Memorandum submitted by Mr Graham Hoyle
(WDfES 02)
I am writing to request that the subject of
Work Based Learning (WBL) is raised when Ruth Kelly appears before
you and your select committee colleagues on Wednesday morning,
the day that the new skills White Paper is expected to be published.
Independent learning providers, who make up
the majority of the membership of the Association of Learning
Providers (ALP), deliver at least 75% of apprenticeships and most
of the provision under the Employer Training Pilots (ETPs). Both
programmes should feature strongly in the Government's latest
plans for moving forward the skills agenda and improving workforce
productivity.
A key plank of the Government's policy has been
that the national skills strategy should be demand led by employers
and learners. As ministers have recognised, work based learning
providers have responded very positively to this agenda by driving
up employer engagement through flexible and innovative provision
and by improving the quality of training on offer.
This contribution has been rewarded by measures
to open up to the LSC-funded market to independent providers;
so now, in addition to apprenticeships and ETPs, ALP members deliver
Skills for Life courses to adult learners, Entry to Employment
programmes and learndirect courses. Many of our members also deliver
major job placement and training programmes for Jobcentre Plus
under the DWP.
ALP is delighted with the progress made under
the skills strategy in the last two years, because business and
individual learners have been the real winners. However, our delight
is tempered by the strong feeling that we could be contributing
much more.
The obstacles to achieving this are twofold:
one relates to opening up the market further and the other concerns
the current ability of the funding system to respond to the demands
of employers and learners. The two are closely linked to each
other.
MEETING DEMAND
FOR APPRENTICESHIPS
AND ENTRY
TO EMPLOYMENT
The present challenges facing the Learning and
Skills Council, particularly on funding, have been well documented
in the education press. ALP recognises that some of the issues
are not easy to resolve, but DfES ministers have repeatedly gone
on the record to say that when demand from employers for apprenticeships
is presented by providers to local LSCs, then it should be met.
The evidence, as gathered from an on-going survey
of ALP's members, is that it is not. In fact, the situation is
so serious that the LSC could be in danger of missing its PSA
target of 175,000 apprenticeship starts for 2004-05.
The LSC is obliged under the learning guarantee
for 16-18 year olds to fund apprenticeships for this age group
and because better quality training is resulting in more young
people staying on to complete their apprenticeships, there is
less money available to fund new starts. Initial findings from
our survey indicate 60% of providers will have to restrict recruitment
of new Apprentices between now and July unless more cash is found.
The biggest single group (31%) comprises those who state that
their contracted budget is insufficient to fully fund existing
apprentices on their programme, let alone recruit new ones, even
from the 16-18 guarantee group.
The problem is even more acute for employers
who might be wishing to offer apprenticeships to a particular
group of employees whose ages might range from 16-25. ALP members
are increasingly reporting that it is difficult to secure funding
for apprentices over 19 and the LSC acknowledged this as an issue
when commenting to The Guardian on 15 February, saying that "some
19 year olds are having to wait".
The reassurance which we are therefore seeking
from the Secretary of State is that when she and her ministers
talk (quite rightly) about a demand led skills strategy, there
is sufficient funding in place to meet the demand for the flagship
apprenticeship programme.
It should also be noted that there will be at
least 9,000 fewer places on this year's LSC-funded Entry to Employment
programme designed to help some of our most disadvantaged young
people to progress on to apprenticeships or other forms of learning.
We are waiting to hear from the LSC what alternative provision
will be available that is appropriate for these youngsters.
OPENING UP
THE LEARNING
MARKET
At ALP's autumn conference last November, Ivan
Lewis said that he was hoping that the DfES, LSC, AOC and ALP
would shortly sign a protocol agreement on opening up the learning
market as funded by the LSC. This protocol would be in line with
the principles set out in the "Learning to Succeed"
white paper of 1999 to streamline funding arrangements. Six years
on, large areas of LSC funding remain ring-fenced to the exclusion
of independent providers and while progress has been made with
programmes such as Skills for Life, it has been fairly limited.
This is despite the impact made by work based
learning providers in successfully delivering the ETPs and other
training. Encouraging early findings on their Skills for Life
delivery from the Adult Learning Inspectorate, for example, suggest
that government targets for improving adult basic skills could
be achieved more quickly by increasing learning provision in the
workplace.
When signed, the protocol should lay down the
principle that local LSCs' choice of providers must be based on
quality, not the retention of the status quo. An early test of
this will be the national roll-out of the entitlement to a first
Level 2 qualification for adults without one—currently being
piloted in the north east and south east regions of England.
UNBIASED INFORMATION
AND GUIDANCE
TO YOUNG
PEOPLE IS
IMPERATIVE
A final point to help improve our skills base
concerns the importance which the Government is attaching to vocational
learning, as underlined in the 14-19 education white paper, and
the decision to exclude A levels from the scope of the proposed
diploma. ALP feels strongly that the universal availability of
unbiased advice on academic and vocational choices is very necessary
if, for example, we are to reduce the worrying drop-out rate among
16 and 17 year olds. Measures to address this in the forthcoming
youth green paper are now absolutely vital.
ALP is in constructive dialogue with the DfES
and LSC on all these issues. If they can be resolved quickly,
the impact which our members can make in improving skills in the
workplace and driving up productivity levels will be even greater.
We hope that you will find time to discuss them on Wednesday with
the Secretary of State.
28 February 2005
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