Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1140
- 1159)
MONDAY 17 MAY 2004
MR BRYAN
SANDERSON AND
MR MARK
HAYSOM
Q1140 Mr Turner: I have absolutely
no idea whether it is bite-size. It depends on the size of the
bite, I suppose.
Mr Sanderson: I do not know anything
about this one, but what they usually are—and these sorts
of questions are more normally in the Daily Mail—it
is to do with the things just to attract people back into learning.
We will use almost any mechanism to get an illiterate, innumerate
adult to turn up at some learning centre of some sort and then
say, "If only you could add up a bit better, you would be
able to do this, that or the other." I do not know what this
one is. It sounds very odd.
Q1141 Mr Turner: It does sound very
odd, but you are quite right; that is the reason that was given
for it. What level of expenditure do you have on these kinds of
entrapment schemes?
Mr Haysom: I am fascinated by
the way you characterise that.
Q1142 Mr Turner: I was using Bryan's
words; he said "trap people back into learning."
Mr Haysom: I think he said "attract."
What we are trying do—and as Bryan demonstrated very successfully
up front by just reminding the Committee of some of the successes—we
are trying to get people back into learning. We are trying whatever
it takes to get them back into learning. That occasionally means
that we are going to run into that kind of glib, Daily Mail-type
headline, which then tries to dismiss an awful lot of really good
stuff that is happening. I think that is unfortunate. We will
come back to you with a specific answer as to how much we spend
on that kind of training.
Chairman: Obviously not enough.
Q1143 Mr Turner: The example is glib,
but you are quite right. "The project aims to widen participation
by engaging with a large number of people who get involved with
running or participating in a huge number of events, from schools
and community fêtes up to festivals that take place every
year." I am quoting from the LSC's Chief Executive. What
this seems to do is be creating a qualification for people who
are already engaged in learning, because they are doing it themselves.
In other words, it is coming to the people who are already willing
to learn and what is more, have demonstrated the capacity to learn
for themselves, to find out how to do things.
Mr Haysom: You have the advantage
of me. I do not have that particular detail in front of me. If
it is a bite-size, it is not a qualification. It is a project.
It is almost like a marketing technique to attract people.
Mr Sanderson: I will give you
another example. We had one in Ikea. We put stands in the car
park and said, "Come and learn about . . ." There were
two or three offers. Environment was one. There were people in
yellow shirts with "Bite-size" on and they offered little
courses, just for an hour or two, to people going there on environmental
issues and various other things. It is just to attract them in.
These were people who will not go into a Victorian building to
learn about anything, basically. That is what we are targeting.
Just to give you some numbers, "A six-week campaign in 2002",
it says here, "resulted in more than 52,000 people attending
a course. 25% went on to continue education." So one in four
of them did go on to something which hopefully led to an accreditation.
Q1144 Mr Turner: You see, the scepticism
is that this is not producing sustainable jobs, and what it is
producing is a lot of activity but not sustainable jobs. The reason
I asked is because—again, to quote—"This particular
workshop has been recognised nationally as a model of good practice,
since the tutor has been home-grown"—which means grown
on the Isle of Wight—"He started life as a carnival
supporter, then through European social funded programmes he developed
his skills in carnival and circus activities and progressed to
becoming a self-employed tutor after completing a Foundation Carnival
skills qualification." Would you believe it? I am not surprised
the Daily Mail finds it interesting. What does a Foundation
Carnival Skills qualification offer to the economy?
Mr Sanderson: It is possible to
trivialise quite a few things. You could pick almost any sport.
The hotels and leisure industry, to give it its title, is one
of the most important contributors to the British economy, and
this is part of it.
Chairman: I think this is getting into
sensitive territory, as someone who has a son who is an actor.
Andrew, are we going to carry on with circuses or are you going
to broaden this?
Mr Turner: I was going to broaden it.
Just to say that these words were not mine; these are the words
of officials either of the Learning and Skills Council or of the
Isle of Wight Council.
Chairman: We are struggling, Andrew.
Some of us listening to this are applauding it, saying this is
the LSCs showing some imagination to draw people into learning.
We are not sure where you are coming from. As Chair, what is the
general point you are making? Is this all a waste of time or not?
Q1145 Mr Turner: I have no idea whether
it is a waste of time, but as well, somebody came to me this morning
to complain that he could not train aircraft technicians in the
Isle of Wight. We actually produce aeroplanes that make money,
whereas walking on stilts does not produce a lot of money.
Mr Sanderson: Which area is this?
The Isle of Wight?
Q1146 Mr Turner: Yes. Britten-Norman,
GKN. Why is it that money appears to be going into this area but
not into genuine skills that make money?
Mr Haysom: Perhaps I can try and
rescue this and make it into a sensible discussion. In the example
that you have quoted—and Bryan is right; it is always possible
to find these trivial examples—what we are trying to do
is attract people back into learning. We are trying to overcome
this huge skills deficit that we have, this huge education deficit
that we have, with people who cannot even read and write, and
we are trying to work from that base. What we are trying to do
at the same time, however, and I tried to describe this earlier,
is to work more and more with employers in an area to find the
solutions to their issues. If you are telling me that there is
significant demand in the Isle of Wight for the kind of training
that you are talking about, then we will obviously look at that.
That is exactly what we should be doing. So please feed that information
to me and we will look at it.
Mr Sanderson: I was not surprised.
I have been to a workplace learning scheme on the Isle of Wight.
Q1147 Mr Turner: You will understand
why people feel cynical about the way the money is spent.
Mr Sanderson: I think that is
a gross misrepresentation.
Mr Turner: You have not spoken to my
constituents then.
