TUESDAY 1 APRIL 2003

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Members present:

Diana Organ, in the Chair
Mr David Borrow
Mr David Drew
Mr Michael Jack
Mr Austin Mitchell
David Taylor

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Memorandum submitted by the Association of Colleges

Examination of Witnesses

DR ROGER BENNETT, Principal, North Lindsey College; MR DAVID LAWRENCE, Principal, Easton College, also representing the National Association of Principal Agricultural Education Officers (NAPAEO); MS JUDITH NORRINGTON, Director of Curriculum and Quality, Association of Colleges, examined.

Chairman

99. Good afternoon and welcome. Thank you for coming to see us. First of all, my apologies because originally we had hoped to meet with you on 18 March but, as you will understand, that was the day when other issues were on our minds. We also have a slightly different team in front of us than we were going to have on 18 March. I notice that Malcolm Wharton, who I know because he is the principal of Hartpury College in my constituency, is not with us today, neither is Dr John Brennan, but we do have Dr Roger Bennett, who I believe is Principal of North Lindsey College.

(Dr Bennett) That is right.

100. Ms Judith Norrington, Director of Curriculum and Quality and Mr David Lawrence, Principal of Easton College.

(Mr Lawrence) That is correct.

101. As you know, we are doing an Inquiry into the delivery of education in rural areas. I know that you are a body that represents the Association of Colleges across the board in rural and urban areas, but if you can just, for today, put on your rural-proofing bit, so that we focus on that. There has been, as I am sure you recognise, a huge amount of change in the funding, structures and activity of colleges and, at the same time, a huge amount of change in the rural areas, both socially and economically. I wonder if, as a result of all these changes, you could say to what extent the particular needs of rural areas are recognised by the Learning and Skills Council and the Department for Education and Skills and how you are responding to that in the colleges?

(Ms Norrington) Perhaps I could start by saying that we have colleagues who represent both general further education with a wide rural knowledge and, also, a land-based college, so I hope we will be able to meet your wider agenda. The importance, I think, of working with the environment we find ourselves in now with the local Learning and Skills Council is that we want very much to work collaboratively. We see all the points you have raised about the change of format, and the areas that we would concentrate on and feel are particularly significant are around sparsity; funding (the way that is picked up and identified); the appropriate ways of judging that, because it makes a significant difference clearly; access issues; transportation, the way the offer is provided (things like IT) and, particularly, how we join up the sub-regional strategies - something that works with all the parties and looks at the changing role demand, the areas where there are still skill shortages and new areas like co-development which build into that and, broadly, work with all the different parties - LSC, LEAs, DEFRA and the colleges working together.

102. I wonder if you could comment on the co-ordination of the various bodies in policy and delivery? You have just given us a list there of what is going on and the initiatives, but how co-ordinated is this, or is it separate policy initiatives and separate organisations working on their own?

(Mr Lawrence) I think we would probably say it was variable. Where we have managed to work collectively I think it has tended to be based from an operational point of view, so looking at a local strategy. For example, in Norfolk we have had a go at doing this; we have had a group of us led, in fact, by my institution looking at rural policy, which involved the government office, the Development Agency, DEFRA and a whole range of industry bodies. Where we can do that we think we make a big difference, but so often stuff is not joined up. Possibly one of the issues for us would be about understanding and identifying the costs of operating in these particular rural areas. Again, one of the issues for me, from a purely practical point of view, is that all of this working together and developing partnerships to address rural issues takes time and, invariably, money and quite often we have not got that and we have not got it on an on-going basis. We have it in short drips for short periods of time and then it stops; we need a longer-term approach to it and one that facilitates local partnership.

103. Added on to that, you say it is not joined up but DEFRA has a role because it has a remit here for rural areas. I wonder if you could say what are the actions that DEFRA has done to increase the proportion of 16-plus into education?

(Dr Bennett) Thank you. I am not sure it has done a great deal to date. That is the first point I would raise. What I would like to think this meeting would want to hear is some recommendation towards things that might make a difference. So the answer to your first question is A not a lot@ . So how do we move that on? I think one of the things that would concern me is that we need some joined up thinking, particularly at sub-regional level, and this is where I see an opportunity for DEFRA to play a leading role with the Learning and Skills Council (particularly the local Learning and Skills Councils), the LEAs, the providers in sub-regions and the learning partnerships, all of whom, at the moment, have their own agendas. We do not seem to have got them round the table to actually talk about what the issues are and how we can progress those issues to the benefit of all the learners in the sub-region and the benefit of employers in the sub-region. That concerns me greatly, because there has been an awful lot of data collected through local Learning and Skills Councils Strategic Area Reviews at the moment. What are they going to do with it? What does DEFRA do with the information that it collects? I think if we are not careful and unless we bring all this together there is a real opportunity missed. So I would recommend straight away that we look at this in a sub-regional context to identify the main players vis-a-vis the issues.

Mr Jack

104. Tell me, through understanding a bit more clearly, what exactly Learning and Skills Councils are doing with reference to your sector? You gave the impression that they are merely a channel for funding but without any kind of strategic overview. They report to the Department for Education and Skills and, clearly, not to DEFRA. What have you divined from the different Learning and Skills Councils with whom you have had contact? Is there a strategic approach towards further education in a rural context?

(Dr Bennett) That is one of the reasons that, hopefully, I have just tried to make clear, in that they have just set up a Strategic Area Review across all the 47 local LSCs, fundamentally, to look at what the issues are under the LSC banner - nothing to do with all the other players in the sub-region. That is the bit that concerns me. Local LSCs are working with providers and working with, tentatively, learning partnerships but they are working under their own LSC remit.

105. Am I not right that LSCs have been going now for about a year-and-a-half? Who established the review?

(Dr Bennett) LSCs.

106. You mean collectively they met and said A We have got a responsibility for rural further education. We had better ...@

(Ms Norrington) The review is actually right across the whole nation, looking at where there are skills gaps, and where the accommodation needs and the college needs are not meeting the local student population. Of course, as part of that, they will be looking at rural issues, but it is not exclusively looking at rural issues.

107. Forgive me just pursuing this point a little bit. The types of college which, for example, are typified on the boundaries of my constituency, namely, Myerscough, have got a tremendously broad range of courses, some of which are strictly rural. You can do motor sport - it is a terribly exciting place to be - you can even play golf! What I am not clear about is the relationship between the Learning and Skills Council, and this strategic overview, and something like Myerscough, who are saying@ If we are going to survive, these are things we have to offer to bring, basically, bums on seats@ ? How does this great LSC inquiry relate to that? Does it report to anybody or are they just inventing their own strategy?

(Mr Lawrence) Firstly, one would hope that if we get this right we will need help from a DEFRA point of view, making sure that rural is significant enough in their considerations. Secondly, most of the discussions we have had with our local LSC have been around what are the overriding skills issues that are required in the particular area, and also trying to ensure, if they need to be met in a particular way by a particular type of institution, how do you secure the future of that institution as well? So I think the area review we have just been involved in, which has been a home-grown one by the LSC, has looked at all of that. In fairness, it has come out with a number of issues which we are being challenged with collectively. I am sure that if we are going to be successful with this the levers need to be there to be a practical process in which all partners ae engaged, not a report that is dreamt up in LSC and delivered out to those that have to actually deliver it.

(Dr Bennett) That is my point: that this is an LSC review and takes no cognisance of the other players in a sub-regional context.

108. In terms of the issues on which you said you had had, Mr Lawrence, a discussion, was that as a result of a piece of empirical research looking at the area for which they had responsibility, where they have come to you and said A This is what we think are the skills that people need in a rural context. Are you colleges providing them@ ?

(Mr Lawrence) I think it has been more of a two-way conversation than that. In other words, yes, there has been an element of evidence that is quite clear, in terms of participation rates and the like, and achievement rates. Secondly, we have done some work on employer skill needs locally that complements what goes on nationally, and we have had a discussion about collectively what we believe is right. That collectively includes the industry itself. It is fundamentally important. We are only there as a means to an end, not an end in itself.

109. Finally, where does the Agricultural Training Board fit in - the Lantra organisation?

(Mr Lawrence) NTO is very much taking a view of the overall skill requirements of the UK and then trying to establish it down to a local level. Clearly, when it gets down to the very local level their involvement in it is slightly less defined. So they are painting a broad canvas to which we are working. I believe, certainly from a land-based college= s perspective, it is incredibly important to have a view about the sorts of numbers we are going to need in the future, and the sorts of statistics that they are using have been fed into the Learning and Skills Council views, and one of our great concerns is that public perception is that there will be no employment in agriculture. Whilst they are absolutely right that the workforce is going to continue to reduce (for example, in statistics that have just been published in February, in the period 1999/2000 there has been a reduction in skilled agricultural trades of 39,000) when you take into account retirement and the leeching out of our sector into others, there is actually a net demand of 115,000 more. Collectively we are not recruiting anything like enough individuals, so we are seeing skills shortages even in the traditional areas. You have then got to add on the fact that we are having to change a large proportion of the workforce owing to the different things and this, effectively, refocusing of agriculture. Build all that together and there is a massive problem. I believe that, certainly in rural counties, and in my own, there has been a very healthy discussion about which colleges have played a very active role in leading, and certainly nationally we would hope that DEFRA plays a more up-front role in making sure that that sort of discussion takes place.

Mr Borrow

110. Following on from Mr Jack= s point on the role of the LSCs, I was a bit concerned about the comments that you made, Dr Bennett, as if the Learning and Skills Councils were doing something they should not be doing or not doing something which they should be doing. My reading of the situation was that the Learning and Skills Councils have got the pivotal role in determining provision and need and, in a way, they have got to make sure that the provision is in place. Is the point you are making not that they were not inviting you to participate as an equal partner, but that they were not inviting you to comment at all?

