tricky political thorn, if I may say so to
you, Mr Chairman, and one with which your Committee can help,
just to see how we can move this forward. You, as the representative
of Parliament, are the guardian of the public interest in all
of this, and finding a feel through this will be quite important,
but I do not think we must do nothing for the next five years.
At the same time, I do not think we can go ripping the whole past
system to bits.
79. We must have a few minutes on higher education
but, in passing, some of the evidence we have taken already in
terms of our inquiry into secondary education and, to a very large
extent, the very beneficial but hard work we put into a week in
Birmingham and a week in Auckland, means that you should know
that probably the most regular criticism of our system that we
got was over there in New Zealand, where they look at the British
system a great deal with great scrutiny and they compare their
system—and they have a system where they find it very hard
to measure the achievement of their pupils and they would love
to have a system—but they look at the United Kingdom and
say "But not yours". When you go to talk to teachers
it is the over-testing and over-examining that you hear about
very, very often. The Committee has been getting a sense that
there is a mood that you should let teachers get on with teaching
and conducting the learning experience in the classroom. Do so
many of our tests and exams have to be done externally? Could
not some of this be done by trusting teachers and staff internally
in schools. As you start in this job anew, and we have been around
in the Committee a while now with a lot of experience, that is
one of the things which you ought to know is constantly told to
us.
(Mr Clarke) I am grateful you said that. I started
out in this job talking about professionalism and my job is to
support the professionalism of teachers, and that is the approach
I will follow. I think that is the right course to go down. However,
we have got to look consciously at how we can support them.
3 Note by witness: Of the first 105 inspections
of further education colleges by Ofsted, 15 colleges were found
to be inadequate. Back
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