Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
MR CHRIS
BANKS AND
MR MARK
HAYSOM
7 NOVEMBER 2005
Q20 Helen Jones: Colleges were instructed
to reduce support for what is called non-essential learning. Would
you like to give us your working definition of non-essential learning?
Mr Haysom: What we try and do
is go through all aspects of the curriculum and try and identify
examples of learning which contribute directly to our priorities
and to our targets, those which contribute indirectly, so perhaps
not leading to qualifications immediately but are stepping stones
towards qualifications within the framework, and those which do
not contribute at all to any of those targets and where there
is no evidence of progression towards those.
Q21 Helen Jones: Let us have a look
at that, because you talked earlier about wanting evidence of
progression leading on to employability but the world is not as
simple as that, is it? There are lots of courses run in my area,
for example, courses for parents at school, help your child with
reading, and they do not directly lead to a qualification but
they are very successful in bringing people back into learning
who may well have had a very poor experience of education in the
past, and often you see those people go on and do something else.
Do you not think those sort of courses ought to be protected and
encouraged?
Mr Haysom: Yes, as far as public
finances will allow us to. There is a harsh reality in all of
this, that money is finite. I actually think it is a good thing
that within those finite resources we are clear about what we
think is going to make the difference. That does mean there are
going to be some things which are more difficult for us to find
funding for. But we are very clear in terms of working with colleges
and other training providers up and down the land, that what we
do not want to do is cut everything like that, what we want to
do is identify those things which are really going to help people
back into learning. There are hard choices; there really are.
We cannot do everything.
Q22 Helen Jones: Do you not accept
that when you are doing that the people who are hit hardest are
some of the most vulnerable and some of the worst-off people,
who have had a very bad experience of education and are often
the most under-privileged?
Mr Haysom: What we do try to do
is make sure there is the right kind of provision for those people
to bring them back into learning and if a particular course they
were hoping to go on is not available, we are making sure across
the community, through every part of funding we can get our hands
on, there will be opportunities for them to come back into learning.
But there is a reality in this, that we cannot do everything that
we would wish to do.
Q23 Helen Jones: With great respect,
we are not talking about people who have often planned to come
back into learning and are going to be seeking courses, we are
talking about people who are gradually led back into learning,
and if those particular courses are cut how do you know they are
going to go looking elsewhere?
Mr Haysom: We are not saying that
all of those courses are going to disappear, what we are saying
is there will be provision across an area which will create opportunities
for people to find their way back into learning, and they may
be funded from European Social Fund money, they may be funded
in part through the LSC, they may be part-funded by an individual
and part-funded by a college. There are all sorts of opportunities.
Again, I am not pretending what we are seeing here is something
which enables us to keep running everything that is currently
running, or was being run until a few years ago.
Q24 Helen Jones: Let us have a look
at the economics of adult learning. We can park that one for a
minute and we will come back to it when we know exactly how many
courses have disappeared. There is an assumption now that colleges
will have to raise fees for adult approved courses and the learner
contribution is expected to go up roughly 10% I think. Do you
not agree that once again that hits the poorest people worse,
particularly those on low wages? If you are on certain kinds of
benefits you will get exemption, if you come from a low wage economy,
you will not. Is this not again skewing the system to those who
can afford to pay?
Mr Haysom: I do think there is
a real issue about the whole fees question and how it relates
to people who are not earning very much money at all. I agree
with you that if people can afford to pay, they should. I also
agree that if people are on benefits or in other circumstances
can get fee remission, there is a real question about people who
are just above that kind of threshold.
Q25 Helen Jones: Have you done any
research on what the likely outcome of this increase in fees will
be? Are adults actually going to be prepared to pay it or will
they vote with their feet?
Mr Haysom: There was a long consultation
on this last year with the sector and there were some steps introduced
then as a consequence of that to start increasing the fee assumption
within the funding package. What we saw last year was that some
colleges were quite energetic in pursuing the fees policy and
in those circumstances we did not see a huge drop-off of numbers
in learning; it varied enormously in different places but other
colleges decided they would rather stop running the course than
run the risk of charging fees. I do think there is a real issue
there as well which is supporting some of what you are saying.