(Dr Bennett) That is true.

(Ms Norrington) I think it is a wider issue, to begin with and then my colleague to come in. The issue is that we believe it would be a more effective review - it is not that we are questioning either their right or the manner, at the moment - if it involved all of the parties. Clearly that, then, is a solution that has to be thought through from the perspective both of the colleges and the local employers and organisations such as Lantra and the very many leisure businesses which also operate within the rural environment.

(Dr Bennett) I think what I was trying to say is that, but the detail of that, really, and the fundamental for me, is that yes, LSCs should play that role but not in isolation; they should bring on DEFRA, the LEAs, the learning partnerships and RDAs and engage them in the sub-regional context of what is it we need for education in a sub-region - not just the rurality education agenda but education in a sub-region. My general FE college in North Lincolnshire services Scunthorpe the town, but 45 per cent of my students come from rural North Lincolnshire. I have got a duty and a mission for those students to get into my college. I applaud the Strategic Area Review that the LSC have undertaken, but it will only hit the nail on the head if they do engage the other strategic partners and not just do it in isolation. That is what I am concerned about.

111. The reason I am following Michael Jack= s comments is because I have certainly been involved in my own area with my own Learning and Skills Council in fixing up meetings which involve the parishes and training providers. Part of the problem in rural areas is you have got a distant FE college, and the danger is that the FE college feel they can deliver all their education services through the campus. In actual fact, if you are going to get access you have got to deliver services and training and education within individual village communities, and that does involve speaking to people within those village communities about the sort of provision that is needed. There is always that creative tension between local communities and what the FE college will do.

(Dr Bennett) I think one of the biggest things that they could actually focus on - and I hope this comes out of the review, and if the review can be enlarged all the better - is duplication, because if you talk about value-for-money resources then the rurality agenda is being short-changed. It is easy to hide behind A Well, it is rural and they do not need so much@ , and all the rest of it. I have worked in colleges in cities, I have run a land-based college before today and I am now running a general FE college with a big rural area. Rural deprivation definitely exists. It affects people= s choices on what they can access, when would they want to access them, and so on. So there is a real issue around getting into rural areas and I think DEFRA can play a big role here in terms of helping colleges. Look at all the under-resourced schools in rural area that we could tap into to help the bigger picture. Again, it concerns me that they are not being taken into account in this bigger picture.

112. Have you any comments on the general formula that is used for measuring deprivation? I often pick up criticism locally in terms of deprivation indicators used by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister based on whatever criteria. Certainly my experience of rural areas is you have got rural deprivation which is often masked by the extent to which you have got affluence as well. I wonder if you have any comment on the formula used.

(Mr Lawrence) We totally agree with that. I think part of the problem that you described about being able to deliver in rural areas effectively is about the costs. Trying to balance the costs of that particular type of delivery by necessity is more expensive than the funding that is available. Certainly our view is that they do not recognise the rural costs. If we look at, for example, the Objective 5 areas, as it were, there is no correlation between them and the most deprived wards. So perhaps there is something wrong, and the new, 2000, version of those indicators still do not seem to address that. So certainly one of our strong recommendations to you is that we almost need a department that is going to have a look at that on a broader basis (and DEFRA, to us, would seem to be that) to come up with some research on what the particular costs are of dealing with these issues in rural areas. We are told that it is not any more expensive; others will say that it is significantly more; we say it is different. The costs are, clearly, different. What are they, and can we have a measure that is adequately reflecting them? No one seems to be tapping that from that particular viewpoint. We feel very strongly that they should so that at least we can all have an open dialogue with some evidence we can all subscribe to and agree in terms of capturing the right issues.

113. Are you saying, on the general funding issue, that your instinct will tell you that education in rural areas is likely to be more expensive than education in urban areas, but that that is not quantifiable, and that research needs to be done because often the funding formula goes more towards deprived urban areas?

(Mr Lawrence) I think it is different. We know it is different, we know certain elements are more expensive. We have had this discussion and we welcome the fact that the Learning and Skills Council through the national advisory group are looking again at this issue of rurality and sparsity factors because we think research to-date has not looked at the right things. It is not just the fact that we are going to have smaller group sizes and you have got lots of staff travel involved, it is the impact it has on your college= s efficiency. So, for example, in my case transport to the college is extremely restricted. The connectivity of transport to the college means I have to work a very restricted day. I can only achieve 75 per cent of what the LSC would normally expect a college to deliver in one week. That has enormous impact on the space I require for that and on the staff costs. I cannot spread that work. I do not believe, at the moment, that is taken into account in the methodology, effectively. I think probably we would say it is more of an issue than just with the colleges; for us this affects a large number of rural services where the measures do not seem to be adequate. The funding allocation tools that we use do not seem to be picking up those issues effectively.

David Taylor

114. I think it is undeniably the case that unit costs in rural colleges are always likely to be higher. Can you not combat those, to some extent, by developing greater use of distance-learning and information technology for some of your more remote students or students who find colleges inaccessible?

(Dr Bennett) Certainly. That is a tool that the colleges strive to use - not just the land-based colleges but the general FE colleges with rural catchment areas. That is something that, again, has been on-going and is developing as we speak. I think it will not be a quick fix to get from A to B, it takes time; you have got the broadband issues and you have got connectivity issues which David alluded to. The other thing that you must remember - and this is a doubled-edged sword - is that we have got the outreach centres that a lot of colleges have, particularly rural colleges, going into the rural communities and making use of outreach centres. The costs of running those outreach centres are enormous. The costs of duplicating IT kit and putting the right connectivity in is enormous, but it pre-supposes that the community will come and use it. That is one issue that I think DEFRA, certainly, could raise their profile on, vis-a-vis regenerating the rural economy. I do think that is vital. My former college was Askham Bryan at York and my college served the county of North Yorkshire. My furthest outreach centre from the main campus at York was 60 miles away, and it was a completely different community to the one I had 22 miles away in Harrogate. The needs were different, the issues were different, the rurality issues with like-minded rural people were different. DEFRA could play a crucial pivotal, independent almost, role to pull those communities together, because clearly it has synergy with those communities to kick off, and that is a strength.

Mr Drew

115. Can I go on to Education Maintenance Allowances. Presumably you welcome this going national in terms of provision. I think what would be very interesting for us to hear is to what extent is access a financial issue as against what other reasons there may be for why it is difficult to get people to stay on?

(Mr Lawrence) Unfortunately, both of us are not in areas where we have had all of our students receiving Education Maintenance Allowances. I have had a number who have come across the border from Suffolk - about eight this year - and I believe they have been very positive. They have helped both achievement and retention, and I think we welcome that approach. Residential bursaries, equally, have had a significant effect for land-based institutions in particular but for a wider range of colleges than that in rural areas, and from our point of view they have also helped us widen participation significantly. So we have been able to get people in who needed significant support and, perhaps, whom we have been able to help in a more holistic way. There are all sorts of other issues to do with that financial support, but I think it is fairly fundamental, but there is not one that dominates another. Transport is another significant issue. Funding for those aged over 19 - all of our efforts are based on up to 18-year-olds - is a really significant challenge for us, particularly in the rural economy at the moment, when we are looking at trying to refocus and re-equip the workforce when we have not got some of these tools available to us for those older age-group students. One of the suggestions that we make is that there almost needs to be an entitlement for a level 2 or level 3 qualification for any student so that they can actually plan on having some element of financial support.

116. Can I follow up with one issue? Those children who do not stay on post-16 but who remain in rural areas, what do they do?

(Mr Lawrence) First of all, I think a large number of them do fall out of the system. In Norfolk we have got a particular challenge in this and we know we have in terms of our standing in the league tables on participation rates. A significant issue for us is about aspiration rather than necessarily transport. I believe, again, one of the things we welcome is that the increased flexibility for 14-16 year-olds gives us an opportunity to refocus some of those youngsters. They are the ones who are not perhaps engaged at school. I think the opportunity to use the vocational education system to capture their interest is fundamentally important to us, but it is a long-term process in terms of addressing this issue of raising aspirations in rural areas. Again, one of the challenges for us at the moment is that we, certainly as an institution, have been very good at recruiting those 14-16 year-old students in partnership with schools. There are two big issues with that: one is that the cost of transport from the schools into the colleges in rural areas is a significant challenge to us and, secondly, the volume of students and the amounts of money, at the moment, are not linked.

(Dr Bennett) Can I just add to that? I think the 14-16 year agenda is a fantastic initiative. In reality, it has got to be driven and funded. Colleges have a pivotal role to play for the 14-16s, not least of which are the rurality issues, and not least of which is the point you raised about what happens to them if they are not engaged. If we can get 14 or 15 year-olds engaged in vocational learning at that age then I think it goes well for them to actually come into college and pick up a programme.

Mr Borrow

117. I have got a particular interest in transport in rural areas. Lancashire County Council, back in the 1970s, made the decision to generally move away from sixth form colleges and went to a system of further education colleges for post-16 education. Part of the assumption was that the education authority would provide the network of school buses to the various FE colleges and the biggest one is Renshaw (?) College in my constituency which covers a large part of south Lancashire. I have certainly seen, as the changes have taken place in education, the students paying for their transport, even though they were not required to do so. That has led to quite a lot of difficulty with access. I wonder if you could say a few things around the problems of transport to FE colleges for that 16-19 age group?

