Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120
- 139)
WEDNESDAY 12 OCTOBER 2005
SIR DAVID
NORMINGTON, MR
STEPHEN KERSHAW
AND MR
STEPHEN CROWNE
Q120 Chairman: Is there a stage where
you say we have overdone the targets because targets do pull and
they pull away from other things. When you go to schools, teachers
say "not another target". David Miliband used to boast
that he did not introduce any new targets during his entire time
as Schools Minister as a bid for fame.
Sir David Normington: I think
there could come a point where you should move on or decide not
to have targets. I think you should always have some targets.
I do not think we have to have the same targets year in year out.
I think that public services, like any other service or any other
industry, ought to have targets and ought to be judged against
them, but there is always the danger that they will have a distorting
effect. I think you should think very carefully how you convert
a national target into school level targets. In this phase we
are not going to convert every national target into a target on
schools. We are only going to bear down on a school where we and
it has agreed it has a particular issue it needs to address and
focus on that because I think it becomes too complicated at local
level to focus on all the things.
Chairman: We are not criticising targets, especially
teenage pregnancy and many of the others, but one does hear about
too many targets at the front-line. Can we now move on to further
and higher education. My friend and colleague has been entirely
uncharacteristically saint-like in his patience.
Q121 Jeff Ennis: Patience is a virtue.
Sir David, do you stand by the argument put forward in the Government's
response to the Committee's Report last year that the funding
gap between schools and colleges is closing? Is it 7% this year
as forecast? How do you respond to the Learning and Skills Development
Agency's research suggesting that the gap is over 13%? What is
the reality of the situation?
Sir David Normington: Well, I
am aware of that. We think on our figures that it is narrowing
and the LSDA research suggests it is not. The truth of the matter
is whatever the precise figures it is not narrowing very much
and has not really narrowed. We believe on our measure it has
narrowed slightly but the gap is still there. I do not think we
think it is quite as big as the LSDA but there is a sizable gap
there.
Q122 Jeff Ennis: This is obviously
a major problem for our authorities based on tertiary college
systems. It was about 18 months ago that a previous Secretary
of State, Charles Clarke, told this Committee he thought that
over the next five years—and that was 18 months ago—that
that gap would close. We are now down to three and a half years
from what Charles said at that time. Are we going to close the
gap in three and a half years from now?
Sir David Normington: I do not
know if we will close it. We still have an intention of narrowing
it and we have not given up on that. Some of the things we have
been doing—
Q123 Jeff Ennis: We have not got
a target to close the gap, to go back to the previous line of
questioning?
Sir David Normington: Charles
Clarke clearly made that commitment. I do not think it is a formal
target but we will have more to say about this in due course.
I think we have been giving priority to school funding and we
have been protecting school funding and that has made it difficult
at the same time to close the gap. There is no doubt about that.
We have made less progress than we would want in that area.
Q124 Jeff Ennis: As I say, it is
really important in local authorities like Barnsley and Doncaster.
I will give you a classic example: the over-achievement of student
numbers in sixth forms. As I say, we have got almost a complete
tertiary college system in Barnsley. The local college recruited
an additional 100 students in the sixth form. As you know, the
levels of staying-on rates in Barnsley and Doncaster are below
the national average and we have got a target to get them up to
the national average, which I am sure you would support. The LSC
agreed with the target to be given for that particular year but
they said they would not fund those additional students. If that
had been a school sixth form there would have been no question
of funding those students, that funding would have been there
on the table. How are we going to get round problems like that
which are causing real difficulties in Barnsley and Doncaster
and other authorities which are based on the tertiary college
system?
Sir David Normington: Well, I
recognise that description of what happens. As I say, within a
limited funding pot we have been putting money into schools rather
than into colleges. We have been increasing unit funding for colleges
but nothing like to the same degree. The reason I am being a little
hesitant is because we have a series of announcements in the next
few weeks right through into November which will be about LSC
funding, particularly about the priority areas like 16-19 funding.
We have an announcement in due course about finalising the school
budgets. I am hopeful that out of that we can address some of
these issues. Of course, you can only do it within an overall
funding envelope and that is ultimately what has stopped us closing
this gap. That gap was there and it requires more resource than
we have had to close it.
Q125 Jeff Ennis: But the current
envelope, Sir David, means that school sixth forms can recruit
as many sixth form students as they can ad hoc but tertiary
colleges are limited and they are being penalised. Students in
Barnsley are being penalised and, after all, we are trying to
increase the staying-on rate in deprived areas like Barnsley.
We are penalising tertiary colleges from recruiting students into
sixth forms?
Sir David Normington: We would
like to see this problem that you describe being tackled and I
accept we have not done so yet. I hope some of the things we will
be doing in the next few weeks will help at least.
