Further education's organisational
overlay
18. A key theme running through much of the evidence
we have taken has been the apparent complexity of what might be
termed further education's "organisational overlay"
that is, those bodies and structures which oversee, direct,
and audit further education. Below is a diagram, taken from Leitch's
interim review of skills in the UK, which gives a clearer idea
of the organisational frameworks within which further education
is enmeshed.[14]
Figure 1: organisational structure for further education and skills in England
Chart 5.6: Departments and delivery agencies for educational skills in England
Source: Leitch interim review, Chart 5.6
19. The need to rationalise these organisational
systemsnot just to reduce "numbers" but more
importantly, to ensure there is less overlap of functions between
different bodieswas clearly laid out in Foster and has
been very strongly supported by witnesses from whom we have taken
evidence. Barry Lovejoy, NATFHE, told us: "Quite clearly
we can do nothing but agree on the amazing jigsaws that exist
that sometimes do not fit in with one another."[15]
He went on to outline his perception of some of the reforms that
the Government were putting in place to address the issue of over-complexity
and overlapping organisational responsibilities:
"[...] developments like the new Quality Improvement
Agency we are hoping will assist in the process of having some
sort of rationalisation in bringing the numerous institutions
associated and involved in quality down to a lower level and maybe
we can have some sort of bottom line idea about what quality is.
We are hoping that will assist there. Similarly, the inspectorate
and the merging of the two, as long as we do not throw out the
baby with the bathwater so that ALI's strengths are not lost in
the merger, I think that is vital. That is the situation with
all of these things. As long as these are not reduced and we will
not lose some of those key functions, that is fine. Obviously
we did have an issue in terms of the LSC was established and all
of a sudden we hit a crisis and there was an enormous amount of
redundancies announced, et cetera. We are worried how well thought
out they are. Probably some sort of mapping exercise needs to
be done and thought out as to what are the key functions to be
pursued. We are up for that. I think Foster highlighted that and
that is something we would certainly be on board for."[16]
20. Earlier in the course of the inquiry, we took
evidence from the LSC who told us that rather than being in danger
of creating a more and more complex bureaucracy, "what we
are in danger of is making sense of it".[17]
They went on the argue that the creation of bodies such as Regional
Skills Partnerships, new collaborations between local authorities
and the LSC, the reform of the LSC itself and the development
of Sector Skills Councils had a real chance of bringing about
organisational structures which were fit for purpose and less
confusing for those who had to negotiate them.
21. Similarly, the Sector Skills Development Agency
told us that it saw clear evidence of rationalisation occurring
on the ground through its own work. Its Chief Executive, Mark
Fisher explained:
"One of the things I did when I was thinking
of applying for [my current] job was I put 'skills' into Google
which turned out to be a big mistake given the number of different
bodies that came out. Yes, employers desperately need help through
the number of bodies and how they access help, funding, support
and training. A key role for Sector Skills Councils is not only
to give coherence in terms of what employers want but also to
present a coherent face of the system to employers. A number of
the councils are very deliberately trying to put themselves between
employers and the whole edifice and say, 'You talk to us, we will
deal with all the wiring behind' and that might be one successful
way through it."[18]
22. We appreciate that there is government recognition
that the further education and skills landscape is organisationally
over-complex. We also appreciate that some measures are in train
to make the structural overlay more proportionate and helpful,
with less overlap of functions between different bodies.[19]
We also recognise that there are areas of good practice from particular
areas of the country, and think these should be more widely shared.
However, overall, it is not clear that the separate "parts"
of the planning and organisational system which overlay further
education are currently working smoothly together, without overlap
and toward the same ends. The
Government states that, in respect of the regulatory and organisational
frameworks for skills, "over time [
] [we will] look
for further rationalisations which will make it much clearer".[20]
This is insufficiently specific and indicates that Ministers are
not approaching the problem with the urgency it merits. We intend
to undertake an inquiry in the near future on how the overall
skills and training framework fits together but in the meantime
look to the Government to carry out an urgent review of whether
the organisational, planning and funding frameworks for further
education and skills, viewed as a whole, constitute a coherent
system.
International experience
23. During the course of our inquiry, the Committee
visited the Republic of Ireland to examine the operation and organisation
of further education there. Ireland's education and training system
is credited by many as playing a key role in the country's economic
regeneration over the past decade. In structural terms, we found
that the Irish further education system was very different to
England's, yet was facing many of the same challengesparticularly
in terms of the retention of young people and more generally,
in terms of the planning and funding structures for further education,
which often seemed of similar complexity to those in this country.
We discuss in more detail what we learned from our visit in the
appropriate sections of this Report.
2 DfES 21st century skills. Realising
our potential. Individuals, employers, nation, CM 5810, 2003. Back
3
DfES Skills: Getting on in business, getting on at work
CM 6483-I, 2005. Back
4
Q 347 Back
5
Foster report, para 14. Back
6
Q 178 Back
7
Q 179 Back
8
Q 281 Back
9
Q 159 Back
10
Taken from HM Treasury website, http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/. Back
11
Leitch Review of Skills Skills in the UK: the long term challenge.
Interim Report, December 2005. Back
12
DfES Further Education: Raising Skills, Improving Life Chances,
CM 6768, March 2006. Back
13
Q 421 Back
14
Leitch interim review, para 5.46 Back
15
Q 552 Back
16
Q 552 Back
17
Q 76 Back
18
Q 369 Back
19
For example, the Quality Improvement Agency (QIA) issued in July
2006-a draft quality improvement strategy for consultation, entitled
Pursuing excellence. When finalised, it is intended that
this document will be the single strategy driving and co-ordinating
quality improvement work in further education. Back
20
Q 569 Back