(Dr Bennett) It is absolutely crucial to that agenda. There are a few issues within that. The first one, taking my own college as an example, is that we with a neighbouring college fund our transport. We go out into North Lincolnshire and bring in students from North Lincs into the town. That is myself and my neighbouring sixth form college. So we have got a partnership deal where we fund our transport ourselves. So we are having to self-fund. The second issue is that a lot of my classes have to start later in the morning and have to finish earlier in the afternoon so that the 16, 17 and 18 year-olds can get home in good time and can get home in safety in good time. That puts enormous pressures on concertinaing the timetable into a real core part of the day. Then, when we get brought to task by the LSC for space utilisation for the entire campus, we do not do very well because we have got classrooms that are empty between, say, 8.30 and 9.30 and classrooms that are empty from 4.00 to 5.30 because we are trying to accommodate nearly everybody between this core 10.00 to 4.00, not least of which the 16, 17 year-olds from the rural communities. What we need is more access for them into the colleges, whether it is through buses, trains or whatever, because we are losing students - this is something that you need to bear in mind - because they feel insecure in accessing their local college because they are out in a rural village. They can get in, but will they get home? If you are 16 or 17 and with worried parents, then it is an issue.

Chairman

118. Can I come in on that point? We know that you have about four million students that enrol in your colleges and we also know that the other sort of factor is that about 11 per cent of our population lives in rural areas. You have just said there, Dr Bennett, that you are losing people from rural areas because of concerns about transport and access. Do you have any figures that maybe you could give us? Of the four million one would expect, therefore, that about 450,000 of your students come from rural areas, if it is pro-rata-ed. Do you have any figures for if there is a disparity between rural take-up and urban take-up of the courses that you are offering?

(Dr Bennett) I think that is something we can look into. I do not have any to give you off the top of my head. The one thing allied to that is the HE widening participation agenda. We do a fair tranche of HE at my college and that is a barrier - getting people in, particularly adult learners, women returners, to HE or HE accessible or on to HE programmes. That in itself is a barrier if they live within eight or nine miles outside of the town.

Mr Borrow

119. What perception have you got of the changes that have taken place since January of this year that the official responsibility is on the LEAs for transport co-ordination?

(Mr Lawrence) Some councils, I know - mine is one of them - have had a long-standing relationship with the LEA anyway in terms of working collectively to try and resolve the transport issues. They are massive problems, if you have got a very sparse population. The new LSC, you will be very pleased to know, is now actually reflecting the home status of students in terms of if they are from a rural area they are given a weighting for the funding they are proposing to give to the LEAs as part of that process. I think that is a step in the right direction. There are particular failings in the system. One is that the connectivity between the buses and trains, etc is not there. You cannot get people from the remote villages into market towns on to mainstream buses and into employment or education at the right time. A lot of work has gone into shopper-type buses; we need to look at travel to employment and education. Again, we would have said that is something stronger we would suggest that DEFRA should be making to the other departments. The other issue is that it is a long-term process. I have persuaded over the years Norfolk County Council to run a number of extra bus services to my institution at different times and from different places. You have to accept from day one that you are going to see these buses running around empty for some time before you build up to a good level of capacity. Nearly always the funding does not last as long as that; so you put it on for a year and then a year later you bid for the funding, the funding disappears and you then do not fill the bus up and you cannot make it commercially viable for some considerable time, if at all. It then falls off the edge again. So the issues are particularly about this connectivity issue and, secondly, about taking a very much longer-term view of it. I think we welcome the discussion between local authorities and the LSC, particularly where it is in partnership with providers, which I have to say - in Norfolk - it has been; schools and colleges working together trying to resolve the practical problems.

120. So the Department of Transport and the Department for Education need to be working much more on the issue of the transport needs of students in rural areas rather than seeing rural transport simply as a matter of providing a bus to take somebody to the market to shop? They actually need to be very specific about the problems of student access.

(Dr Bennett) Can I just make one point on that? It is choices. You have got two choices: we can either increase funding to get the transport infrastructure from rural villages and towns into main campuses better and properly funded, or do colleges persist with the outreach provision where there is duplicity of resource and the risk that the community do not access it?

(Mr Lawrence) I would strongly stress to you that it is access to employment and education. Quite often we are relying very heavily on this issue of transport into urban areas for employment and the issues we were discussing earlier about participation rates in rural areas. The poor level of aspiration we have got in a large number of our youngsters and, I have to say, the older population as well in rural areas is about not being able to get to employment easily. In Norfolk we are fairly convinced that the two go hand-in-hand. We have had some limited success in addressing it.

121. The problem is that if you deliver the education aspect, if people still cannot get to the employment then ----

(Mr Lawrence) They do not do it.

122. Finally, on the question of transport, I wanted to touch on the issue which I have certainly come across, which is not the 16-19 age-group but is adult learners and the difficulty - and sometimes the impossibility - of actually getting on to any sort of education. Often it is only a few hours a week on a course to try and make people employable when they are living in very scattered rural communities.

(Ms Norrington) I think for everything that has been said for the 16-19 population you can almost write it larger for the adult population. We have a similar problem wherever you look. If you look at support funding, there is less of it for adults. There is less funding for a whole range of opportunities. I think it is an even bigger issue.

Mr Jack

123. Have you had drawn to your attention any models that address some of the issues you have put before the Committee in evidence so far from abroad, particularly thinking about transport issues, where somebody has got a better solution than we have got?

(Mr Lawrence) We have been given a whole variety of solutions through moped-loan schemes to community car schemes, and everything else. I am not sure how many have come from abroad. The trouble with most of them is that they are good in parts. You need a level of infrastructure there to start with, and that has been the bit that has been a challenge. Secondly, the cost of administrating them has been so great that we have had to make a choice between putting that money into infrastructure or having a go at slightly different activities. The local transport partnerships have done some quite innovative work. I have to say a lot of it has focused on shopper buses for the older age groups rather than transport to education.

124. What proportion of students who attend rurally based FE colleges come on a daily basis and what proportion are residential?

(Mr Lawrence) I do not know that we could answer that for you just like that but we certainly have got access to that information. We can provide it for you.

125. The reason I ask that question is because it is clear that there are some rurally based establishments which, if you like, have got not just a local but a national reputation for particular types of course, whereas others have a broad spectrum of training opportunities. Access, in a way, for a college that has got a broad range of general courses on a day basis is a more important issue, I would think, than a college that has a stronger residential element for a national reputation course lasting over, say, three years or longer.

(Mr Lawrence) I think if that were the case most of us would now have, probably, a significant element of both, particularly in the land-based institutions because you would be forced into a position where you have been trying to protect important specialisms locally but then have very small volumes of people so you have to widen the catchment. Equally, we are doing work that meets local community needs or local industry needs. Certainly in my institution= s case, the volume would be through the day students very substantially.

(Dr Bennett) I think it is about strategic focus. You have got local catchment, you have got regional catchment, and you have got national catchment - indeed, you have got international catchment. Residential specialist land-based colleges, of course, would hit all four. General FE colleges do hit all four but the majority hit the local and regional because most of FE - and mine is a classic example - is a community focused college. So our mission, basically, is about the local and regional people of the town and North Lincolnshire. That is where we come from. The vast majority of students that come to my college come on a day-to-day basis.

David Taylor

126. Have we got time, Chairman, to develop this area of residential provision? In your submission, in paragraph 22, you make one or two points that I would like to ask you about. I think, Dr Bennett, you said you were the principal of a land-based college at one point earlier in your career. You acknowledge that the Government has addressed some of the funding concerns by the introduction of residential bursaries for students but you seem to suggest that that has been largely wiped out by the cost of complying with the new inspection arrangements under the National Care Standards Commission. What new expectations are there because of those standards? What is the scale of costs that a typical college might be facing?

(Mr Lawrence) I may as well kick off because I am still dealing with that particular issue, so I speak from very recent experience. I think there are two things for us: one is at the moment there is not and has not been for many years any support for the management and supervision of under-18 students in residential accommodation. There has been support for their maintenance costs and quite clearly what is being brought more into focus, particularly through the Care Standards Act, is our legal responsibilities for those students while they are there. The only answer I can give you is to quote my own institution where it has cost me another senior member of staff to work with students on a regular basis. My staffing costs for under-18 students has risen by , 30,000 this year and I have spent nearly , 100,000 worth of capital on making my buildings comply (or I am in the process of) with the Disability Discrimination Act and the Care Standards Act together, because the two are linked to some extent, in terms of the requirements I have. I think our big concern is predominantly about under-18 students where not only have we got a more focused legal regime that is governing what we do - and clearly the responsibilities are very transparent - we have also seen a big increase in the volume of that activity and less older age-group students in. For example, in my institution, over 70 per cent of my residents are under 18. That is a real challenge for you when you are receiving no funding for it.

127. So the standards represent a physical element in relation to the accommodation. Are you saying or suggesting that the minimum standards for residential accommodation in FE are gold-plated to a degree?

(Mr Lawrence) Well, there are definitely not gold taps! When you look at it you think A My goodness me, 43-odd recommendations. Surely we do not need as many as that@ , but when we have gone through them I do not think we have got much of a problem with most of the recommendations, it is just formalising a lot of the practice that most of us were doing. There are some I would moderate if I had a chance but I guess that has always been the same. I do not think we can argue about doing the right thing for these young people. Some of the individuals we have are from disadvantaged backgrounds. I think we do a particularly good job of working with them. They need substantial supervision but we are not being funded for it, and that does not seem right.

(Dr Bennett) What is the value of residential accommodation to the learning experience? If the value of residential accommodation is high and it is proven and it makes a difference, then residential accommodation is needed and it will enhance the educational experience of any learner that accesses it. If that is the case, then the compliance to the National Care Standards Act in all residential colleges, not just land-based but all specialist residential colleges, will have to aspire to them. Again, that will not be a quick fix and nor should it be; it will have to be incrementally achieved with the funds that are made available. To me, the crux of that matter is what is this Government= s view of the value of residential accommodation to the learning experience? If that is as it is now, then the funds would have to be found to support the residential Care Standards Act.

