Examination of Witnesses (Questions 199-219)
MS MARIANE
CAVALLI, MR
GRAHAM MOORE
OBE AND MR
JOHN STONE
26 MARCH 2007
Q199 Chairman: Can I welcome Graham Moore,
Mariane Cavalli and John Stone to our proceedings. I should have
warned Graham Moore that if he did not behave himself better he
would be called back again; obviously, recidivist that he is,
he is in front of us again. I think it was October when we saw
you, Graham, on the Sustainability Inquiry, but Mariane and John
are new to our proceedings. When we do these double sessions,
we do have to emphasise, both for the members of our team and
the witnesses, that the shorter and more concise they can make
the exchange the better and then we get more information for our
buck; thank you very much. Shall we get started then. Normally
we give the witnesses the chance to say a little bit about themselves
and what they think about this area of our inquiry into skills,
and because I am an old-fashioned gentleman, I think, I am going
to ask Mariane Cavalli if she would like to go first?
Ms Cavalli: Hello. I am Mariane
Cavalli, Principal and Chief Executive of Croydon College. Croydon
is the largest of the general further education colleges in south
London, with about 16,000 students, 3,000 of whom are full-time
16-18 students. We are a large HE and FE provider in London and
I think the largest also in terms of 14-16 provision. In terms
of this inquiry, obviously, I and my colleagues welcome it, in
particular the opportunity to look at some of the assumptions
which underpin the Leitch Report, and welcome the opportunity
to discuss some of those, if that is appropriate.
Mr Moore: I am the Principal of
Stoke-on-Trent College. I am Treasurer of the 157 Group, and we
have presented some written evidence here. I am a Board member
of Regional Skills Partnership in the West Midlands, and, perhaps
most relevantly, I think we are the largest Train to Gain provider
in the West Midlands, so we are heavily involved in this agenda
and have a large proportion of our budget in the adult field,
as opposed to the 16-18 market.
Mr Stone: I am John Stone, Chief
Executive of the Learning and Skills Network, which is one of
the two bodies formed when the LSDA split into the QIA and LSN
in April last year. As such, we are responsible for research,
curriculum development and staff training in the broad learning
and skills area; we also have a support contract for Train to
Gain, so I need to declare an interest in that area. Prior to
last April I was Principal at the Ealing, Hammersmith and West
London College, one of the biggest colleges in the country, serving
the communities of Acton, Southall and Hammersmith, in west London.
Also I had a number of other interests, which came to an end at
that time. I was a Board observer on the LDA, so reasonably familiar
with the London scene, and Chair of the Association of Colleges,
London Region.
Q200 Chairman: A tremendous breadth
and depth of knowledge in the skills sector; so let us get started.
Can I ask, first of all, what are your major concerns? You have
read Leitch and you must have had that instantaneous kind of reaction
to it. Was Leitch the kind of thing that you had been waiting
for, for years, and no-one had ever come up with that kind of
report and those recommendations; what was your reaction to Leitch:
Mariane, would you like to start?
Ms Cavalli: I think probably very
many of us have wanted something like the Leitch Report for a
long time, because it has put a really high-level spotlight on
skills and the relationship between skills and the economy. Several
aspects of the Leitch Report I welcome; a couple of things I query:
the focus which Leitch places on the higher-level skills, when,
in particular, in London, we have got issues in relation to entry
and Level 1 provision, and the lower-skilled workforce with which
we are having to deal. Whilst I do not disagree with the fact
that he is putting an emphasis on higher-level skills, I think
there is a concern that if there is an overemphasis on higher-level
skills we will lose some of the building-blocks which we need
to have in place, and keep in place, in order to enable our learners
to progress. I think also there are issues there in terms of his
interpretation and the relationship between qualifications and
skills and the assumptions which are made that if you have got
one you have got the other, which I think is something we could
argue about, but also can lead to distortions in terms of the
data we are looking at. The other aspect I think is in relation
to what I feel is a tension between what he is saying about reducing
the micro management of FE colleges, in particular, and the need
for a central planning role to continue, although to be slightly
reduced. I think there is a tension there between empowering and
enabling those of us who work locally to be able to come up with
local solutions to government priorities and problems, whilst
at the same time working within a planning framework which makes
that hugely difficult to do.
Q201 Chairman: That is very succinct.
Graham?
Mr Moore: I also welcome Leitch.