Q126 Chairman: I hope the message
goes through. The great failing, it seems to me, over these last
eight years of the Government's policies is that we still seem
to reward the "haves" in educational terms and not the
"have-nots". It is true what was said about the Sutton
Trust Report yesterday. The social mobility argument that came
out in research done by the London School of Economics. It still
seems that we have not made a dent on transferring resources to
those people who have not had the chance of a decent education
in the past from those who have everything. This is the argument
that Jeff Ennis is making, that it is crystal clear in Barnsley
that there is an immense prejudice against those people who have
less chance of getting a stake. You said at the beginning of this
conversation this morning that where you have not been doing as
well as you could is at post-16.
Sir David Normington: I actually
think the Government has put a lot of extra resources in various
ways into both people from poorer families and also into areas—
Q127 Chairman: I was speaking to
Peter Lampl of the Sutton Trust yesterday and he said the real
problem still is the goodies in education are distributed unfairly.
That is the central problem that this Government has and it still
has not faced up to that.
Sir David Normington: There are
two issues here: the money that we distribute for schools has
a major factor in for deprivation, and that has been increased
over this Government's life. That is the first thing.
Q128 Chairman: Is it working?
Sir David Normington: That is
true. Secondly, there is a specific issue, and I am putting my
hands up to that, about the gap between sixth form funding and
further education college funding.
Q129 Chairman: You can put your hands
up but you do not seem very repentant. What are you going to do
about it? You have got three and a half years, why is the gap
not going to be closed? You have not said a word this morning
saying, "Yes, we are going to put it right".
Sir David Normington: Our aim
is to close that gap, as Charles Clarke said. Over the next few
weeks we will be saying something which I hope will help in that
direction but the Government has decided to give priority to school
funding rather than college funding. The other thing I was going
to say was we have been increasing funding to colleges and we
have been increasing the funding to 16-19 provision in colleges
and to some of the priority areas for adults, like getting everybody
up to Level 2. There have been substantial extra resources, but
because substantial extra resources are also going into the school
system that gap has not closed. Overall both sectors have had
substantial extra resources and we are completely clear, particularly
in the phase when we were concentrating on 14-19 education and
training, that this is a major issue for us.
Q130 Jeff Ennis: It is linked in
with the SEN issue of further education. There have been examples
of institutions having to close or severely restrict courses for
adults with learning difficulties and make staff redundant because
they are no longer included in the Learning and Skills Council's
funding priorities. What is the DfES's view on this? Should education
for adults with learning difficulties not be a priority?
Sir David Normington: Yes. We
have a major priority which we give to the LSC related to basic
skills which includes people with particular learning difficulties.
We have put huge extra funding into improving basic skills, so
I am a little surprised at that. It should not be the case that
we are seeing large amounts of that provision closing down. I
would have to look at the individual case.
Q131 Jeff Ennis: You would look at
that?
Sir David Normington: I would
happily do that, yes.
Q132 Stephen Williams: Can I link
us back to another target, the Government's target of 50% participation
in higher education and how this links into that. Over the summer
I have been around the FE colleges, Bristol City College, one
of the largest in the country, and St Brenda's, which is the largest
catholic one, and the number of people who take A-level courses
at those colleges dwarf provision by any sixth form, but their
social intake is broad while the sixth forms, as the Chairman
has just alluded to, are largely middle class. How is this disparity
in funding, which you recognise but do not seem to be setting
a target for bridging or closing completely, contributing in an
adverse way to meeting the Government's target of getting more
people from disadvantaged backgrounds into higher education?
Sir David Normington: I have admitted
that there is this funding gap and what you say about the intakes
of sixth forms and further education colleges is broadly true,
although it varies. Obviously sixth form colleges are in a different
position from general further education provision. I think we
are very aware of the issue. I said earlier that we are increasing
resourcing for both sectors but we are not closing the gap very
much, and I accept that, and I think the Government accepts that.
When ministers have come here, as Charles Clarke has, they accept
that we have to try to make progress here. I am saying to you
we have not made enough progress and I agree that in order to
encourage more people from the lower socio-economic groups to
gain A-levels or vocational equivalents you have to support them
in that. Many, many of them do that in colleges. I am saying that
we have to try to close that gap or make substantial progress
in that direction, I agree with that, and we have not done so.
Q133 Stephen Williams: Can I make
another point about widening participation, students who are in
higher education, particularly part-time students. The Act of
2004 treats differently full time students and part-time students.
Are there any plans to have similar funding arrangements for part-time
students who are in higher education and also to give part-time
students themselves the same financial support that a full time
student now gets under the top-up fees regime?
Sir David Normington: I cannot
say that today but we are very aware of the issue and the Minister
is having a serious look at it. It is a disparity at the moment
in the way funding works and we are having a serious look at it.
Q134 Stephen Williams: When might
we hear the outcome of this serious look?
Sir David Normington: I cannot
tell you for sure, I am afraid that is a ministerial issue. I
can tell you for sure that is being looked at.
Q135 Tim Farron: I am sure you are
aware that 27% of pupils, students of further education colleges,
come from the poorest 15% of wards in the country, so the funding
gap clearly does exacerbate the problem and flies in the face
of the Government's stated widening participation objectives.
