Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-51)
MR IVAN
LEWIS, MP
3 DECEMBER 2003
Q40 Chairman: But Paul Holmes is right,
is he not? I do not think the Association of Colleges Conference
actually was last week, if I may say so.
Mr Lewis: It was several weeks
ago.
Q41 Chairman: But when I recently addressed
the chairs of the Learning and Skills Councils from up and down
the country, all 47 of them, the one thing on which they were
absolutely unanimous was the lack of flexibility in their funding
to respond to local needs. So much of this budget is dominated
by what you tell them to do and what the Treasury allow them to
do. The flexibility which many of us thought Learning and Skills
Councils would have to respond to local needs and local skills
and employer demand is not there. What are you doing about that?
Mr Lewis: First of all, we are
currently consulting on an appropriate funding regime for the
future of post-16 education. Also, as I say, in terms of the new
chief executive, he is making significant changes to the structure
of the Learning and Skills Council.
Q42 Chairman: What are you saying to
him? Are you recognising that need, that there is a lack of flexibility
at local level?
Mr Lewis: We are saying, in the
context of the skills strategy, that region by region we are getting
the RDAs, the local LSCs, Jobcentre Plus, Business Link to get
together and look at skills in its entirety, look at the spend,
look at the policy, look at the regional and sub-regional community
need, and making sure that we have best value for money and maximum
flexibility. Also, Chairman, I do not apologise for saying that
we believe there are certain national priorities, wherever you
live, in any part of the country, to which you should have access
as an entitlement, and I include in those categories basic skills,
the level 2 commitment. I also believe—although this is
for another time, no doubt, Chairman—that we have a very
good-news story to tell, a growing good-news story—it has
a long way to go on, for example, modern apprenticeships and giving
far more young people the opportunity to access modern apprenticeships.
Chairman: We will be meeting you specifically
on modern apprenticeships. David?
Q43 Mr Chaytor: Thank you, Chairman.
Minister, returning to the level 2 entitlement, do we know how
many adults currently do not have a level 2 qualification?
Mr Lewis: I think it is about
7 million adults.[9]
Q44 Mr Chaytor: What will be the cost
of implementing the level 2 entitlement?
Mr Lewis: I cannot give you a
cost here and now.
Q45 Mr Chaytor: Is it assumed that this
will be new money or will it be entirely redistributed from elsewhere
in the current schools budget?
Mr Lewis: It will be a combination
of the outcome of the spending review and also redistribution
of existing resources. It will be a combination of those.
Q46 Mr Chaytor: Much of the work involved
in fulfilling the level 2 entitlement will be delivered by private
training providers. Do we have any idea how many private training
providers we have currently in the UK?
Mr Lewis: I think we have about
1,100, though I am not absolutely certain. I know the LSC has,
through its contracting processes, removed a number of providers
who have simply not been up to scratch and have not been providing
the appropriate quality.
Q47 Mr Chaytor: This was my next point.
Without rehearsing the ILA arguments, one of the difficulties
in the ILA affair was the lack of rigour in monitoring quality
of private training providers. In the year 1999-2000, just over
three years ago, the Trading Standards Council's inspection of
work-based learning providers suggested that 60% were providing
unsatisfactory service. Earlier this year, the Chief Inspector
of Adult Learning's report suggested the figure is now 80% providing
unsatisfactory service. What is being done by the Department to
ensure higher quality standards in the provision of work-based
learning?
Mr Lewis: I think there are a
number of things being done. First of all, as I say, with some
providers the LSC is no longer contracting, because, despite attempts
to help them improve, that has not proved to have made any difference
at all. We are also obviously focusing on improving the quality
of the staff who are working for those training providers by offering
standards fund support, which had not been available previously,
to training providers. We are also looking at reforming key skills,
for example—which has proved to be an issue in terms of
modern apprenticeship retention. So it is a combination of using
the contracting process and also working with people who we believe
have the potential to be much better, by offering them focused
and targeted development funding support for their staff. Also,
of course, they will be subject to the same kind of regime as
colleges in terms of performance rewards: if their performance
improves, then they will benefit financially as a consequence
of that. [10]
Q48 Mr Chaytor: We are in the process
of setting up dozens of Sector Skills Councils; we have 47 Local
Learning Skills Councils; we have a Regional Development Agency;
and 12 months from now, with a little luck, we will have regional
assemblies, so directly elected regional government in three regions.
Is that a sane, rational and streamlined system of delivery for
adult skills?
Mr Lewis: We had a choice in the
development of the Skills White Paper. One was to rip all these
organisations up and start again and spend the next three years
on radical organisational restructure and the other was to make
far more coherent sense of how those organisations fit together.
Q49 Mr Chaytor: Is this the White Paper
that argued for the creation of Sector Skills Councils?
Mr Lewis: No. With all due respect,
the Sector Skills Councils were already policy. The debate was
how quickly they were rolling out. They were replacing the National
Trading Organisations, of which there used to be 75 or 80 and
there are only going to be 23 Sector Skills Councils. At a national
level, we have streamlined the NTOs in terms of the SSC replacement.
We also believe they will be far more effective employer-led organisations.
At a regional level we have brought together the RDAs, the LSCs,
Jobcentre Plus and Business Link. Also, at a national level, for
the first time we have all of the delivery partners who are responsible
for making skills work in this country sitting round the same
table on a regular basis and working to a common agenda, that
common agenda being to maximise our capacity together to stimulate
demand both in terms of learners and employers. I believe that
the choice I had to make, we had to make, was radical organisational
upheaval, or making the architecture and the wiring invisible,
for the people who depend on this system for work; that is, the
customer, the individual learning or the employer. I believe we
put in place a framework which has the capacity to do that, as
well as the bureaucracy busting that we have done in terms of
Sweeney and now Andrew Foster. But the proof of the pudding will
be in the eating, and it will have to be regarded by those who
want to access training as a far more simple system than has been
the case in the past, and a more effective system. I can give
you one anecdote: the first delivery group meeting nationally
finished at 7 o'clock and people were still there at nearly 10
o'clock at night because they were so enthused about being in
the same room talking about the same agenda for the first time.
That is just one example of how we can achieve change.
Q50 Mr Chaytor: As we move forward in
the future, do you think that the responsibility for skills training
should lie with regional government?
Mr Lewis: I think the Government
is currently debating the parameters of directly elected regional
assemblies should individual regions go for a yes vote. That is
one of the issues which will inevitably have to be decided; that
is, the accountability of the RDAs and local Learning and Skills
Councils. I suspect that decision will be made at a higher level
of government than mine, but I would be happy to engage in the
debate as it evolves.
Q51 Chairman: Minister, that is a very
good session. Thank you very much for that. We will be seeing
you again soon. When you get that magic ingredient, getting all
those people at that meeting from 7 o'clock until 10 o'clock,
you can impart that into Sanctuary House.
Mr Lewis: Absolutely. Midnight
in Sanctuary House!
Chairman: Thank you for your attendance.
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