I think the focus on skills is absolutely crucial for our economy.
It is one of three things; skills is one of them, capital investment
is another and leadership and management I think is absolutely
crucial, and there is a sort of triangle. You have got to get
all three points of the triangle right, and if you get one of
them right without giving attention to the other two you may have
a problem, particularly leadership and management. Leitch was
right in saying "demand led" and I think there has been
a lot of focus on providers in the past and their ability, or
otherwise, to respond, and no doubt we are going to spend some
time talking about that today, but I think we have to recognise
that there is still a major task to get the demand side up and
running. There are lots of blockages in our economy which ensure
that employers are not as strong in their demand for the skills
which the economy needs as you would expect. I can give a number
of examples of that. For example, in the hospital service and
in the care service, they do not want to go to Level 3 qualifications
because they will have to pay their staff more; Level 2 will do.
If you look around the economy, there is quite a lot of "Level
2 will do," and therefore, as an economy, we do not take
people on to the next higher level; there is not enough ambition
in companies. We can all do business with large companies, most
of them are well geared up to training and development, they understand
the agenda; we have found SMEs difficult, the new brokerage network
is finding SMEs difficult. I do not think necessarily it is because
the provider side is creating the problem there, I think it is
in the nature of these sorts of organisations, many of which the
staff have grown up themselves. We have some fundamental issues,
of how we engage SMEs, the people who are going to be our future
successes, the companies which are going to grow into large companies,
and Leitch has not quite given us the answers there. He suggested
that if things do not improve he needs to take more action, 2010.
I think we are very interested in the licence to practise; just
as the Government has recognised that if you want people to stay
on until 18 it is probably a good idea to require them to stay
on to 18 in education or training of some sort. Also, if you want
to raise the skills level in the economy, I think you have to
recognise that things like the licence to practise, perhaps led
by Sector Skills Councils, may be a key element in raising that
skills level. Once you have got to do it then, surprise, surprise,
companies invest in it, and if you have not got to do it, if they
have got the choice, they will bring in the overseas labour, or
they will try to recruit from somebody else down the road, and
that still is a problem for the British economy. Leitch has hinted
at the answers, but whether he was brave enough, to have said
wait until 2010, I would counsel this Committee that 2010 is a
long time to wait when this is an urgent issue.
Mr Stone: I have a similar reaction
really. I think we welcome the drift, which started with Foster,
to refocus the system on skills, and it has been given a big boost
by Leitch. I suppose my main concern is that I think the Report
rather muddies the water, as Mariane says, between skills and
qualifications. I think we need to be obsessed with skills and
not quite so obsessed with qualifications; all the difficulties
in making international comparisons which you have heard about,
I know, in some earlier sessions. If anything, I think the system
needs to flex up, it needs to become, to coin a phrase, more demand
led, demand led perhaps more in the established, dictionary or
economics textbook definition of the term demand led, by individuals
and by employers. I think the system is still too top-down dominated
by PSA targets, which, in a sense, have sucked a lot of the flexibility
out of the system, and, although it talks about employers and
it talks about individuals, in reality a lot of the flexibility
is not there when it comes to making decisions on the ground.
I think then what we will see, as I know you have heard from others,
is a move away from full-fat Level 2 into other areas, not necessarily
full qualifications, modules, perhaps allowing more flexibility
at local level, to which Mariane referred, to build those local
eco-systems, where the skills match available in a locality actually
matches the demand which the communities and employers need in
those areas. The danger that we are seeing in London, very starkly,
at the moment, is of so much room for manoeuvre being taken out
of the system at birth that it will take some time to develop.
Q202 Chairman: So much flexibility
being taken out of the system?
Mr Stone: At the point of funding,
if I can put it that way, with the situation in London at the
moment, which I am sure you will come on to, and I am sure it
is all across the country, where by the time the PSA target is
catered for there is very little room for manoeuvre left for what
people need on the ground to be attended to.
Q203 Chairman: What is your reaction
overall to the kind of major part played by Train to Gain: John;
you have a vested interest?
