Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-119)
MR CHRIS
BANKS AND
MR MARK
HAYSOM
7 NOVEMBER 2005
Q100 Mr Wilson: Chairman, you asked
at the start essentially what was the point of your organisation
and Nadine asked that in another round about way, I would like
to put it to you in a slightly different way from that. You are
cutting your staff by a third, as I understand it, why not cut
it by 100% and give the money to business, to the CBI, or the
IoD or somebody that could run the organisation in the way that
they want it run? Why not do it that way? Why do we need your
organisation to do that?
Mr Banks: I think what we were
saying earlier—remember the main driver here—we are
trying to respond to and lead the needs and aspirations of employers,
of individuals locally, regionally and nationally and by sector,
so it is a very complex map. We are trying to do that in a way,
which is part of the LSC's role, to work with the sector—the
providers, the colleges and others—to respond to that in
a way that makes sense, again for the employers and the learners.
It is a fine balance, is it not, I think, of those different stakeholder
needs and our job is to make sure that we meet all of those. I
think if you ask me which is the one that keeps me awake at night,
it is the demand-led bit, personally that is the thing that we
need to get right. Somehow we have to make sure that the whole
system can then respond to those needs rather than just have them
articulated. I think that is where this role locally, regionally
and nationally comes in. It is somewhere between the demand and
the supply. I like to see it at least as being led by the needs
and wants of employers, individuals and communities but at the
same time working with the post-16 sector to make sure we deliver
it. Those are equally balanced and it is really important to keep
that balance.
Q101 Mr Wilson: I can see why there
might need to be an element of national and local planning, but
just convince me why there needs to be an element of regional
planning?
Mr Banks: What we do has to deliver
against the regional economic strategy and the regional economic
priorities.
Q102 Mr Wilson: You are doing it
because somebody else is involved in doing it?
Mr Banks: Ultimately, when you
add it all up, we have to be able to compete internationally,
do we not, and so that means somehow in this we have got to be
able to be brilliant locally, regionally and nationally.
Q103 Mr Wilson: We are competing
as a nation, not as individual regions.
Mr Haysom: I think the way to
look at it, from a regional perspective, if we are trying to look
at it from the needs of a business or indeed of a learner, is
that what we need to do across the whole region is to make sure
that we are providing access to the right kind of training for
those individuals and for those employers across a region because
you cannot create that provision in every sub-region because that
is not a terribly efficient way of doing it. You do need lots
of provision everywhere but some you need to plan across the whole.
Let me give you an example, one of the really interesting achievements
of the Learning and Skills Council over the last few years has
been the creation of Centres of Vocational Excellence and I think
a number of people on the Committee will be aware of these centres.
What we have done is to create networks of these Centres of Vocational
Excellence across a region so employers have got the right kind
of opportunities across a whole region. It is not possible to
do that everywhere locally. I think you do have to take a regional
view of the world. From my perspective you need something which
is above local and between national and region does that, I think
that is the appropriate response.
Chairman: Possibly not in Rob's regions.
You are in the South East.
Q104 Mr Wilson: I am not convinced.
What was the process you went through that made you decide to
cut a third of your staff?
Mr Haysom: We went through a huge
amount of detail on this. I arrived a couple of years ago, we
were in the middle of a restructuring exercise as I arrived. I
have to say, it was an exercise which went on far too long and
did not address the needs of the organisation because it ended
up being all about cutting costs rather than getting the skills
that we need. What we did this time round was to start at the
very beginning and say "What is it we are here to do? How
are we going to achieve this? What is the best structure?"
so we have sought to reinvent the whole thing. The starting point
for this is to pick up on what it is that employers are saying
to us that we need to be doing, and providers saying "This
is the kind of relationship we need with you" so we have
taken all those inputs and built the organisation from that. The
absolute starting point is to think about it as a local organisation.
The essential building block for this new organisation is the
local bit, what is it we need to do locally? What we need to do
locally is to have a small expert team that can have the kind
of discussions and dialogue that we have been talking about. They
need a regional—for want of a better description—service
centre to provide them with the information they require to support
them in those frontline deliveries, and therefore we designed
it in that way.