I do think it is incumbent on us as the Learning and Skills Council
to help to address that, because our funding methodology does
not encourage colleges to take sensible risks in terms of running
those courses, and that is one of the things within agenda
for change which we are trying to address to make it easier
for colleges. The other thing I would say about the whole escalation
of the fees assumption is that we have been charged as the Learning
and Skills Council with working with providers to help them with
the spirit and to learn in a way you are suggesting needs to be
learnt and to draw out the lessons and to help colleges through
that period.
Q26 Helen Jones: Does your research
include any look at the social profile of people taking courses?
Because you could well have the same numbers taking courses but
the profile of your students might change considerably.
Mr Haysom: It is possible, yes.
Q27 Helen Jones: In theory, for instance,
you could keep people who are better off and have a decline in
those people who are worse off. Is that what really what we want
to achieve in adult education?
Mr Haysom: No.
Q28 Helen Jones: Are you looking
at that? Will you be able to come back to the Committee with figures
to tell us what is happening?
Mr Haysom: I repeat the point,
what we are trying to do is to move our funding towards the priorities.
We are trying to make sure in every part of the country that we
have sensible stepping stone provision for people. That is what
we are trying to do but we cannot fund everything. Within the
fee part of this there is a huge amount of work to be done and
I would of course be pleased to come back at a later time to talk
more specifically about fees.
Q29 Helen Jones: If you are looking
at funding, what do you say to the argument that the Employer
Training Pilots are funded extremely generously and is that right?
Are we not going to end up paying for training which employers
would have bought into anyway while we are seeing reductions elsewhere?
Mr Banks: This is another really
good question which is how do we make sure we are investing the
public money in training and learning which would not otherwise
happen. The evidence in the Employer Training Pilots is that the
businesses we are engaging with are those which typically have
not been engaging in learning and training of their staff and
with individuals who have not had the opportunity yet to get to
a first level 2. So we are very keen to focus the money on these
initiatives which have a real opportunity to attract new businesses
or employers and new learners. I do also think that the focus
on first level 2 does help some of the more disadvantaged individuals
from a learning point of view because inevitably there is a lot
of demand for higher level skills as well—
Q30 Helen Jones: Only if you get
them there first.
Mr Banks: That is absolutely right,
but I am minded by the fact that if you are out of work you are
more than twice as likely not to have a qualification than if
you are in work, and that is why we need to be focusing on helping
that group. Equally, we know over the next few years if level
2 is going to be almost the benchmark of employability we have
to get as many people as possible up to that level so they can
participate in the growth of the economy and for them personally.
Ultimately if others were here they would be talking much more
about the vital importance of us being able to compete with other
countries and other economies which are developing many millions
of highly skilled workers while we are still at the stage of having
to bring large numbers of our people of working age up to a basic
level of skill and employability. That is where we are at the
moment, and in a sense that has to be a building block—we
often call it a platform for employability—to allow people
then to go on and learn intermediate and higher skills they will
need later as well.
Q31 Chairman: We had a very good
lobby of the House of Commons last week organised by the Association
of Colleges and they produced some very good people to talk about
how the cuts were impacting on them. What came out of that was
something I do not hear much from the Learning and Skills Council,
that if you have a college sitting in a town, like mine in the
centre of Huddersfield, Huddersfield Technical College, it is
a community resource and it is seen as that and it symbolises
continuing education for people who are older, people who are
younger, all those intermediate ones, as a community resource.
If you damage the fabric of that, it is no longer seen as a community
resource which offers something for almost everyone, you have
damaged something very, very important in the life of the community.
The feeling I got from listening to the evidence last week is
that you are in danger of undermining that culture of seeing the
college as a community resource. Does that not sometimes worry
you?
Mr Haysom: It is something I am
aware of. I do spend a lot of my time, as you can imagine, out
and about, visiting colleges, talking to principals, to chairs
of governors, learners, you name it, and so I am acutely aware
of that, and it is a very special responsibility I think for a
college. That is why I do believe that we need a degree of sophistication
in managing this whole thing to make sure we do not undermine
the viability of colleges and their ability to stretch across
the whole community. That is why in part we are going through
a significant change ourselves so we can have a degree of sophisticated
conversation with them to find a way through all of this. Yes,
you are absolutely right.
