Select Committee on Education and Skills Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 480-499)

MR MAURICE SMITH, MS PENNY SILVESTER, MR DAVID SHERLOCK CBE AND MR JOHN LANDERYOU

16 JANUARY 2006

  Q480  Mr Chaytor: They do not have.

  Ms Silvester: There is no requirement that they do and they are moving towards that.

  Q481  Mr Chaytor: Do we know what proportion of the existing workforce has that initial teacher training qualification?

  Ms Silvester: I do not have those statistics with me; I can come back to you with those if you would like.[1] There is a move to improving the numbers that get it and also around improving the quality of that initial teacher training they are receiving. Foster mentioned up-dating and the need for secondment to go back out into the industry to keep up with those skills and I think that is a good point.

  Q482 Mr Chaytor: That is expensive.

  Ms Silvester: It is expensive and it is also finding time for those staff to be able to go back out to do that. Mind you, in colleges now people do not have the length of holiday that they used to have and many colleges use that time for the lecturers to go back to get some up-dating.

  Q483  Mr Chaytor: A lot of the emphasis in the Foster report on the workforce development side is not so much about teaching but more about management. He makes a big play of the small proportion of senior managers who come from outside and sets this target of training 50 new people from outside every year. Does that chime with your experience as well or is this something that Ofsted would have drawn attention to?

  Ms Silvester: The fact that most managers are actually from the FE sector itself?

  Q484  Mr Chaytor: Maybe there is a degree of inbreeding there. Is this fair criticism?

  Ms Silvester: It is very true. Most of the senior managers within colleges have come up through the sector themselves. However, many lecturers in FE have actually had experience in industry before they came in so therefore if they have moved up through the lecturing route, through middle management and senior management, they do actually have some industrial background or business experience behind them. It is maybe not as incestuous as you are saying.

  Q485  Mr Chaytor: He is talking about the senior management being pretty inward looking and he makes references to bringing more people in from outside and adopting the best practices of other public services.

  Ms Silvester: Some colleges have brought senior managers in from outside. It has not always been the most successful because they do not understand the intricacies of the business.

  Q486  Mr Chaytor: This would not necessarily be something with which Ofsted agree wholeheartedly.

  Ms Silvester: What we would want to see is good quality managers in those posts who understand the sector and who are committed to driving up the quality within colleges.

  Q487  Mr Chaytor: On the whole question of workforce development one of the problems is that nobody really knows the figures because the data collection has been a bit haphazard. What do you or any other members of the panel think about this question of data collection of workforce development? We had an evidence session last week where there was a bit of a tussle about this as to who should be collecting the data. I see that Foster suggests it could be the Higher Education Statistics Agency or it could be the LSC; the LSC seems reluctant to carry on doing this work. Should the body that collects the data be the body that is responsible for driving the workforce development strategy and, if so, which body should it be? If not, why not?

  Mr Sherlock: I would have thought it should be the LSC; the LSC is the strategic body for the sector and I cannot see any reason why it should not do it. I think it is in the best position to add some impetus to the collection of the data. We have been working on the "collect once, use many times" principle since the beginning of this cycle in 2001 and LSC data are fairly reliable and getting better. In colleges we would rather have them more up-to-date than they are but they are getting better and I cannot see any reason for changing now.

  Mr Landeryou: I would say it should either be the LSC or Lifelong Learning UK who you took evidence from last week. The important thing is that we actually have a view of the post-16 workforce as a whole. At the moment we have the reasonably good view of the FE workforce and further education colleges; we have almost no information about the people teaching in adult community learning or work-based learning or learndirect. We do need a sector-wide strategy that goes much broader than FE if we are to truly inform our view of the labour force. There is a lot of movement between the different components of the sector, particularly at the teaching level.

  Q488  Mr Chaytor: Your view is that the LSC should collect the data and Lifelong Learning UK should be responsible for the workforce development strategy.

  Mr Landeryou: I think it is equally plausible that Lifelong Learning UK could collect data although they lack the same direct strategic levers that the LSC can bring into play.

  Chairman: Have you had discussions with your colleagues in these other agencies and given them a bid of a prod? Otherwise we will have to look to the Department to sort it out. It is much better to sort it out amongst friends.

  Q489  Stephen Williams: Up until the summer of 2004 some pilots for employer training were studied by the Institute of Fiscal Studies and have been reported on recently in the Times Education Supplement as well. The IFS reported that only about 10-15% of the training was effectively additionality on top of what would have been provided anyway, so 85% of the training would have been provided by the employer without a government subsidy. Does that match up with your understanding of what is going on in the sector as well?