Q1148 Mr Pollard: My LSC in Hertfordshire
is well led by Roy Bain, and he is also working well within the
new regional structure, and we are pleased about that. He is also
lean and fit. They have down-sized quite a bit and are out there,
up and at them, and I have watched that very carefully.
Mr Sanderson: One of the good
guys you could have mentioned.
Q1149 Mr Pollard: I was disappointed
when he was not mentioned because I am having lunch with him next
week and I was going to say "You were not mentioned."
But I will tell him that he was now. You did say earlier on, Bryan,
that some were serving each other, passing bits of paper backwards
and forwards, and they were not out there doing what was required.
Is that general?
Mr Sanderson: That is just me,
as a private sector businessman, passing a general comment on
the Civil Service.
Q1150 Mr Pollard: Are you trying
to bring in the private sector aspects where people are not passing
bits of paper backwards and forwards?
Mr Sanderson: That is why we were
set up, or one of the reasons, and I think we are well on the
way to doing it.
Mr Haysom: What we are trying
to do, Kerry, as you may know, is we are trying to have a different
kind of way of working right the way through the organisation,
and I think one of the things that have happened despite the best
efforts of Bryan and others was that it had become overly bureaucratic
as an organisation, because that is what people from the public
sector unfortunately tend to do. One of the reasons that I was
brought in rather than someone from the public sector was to make
sure that we tackled that as an issue. I have to say there is
a fantastic will within the organisation. If you talk to the people
right in the front line to say "How can we change these processes?
How can we make things simpler?" there is a fantastic ambition
for that, and we are working very hard on that.
Q1151 Mr Pollard: The Chairman mentioned
earlier SMEs, and I have a particular interest in SMEs.
Mr Sanderson: It is one of the
best counties in the country for SMEs.
Q1152 Mr Pollard: Absolutely. The
"M" bit of the SME was okay. It was the "S"
bit that you had trouble with. Are you in contact with the Federation
of Small Business and the Forum of Private Business? They are
the sort of people that represent a third of a million businesses
and they are the ones who can give you chapter and verse about
the skills that you were talking about. They tell us all the time
that it is the literacy and numeracy and IT and communication.
Mr Sanderson: Yes. We have Digby
Jones on our national council of course.
Q1153 Mr Pollard: Finally, we were
dealing with ILAs some time ago, and one of the successors of
the ILA was work-based learning, and it just seemed to me that
perhaps that was another avenue that you might well plumb to link
into this participative inclusiveness that you talk about.
Mr Sanderson: They do, because
they get through to people that it is very hard for anybody else
to reach.
Mr Haysom: Particularly on the
basic skills, and we work very hard with them.
Q1154 Chairman: I want to go back
to Andrew for a moment, in the sense that he used an unusual way
into the questioning but I think for the record we ought to look
at the scope of courses provided and financed by the Learning
and Skills Council on the Isle of Wight so that we can see the
breadth of it.
Mr Sanderson: I apologise that
I was not serious enough, but the two examples you are quoting
are in completely different areas. That is the point really. The
bite-size learning is an hour or two, and it is a bit of gimmick
to attract people into learning and then to lure them on to other
things, and it involves a very small expenditure. The other thing
you are talking about, of course, is the mainline centre of vocational
excellence course which leads to accreditation. They are orders
of magnitude different.
Q1155 Mr Turner: I accept that it
was a trivial example, but you talk in critical terms of the Daily
Mail. A lot of people read the Daily Mail and they
believe what it says, and it would appear to me that, rather than
simply be critical, you need to concentrate more on explaining
what these courses are for.
Mr Sanderson: Yes. What we have
not touched on much, which is unusual with Barry in the Chair,
is the LSC's failure really to communicate well what it is doing,
and I think that is a large piece of business undone.
Mr Haysom: We are working incredibly
hard at that, to try and get those messages across. I have to
say that there are some organisations that will never listen to
you, however much you tell them.
Q1156 Chairman: The Daily Mirror?
Mr Haysom: That was behind my
comment. You will find that the Daily Mirror has always
been enormously supportive, with a deep understanding of these
issues.
Q1157 Jonathan Shaw: Sixth-form academies
are outside of your remit. Is it going to be in competition or
is it going to muck things up in terms of getting a strategic
approach?
Mr Sanderson: They are working
well, of course, but they work well partly because they cream
in a particular area where they are. They are sort of selective.
They do not take the sort of candidates that a general FE college
would take for the most part. They are successful. It is a good
experiment. We need excellence, for heaven's sake. We need those.
I would just make a plea that, whether or not they are administered
by the learning and skills councils is one thing, but they ought
to be in the strategic debate. If we are doing our strategic review
for Tees Valley or whatever, and there is one there, then that
ought to be part of the overall debate so it is brought into the
spectrum.
Mr Haysom: Increasingly that is
happening. To start off with I think there were some issues.
Q1158 Jonathan Shaw: So whilst they
sit outside your structure, your area of responsibility, nevertheless,
you are seeing relationships built at a local level?
Mr Haysom: That seems to be the
way through this at the moment.
Q1159 Chairman: You are a hard-headed
business person, Bryan. That is what you have always styled yourself
as. Are you convinced that city academies are a good investment,
value for money, pound for pound? If they gave you the same budget,
would you do the same thing with it?
Mr Sanderson: Yes, I would, but
only in the context of an overall strategy for that particular
area. I think there is a need for that sort of institution. Also,
I have to say, if you go to the best of them, or go to a very
good sixth-form college, probably the kids would vote for that.
They like this sort of pre-university type atmosphere that those
institutions provide.
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