Mr Stone: As I said, really I
think Train to Gain, a bit of that vested interest in supporting
it; although it is badged Train to Gain, it is actually an initiative
to support colleges which are seeking to improve their employer
engagement per se, so it is not only restricted to the Train to
Gain funding mechanism, which is very, very particular. I think
we welcome Train to Gain, inasmuch as it is a much needed, demand
side initiative, it is there to encourage employers to take more
interest in training, and the age-old game of trying to find ways
of doing that. As I indicated in my previous remarks, my problem
is, it is the sort of demand led you get in your Russian supermarket,
you can have anything you like as long as it is Level 2, anything
as long as it is potatoes, whereas employers, Sector Skills Councils,
providers, are all screaming actually "This is not what people
want." It seems, for Train to Gain to be a success and to
be a true demand mechanism it has to get a life, it has to get
out more, it has to start living up to its name and finding a
mechanism to address the demands which are out there, and I think
it has got some way to go on that score.
Q204 Chairman: Thank you, John. Mariane,
what do you think of the criticisms of some of the trends coming
out of Leitch, and perhaps beyond, which go back to a system which
we saw many years ago, of a very big premium, 50% paid to a college,
up front, when you sign someone up for the course, then 50% only
on completion with a qualification? Do you have any worries about
that kind of thing; it has been criticised in the past with previous
programmes, what do you think about it now?
Ms Cavalli: I do not have worries,
in principle. We have gone beyond the point now where we think
we will get allocations given to us, irrespective of our outcomes.
Provided the funding is aligned with the colleges which are being
commissioned, as being the colleges which have got a reputation
for delivering that high quality provision, then I think it is
not inappropriate to say that a significant part of your funding
comes with your ability to enable that learner to succeed. Provided
the learner is on a programme he, or she, wants to be on, is on
a qualification aim that he, or she, is committed to, and that
we are not in a situation where employers or other brokers are
sending people to us on the basis that it is good for them and
then we have got to deal with the skills delivery while also trying
to motivate them and encourage them to continue with something
to which they may or may not feel committed. If I may pick up
on the Train to Gain point, I think you introduced that by saying
the major part which Train to Gain is playing and I think that
is something which is challengeable because it is not playing
a major part at the moment. In London, Train to Gain is underperforming
against its targets by round about 70 or 80%, and colleges have
embraced the concept of having some of our funding removed, for
it to go to Train to Gain brokers and then for us to bid to have
that funding returned to us through the route of Train to Gain.
In London it is not working; in London the broker system is not
working. In London, brokers are either not sending leads to FE
colleges, or when they are sending people to us we are finding
that they are not eligible to take advantage of Train to Gain
courses. John mentioned the Russian supermarket model. I talk
about the fact that I feel like I am Henry Ford; it is anything
you like, as long as it is Level 2. We have got issues now, for
example, where we are talking directly with employers who still
want us to do courses and provide training for them, but we have
to say "Go to the brokers." They may come back through
the broker system, they may not come back through the broker system,
but we are trying very hard to make sure that we contribute to
London's Level 2 targets but we are doing it around and outside
the broker system now, I have to say, with the consent of the
LSC, who now really need us to come up with any way that we can
do it. There are very fundamental issues, on the capacity and
the strength and, I think, the connections which the current broker
services have. They are continuing to be funded, of course, but
I think there are issues about what they are being funded for
and how we are quality-assuring them, and how we can seriously
get behind them to make sure that together we deliver the Train
to Gain agenda.
Mr Stone: We have just done a
survey of our FE senior staff engaged in colleges in Train to
Gain, and over 80% said they had got next to nothing out of the
brokerage network. Another significant concern was the amount
of accreditation of existing skills which is going on, because
of the "funding on outcome" model; again, on that return,
admittedly it is a reasonably small sample but it does give cause
for concern. Something like 60% were accrediting more than half
of what they do, rather than new skills acquisition, and that
does put a question-mark about whether the model is adding sufficiently
to the skills base of skills UK. It comes back to that skills
or qualifications point; yes, we may be creating qualifications
but it does not mean necessarily that we are creating skills.
Q205 Chairman: Is that a problem
of dead-weight then, Graham?
Mr Moore: I think there is a problem
of dead-weight. If you point the FE sector, colleges, providers,
at a target, by and large we will do our best to hit it; in this
particular case you are giving away training because that is what
Train to Gain is all about, it is free training. For quite a lot
of this training we used to get a handy income from employers
because they were willing to pay for it; now, of course, the Government
says that it is free. I think the Government is paying out money
unnecessarily into those through the brokerage network, and I
can fully support John, I have got information from all the 157
Group members and I would put it at no higher than about 10% of
the leads come from brokers. Most of the rest is self-generated
by the providers, and I am sure that if you speak to the private
providers they will tell you a very similar story. You are spending
money on a brokerage network which is not adding a great deal
to the situation. Also, for a number of employers, you are telling
them that the stuff they used to pay for they can now have free,
and that again is dead-weight. They will not pay in areas where
it is a requirement of the job that you have the qualification.