Q105 Mr Wilson: Essentially you are
saying you came in there and found you were delivering things
in the wrong way or you could deliver them in a better way?
Mr Haysom: Yes.
Q106 Mr Wilson: That is what you
are saying?
Mr Haysom: We would not be doing
it if we thought we were doing it absolutely the right way at
the moment.
Q107 Mr Wilson: What assessment have
you done to establish that those staff cuts are going to be workable
and you can deliver exactly what you need to deliver?
Mr Haysom: We have done a huge
amount of work, talking to an awful lot of people with a huge
amount of experience in this light. We have designed it using
their expertise. We have a whole set of criteria by which we have
established how many people we need doing whatever role it is
in whatever part of the country it is. That will be everything
from the number of colleges that they have to talk to, the size
of those colleges, the number of other training providers, the
nature of the population in that area and so on. There is a matrix
of all of these different things.
Q108 Mr Wilson: Is that documented
somewhere in a report or somewhere? Is it just around a need for
somewhere?
Mr Haysom: That is a curious question.
Q109 Mr Wilson: I am trying to understand
exactly what you have done in terms of written down evidence to
justify the fact that you are cutting a third of your staff and
where that is. You are talking in very vague terms and I want
specifics.
Mr Haysom: Forgive me, I thought
I was trying to be specific, I am obviously failing in that. Of
course we have done a lot of detailed analysis, of course we have
got all of that in writing, that exists. We have created a business
case for this in the first place.
Q110 Mr Wilson: Have you published
it?
Mr Haysom: We have published all
the detail on the Internet. Are you not aware of that?
Mr Wilson: No, I am not aware of that,
that is what I have been trying to get at.
Chairman: If I can put you two together
on that. I must stop you there. I have two colleagues who want
to come in. Gordon.
Q111 Mr Marsden: These new nine regional
centres, how much power are you going to give the heads of them?
Mr Haysom: The regional directors?
Q112 Mr Marsden: Yes, the regional
directors, how much power do you think you will give them?
Mr Haysom: I do not intend giving
them more power than they have currently. There is a line management
relationship.
Q113 Mr Marsden: You were saying
earlier—I will not go through the Byzantine description
of your bureaucracy that you gave us earlier again—that
these reforms were designed to streamline, to make decisions quicker,
to respond and all the rest of it and yet you are not proposing
to give your regional directors any new powers to cut deals on
their own, to deal with paperwork?
Mr Haysom: They have those powers
now.
Q114 Mr Marsden: You are confident
the powers they have at the moment will deliver the streamlined
approach, the quicker response to the sector skill shortages and
everything that we have been talking about?
Mr Haysom: I am confident that
if we get the structures right and get the right kind of people
and the right jobs in the region then, yes.
Q115 Mr Marsden: In which case, why
do we need to have reorganisation?
Mr Haysom: Forgive me, I have
just said we need the right people doing the right things in the
right places.
Q116 Mr Marsden: You are not changing
the personnel presumably?
Mr Haysom: The regional directors?
Q117 Mr Marsden: Yes.
Mr Haysom: They have been in post
for a little over a year.
Q118 Mr Marsden: My colleague, Rob
Wilson, has been rather sceptical about the regional aspect of
this and, no disrespect, there are certain Regional Development
Agencies perhaps working more coherently than others. Given that
is the case, presumably you are going to want to have these people
dealing very closely. If you are, then that is fine, you are saying
you do not think you need to devolve the powers for the decision-making
for yourselves at the centre?
Mr Haysom: This is all about a
move towards devolution from the centre.
Q119 Mr Marsden: Sure.
Mr Haysom: I have not used those
words, forgive me, but that is very much what we are all about.
The last time I was here we talked about this, and the creation
of a regional tier to enable us to start to move in that direction,
and this will enable us to do it still further. There are all
sorts of things which are constantly being pushed down the organisation.
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