128. In eight days and 36 minutes= time the Chancellor will be levering his Presbyterian frame to its feet and telling the nation how he plans to dispose of the , 400,000 million largesse that the taxpayer has, more or less, reluctantly provided to him. There will be a proportion of that which is no doubt earmarked for FE and a proportion of that which ought to go to residential land-based colleges. What is the best use of any increment of money that might be available, briefly? (Briefer than the question.)

(Dr Bennett) I think to answer the question I posed. Does it make a discernable difference? Ask yourselves that question. If it does, and we have enjoyed very, very good success in the land-based sector through residential qualifications, then it will make a difference and anybody who can go to that will make a difference.

(Ms Norrington) Perhaps it is also important to add that many of the other forms of specialist colleges, particularly those with specialists for students with learning difficulties and/or disabilities, are also rural based. There the question is very pertinent because we are looking there at developing what is known as the extended curriculum or the 24-hour curriculum, where you are working the whole day and part of the evening with students in a real life situation which often has its focus on farming, horticulture, working with horses - and a whole range of other activities - which provide opportunities to move, in many cases, to genuine employment opportunities later on.

Mr Jack

129. Judging by the work that goes on at Myerscough, it is closely involved with local economic partnerships working to reshape the rural economy in that part of Lancashire. More generally, do you think that the colleges that we have been discussing so far do have and should have that wider role?

(Mr Lawrence) I am absolutely certain they should have. I agree, I think there are some of us who, because of the nature of our areas, have already been able to play a bigger role than others. I believe we should all be encouraged to do so. Clearly, our whole job is about giving a large proportion of our industry to students and a lot of these colleges were (mine is an example) set up at the end of the last War to do exactly that. We need to do it again and we need to be in that position. For me one of the most substantial opportunities is to blur the edges of what is, at the moment, business advice and what is training. For me one of the big opportunities is to develop more effective links between business advice and the training activity, where some of the individuals receiving the training actually do not necessarily realise it is what it is. In other words, you are giving them a development experience rather than necessarily any training.

130. In that context - it is a very interesting thing you said - what relationship should colleges therefore have with Regional Development Agencies as opposed to Learning and Skills Councils?

(Mr Lawrence) I think I can answer that by describing what we have done in the eastern region as an example. In the eastern region five colleges who are involved in this area of work have worked together in collaboration with the Regional Development Agency to address this particular issue. We have set up a hub in each county that is assisting in providing that advice and we have provided membership for individual farms. Some of us have then gone a step farther - and again we come back to this local and strategic rural agenda - and what we have done in Norfolk is an example of what one can achieve working with the county council, district councils, business links and the LSC as well as the Development Agency. We employ six advisers based at the college which I manage, we have helped over 240 farmers, we have pulled down nearly , 500,000 worth of Rural Enterprise Scheme Grant in Norfolk and created 33 jobs, pulled down , 141,000 worth of Redundant Farm Building Grants. So we can do really good things with this. The key issue, for me, with it is that we desperately need to push if we need the funding to have the time to do that work.

131. Who pays for the advisers that you mentioned?

(Mr Lawrence) It has been a combination. I have a reputation for not writing cheques out, so the college has not written out many cheques! It has done all the work, it has provided the resources for that to be based in, it has provided lecturers to assist with some of that work and the funding for most of it has been a grant from the Development Agency, farm business advisory service money that has been incorporated within this idea and contributions from all the district councils. The other advantage of this is we have been providing advice to the district councils themselves. One of the big hurdles, as we saw it, for farmers wishing to diversify their businesses was getting planning permission.

132. You describe quite a comprehensive and, indeed, complex series of relationships to deliver rural regeneration in the context of rural education. Coming back to where this Inquiry is coming from, do you feel that DEFRA has contributed anything to the development of the very interesting approach that you have described to me a few moments ago?

(Mr Lawrence) They have been engaged in it. Without their involvement through grant-aid type of activity you could not make much progress because you could give advice but you would not be able to help people.

133. You said grant-aid.

(Mr Lawrence) Rural Enterprise Scheme Grants, in particular, to the recipients. I am not sure that there has been a strong enough involvement in the development of what we have come up with.

134. They have not, themselves, taken any kind of strategic overview? If it has a strategy element you put it into the context of the RDA, and the RDA reports to the DTI and not to DEFRA.

(Mr Lawrence) In fairness to them, they have been having that discussion collectively. I am going to come at it from a not politically correct viewpoint probably and say I am interested in the practicalities of this. Where we have been most successful, all of the players, including DEFRA, having been sitting round the table and we have actually said A These are the issues@ . Admittedly they were not there at the beginning of that process because it came from a local base.

135. The reason I asked that question is because DEFRA are supposed to be responsible, together with the rural Tsar, in rural-proofing policies and rural-proofing does not just mean it is a nod and a wink, it means let us think about it. Do you notice much evidence in the area you have described of rural-proofing? Countryside Agency input? DEFRA input?

(Mr Lawrence) We have had some Countryside Agency input. We have involved them in the process, as we have DEFRA, but it has been, by design, a locally-owned process, working back upwards through to a regional process we have now put in place, rather than starting regionally and working the other way round.

136. Sometimes there is great value in that type of initiative not being dominated by some grand national plan. Would you prefer it that way rather than to have things being dropped on you?

(Mr Lawrence) Yes, I would. I think there needs to be an involvement - perhaps there needs to be a framework to which you are working. The one bit of the national plan that is desperately needed is if you are going to do this type of work - and you are right it has been exceptionally complex to set up, though it is not actually that complex to operate - there are lots of little bits of money from everywhere. There is a good advantage to that: everyone owns it and they are committed to making it work, which I think is right. The problem is that no one is giving long-term commitment in terms of funding and you need the money to enable that sort of dialogue to carry on. I believe the colleges, in particular, have got some strengths to bring to that. We are not actually directly interested in a large number of the bits of that jigsaw but we happen to be quite a neutral puller-together of all of it. I believe it has worked particularly well, and some of the evidence I have given shows some of the benefits we have. I am convinced personally that in the longer-term, using that advisory work and allying it closely to the education training provision we have will make a significant difference to the understanding and aspiration of our local industry. That is why it is so beneficial to have it all under one umbrella.

137. I think, Chairman, if I might say, it might be quite useful for Mr Lawrence to jot down this example. It is a very interesting model you have described to us. Whether it occurs elsewhere we do not know, but it might be interesting to see a little more detail.

(Mr Lawrence) I know it occurs in Cornwall, which has Objective 1 money and they do rather more than I can afford to do.

Mr Drew

138. Just to bring our remarks to a conclusion, we spent some time yesterday afternoon taking evidence on our own Inquiry looking at broadband in rural areas. How can further education colleges, not just in terms of broadband but in terms of the wider IT strategy, really begin to bring value into their communities, given that you will be one of the first sectors to be linked and you will have expertise that a lot of businesses would probably die for in terms of trying to get that conversance with IT. How can you develop the strategy?

(Dr Bennett) Again, it is not something that is going to happen too quickly. It is all about funding. It is about how much funding is going to go into it; it pre-supposes that people and businesses out there do want to come in and take advantage of it. At my particular college we have a branded subsidiary company that, by any other name, is a full-cost training arm. We engage with SMEs, larger employers in the town and the wider North Lincolnshire in in-company training, in-service training and so on. We use high-tech materials to facilitate that. That is fine, but it is whether we can keep engaging these companies and these people to actually send their managers in - we do a lot of manager training - to come and take access of that on our campus. Other than that, we are actually rolling it out into companies and taking it out into companies. So we are doing what we can but we have got to ensure that the demand is there, because to actually invest in IT infrastructure, as you will all be aware, is a black hole; it really is a huge amount of money to invest. If we have got the funding there we can invest in it, but the colleges at the moment need assistance to drive that particular agenda. One of the people that we work with, who is next door to me, is a telecoms company, and we work with them. They give us every assistance they possibly can to help our particular agenda along, but that is just one example of one college self-help, if you like, trying to move the IT agenda forward.

139. Do you get any help outside DFES for the installation or operation of IT?

(Ms Norrington) No. There have been various analyses over the time on the amount of equipment that colleges have and it is something that we have raised issues about - that there are, for example, laptops available for teachers in schools. We have not had comparable opportunities in further education. So the infrastructure and its cost is a real issue.

(Mr Lawrence) Going back to my previous answer, I think there is an opportunity for us to be involved in some of that work, for example, through the advisory service that we have been operating. If an individual business needed help with IT under our rural banner we can access business links support for that work, and I think it is important to have the right sort of letter-heading attached to some of this for some people to engage with it. Certainly I would love the opportunity. I am based in a rural area, I have broadband by microwave and I think it would be quite an interesting exercise to look at how I could spread that out to more local businesses. It is not in my remit, it is not in the funding that I have and there are all sorts of hurdles to doing that. Clearly, one of the issues for us from a rural perspective locally is we do not seem to have had the level of investment in infrastructure for a very long time.

Mr Mitchell

140. You mentioned in your evidence that there has been a 20 per cent under-funding of colleges for some time and you said that the consequences of this are difficulty in attracting staff and difficulty in retaining staff. Can I ask whether those consequences are worse in a rural area than in an urban area? Do rural colleges suffer from a particular disadvantage in staffing?

