Examination of Witnesses (Questions 400-419)
Thursday 15 May 2003
MS JUDITH
COHEN AND
MS CAROLINE
NEVILLE
Q400 Mr Challen: What do you think
about the proposal for a so-called sounding board to replace the
Sustainable Development Education Panel? Do you think that is
adequately thought out, or should it be more than just a sounding
board?
Ms Cohen: We do not understand
the terms of reference for the sounding board as yet. Yes, it
may be fine, but until we have more detail on that, we do not
know.
Q401 Mr Challen: Is this something
that you would rather see with perhaps a stronger remit? It does
sound a big vague at the moment.
Ms Neville: Yes, we would like
to see a national group and see it as a task group or a task force,
an action-orientated group, to help ensure that the strategy is
coherent and is taken forward with good leadership.
Q402 Mr Ainsworth: Who should have
possession of that group? Who do you think should be responsible
for taking that forward and making that happen? Is that the Department?
Ms Cohen: I would say so. If we
are talking about sustainable development education, then I think
it is the responsibility of the Department of Education and Skills
to steer, direct and lead that group.
Ms Neville: It would be important
to ensure that this is credible and therefore the Department is
well placed to take that forward.
Q403 Mr Ainsworth: Have you told
them that?
Ms Neville: We have a commitment,
and indeed we articulated it very early as an organisation, to
develop our own policies to commit to sustainable development
and to be in line with the Department's strategies and policies
and so, in a sense, we have committed ourselves to working as
part of a coherent departmental strategy.
Q404 Mr Ainsworth: Have they committed,
in a sense, to what you have asked them to do?
Ms Neville: We liaise with the
Department and we have an effective relationship with the Department.
Certainly we would be expecting the steer to come from the Department.
We understand the development of the strategy is going to do that,
and the sounding board would certainly do that. That is our understanding.
Q405 Mr Challen: It would also involve
perhaps the DTI and bodies like that. Do you have many contacts
with the DTI?
Ms Cohen: We are building them.
Ms Neville: The Learning and Skills
Council does have a relationship with the DTI in a number of different
ways, obviously for business support and the development of the
workforce strategy in particular, and of course our partnership
when working with the regional development agencies, which is
very much to the fore at the current time. We have four significant
regional pilots which pool the adult skills resources and planning
frameworks or RDAs, and then the skills councils. They provide
a significant opportunity at this particular point in time.
Q406 Mr Challen: If you find there
are gaps in training and so on, would you pass on that knowledge
to things like the Teacher Training Agency and communicate with
them where you think things ought to be improved?
Ms Neville: Do you mean gaps in
terms of teacher skills?
Q407 Mr Challen: That is right, in
teacher skills?
Ms Neville: We have a very close
working relationship with the emerging sector skills councils,
and so in this particular regard, we would be informing the appropriate
sector skills council as it is formed. I am sure the LSDA would
particularly wish to comment on leadership.
Ms Cohen: Yes. Our links with
the TTA are not as close as they will be with the new leadership
college, and we are a major partner in the development of that
college. We will have a close association and influence on the
new programmes that are going to start from September, which will
develop the leaders and managers in the learning and skills sector
of the future. This is an ideal opportunity to influence the content
in terms of sustainable development education and train the trainers,
if you like, which is a vital ingredient in moving this agenda
forward. We will also be playing an influential role in the development
of the new sector skills councils for teachers within the leaning
and skills sector. I understand that will be launched next March.
Q408 Mr Chaytor: Can I ask with respect
to each of your organisations what you think the main levers are
that you have to influence the institutions with which you deal?
Where can you most directly influence institutional change?
Ms Neville: The Learning and Skills
Council has a responsibility for planning as well as funding.
I emphasise that; it is an organisation that has this remit for
the first time. Under the banner of "Success for All",
the Learning and Skills Council is leading on two particular themes
in relation to "Success for All". One is concerned with
meeting needs and improving choice; the second is concerned with
the quality framework for success. Theme one refers essentially
to matching provision to need within a community and within a
locality. A major tool that we have to take that forward is strategic
area review and, with effect from 1 April, the Learning and Skills
Council is embarking on a process of strategic area review, which
is obviously done in conjunction and partnership with others,
but is an LSC responsibility to take this forward, to examine,
consider and analyse needs within a locality for individual young
people, adults and employers, and to try and ensure that the provision
on offer reflects that need.
Q409 Mr Chaytor: But the area reviews
are conducted by the local LSC or contracted out by the local
LSC?
Ms Neville: Conducted by the LSC.
Q410 Mr Chaytor: In terms of the
guidance that the national LSC gives to the 47 local LSCs, what
does it say about education for sustainable development in respect
of the outcomes of the strategic area reviews?
Ms Neville: I think one of the
unique features of the organisation is that it is unitary but
there are 47 local councils and the delivery will come through
the local councils. The local learning and skills councils are
not given a blueprint in relation to teaching, peer review and
the pattern of provision that there is. Those learning and skills
councils should reflect local needs, and certainly the Secretary
of State has exhorted us to ensure that local learning and skills
councils are in a position to adapt flexibly to local needs.
Q411 Mr Chaytor: The Secretary of
State in his remit letter to the national LSC has emphasised for
the first time the role of the ESD, but in terms of the national
LSCs and their relationship with the 47 local LSCs, you are not
communicating that down. You are saying to them, "By the
way, the way you conduct your area is entirely up to you".
Ms Neville: No, we obviously prepare
guidance, and you are quite right that we prepare guidance on
a range of issues. In relation to sustainable development, we
have really focussed on the project work that has been going on.