  Mr Landeryou: Probably not as starkly so as that. I think there are probably two factors that play into this. Whenever a new initiative is announced large companies tend to be better placed to take advantage of it immediately, simply because they are part of networks, they have their feelers out and they have the staff in place to be able to exploit the opportunity. There is also a not unnatural desire on the part of those leading those initiatives to actually get participant numbers up, get them through the system and get the system working. I think as we now move into the national roll out of what will now be Train to Gain there are two important safeguards that need to be put into place and, indeed, are planned. One is this notion of brokerage between employers and learning providers. Providing that brokers are targeting to actually bring it to the market—SME's for example that are not normally those that will take up training as immediately as the bigger businesses—then we should start to see less of that displacement activity that we were talking about. It is very important that brokers are charged with that rather than pure volume. It is also important that the way in which Train to Gain, established locally, allows for a diversity of learning providers in the market so that some of the smaller private organisations who have been very good at interacting with SMEs can actually bring those sorts of businesses to base in the same sort of way.

  Q490  Stephen Williams: Train to Gain, as I understand it, has a £700 million budget for the next two years which may be something my other committee, Public Accounts Committee, will want to look at in future. The National Institute for Adult and Continuing Education said that it might make more sense to invest government money on adult learning in general. Is that something you would support?

  Mr Sherlock: We would certainly support investment in adult learning and I think it is, shall we say, counter-intuitive to see a greater and greater reliance on adults to keep the workforce going over the next few years and to be seeing apparent cuts in the funding of adult learning. That does not seem to be a good match. I think our experience of the effectiveness of ETP when it was at the pilot stage and Train to Gain now is that actually some very good work is going on. It seems to us that there is a complementarity between apprenticeships which are capable of preparing people for a career or changing a career if we were able to get in more adult apprenticeship funding, and Train to Gain which is in fact a much more short term business of training somebody for a particular job. I think as a range of complementary tools they seem to us to be pretty effective.

  Q491  Chairman: It is a pretty damning report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, 85-90%. Even 50% would be worrying. Are you shrugging off the Fiscal Studies report?

  Mr Sherlock: I do not think we are shrugging it off but it is not something that we have the data to either agree or disagree with. However, behind that whole question the 500 pound gorilla standing in the corner is getting a much more worked through relationship between employers and the state and individuals in terms of who pays for what. One of the things that concerned us, just harking back to the whole business of merging, was that one was beginning to see employers come forward and take an active role in the provision of learning which certainly we felt was something that could be developed in order to answer that particular question, the "who pays for what" question. I think we can pick that up again, but it remains a priority which is the only way in the long term of tackling the kind of problem that Mr Williams raised.

  Q492  Helen Jones: We have received quite a lot of evidence about adult training courses having their fees increased or being chopped altogether. In your inspections what have you picked up about what is happening in those kinds of courses and have you given any advice to Government resulting from that?

  Mr Sherlock: It is bit early really. We have heard a lot of anxiety about what might happen; what we have not yet seen is any obvious impact in terms of the quality of the programmes or, indeed, the number of people on those programmes.

  Q493  Helen Jones: Do you accept there have been fee increases in a number of areas?

  Mr Sherlock: Yes.

  Q494  Helen Jones: Does that not by itself reduce adult learning opportunities for those who are not so well off?

  Mr Sherlock: I think so, or it may do. I think, however, a plausible case has been made that as a proportion of the costs the fees are still very low. I think that to increase it in a random kind of way does not seem to me to be a satisfactory way forward. We do need clearer ideas in principle about who should pay for what, who should receive subsidies at what level and so on and so forth. I would much rather see the whole thing done in a proper national debate about the way that adult learning should be funded rather than seeing it emerge piecemeal from funding pressure.

  Q495  Helen Jones: Let us have a look at that because you referred earlier to adult and community learning. Foster suggests that a lot of that might come under the remit of local authorities, but there are an awful lot of other courses which adults take which they take for the pure enjoyment of learning. I wonder if Mr Sherlock or the Chief Inspector has a view on what should happen to those courses. Are we really serious about having lifelong learning or not?

  Mr Sherlock: One of the most visionary things we have seen since 1997 was the Green Paper The Learning Age and I think it is regrettable that we have yet to see that followed through into hard policy. I certainly believe that there is a huge social role to play for learning for its own sake. If you look at the quality of adult and community learning the best of it tends to be in things like family learning where there is a very much more direct relationship between the provision and the local community where adult community learning providers have taken real account of local needs and sought to address them—very often through the agency of the local authority so there is a democratic dimension—then the quality of the work tends to be higher than where you see it as something which is simply repetitive and the same group of people are doing the same sort of programme year in year out. We would want to see that connection; I think it is important but it does not mean to say that learning for its own sake should be pushed out of the equation.