(Dr Bennett) I have absolutely no doubt about that. Having worked in both an urban college and one rural college and one semi-rural college at North Lindsey, I have absolutely no doubt about that. Can I give you an example from my institution? I advertised for a senior management post before Christmas. We did not appoint. I have advertised for an assistant director post recently, we have had two enquiries for packs for that particular post. I do not know what the problem is but we can all make assumptions based on peer evidence and all the rest of it, but the reality is, do people want to come into my part of the world where my institution is? Yes, the housing is okay because it is cheaper housing, but people coming in with families - professional people, lecturers, managers - they are looking at schools and, if they live outside the town, what it is like for access for spouse, etc etc. There is a whole raft of issues but without any shadow of a doubt I think being in rural areas we are disadvantaged in terms of getting good quality staff.

(Ms Norrington) I think the same is also true for posts that actually relate specifically to countryside activities.

(Mr Lawrence) I think the more specialist the job becomes the harder it becomes. So, for example, in my institution we have been trying to recruit a manager and it has taken six months to do, and we have never had more than one applicant following an advertisement. It almost goes back full circle to where we started our evidence: there are still significant skills shortages even in the mainstream areas and some of the rural industries, and we are finding it very hard to recruit into them. Certainly in terms of college salary levels, compared to what is paid in industry, we are very constrained.

Chairman: Thank you very much. I hope that you can send us those two items that we asked about - your project and about figures. Thank you again, it has been most useful.

Memorandum submitted by the Local Government Association

Examination of Witnesses

MRS CHERYLE BERRY, Chief Education Officer, Lincolnshire County Council; CLLR MRS SAXON SPENCE, Devon County Council and CLLR MR DON RULE, Herefordshire County Council, Local Government Association, examined

Chairman: Welcome and thank you again for coming from the Local Government Association. To you, too, can I express my apologies for the delay of this meeting. I understand, as a result of that, you, too, have a slightly different team that you have put out and Raymond Wilkinson is not with us today, as originally was going to happen on 18 March. As you appreciate, we had other issues on that day. We have Cllr Saxon Spence from Devon, Mrs Cheryle Berry, Chief Education Officer from Lincolnshire County Council and Cllr Don Rule. Thank you very much and we will start with Mr Mitchell.

Mr Mitchell

141. One of the big contributions that this Government has made is to produce more targets than any other government before or since. Some of them may not have been achieved. I just wonder whether, in your view, the targets for connecting all schools to broadband by 2006 is achievable?

(Mrs Berry) Yes, it is. I speak from experience because as we speak already all our 63 secondary schools are on broadband and over a quarter of our 289 primaries and our special schools, but we have taken a conscious decision as an LEA to do that, to use 21^st century technology to link our rural areas. Also, we have coastal deprivation, transient populations, where in fact broadband can be the key to a good education for children, for adults and to promote lifelong learning. So I would say, yes, it is achievable but it is not without its difficulties. Quite often the infrastructure, the lines, are not there when you want them, and to connect rural areas you have to use all your technology - satellite, wireless and so on - and for smaller schools can be very, very costly, but I do believe it is an achievable target.

142. Somebody from central Lincolnshire saying something favourable about a Labour government! You are speaking there from experience. Do you think throughout the country as a whole it will be achieved?

(Mrs Berry) I think it depends on the consortia that you have and the providers in the consortia. We are in the East Midlands broadband which includes another nine LEAs and we have found with our provider they are trying every possible solution they can think of to connect. I know colleagues share the frustration sometimes that they want things quicker than they can actually be delivered. I think there is variability across the country.

(Cllr Spence) We have got 103 primary schools connected but they are mainly the urban schools. We expect another 40 but it is the availability (and I am not an expert) of ADSL, and it is not going to be widely available in Devon and it is unavailable in some of our rural areas, so this strategy is not going to benefit our rural primary schools. We are not aware that DEFRA has made any contact with us over this issue and the issue of access to broadband is a very serious issue not just for schools but for the rural economy in parts of Devon. We have got great big moorlands and areas where it is difficult which we have certainly raised with the RDA as one of its economic drivers but any help that DEFRA can give to accelerate this will be very much appreciated.

143. Do you not think DEFRA is doing its share?

(Cllr Spence) As far as we are know, DEFRA is not doing anything.

(Mrs Berry) If I could comment about the economic regeneration, I think links with our Government Offices have been very important, and if you want an example of joined-up directorates the DFES has allowed the matched funding of the broadband within our National Grid for Learning to go against ERDF funding. We have a major project to pull down , 9 million into the county to link all our businesses. We have written it up as a case study because we think this is a bit of a breakthrough of matching up funding between the two. With DEFRA I have been asked to work with them on the Lifelong Learning agenda and I am very pleased to do that. I think DEFRA and the Government Offices have been trying to join up funding streams and work across your directorates.

144. Clearly I would have thought that ICT would make a bigger contribution and a bigger impact and be more beneficial in your areas than in other areas, therefore it is important to encourage it. What can government do to increase the growth and the use of ICT in rural schools?

(Mrs Berry) You may be interested to know that an unlikely resource came forward for our Rural Academy infrastructure from the Countryside Agency because we proved to them that we could have an impact on adult skills as well as children's learning. They provided , 50,000 to get the mobile video learning link set-ups between the schools and to help pump prime because it is the smallness, there will always be small schools in rural areas, their budgets are very tight, and you do not have the capital always to pump prime innovation and initiatives. I think the money is there and the willingness is there and the Countryside Agency did not hesitate when they said, A We think we have an idea that is on your agenda as well as ours.@

145. It is good to hear that. Do either of our other witnesses have a view on things the government should do to boost it?

(Cllr Rule) Most certainly we have. I would also like to express optimism. We have now connected up all of our high schools and 30 or so of our primary schools. Coming back to cost, typically the cost of connection in Hereford city has been about , 1,200, when moving up to rural areas it is , 4,200, and that is a big barrier.

(Cllr Spence) That is basically the problem, is it not, the smaller the community the fewer people benefiting and therefore you put your money where it is going to have most benefit. In fact, for schools and rural communities the benefit can be so much more. For instance, in primary schools there is a lot of interest in sharing resources. Video conferencing is an excellent way to share resources but if you are not on broadband, if you are on ISDN, it takes your whole system out and it is not very good, so that I think if you could advocate for the smaller communities in general, and the primary schools in particular, I think that would be extremely helpful to us because we are getting it in urban areas, that is where it is rolling out because the numbers are there.

Chairman: I must say I think you have shocked this Committee by talking about something that the Countryside Agency has done and that you are pleased about. It is not something that we often hear.

Mr Jack

146. I wanted to follow on Councillor Spence's very interesting observation. I was going to ask what the before and after effect was of broadband, and you have given us an example. People talk about it as if it is a piece of magic, broadband; yes, rural regeneration, fantastic, let= s have it. Give a few more examples of what the before and after effect has meant.

(Mrs Berry) We talked about targets before and accountability and children's and adults' achievement are terribly important and we have kept track of the improvement in our schools and in our adult learning so that we can show a progression. You are absolutely right, it is only a tool, but what it does do is connect up. You have heard this afternoon and we have listened to the evidence from the colleges, staffing is the real issue so we have used our advanced skills teachers via broadband and via video conferencing so the skills in one establishment can be used across. We have used native French speakers, both children and adults, to promote foreign language leaning, so you use your resourcing in a different way but it is absolutely a tool when you use it in this way. I believe there is hard evidence from other authorities that on-line learning can be very beneficial and laptops in the home is what we have advocated as well because you cannot always get adults into buildings.

(Cllr Rule) We are one of the first to have a rural Educational Action Zone and they work very hard to link up with schools in IT in the initial stages, and again it was very a ponderous but it did have big advantages. When they were connected up to broadband the interchange of knowledge between the schools was dramatically increased. That is the fundamental thing. It is, as you say, something wonderful which suddenly happens with this.

147. You tip-toed up to indicating the effect on rural communities in the wider sense. I do not want to trespass into the further inquiry this Committee is doing but would you say that in the context of broadband being put into schools and colleges that there is a knock-on effect economically in the communities where that facility is available, and are there any examples that you can say it went into the school, therefore, it was available to the community and that happened?

(Mrs Berry) Yes, from the Rural Academy again, one of our extended schools pilots has a business centre and from that business centre we have examples of where smaller businesses have benefited from the ICT skills in terms of their audit trailing, their book keeping, their more efficient ordering, their promoting, because you can market yourself very much better if you have got a web site than if you are a little company in a rural area. There are real examples of that where the business centre has helped others. We want to do more. We are eager to spread it out across the county but it will need funding.

(Cllr Rule) I am afraid I have the opposite situation in that local businesses have been very envious of the fact that schools have got it and the provider will not extend it to them.

Mr Borrow

148. I want to touch a bit on transport. I could see you sat at the back of the previous session so initially if we could concentrate on transport problems up to 16 and then look at the 16 to 19 issue separately. I want to look a little bit at the extent to which transport in rural areas does affect the provision of education and the way in which that is met by the existing funding formula SSA.

(Cllr Spence) I have in preparation for this got the current situation in Devon where we are transporting 14,000 secondary pupils, over 3,000 primary pupils, nearly 1,000 special school pupils, and 2,500 at FE colleges, and at the moment that is costing us just under , 20 million and we get as a sparsity element , 13.5 million so we have got a funding gap of , 6.3 million. The other problem, of course, which you will be very familiar with because you come from rural areas and you know, is that you may only have one transport contractor and what we are finding is when we tender for transport contracts prices are going up enormously. Like other authorities, Staffordshire for instance, we are going to look at whether we can run our own yellow buses and work with the social services but on the whole you are relying on the local transport contractors. One of the pilots that we have done is called Life in the Bus Lane and it is for the older children but we are trying to move children on to stage routes rather than school buses because the other problem when you are looking at the breadth of education if you are tied down to a school bus you have to go at a certain time and you have to leave at a certain time. I know when I had a brief period teaching in a rural school a great number of children disappeared before the end of the school day and they certainly do not get the benefit of homework clubs or out-of-school activities so it is not just the cost, it is the lack of flexibility. There is also a major problem - and I have to say that it would be good if DEFRA gave government some nudge because the legislation on school transport is totally out-of-date- in that if you are from a rural area and you know that under-eights can walk two miles, over-eights three miles safely, it is not facing up to modern life and I think most of us think there ought to be a flat rate payment for two miles or three miles and then free transport because you have this anomaly that if you live 3.1 miles away from your school you get free transport, if you live 2.9 you have to either get concessionary transport, which we try to provide, or provide your open transport. It is a very out-dated system and does not meet the realities of rural life, or urban life come to that.

