Response to the Foster Report, funding of work based learning for 16-19 year-olds and adult learning(Maximising the potential of work based learning providers, including those in the independent sector, in the delivery of the skills strategy.)The Association of Learning Providers (ALP)1. ALP is a trade association with 425 members. They are predominantly work based learning (WBL) providers with 75% contracted to the LSC. Well over 100 also deliver to Jobcentre Plus and 50+ hold Ufi contracts.
2. Two thirds of its members are in the not for profit sector, including some 50 colleges of FE; the other third being private sector businesses.
3. Members are estimated to deliver up to 75% of all Apprenticeships, together with over half of Entry to Employment (E2E) and Employer Training Pilot (ETP) provision. Understanding the history4. In order to respond properly to Sir Andrew Foster's recommendations and address the need for more effective work based learning for 16-19 year-olds it is important to understand the existing situation and the degree to which current activities inhibit the maximising of the input available from work based learning providers. Access to Government contracts5. Access to Apprenticeship, E2E and ETP contracts is fully open to any provider who can meet and sustain the quality criteria set out by the LSC. This 'contestable' arrangement will also be available for the new employer training programme, 'Train to Gain', planned to commence in April 2006. The opportunity to provide other 16-19 and adult training remains restricted to FE colleges and, in a much more limited way, to Adult and Community Learning (ACL) providers (mainly local authorities and voluntary sector organisations).
6. Despite the intent and apparent provisions of the Learning and Skills Act 2000, independent providers are only able to access the broader range of Government contracts as franchised (sub-contracted) providers to FE colleges. All activity/performance under these arrangements is attributed to colleges, with the frontline provider remaining 'invisible'. Colleges retain between 5 - 65% of the LSC funds as a 'top-slice' to cover administration (the average is between 20 -30%). This money is not available to provide frontline, direct training. It is estimated that between 5 - 10% of FE delivery is via franchising. During 2005 this invariably high quality, high priority provision has been radically reduced by colleges as they have sought to minimise the effects of budget changes on their own institutions and staff.
7. High quality, demand led provision of the type the Government, through the LSC, now wishes to purchase, delivered by independent providers is currently being cut because of the unexplained inability of these providers to access direct contracts with the LSC. Why these funding restrictions still, after five years?8. The following, from the LSC paper on 'Funding Flows and Business Processes' in 2000, outline an intent which has still not been delivered:
9. "Future flexibility will involve greater freedom for providers to diversify into new types of provision: for instance, work based training providers might move to running vocational A-levels as well as NVQs. This could lead to the emergence of a cadre of multi-functional providers ..." (para 5.20).
10. "The LSC will be able to contract directly with further education providers and other private and voluntary sector organisations" (para 1.8).
11. "The normal relation of a local LSC and a provider - or partnership - will therefore be a direct one. However, we do not wish to preclude on level of subcontracting by a provider where it can add value. Subcontracted providers would of course retain the option of contracting direct with the local LSC if they wished" (para 5.45).
12. These and other connected issues are presented in more detail in Annex 1, a transcript of ALP Chairman Martin Dunford's presentation at ALP's 2005 National Conference, and Annex 2, one of ALP's submissions to Sir Andrew Foster as part of his review FE. The Foster Review of Further Education13. Annex 2 presents most of the key issues ALP raised with Sir Andrew during his review. Annex 3 shows in bullet point form the one-page summary of our key points, submitted during his final drafting stage.
14. We are pleased with the overall thrust of his report, particularly with his recommendation for a clearer focus - skills and employability - for the sector. His report rightly acknowledges the need not to threaten the fundamental stability of the college sector, which we agree should properly stay at the heart of both 16-19 and adult training. Significantly, however, he has argued for an increased level of 'contestability' to enable 'new providers' to enter or develop further within the sector. It will be important that these providers are offered a direct contracting relationship with the LSC and not positioned as mere sub-contractors to FE colleges. Increasingly quality of provision should be the main, if not sole, criterion for the awarding of publicly funded contracts.
15. It will be important that the DfES accepts these recommendations and the overall thrust of Sir Andrew's report when they formally respond in the Spring of 2006. 16-19 provision - Apprenticeships16. As the main deliverers of Apprenticeships ALP members have been disappointed that in 2005 they have had to cut back on recruitment, and indeed turn away, both employers and young people seeking to access Apprenticeship funding. The reasons for this were two-fold. Firstly - to use the word of the Adult Learning Inspectorate's (ALI) Chief Inspector - the "spectacular" increase in quality leading to more Apprentices staying on the programme longer, to completion, and therefore using up higher levels of funding. This welcome problem, of success, was however compounded by the inadequate assessment of the costs of other funding changes introduced for the 2005 accounting year.
17. This led, early in 2005, to providers being told they would not be paid for delivering the volumes set out and agreed in the contract. Providers had no alternative but to immediately curtail recruitment despite the increasing demand. The LSC and DfES were able to respond in part to this situation and found an additional £38M mid-year, but the LSC still had to impose an arbitrary 50% payment limit on many providers which has led to an underpayment to those providers of circa £25M.