It is the point I alluded to earlier, if you move down the road
of saying, just as if you are a doctor or an architect or you
are working in the care system, you have to have qualifications,
if you broaden that out through the Sector Skills Councils then
the Government will not have to put quite as much money into the
pot there, as it is doing at the moment. It could redirect that
perhaps to help individuals who are not supported by companies
to continue their education and development; companies should
be able to look after themselves, and individuals perhaps are
the ones who are better served by the support. Having said that,
I believe that the colleges and providers have worked extremely
hard to help the Government meet the target, and the position
in the West Midlands is a good deal stronger than I think it is
in London, there is evidence that Train to Gain targets are being
met. Very interestingly, at Level 2, when it is free, there was
a pilot in the West Midlands at Level 3, where 50% of the cost
was to be provided by the employer, and that was going very badly
indeed; so the higher-level skills, the Level 3 skills, really
are not taking off. That, I think, is something that Leitch will
be very upset about, because if you look in his Report he is really
wanting to up the ante towards Level 3 and Level 4 and there is
not a lot of evidence that is happening at the moment. I do worry
about the dead-weight issue that you are suggesting.
Q206 Mr Wilson: Before we move on
to what really I want to come to, I would like to clarify something
you said, Graham, in an earlier answer. You seemed to be suggesting
that employers try to hold employees down to Level 2 qualifications
because they do not want to pay them more; do you want to elaborate
on that or confirm that was what you were saying?
Mr Moore: That is exactly what
I am saying, and I think in the Health Service, which is obviously
a bit tight for cash at the moment, that is very obvious. There
are pay scales, particularly in the public sector, where if you
get a higher-level qualification you pay more, so if you do not
want to pay the staff more you do not encourage them to get the
higher-level qualifications; it is a very simple process but not
a very desirable one. Also, if you look at the construction industry
and areas like that, where the certificate to practise on site
is a Level 2 qualification, there is not a great deal of incentive
again to get brickies and carpenters and others on to a Level
3 qualification. We have not built into the system, it seems to
me, a lot of incentives to get up to the technician and more advanced
levels, and so we are dealing with the deficit model at Level
2 at the moment. I am not certain we have got a structure in place
which will take us to where we want to be, which is more Level
3 and more Level 4 people still, except individuals, because individuals
care about their future, they want to get on, they want a better
job, and it may well be they who are pressing to get the higher-level
qualifications. At the moment, you are increasing very dramatically
the amount they are going to have to pay for those qualifications;
the policy of 50%, that is where they are moving to, and Leitch
endorses that, 50% of the cost of Level 3 qualifications paid
for by the employer or the individual, and I suspect, in many
cases, it will be the individual. In some parts of the country
those individuals are not very well placed to pay that, and it
is rather speculative, from that point of view, they do not know
whether they will get a job which requires Level 3 or not but
they thought they might give it a try. If it becomes very expensive,
in areas such as Stoke, which has got a very low income level,
and many other similar cases, lots of people would not be prepared
to put substantial amounts of their salaries into getting a Level
3 qualification and paying for it in the way which is suggested.
Q207 Mr Wilson: You are saying that
the impact on the employee basically is to hold down their skills
over a period of time?
Mr Moore: I am not saying it is
always, but quite often it can be, and you can point out sectors
where that is the case.
Mr Stone: There is another impact,
which is the diversion of funding, which is also a very significant
issue; certainly we heard ALI talking in November about a lack
of provision at Level 3, because of the concentration on Level
2, actually reducing provision at Level 3 in construction in order
to fund at Level 2. Currently we are seeing in London quite significant
reductions in ESOL, which Mariane might know more about, because
of, again, money being shifted for an extended Level 2 target,
for which there is limited demand. It is not a zero-sum game,
this emphasis on one particular area of the skills system, and,
of course, it is the area of the skills system which shows the
lowest rate of return, with some NVQ Level 2s showing a zero rate
of return, so it is slightly curious, in many ways.
Q208 Mr Wilson: That is very interesting.