Chairman: We have to move on to the funding
of 16-18-year-olds.
Q32 Stephen Williams: Mr Haysom,
we have met previously on the Public Accounts Committee where
we talked mainly about other matters but we did touch on the funding
gap post-16 and you will have heard Sir David Normington at that
meeting, who was sat next to you at the time, say he felt, and
it was his Department's perspective, that the funding gap was
around 7% and then he moved his estimate slightly later in the
meeting. The Learning and Skills Council commissioned a report
from the Learning and Skills Development Agency which suggested
the gap was 13%, and certainly the Association of Colleges which
has spoken to all of us at various places over the last few months
has latched on to that figure. Where do you think the percentage
gap is?
Mr Haysom: I have heard all sorts
of numbers, including the one from David Normington that day,
and we commissioned a report from LSDA and we are inclined to
go along with that as a working number.
Q33 Stephen Williams: So you accept
the findings and you think 13% is broadly correct?
Mr Haysom: I think you can argue
it any number of ways, but for the purposes of this discussion
13% is a number we could agree on.
Q34 Stephen Williams: It is closer
to the mark than 7%?
Mr Haysom: I think that would
certainly be our view, yes.
Q35 Stephen Williams: Can we look
at some of the factors which lead to this funding gap. If somebody
from my constituency, Bristol West, were going to the new Redland
School which the Learning and Skills Council has partly funded,
which is going to open in September next year, and they are going
to study A-level economics, and their next-door neighbour went
to the City of Bristol College to study A-level economics as well,
at that point as I understand it the funding per head would be
the same. Thereafter, various factors come into play which means
this gap opens up, some of them to do with different census points
for counting the number of people on that course, some of them
to do with drop-out rates at the end, whether they complete and
take the exam, some of them to do with the recoverability of VAT.
Clearly VAT is a matter for the Treasury, not for you, but some
of these things sound as if they are standards or regulations
which must be under the control of your organisation, is that
right?
Mr Haysom: You are absolutely
right, it is a combination of different factors which are to do
with unit prices through to methodology of funding, and when we
spoke briefly about this at the Public Accounts Committee recently
I said then that our agenda for change document has a specific
section which is all about simplifying the funding methodology,
and coming up with a methodology which actually enables us to
move a huge amount of resource to the frontline rather than tying
the resource up with people needlessly counting things on screen.
But the other huge benefit from it is it is a funding methodology
which can be extended across the whole system rather than just
for colleges, and that is what we are trying to work towards,
and that will have a big impact on the kind of issues you are
raising.
Q36 Stephen Williams: Is that agenda
for change document proposing to change some of those things
I have mentioned like when you count the number of students on
a particular course? As I understand it, at school they are counted
right at the start of term in September, but at college they are
counted twice, before and afterwards, and arguably the college
figure is the more accurate.
Mr Haysom: On 21 September we
announced some changes as far as the funding system is concerned
for 2006-07, and within that there was reference to the fact we
would be looking to achieve some reductions in the funding gap
as a consequence of changing some of the methodology, and there
are further opportunities to go down that road. It is not entirely
within our gift, as you can imagine, because what we do stretches
across schools and across all parts of the system—
Q37 Chairman: Not academies.
Mr Haysom: The funding methodology
ultimately is the same, is it not? There are other differences
with academies, we are aware, Chairman, but it is not entirely
within our gift so we need to achieve this with colleagues in
the Department and we are busy talking that through.
Q38 Stephen Williams: Do you have
a target percentage yourself within the strategy, say over the
next two years, for reducing that gap?
Mr Haysom: I am not sure it is
possible to quantify it quite like that. Part of the dilemma in
all of this is understanding the impact on individual colleges
and individual providers, because it will vary according to the
mix of what you do. I do not think a crude percentage is necessarily
the right answer. I would hope that what we have announced on
21 September will have the impact of maybe as much as halving
the gap and taking it down to something approaching 7%. That is
our immediate first step.
Q39 Stephen Williams: Will that be
over two years?
Mr Haysom: That is by the end
of the two year period, yes.
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