18. The continuing increase in quality and achievement, and the associated costs, is now leading to a reduction in full Apprenticeship volumes as providers select more carefully those young people most likely complete their Apprenticeship. These developments will have a significant impact on other 16-19 provision as young people are unable to access and join work based learning. 16-19 provision - Entry to Employment (E2E) and other pre-Apprenticeship provision19. The increased selectivity currently being adopted is causing young people who wish to enter the work based learning route to seek other options. There has been an explosion in 2005 of young people - 30,000 - on programme led pathways in colleges. These will typically be working towards their key skills and technical certificate elements. This is a welcome pre-Apprenticeship route, but it is not yet clear how many of them will transfer to full employer-led Apprenticeships. This will need careful monitoring to ensure this approach is successful and cost effective. Failure in linking these college based students up with employers will lead to partly trained young people without jobs. Linking them directly with employers from the outset - as WBL provision does - will, at worst, ensure they are 'part trained' with a job and, at best, enable them to fully complete their Apprenticeship.
20. The higher levels of pre-selection within Apprenticeships will mean those unable to secure an Apprenticeship place and not prepared to choose a college course will increasingly seek a place on E2E. This in turn will increase the likelihood of those at greatest risk and in greatest need being unable to find an E2E place. Having already decided against staying on at school or in a college, these young people are more likely to become one of the Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) group.
21. ALP therefore predicts that many 16-19 year-olds who do not wish to stay on at school or enter a full-time off-the-job course in a college will not be able to find an appropriate WBL-based course of their choice and will leave the quality training arena, either for a low paid job without training or by entering the so-called 'alternative economy'. It will be essential to find more WBL training places in response to the preferred choice of 16-19 year-olds. Failure to do this will prevent any further reduction in the NEET group and may even precipitate an increase. Quality and reputation of work based learning22. In his recently published Annual Report (November 2005), ALI Chief Inspector David Sherlock asserted the "coming of age" of the WBL sector, urging the DfES and LSC to fully use and trust the sector and its providers as key players in delivering the government skills strategy. His assessment was based not only on the recent and continuing dramatic increase in full Apprenticeship completions, but also the far more extensive range of outcomes achieved within the programme.
23. Full Apprenticeship completions, quite rightly, remain everyone's goal. The failure, however, to fully acknowledge the achievement of significant numbers of NVQs, other vocational qualifications (technical certificates) and key skills - especially when gained by those who have struggled most throughout the whole of their schooling - has devalued the achievements of young people and damaged the reputation of work based learning in a most unfair and unhealthy manner.
24. In 2002 the performance of 30 Apprentices was tracked and their success evaluated under Apprenticeship performance rules and FE college performance rules. The outcomes under FE rules showed a 70% success rate. The identical outcomes under Apprenticeship assessment rules were less than 30%. Despite this proven non-comparability we are still assessing FE college performance at a creditable 72%, whilst Apprenticeships are quoted at 40%. The assessment of FE college success includes the separate counting of individual NVQs, key skills and an extensive range of 'short courses'. These same achievements are not counted in the overall assessment of Apprenticeship success.
25. Young people, parents and their advisers need a much more accurate assessment of comparable success rates to understand the real success of WBL if we are to ensure those young people best suited to learn and progress within a WBL route are encouraged to make what, for them, will be their correct choice.
26. Close to half of all those on Apprenticeships currently fully complete them. Of the remainder, a further 12% gain a full NVQ; of the rest, others complete a portable technical certificate (invariably a qualification in its own right) and many more achieve key skill passes not obtained during eleven or more years at school. All of them are in employment. They do not have to get a job, as they already have one. This reality clearly demonstrates the value and success of work based learning, and when fully explained makes it rightly comparable with the overall success rates within the FE college sector. It is essential, if we are to properly promote the value, reputation and effectiveness of the whole 16-19 sector, that more accurate, and we would suggest honest, pictures are drawn presenting the comparable performance of various parts of the sector.
27. Development of the skills necessary for a competitive 21st Century economy means that more young people, of all ability levels, need to be attracted into work based learning at an earlier stage. The reputation and promotion of the sector, together with sufficient resources to support it, constitutes one of the core elements and challenges of a successful skills strategy. Adult Learning28. The recent clarity regarding Government priorities for funding as set out in the two skill strategies has clarified the focus for all training providers. This priority has been helpfully reconfirmed by Sir Andrew Foster in his proposal that FE colleges, and the sector as a whole, needs to focus primarily on "skills and employability". ALP agrees with this priority focus but, even if we did not, it is tremendously helpful to have such a focus confirmed in order to direct our efforts and expertise.
29. It, of course, means that other types of training - leisure, personal development, etc - will need to be funded by a combination of individuals and/or employers. This is right. It will, however, not happen naturally, nor overnight. What is now required is a comprehensive and sustained Government-led marketing strategy to outline the benefits to both individuals and employers and start to shift the long-established culture in the UK of free, or highly subsidised, training from further education. Simply expecting providers, colleges and independents, to extract greater sums from their users is not the answer and wrongly places the whole burden of a change in public policy onto them. |