Mr Borrow: I agree to the extent things have changed. I can remember my headmaster when I was at the grammar school who had come from County Durham recalling the days when it was an eight-mile walk to school and eight miles back.

Mr Drew: Those were the days!

Mr Borrow

149. In a way society has changed and again David Drew and myself were in Ethiopia before Christmas, talking to youngsters there who walk similar distances to school but, you are right, circumstances have changed and people do not expect their children to walk the sort of distances they did even 30 years ago. I think that is true. I was interested, Councillor Spence, in your budget figures. You mentioned that there was a shortfall between the sparsity element of the SSA and the cost of providing school transport. I want to be clear is the sparsity element of the SSA designed to meet the total cost of school transport or is school transport within urban areas also included in the general SSA?

(Cllr Spence) This is a long-standing problem that authorities with rural schools have had, that the cost of school transport falls on our central budget and it is one of the reasons why much of our funding in the centre has to go into school transport and we have to make up that deficit. Can I say we were very pleased that the DFES recognised sparsity as far as primary schools went this year but it does not recognise sparsity for secondary schools. Again, if you were able through your Committee to say that this does not seem to make sense, I think we would appreciate it.

150. Because presumably you have got this shortfall and that needs to be met through increases in council tax or through cuts in the schools budget or other county council services?

(Cllr Spence) Yes, we had an 18 per cent council tax rise but we did improve school budgets.

(Cllr Rule) There is another factor with sparsity. Sparsity means different things to different counties. In my county we have a sparsity factor of a very big county and a very small population but we have no extensive moorland and mountains so they are spread out in little mini pockets all over the county. There is a big difference between sparsity with large areas unoccupied of the authority and having these spreads all over the place. It make life much more complicated and in the provision of home/school transport often having to fall back on taxis because there is no other way.

(Mrs Berry) Could I make a comment about post-16.

151. I was going to move on to post-16 now. We would be interested in your perception of the changes since January and the extent to which you have been able to rise to the challenge.

(Mrs Berry) If we look at the 14 to 19 agenda working with our colleges and the LSC, Lincolnshire is probably one of the only LEAs that is paying for post-16 transport. We are consciously putting , 2 million extra into the budget every year for those young people because recruitment and retention is an issue. We did ask through our local LSC who made a case nationally that there should be a recognition that that is very much an entitlement for those young people. Their deprivation is as real as urban deprivation. We did wonder if there is an opportunity with the roll out of the Education Maintenance Allowance to build in a transport access weighting so that those young people in our rural areas would by rights have their transport because really it is a big burden on LEAs and LSCs to try and find that transport cost.

(Cllr Spence) You may be interested that Councillor Laine, who chairs our education executive, chaired a committee with the DFES on the Education Maintenance Allowance and the findings of that committee were that transport was one of the biggest barriers to going into post-16 education and we are seeing with sixth forms more people coming in. I think you need also to look at the tension because while they may enroll, if they are travelling an hour or two and their whole life is being taken up with studying and travelling, that can put young people off, as we know. So I think you need to talk to the LSC to look at what we are doing to retain young people and how far the cost and difficulty of transport is a factor.

152. Turning to the existing powers and responsibilities that LEAs have got as far as education transport is concerned, do you think that is effective or are there things that you think should be changed within those powers and responsibilities?

(Mrs Berry) I know that with delegation the bigger the percentage we passport through to schools there would probably be a case made to allow schools to arrange some of their own transport. I would be extremely worried because it is already a logistical nightmare trying to tie up procurement routes with different contractors. The prices keep going up and you are very much tied to a neighbouring school to deliver the children. I would like to make a plea though for alternative forms of transport. We have tried very hard with not just the walking buses but something we have called A park and stride@ which DEFRA could help with where you encourage cars to bring more than one child along, to use a parking area that may be just a little way from school and then you walk the children from there, hence the park and stride thing. Even the local public houses have been extremely good at allowing their car parks to be used during the day. We do not need to be fixated on buses. There are other ways that young children can safely come to school and DEFRA could help with that. They could build up some jobs and some networks of things for that.

Mr Drew

153. If we could move on to rural proofing. Why do you think Bath and South East Somerset are so dismissive of it? It basically says in their submission get rid of it.

(Cllr Rule) You have the upper hand on us.

154. I was interested, after all we get a number of sides.

(Cllr Spence) Could you give us the context?

155. Basically they thought this was a counter-productive educational agenda, that this is something that they felt took away their ability to decide on how they wanted to educate their children and was in a sense giving disproportionate help to those children in rural areas whereas they should be looking to help all their children regardless of where they were located.

(Cllr Spence) There is tension in a large authority that has large urban schools. 64 per cent of our primary schools come within the classification adopted by the DFES of under 200. We think it is quite comical to call those small schools; it is not what we call small schools, but undoubtedly because we do give a substantial sum of money so that all our schools over 14 children will have 2.2 staff, and because they have the same overheads they do get well funded and this has caused a lot of problems for schools. I am from Exeter where we have very large primary schools in Tavistock and so on and it is only this year we have been able to readdress the formula so that there was not this tension. because it does cause ---

156. Certainly I have had both teachers and councillors come to me saying it is all very well for the City of Gloucester to be banging on about rural areas and lack of funding going into village schools, but it comes at the cost of a much more deprived group of people. I think that is an argument that we in rural areas fail to really contend with because we tend to think because we have got small pockets of rural deprivation that that argument will eventually be understood by those in urban areas. I have to say my experience is not one of great success in trying to get that argument across.

(Mrs Berry) I think I would argue you have got to equally value the people in your areas and be mindful that you are trying to help as many as you can and that some strategies probably are weighted more one way than the other, but I think nationally that is increasingly what is happening. I believe that the different agencies - be they the LSC, be they Connexions, be they LEAs - are looking far more at the multiplicity of strategies and weighing up the balance that what is suitable for urban areas may or may not be suitable for rural. Your Education Action Zones, for instance, have become Excellence Clusters. We are very pleased that three of those will be started in Lincolnshire in September. Strategies can be adapted not at a cost to somebody else but similar to.

(Cllr Spence) I think you have to put effort into showing all your schools that you are funding fairly. On the F40 campaign, with which I am sure you are very familiar ---

157. Very.

(Cllr Spence) --- We have tremendous support from all our schools in Devon. The small schools recognise that large schools also have problems. We have done a lot of work which demonstrates that simply closing small schools saves you about 6p a head because you end up with extra transport costs. Whilst we would not keep a school open if it were not providing a good education, it is a bit simplistic to suggest in an area of scattered population that you save money when you then ask primary children particularly to travel long distances.

(Cllr Rule) This is a subject of discussion and consultation with our primary heads in particular when they have their heads conference as to exactly how we set out the formula. We tend to get an agreement eventually.

158. How much of a role has either DEFRA or the Countryside Agency got with regard to taking forward rural proofing in the education sphere? Has it got any role? Do they do anything? Do you think they should do something?

(Cllr Rule) It is more applicable in secondary education. Certainly I have seen no signs of intervention on primary schools and small schools. In the secondaries one of our problems is very small sixth forms and we are concerned with the LSEs about how can we support small sixth forms. As has already been explained, if you do not have sixth forms and you send people to sixth form colleges, with long travelling, the drop-out rate is tremendous. That is our experience anyway. I certainly would like to see DEFRA more involved in trying to encourage or manipulate the curriculum for our very small sixth forms.

(Mrs Berry) DEFRA play a very good role for us in looking at the Lifelong Learning agenda. We know it is an area they are pursuing and if we look at the other NTOs there is a real role there. We need these skills in agricultural areas, we need these land-based things. There are levels of strategy. It is most important that they play their part. I have already told you of the practical example of the Countryside Agency doing that. I think everybody nationally has been trying to find their niche. If I could just say to you it is very different when you have districts and counties. We have all got local strategic plans, we have all got learning partnerships and in trying to tie together national policies that have come out in different timescales and on the ground to really make a difference it is down to people and pulling it together but we most certainly need that national voice. We cannot influence at the levels that DEFRA and the Countryside Agency could do.

Mr Mitchell

159. To round off David's point about rural proofing, your own evidence is pretty tepid about it. It says the LGA A understands rural proofing as being seen as ...@ then you say later on in 3.12 that there is still a long way to go. Why do you not come out and say it is a load of codswallop? Is it?

(Mrs Berry) No, if we thought it was we would tell you that.

160. You are not just mouthing the correct political platitudes?

(Mrs Berry) Absolutely not. None of us is like that. We have come along because we want to make a difference for children, for adults, for the community. We are telling you as it is. A good old Lincolnshire saying.

Mr Drew

161. You tell him off. He does not know what is going on.

(Cllr Rule) A rose by any other name. What is so encouraging is this interest ---

Chairman: Mr Mitchell, do not walk away because you are being told off.