That point being made, I want to come back to the issue raised
earlier with regard to the LSC priorities. I wonder whether the
Government has made any consideration of the likely impact on
the viability of courses counted under other provision of adult
education in setting and revising the new LSC priorities and,
if so, what is that likely considered impact?
Sir David Normington: There is
about to be another statement about this because we are about
to allocate money to the LSC for the next period, and also at
the same time we will be setting out the priorities which the
Government believes this sector should have. I think that already
there is built into the assumptions for some of the other provision
an assumption that there will be a large contribution from the
individual to the fees of that course. I think previously the
assumptions were that the Government would fund in its funding
formula 75% of the cost with the expectation that fees would raise
25%. We have put that up to 27.5%. I referred to this earlier.
I think this issue of who pays for what courses is quite an important
issue for us, accepting that the Government will always seek to
protect and support those who cannot afford to pay. That is an
issue that is very much being debated at the moment and very much
affects the other provision, which is not a priority in a way
for the Government compared with its other priorities but obviously
for individuals can be very important for them.
Q136 Tim Farron: You must have had
feedback since the priorities have been put into place. The impact
has not been that prices have gone up a bit and private individuals
pay a little bit more, the impact has been that courses have closed
down and whole adult education centres have been put under serious
threat, job losses and so on. In any area, but in an area like
mine with older people who are retired, they are not just interested
in gaining Level 2 qualifications, they are interested in keeping
the grey matter going and this is a terrible blow to communities.
I cannot imagine the Government did not realise this might be
an outcome.
Sir David Normington: The Government
was clear that it was expecting colleges, where they could, to
raise more money through fees. All colleges have their own decisions
to take about what they charge for and what not. We do not tell
them what to do but we do include something in the formula. In
fact, our estimate is that colleges forego about £100 million
of income by not charging fees. Many colleges decide to charge
no fees at all. We think that is wrong really. Our surveys show
that where a course is valued, people who can afford to pay are
very willing to make a contribution to a course. They do not understand
why they should not but they do expect the Government to make
a contribution as well. I have had the feedback that you have
described. I do not think it is as yet a national issue in terms
of closures everywhere but we are looking to colleges to look
for alternative ways of raising some of the money. I am talking
about a quarter to a third of it. There is a lot of Government
money going into adult learning and in the end governments have
to say, "I have got this money, how can I get the most value
for it?" 16-19 is a priority, getting adult basic skills
up to an acceptable level is a priority, getting adults to Level
2, which is the vocational equivalent of five A-C GCSEs, is a
priority. You have to have your priorities and some provision,
therefore, will be squeezed.
Q137 Tim Farron: The larger colleges
are able to absorb some of these costs.
Sir David Normington: I am aware
of that.
Q138 Tim Farron: Certainly in an
area like mine we are talking about lots of small, perhaps school-based,
adult education centres that have no fat to draw upon and they
are seriously in danger of closing down.
Sir David Normington: I am aware
of that and I will take that point back to the others.
Tim Farron: I would be grateful if you would.
Q139 Mr Marsden: Sir David, you made
the point that it is for colleges to make their own decisions
and the LSC is arms' length in that respect from them but also
from the Government in the sense that you give them the pot and
they decide what to do with it. Is not the point that is emerging
from this debate about funding of adult education, and I accept
the Government has done an enormous amount in this area, is that
there is a law of perverse consequences. Many of the things that
we are hearing about, certainly in my own neck of the woods in
Blackpool, these cuts in adult education, are going to affect
not just people who want to keep their grey matter going but people,
particularly women in their 30s and 40s, who need to re-skill
themselves in order to remain in the workforce. We have broader
targets as a Government for meeting that. If I could give you
a very specific example of the perverse consequence of this. In
my particular patch it is going to result in a potential reduction
in the number of trade union learners. That cuts directly across
the Chancellor's state aim to expand the whole union learning
environment. Do you not have a broader responsibility in terms
of overall Government policy when discussing and deciding these
things with the LSCs and should you not have given clearer guidance,
particularly in respect of what the impact was going to be in
terms of Section 98?
Sir David Normington: I am in
danger of repeating myself. First of all, this sector will get
substantial extra resource and the Government will be very clear
what its priorities are for that resource and it will describe
them. It will include getting an entitlement for all adults to
get up to Level 2. It will include new sorts of re-entry courses
particularly for those who have not got basic skills. In the end
this is about how much money is available. One of the things that
is happening in the skills sector is because of the emphasis that
we are putting on raising the standards of 16-19-year-olds, we
are beginning to see many more staying on. We have not yet got
the outcomes but many more are staying on. That is putting enormous
pressure on that bit of the budget. Similarly, our success in
getting many, many more people coming back into basic literacy
and numeracy courses is also putting pressure on that budget.
We have to make those choices with the LSC and the LSC ultimately
has to make the choices locally about what it will fund. We are
very clear about this issue of trying to protect the valuable
provision locally and the LSC is very clear about that. As we
make the funding allocations in the next few weeks we will be
trying to ensure both that we have a clear set of national priorities
but that the LSC will be trying to ensure that it is sensitive
to these local issues.
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