  Mr Smith: I would agree with my colleague. In advance of the hearing I pulled out a quotation that said, "We want an educated workforce as well as a skilled workforce" and although Foster concentrates his comments on skills and employability I think there is a very strong case that learning for learning's sake and education for education's sake for the whole community is an important aspiration. I agree with David that that requires a coherence between a number of partners and stakeholders within a community and I think that government policy in relation to the use and opening of schools for that purpose is a worthy one. I would laud that and think that this is something we would aspire to. I am not quite sure how much of that is the business of the inspectorate, but it is the business of educationalists and we should aspire towards it.

  Q496  Mr Marsden: Chief Inspector, I would concur with your overall philosophical sentiments there and I would also go with the fact that it may not always be specifically the role of inspectors. What I would like to press you on are some of the areas of unintended consequences which are now being revealed in the wake of this capping which your inspections, particularly of FE colleges, may throw some light on. The Foyer Federation which you may know provides training and support and accommodation for young people who have been socially excluded have reported countrywide and certainly in my own constituency of Blackpool have reported to me that they are unable to get funding for Gateway courses because the LSC has not seen this as a priority. Incidentally I understand this is something which pre-dates the new capping proposals. In addition, there is an area of soft skill courses not least in terms of people who have taken an access course at FE in the hope of going into HE. The Association of Colleges and other bodies as well have produced statistics to suggest that FE colleges are actually increasing in some cases three or four times the amount on the back of these new government and LSC directives the costs for those courses. To what extent have you in your inspection processes seen some of the unintended consequences of these things that fall through the gaps?

  Ms Silvester: The courses for disaffected young people who have dropped out of school are something that FE colleges have picked up. I have looked at a lot of work looking at young people who have fallen out of school and who have ended up with various training providers and have ended up in FE colleges and are doing a good job. The focus on 14-16 within FE has actually grown dramatically as you may well be aware of the last few years and it is certainly providing a real opportunity for young people to re-engage who have been out of that for some time. It is happening in pockets; if they happen to be picked up in an area where there are relationships with FE organisations and where there is the will from the local authority or others to fund it. In terms of the soft skills under the new funding arrangements, it is still quite early days to see what is happening since the new LSC funding arrangements have been put in place.

  Q497  Mr Marsden: I accept you may not have inspected since, but there have been a whole alarming succession of announcements which have been monitored and collated by the Association of Colleges which is being scrapped and dropped. I quote again from TES last week: "Two thousand IT college places going at Brockstead College. Range of subjects including massage and electronics disappearing at City College, Norwich. Cuts in childcare support at City of Bristol College." There is quite a long list now.

  Ms Silvester: Obviously if the funding is not available then colleges have to re-focus in particular on the basic skills for adults and on Level two first time courses. It is something we can certainly monitor and keep an eye on to see the effect it is having.

  Q498  Mr Marsden: When I looked into this area in my constituency—particularly the Foyer area and some of the other related issues—many of these funding issues problems have come around section 98 funding which is all other provision. In the past when you have done your inspection of FE colleges do you specifically inspect for how effective colleges are in respect of section 98 provision?

  Ms Silvester: We look at the range of curriculum that is on offer and therefore look at the needs of the local community and whether they are being met or not. We look across the whole piece, the local community, the needs of learners and the courses that are available within the college and we will comment if we feel that there are areas that are missing from the curriculum.

  Q499  Mr Marsden: Chief Inspector, in the light of the concerns that the Committee and others have expressed and in the light of the particular issues that I have raised in respect of section 98, are these areas which, in your inspections over the next 12 months and as you develop a new inspection regime, it would be possible for you to focus particularly on?

  Mr Smith: I am sure they are and I have been very interested in your questioning. I think particularly the shape of the new Ofsted with its wider role in terms of the childcare role for the Commission for Social Care Inspection would lead us in that way. Going right back to Helen Jones' first question of the session, the Foster Report recommended—and if I may refer to his words in paragraph 229—that inspections should have "a strong element of area assessment and community" (I miss a word out) "impact". I think this is exactly what you are getting at here. These are issues, they will not be specific to Blackpool but they will be specific to areas where particular courses meet the needs of that community. As David highlighted earlier it is so important that these are coherent within a community and meet the community's needs. Helen Jones was referring to the different types of demand you will get from St Helens and Manchester et cetera; we do not have that breadth of inspection methodology at the moment. We do not go out and do a needs analysis of the community or each institutional inspection. Of course that will add to our responsibilities and at a time when we are constantly being bombarded with demands to constrain our responsibilities by Foster in the same breath, so to speak, then we do find ourselves a bit between a rock and a hard place I am afraid.


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