I think we had better move on to what I am supposed to be asking
you about, which is responding to employers. In your submission,
Graham, of the 157 Group, you suggest that responding swiftly
to employer demand is a very frustrating experience due to funding
and measurement systems, which make it very difficult to deliver
anything other than full qualifications?
Mr Moore: If you can pay for it,
not a problem; if you are an employer who is going to pay the
full cost then we will do whatever you ask, there is no difficulty
about that. As soon as you drop in to, if you like, the funding
mechanisms, as-soon-as you move from a situation where the employer
does not mind how much it costs, or the employee, then you have
to jump through a whole host of hoops. Obviously, the amount of
time that takes can be quite frustrating to a particular employer.
We would say, if you have a Level 2 qualification already then
clearly you will have to pay for that, so some staff will get
paid for, some staff will be free. If you want a full qualification
then you might get the funding; if you want only a part qualification,
you will not get the funding. It is quite difficult for employers
to understand those distinctions. We might all say, "Well,
you're not in a priority area; this is not where the local LSE
thinks the money should be spent. You happen to be an employer
who unfortunately falls outside of those priority areas and they
want us to put the money into other things." You might even
say, "Well, the qualification you want is not the qualification
that the Government, the LSC, is prepared to fund, so you can't
have what you want but you can have what we want." This is
the Ford model, or the potato model. There is a fair amount of
bureaucracy, because there are lots of different funding streams,
each one of which is organised in a different way, so if you are
doing ETP you set up one set of forms, if you are doing work-based
learning apprenticeships it is a different approach, and if it
is mainstream funding it is a different approach again. If it
is European Social Funding, it is a different approach; if it
is through Jobcentre Plus, it is a different approach again. There
are lots of different bureaucracies. As colleges, we try to make
it as simple as possible, because we deal with all those different
funds; we try to hide that from the employer, but sometimes there
is quite a lot of work they have to do to complete the paperwork,
because we get audited, and so on, and that has all got to be
in apple-pie order.
Q209 Mr Wilson: Obviously, it is
a very bureaucratic, overcomplex system. What are you asking for,
a simplification, or are there other things that you want?
Mr Moore: One funding stream or
one set of rules would make life much simpler. After all, the
objectives, at the end, are to provide education and training
for either employers or individuals. Is it not possible for us
to devise a system which has one approach rather than multiple
approaches and one which gives overarching targets; a discussion
with a local provider, for example, saying "These are the
problems in your local community, your local economy. We believe
you are an organisation well placed to deal with them. What can
you do for us?" You give an outline of how you can help to
transform the skills, and you say, "Right, go away and do
that. There is a funding stream associated with that; this is
what we can afford, we want to see some results in 12 months'
or two years' time;" so we are accountable but we are not
accountable in very fine detail. What we should be looking at
is the overall picture of whether there is a genuine shift, there
are more Level 2 or Level 3 qualifications in that community,
that particular priority areas are being addressed. If you can
do that, you should be able to have a much simpler system, a lighter
touch.
Q210 Mr Wilson: You are saying there
that the overall thing you should be judging by are Level 2 or
Level 3 qualifications; but, on the other hand, you are saying
that you do not want to be judged by qualifications?
Mr Moore: I am not saying that
we do not want to be judged totally by qualifications, because
clearly we are in the market of educating to a particular standard
and qualifications are probably the only way we have of recognising
that standard. If it is a full-cost opportunity then clearly qualifications
do not matter, you do what the customer wants; if it is the Government's
money, the Government has to have some way of understanding what
they are getting for their money and qualifications is a shorthand
way. This is where we bring in Sector Skills Councils and their
focus on what are the core requirements of a particular industry,
and that core requirement maybe is where the Government funds,
where it puts the core of its money, then each company has its
own particular slant on that, they will want additional specialisms
perhaps. What the companies pay for are those specialisms to build
round the core and it is a partnership then, but it is a simpler
partnership. The Qualifications Framework should be a fairly tight
and clear arrangement, to which most companies would agree, and
then the bigger, full qualification, if you like, the one that
we are being asked to provide at the moment, with all the things
that employers do not want, as well as all the things they do
want, could be handled more easily, I think.
Q211 Mr Wilson: Can I move on to
you, Mariane, because this may not be true of Croydon but in many
colleges the majority of work is focused very much on 16-19-year-olds.