David Taylor

162. He has not been spoken to like that for years.

(Cllr Spence) One of the problems for an area like Devon where we get inward migration is that some of our countryside becomes dormitories where people in towns go off and live. We have got the Met Office relocating to Exeter and they are scattering all over Devon and they are going to commute in. If you want to have vital local communities you have got to use your schools and your local country schools with their computers and their parents' activities and all that goes on there, your libraries - I put in a word for the libraries - so that can encourage people to stay in the countryside whereas the tendency is for people on lower incomes would be to migrate into town and you are going to just be left with empty places filled with weekenders or commuters. I think you would lose a great deal there. I went over to the South Tyrol and it might be worth DEFRA looking at the policies they have got.

Chairman

163. We could go there.

(Cllr Spence) I recommend it, it is lovely. They have put lots of effort into retaining local communities so they do not want anyone commuting more than 20 kilometres and they are putting lots of effort into retaining people in their rural communities and I think that is where DEFRA can be useful. Can I put in a word for adult community learning which has not been mentioned because, for instance, in the Ilfracombe area we have flying laptops. The adult tutors take the laptops out to communities and just as our mobile libraries take them, we are hoping to get computer facilities into those. I think there is a lot we can do and if DEFRA can help us it would be much appreciated.

Chairman: Making the point that you did about schools being the centre of the community, Councillor Spence, we move on to schools as community resources.

David Taylor

164. Thank you, Chairman. Your submission does not include very much reference to this as far as I can see. That is not a criticism necessarily but the Rural White Paper did give great importance to using rural school facilities for the whole community - libraries, play schools, lunch clubs for pensioners, and so on. I come from a county that is at the very forefront of this, Leicestershire, which together with Cambridgeshire is well noted for community education and yet Leicestershire is the worst funded LEA in the land. Of the 150 LEAs we are there right at the very bottom. Of course in Herefordshire and Devon you are very generously funded, as I am sure you would agree - relative to Leicestershire you are. What more do you think could be done to enable you to deliver on the Government's vision in relation to community education because a lot of schools are village schools. I live right next to my own village school, ten yards away, and an excellent school it is. A lot of schools are reluctant to share their facilities with the community. Why are they so reluctant?

(Mrs Berry) I do not think it is a reluctance. I know it can vary from area to area but we have been positively encouraging our schools using the Education Act 2002 and extended schools benefits. We have talked to heads, talked to governors and bodies and already in some small way they tend to be doing that. They have a shared library, they have adult classes, they have family learning going on. Yes, it does need revenue and we have been saying to them, A How can we help you, how can we work with you to pull in that sustainable money?@ , not the one-off bidding that you tend to get raise people's expectations and then suddenly cannot deliver it the next year to keep going. We welcome the Government's initiative. Baroness Ashton came and did a national conference for us talking to schools and promoting this idea. We have got two or three pilots going. We are saying yes please, let's have more of this. We applaud Leicestershire and Cambridgeshire because you have done it for so long and we are running to catch up. We are not that well off but we are trying to deliver.

165. Nor is Leicestershire. Some of the very best of community schools, two that I visited very recently I know well at Long Whatton and Breedon on the Hill, are in quite small communities I would guess less than 1,000 in both cases, and are still able to provide first-rate facilities.

(Mrs Berry) That is because the resources are there, the investment is so important.

166. Is it just a matter of throwing money at it? Is that what you are saying? What do your LEA do to positively encourage village schools to share their largesse with the wider community? I am sure you write pleading letters and you exult them to but there is more to it than the money.

(Mrs Berry) We talk to them and do something about it. With adult and community learning we put the tutors in. Part of the problem usually is who is going to teach them and who is going to be there for safety of the campus and so on. We put money where our mouth is and go in there and work alongside schools, not just entreat them to do so. I am admitting we have got a long way to go with some of that but what grieves us sometimes is that for the things the schools have - the ICT suites, the sport halls - if you do not give the wherewithal with revenue then they are trapped and in the evenings and weekends they are not used as much as they could be.

(Cllr Rule) There is a question of practicality as well. I have got one very small school which is absolutely wonderful on the Welsh border. It has 30 pupils and it does a wonderful job for community learning - high school children round about use it as a homework centre, the locals come in and do IT training and so forth. But there are others where it is just not practical for the school, it is not fit for adults. One of the things that I know is happening elsewhere within Herefordshire is that some of our schools were built in the 1700s and 1800s when a wealthy land owner said, A Have this piece of land and build a school on it@ , so they did but it was about three miles outside the village and it is still three miles outside the village, and trying to use that as a community facility is impossible. Similarly, there is a major capital investment needed in some to make them suitable for this sort of work. We are encouraging it most certainly and our schools really do like to get long with it. The more they get the community involved or the more they help the community, the more the community gets involved in the school itself.

167. You are using some of this sparsity lolly that we in Leicestershire do not get in the interests of community education in schools?

(Cllr Rule) Most certainly.

168. More specifically and finally, what do you believe DEFRA should be doing in this to encourage an environment in which it is the norm for the village school to be used in ways which we would all agree are very well worthwhile to the local communities?

(Cllr Spence) Certainly, as you can imagine, a county like Devon has had a lot of involvement with DEFRA in particular. The person who is coming to our next session Alan Michael will give you the details because we were extremely badly hit by foot-and-mouth disease and we had a recovery plan. I think if they can encourage - and you are talking about low expectations - the great need to diversify and the importance of the cultural industries in providing employment and life in rural areas, I think that is extremely important. I think it is enriching life, giving people more opportunities and that does begin with the school and that can be the starting point. So, yes, it is extremely important. One group that you might like to think about who are quite crucial to the operation and the use of our schools is the governors. They are very important people in rural communities. Parishes often fight like cats to get a governor on and their view of how their school should be used is going to be very important. The other concern that we have got is with leadership because it is not so easy now to find well-qualified heads and there is a problem if your head is not outward looking, and perhaps DEFRA might like to take an interest in the programmes we are running to encourage people to take leadership roles in small schools.

David Taylor: You may be interested to hear that I was a parish councillor and a school governor in two schools so I get 10 Brownie points for that.

Mr Drew

169. As a fellow town councillor, I would endorse that.

(Cllr Rule) Could I add where I think they could help is to try and develop better employment. We have got a ridiculous situation in Herefordshire where we have got almost 100 per cent employment. Unfortunately, we have also, alongside that, the second lowest level of wages in the whole of the country. The consequence of that, as far as education is concerned, is 16-year-olds say, A I may as well leave school now because the job I get now will be exactly the same one I get when I get my GCSEs.@ The great shame about that is that the county education services are producing very well-qualified students. We are well above the national average in A-levels and GCSEs right across the board. The disappointment in that is there is nothing more for youngsters who go on and do them. DEFRA ought to get to grips with it and appreciate that situation. It is so annoying to talk to a young person and they say, A Why bother to go on? I can go and get that job and by the time I would have got it if I had stayed on at school I will have two years' increments of pay as well.@ We are very disappointed.

David Taylor: I was interested to hear that final point. I accept of course what you say in relation to your own area but it just does not square with my own experience with a mixed urban/rural seat where the educational performance, the stay on rate, the participation in higher education are all distinctly higher amongst the young people in the rural parts of the constituency than they are in the urban parts. I do not say that to criticise what you said; it just does not square with my own experience.

Mr Drew

170. I will not enter into that debate but I do think there is an issue which I want to raise through what you have been saying - and I was not in the first Committee hearing but it has not quite come up in this one yet - and that is the tension within rural schools.  I do not deny what David was saying but there is a tension in rural schools between those I would call the innate group of people very often who come from parents who work on the land who may subsequently have left the land but who have not got the same self-esteem as those incomers into the village. It has been put to me on more than one occasion by heads that when the incoming parents see the results and they are not quite as wonderful in terms of targets and all these various reference points that we all know and love, that people are somewhat taken aback that the schools their children have gone to are not in the top bracket of every possible target imaginable. Do you see that as something of a problem in some of your schools? I am not saying it is general, I am not saying it is widespread, but it is certainly true in some of my villages that that tension is quite difficult to manage because of the different expectations.

(Mrs Berry) I think I would agree with you because lots of the areas are still growing. You might tend to think of the countryside as an area where it is not but people are consciously moving to live in those villages even if they work elsewhere and what we have found is low self-esteem and aspirations of the existing families sometimes, and that is where you have to consciously work with the school. We have done it through family learning programmes, working with universities, working with the colleges. In many ways if you harness the help of people coming into the village in terms of leadership, as we have said, in mentoring, in being school governors, it is this feeling of belonging because it can work both ways and people can come into a village and feel not part of it for a long while.

Mr Mitchell: Like Linda Snell in The Archers.

Chairman

171. You know nothing about rural areas. David finally, we are going to move on to funding.

(Cllr Rule) You are absolutely right, it is a problem. One of the other problems we have had is if very high-performing village schools are within three or four miles of the town they are all piling into there and it gives us a great problem.

(Cllr Spence) We actually would think it very helpful if DEFRA could do some work. They say we have got to keep rural schools but they need to be looking at the fluctuations and trends in the local village school populations. We have got enormous fluctuations and parental preference does mean sometimes that if schools are seen as not providing the best, parents will move children and that is very destabilising. We are not aware they have done any work. They say they want rural schools but we do need to look at numbers because we have duties to not have surplus places and so on.

(Mrs Berry) I think there is a chance there for DEFRA to promote the federation of schools. We have been making pleas to DFES to say in a federation of schools could you not have a composite target because you are going to have fluctuations in population and achievement no matter what the value added is. At the moment the answer appears to be no and we would say could there not be some flexibility here around the definition of A federation@ and if the LSC can do strategic reviews and look at an area, why could you not have a federation that delivered a target? I think that would get you over saying this school is better than that school and parents moving children around. It is a collective responsibility.

Chairman: We are finally going to come to funding which I know you will all be thrilled about.