At the moment, the Learning and Skills Council is involved in
those projects, and we have a network meeting with those learning
and skills councils, which I think has proved quite an effective
way of spreading good practice and sharing issues. Those ideas
will of course cascade and spread across all of the local learning
and skills councils. I think the regional focus is quite important
here in ensuring that we are linking in to the framework for economic
skills for action. Certainly RDAs and local learning and skills
councils are responsible for meeting the needs of that particular
agenda. The local learning and skills councils within a region
work closely together and local and learning and skills councils
are clustered. We also, of course, and I mentioned planning earlier,
have their planning framework, which does ensure that every local
learning and skills council is charged with developing its strategic
plan in response to local need. That is a way, of course, as well
of ensuring that local learning and skills councils are developing
the broad scope of the agenda, of addressing the very specific
needs that they want to identify.
Q412 Mr Chaytor: In terms of the
local LSCs plans, are there any examples of particularly good
practice whereby an individual LSC has really highlighted education
for sustainable development as part its plan?
Ms Neville: In terms of the particular
wording of the plan, and obviously I could not quote it to you
now, there are certainly local learning and skills councils that
do have exemplary and developing practice.
Q413 Mr Chaytor: Can you name names?
We are interested in hearing who is ahead of the game so that
we know what this is about.
Ms Neville: If I can give you
some examples, certainly Somerset Learning and Skills Council
is concerned with developing curriculum champions, working with
schools and work-based learning providers. There are a number
of examples of curriculum champions. There are very specific sustainable
developments which relate to particular industries: for example,
Devon and Cornwall is concerned with sustainable development with
farming, carrying out research within that particular field, and
so linking it in to local economic needs. We have other examples
which would be concerned with looking at waste minimisation and
involving young people in the development of projects that are
real in terms of curriculum. There is quite a lot of good practice
there, which we can emulate across the network, but particular
needs which relate to particular industries will obviously differ.
Certainly we can provide you with specific instances subsequently,
if you would like to know the projects across the network.
Mr Ainsworth: That would be very helpful.
Q414 Mr Chaytor: Within the guidelines
that you draw up for particular contracts, do you incorporate
an ESD criterion? You are controlling a huge budget which not
only goes to the local LSCs but you directly contract with other
organisations as well.
Ms Neville: That is a very fair
point. In terms of college accommodation strategies, then we do
provide guidance which leads to college projects using appropriate
contractors and appropriate materials, and so on. I think we have
some excellent outputs from that; for example, Plymouth College
of Further Education have put up a building with comparable costs
associated with the build and it has actually reduced its energy
costs by two-thirds. That is a particularly good example.
Q415 Mr Chaytor: Is that on their
own initiative and the result of the estates manager or the principal
of a college or is that merely a response to guidelines from the
LSC? Why is that project only in Plymouth and why is not every
other college in the UK doing the same thing?
Ms Neville: We do provide the
guidance. That is certainly a very clear steer. Obviously the
college itself has, I think, shown great initiative, and again
there is a need to spread that practice across the board. There
would be other examples. With regard to contracting with the providers,
we have clear guidance in relation to equality and diversity,
which is something we have developed. I think it would be very
interesting to look at sustainable development in the same way.
It is not at that same stage of development.
Q416 Mr Chaytor: To turn to another
specific matter, your Mr Sanderson has a strong background in
the oil industry. Has he ever been known to have made a speech
at an LSC event promoting the values of sustainable development?
Would this be a way in which the LSC, as a leading national organisation,
could really set out its priorities?
Ms Neville: Chairman certainly
does speak at a great number of events. I know he has spoken on
heritage and development issues. My own knowledge is that certainly
the Chief Executive has spoken on sustainability and has a particular
interest in that area.
Q417 Mr Chaytor: Could we move to
LSDA? How do you feel that you can most directly influence this
post-16 sector, particularly in Yorkshire and Humberside, for
example?
Ms Cohen: Obviously there is a
whole world out there to go at. In terms of the national organisation,
as I started out by saying, we are an organisation that works
to contract, but the development of those contracts is something
that we can influence. We work with the LSC and with the DfES
in developing the content of contracts. That is an important way
to influence the sorts of measurements and outputs that contract
will produce. That is one way that we must audit across the work
that we do better than we do at the moment. We can develop that
work. In terms of the local work that I have in Yorkshire and
Humber, we have a project, the West Yorkshire Project, which is
looking at curriculum issues and is also working with the Huddersfield
New College and Bradford College Centre for Vocational Excellence
in Applied Science—those two colleges are working together
using the theme of water—and liaising closely with private
industry, ICI Billingham and Oceans UK. Visits are made between
students to industry and industry back into FE. There are very
good routes of communication being made there. Those links are
also being tied up with the RDA, Yorkshire Forward, which has
a regional sustainable development education strategy and has
appointed a co-ordinator. The project in West Yorkshire and the
new co-ordinator for the RDA are working closely together and
I am brokering that. I sit on their steering group and look at
the work they are doing and bring it together and influence the
communication that goes on. Obviously I bring that back to the
national picture.
Q418 Mr Chaytor: In your region,
how do you rate the overall impact of the combined efforts of
your organisation and the LSC and now the regional development
agencies in taking an interest about what happens on the ground,
at the level of awareness and consciousness and good practice
within both the college sector and the private sector, on a scale
of 0 to 100?
Ms Cohen: I think we have a long
way to go.
Q419 Mr Chaytor: Seventeen?
Ms Cohen: Possibly, or maybe 20,
let us be generous. There is a long way to go. We are just beginning.
I think the RDA infrastructure is a great help to us actually
at a regional level, but I do think that the RDAs have been focusing
on economic and business activities and that education still needs
to be integrated into their work. I am very conscious that we
need to do that at the local level with local LSCs in the area.
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