Mr Borrow

172. We have talked about funding and SSAs and transport and various issues. I do want to be quite specific in that the Small Schools Grant is to be merged with the Teaching Assistants Grant from this year and frozen in cash terms. I just wondered if you have general comments on how that is likely to affect schools?

(Cllr Rule) It is a big disappointment. One of the main things about funding of small schools, of course, is that in rural areas it is very much perceived that this is the only public spending that is made in rural areas. We are all disappointed that that is not going to be continued because it has been of very great value. I suppose we are getting used to the grants situation which is there one day and gone the next and we hopefully adapt to it, but this is going to be particularly difficult.

173. So you say it is going but in cash terms it is a merger of existing grants?

(Mrs Berry) It is this lack of flexibility again. Many of us are really worried, Mr Taylor used the phrase about throwing money at something.

David Taylor

174. I was being provocative.

(Mrs Berry) You cannot always use the money to recruit and in many of our small rural schools to meet the workforce development criteria is a huge worry. We have not got very long in which to deliver it and there is a huge expectation not just from the teaching associations but from the whole of the teaching profession that we are going to be able to deliver it. Most LEAs would reflect that worry of having to do it in a difficult recruitment scenario at the best of times.

(Cllr Rule) Head teachers are worried too, as you know.

Mr Borrow

175. There are issues around funding rural education and that is part of the general work of the Committee, but there are specific issues around very small rural schools which are not in most areas the generality of rural schools, which are perhaps very small and ones which were almost closed three years ago, so there are specific issues. To what extent do you think the Government in its funding mechanisms is reflecting or recognising the specific needs of the very small rural schools as against rural schools?

(Mrs Berry) I do not think there is enough. The moment you start using funding formulae that have got to be consistent across the whole county, and there is only a limited number of factors that can be variables within that, I think we have lost the strategic wherewithal to actually help individual schools as they fluctuate. The formula was fine when it was first introduced, now it has taken away that ability to be flexible. As you know within your area, you put more money in and some schools have finished up with far more than they need through the same factor and you cannot move it around.

(Cllr Spence) The central funding over which we have any flexibility is more and more limited, and more and more funding is devolved to schools. Ironically, for instance, most of our special needs funding is devolved to schools and schools then say why can you not help us with particular problems?

176. Just to continue on that point, I have certainly recognised that there has been some questioning about the advantages and disadvantages of devolving budgets to schools. I can remember when I first came in as a chairman of the governing body on a primary school that this was seen as wonderful, but there was always a downside to it that you were on your own and that when things happened you had to cope with it as a school, and that is obviously more difficult for a very small school. I have certainly detected mixed feelings as to whether or not it may have been better in the old days when at least you had the LEA there to pick up and deal with these fluctuations and you always knew you would have the teachers' wages being paid and the building would be repaired and books and equipment would be delivered, and whether you had got ten children that year or 20 children it did not make a lot of difference, the bits and pieces you needed to do the education and staff would be there.

(Mrs Berry) It is economies of scale. I think devolved capital has been a very positive way of looking at some of this in that you can bring forward two or three years' devolved capital to do something. I am not against devolution. As an ex-head teacher I welcome that flexibility, but I think it has maybe gone too far in that we have left nothing to be responsive to the small schools that suddenly find an influx of young people whether it is on the coast or, as Councillor Spence said, in her area where you have suddenly got people coming in. It can be difficult.

(Cllr Rule) At the other end of the scale in terms of the funding we find it difficult, and really the policy on funding is unsettling. We think that blanket protection of village schools seriously inhibits strategic planning. I have one example myself where we put up a school last year for closure. Unfortunately, there was one objection on the organisation committee, it went to the adjudicator and he said we have got to protect the rural schools. The school now has 22 pupils and it is losing six in September and has not got a single new applicant at the moment and I think we ought to have a bit more freedom in planning.

(Cllr Spence) Could I stress the importance for the small schools of central procurement. A large secondary school can be very attractive to a commercial caterer whereas we feel our school meals service is absolutely vital to our small schools through central procurement. It does take tremendous burdens away. Competition is fine, the large schools get very good bargains but it make it more expensive to provide services to small schools and they need them just as much. It might be worth remembering that.

Mr Jack

177. I wanted to ask a question about the balance that has to be struck between urban and rural small schools because you might believe that the only place where small schools exist is in rural communities. Given that you have a pot for small schools, what criteria do you use to determine where the money goes?

(Mrs Berry) On this one we understand that there can be small urban schools. Frankly, within our own county that is not the case. Our small schools are rural schools and the strange thing for us is that according to the Audit Commission reference to 600 for a secondary and 200 for a primary, 80 per cent of our schools fall into that category anyway. We have very few large schools so our criteria really is not in the way you have just said.

178. But in the context of some areas where clearly they might have small rural outposts they might also have small schools within the urban setting. The message I get from you is that if you get a Small Schools Grant it goes into the general pot. Is that right?

(Mrs Berry) Yes.

179. So obviously if you got the majority of schools below or at the 200 limit then they are going to be beneficiaries of the funding. Councillor Spence, you look as though you want to leap in.

(Cllr Spence) We would not make a distinction because it would be done on the number of pupils a school had, so would you a small urban school within a market town as a small school? It depends what you mean by A urban@ . Other than Exeter the next largest place has 30,000 people so we are not talking about large conurbations.

180. You touched earlier in your evidence on the subject of special needs but both with children with special needs who might have a statement and indeed children who have severe learning difficulties, both of those categories of children are resource intensive if you are going to a) fulfil the demands of the statement and b) provide the specialist training they need if they have severe learning difficulties. What are the policies employed in rural schools to deal with those two situations?

(Cllr Spence) I think it is fair to say it is one of my responsibilities in a rural county for individual needs, we believe in inclusion, and children often are very happily included in a small school and the difficulties then arise when they have to go to one of our large secondary community colleges. We do obviously try to give support with our support teams on hearing disability and visual disability but we are just closing some of our assessment classes where people have been travelling into six centres because we do not feel that is the best use of money. That is a real conundrum because you either have to have centres where you bring children in or you try and support them within their school. We have got some real problems and nobody would pretend we have got all the answers. Behavioural difficulties and autism is a growing problem and because children are isolated you have not got the numbers to easily give the support so, yes, there are some real problems but, for instance, we have got a wonderful partnership with Vranch House which deals particularly with cerebral palsy and they do all the assessments for physical disability in our county.

181. What organisation?

(Cllr Spence) Vranch House. It is a primary school. When I was there the other day there were eight children having intensive physiotherapy coming to this school for two days and going to their school in Bideford and Tavistock for the other three days. We need to develop more work like that. It is a problem because you are tending to have to move children long distances to meet their needs. I have no magic answers to that one.

Chairman

182. You made various suggestions to us about the role that DEFRA could play in assisting rural education delivery. I wonder if you have got any views about the Countryside Agency and do you have any examples of any involvement that the Countryside Agency has had in assisting the delivery of education in rural areas. You might look at me and say no but ---

(Cllr Rule) We have had one example. They have been quite heavily involved in our programme of trying to find safe routes to schools. They have become quite heavily involved in that because it has involved footpaths and all the rest of the things that they seem to be terribly interested in. That is the only area I can think of. They have been interested in a lot of other council work but in education that is the only one.

(Mrs Berry) Ours was working with the Rural Academy, not just funding the infrastructure but coming to some of the steering group meetings. We want to progress that on and they are helping us into the future, I believe, with some curriculum development so there is some exploration of the role.

183. Do you believe that it should have a role? Should it be bigger than the role it has presently?

(Mrs Berry) I thinks a number of agencies, including the Countryside Agency, could get a lot more involved in curriculum development, progression routes through, raising aspirations, as we said. We need to harness expertise and acknowledge that expertise within those bodies.

(Cllr Rule) Assessing skills needs as well.

(Cllr Spence) We are proliferating partnerships at the moment. We have a meeting tomorrow of our children and young people's partnership. I do think if we could look at learning partnerships, we have got our local strategic partnerships, we have got children, there are so many initiatives and yet nobody has said anything about early years. I have to say that one of the biggest, most wonderful developments is that by this April in my county we are going to be able to meet the commitment to five half days of nursery education for three-year-olds. That is a real challenge in the rural areas. If DEFRA is looking at engaging parents in employment, in training, getting the childcare in the early years is extraordinarily important and it would be good to see them supporting it because it is quite taxing, I think, in every sense of the word, to meet those needs, but it does again give the village schools wonderful opportunities for the extended school initiative, and again DEFRA might like to be having some input and ideas as to how our local schools can develop their role in the community, and childcare and early years is one of them.

(Cllr Rule) I would add Sure Start into that.

(Cllr Spence) Sure Start is brilliant and we have got good rural Sure Starts.

Mr Mitchell

184. Just one question because I have been made to feel like an urban sophisticate amongst rural bumpkins particularly because the Chairman has whispered a suggestion that I should stick to fishing. You emphasise the advantages of collaboration between clusters. Ideally should that not extend across local authority boundaries because they are very artificial, particularly where they separate urban areas from rural areas where they can be mutual beneficiaries?

(Mrs Berry) That is desperately important and in many ways we are already linked. We have consortia for broadband in most of the large tranches of LEAs. We also have an affinity with each other so we find across borders we try to share good practice and developments. The LGA has been enormously helpful with commitments, as we say in our submission, to sharing on the priorities, sharing on practical solutions. I think the sharing has been extremely good over the years.

(Cllr Rule) In Herefordshire we have to do that with another country!

(Cllr Spence) The LGA would be extremely happy to develop some of these ideas with DEFRA because we do represent all types of authorities, and so I hope we can maintain that.

Chairman: Thank you very much, it has been most interesting. If you have got anything that later you think maybe we would like to know about, please send that to us and we would be very happy to have it.