In general, do colleges have sufficient capacity to liaise with
employers about the training needs, as well as the other things
they do?
Ms Cavalli: Croydon is not untypical
of a large GFE college, in that 16-18 actually constitutes the
minority, although an important minority, of our provision. I
think, if I were sitting here five or six years ago, I would say
the answer would be quite a resounding "No." Having
said that, I think it is not just the Leitch Report or the introduction
of Train to Gain, or even current Government targets and a Government
agenda which is behind colleges already having built their capacity
to be able to work with employers. Therefore, it is not untypical
now, in large general FE colleges, to have sales forces, to have
a key account approach to working with major employers, to be
out working with employers on a regular basis. One of the points
Graham made was, in relation to our providing what employers want,
there is a fairly big piece of work which needs to be done before
that, with employers, about helping them to work out what it is
they need. I think we are highly developed in terms of our ability
to be able to work with employers, to anticipate and to work with
them planning their training needs as well. The introduction of
Train to Gain and the added impetus around employer engagement
no doubt has focused those college leaders, that were less familiar
with the way, internally, colleges have to be organised, and needed
to be reorganised, in many ways, it has focused their minds to
enable them to do that. To give you an example, in anticipation
of the changes that we are facing now, my own college reorganised
so that structurally we are no longer organised around the products
that we produce, i.e. courses and qualifications. We are organised
around the particular markets that we serve, and therefore we
are able to keep a very strong customer focus in relation to whether
we are dealing with 16-18s or the skills agenda or higher education.
I think capacity has built. Going back to the points which Graham
made, in relation to working with employers, yes, there is an
issue about whether they are prepared to pay for Level 3. Also
there is an issue, and it comes back to this one about whether
they want the skills or they want qualifications, very often they
are happy for us to help them to upskill to Level 3 but they do
not need the full Level 3 qualification or need to pay for the
full Level 3 qualification either. In terms of what it is we need,
in the way that Graham has just described, and would be hugely
helpful, is if we could get rid of the complexities of those different
funding streams. It would be particularly helpful if we were able
to work to deliver a more flexible Qualifications Framework, and
it would be especially helpful if we could have some local discretion,
in terms of what we are delivering. At the moment, for example,
working in Croydon, we see that in London the creative industries
have got a huge skills demand. We cannot talk to any of those
employers because the creative industries are not an LSC priority
area; there are just no conversations to be had. We need to be
able to marry up the national agenda and take account of the fact
that in different localities there are different priority areas.
Going back to the Level 2 issue, I think we are heading for a
crisis with the focus for Train to Gain, work-based learning and
main FE qualifications having to be focused around that, at the
huge expense of other, very important provision.
Q212 Fiona Mactaggart: You are heading
for a crisis, which is quite strong language. If I have got you
right, and it seems to tie up with what John was saying earlier
about resourcing skills rather than qualifications, are you saying
that you would like to be able to offer, particularly to students
who are not engaged necessarily in the kind of normal things,
slightly more flexible, slightly more bite-sized stuff that can
get together, or have I misunderstood that? That is what I think
I did not quite understand.
Ms Cavalli: FE colleges have been
crying out for that for years, an ability to be able to do that.
Equally, we have been talking for years about needing to work
with revisions to the Qualifications Framework so that we can
offer those bite-sized pieces of learning within a framework which
enables that learning to be put together and to be accredited.
The crisis I am referring to there, I do not know if it is solely
a London issue but there are quite a lot of learners in London
so I am happy to be speaking on their behalf, in terms of the
2007-2008 allocations, FE colleges have been made to be very clear
about the fact that there is a huge stretch target for full Level
2 qualifications which colleges need to deliver, in the context
of reduced adult funding. I chair the London Capital Colleges
Group, which is the group of the 13 largest GFE colleges, and
I chair the South London GFE Colleges Group, and there is not
one college, within any of those which would be an exception to
this, in order for them to deliver their Level 2 target, having
at the same time to absorb the funding cuts which are coming next
year, they and we are having to remove from their portfolios provision
which is non-PSA target-bearing. In London, that means that amongst
the London Capital College Group, just by way of example, we are
looking to remove entry Level 1 and Level 2 ESOL to the tune of
round about £15 million, alongside other provisions that
will have to be taken out. That might not be an issue if you are
concerned only with PSA targets, but we are concerned about social
cohesion issues and about the fact that, a particular problem
I think in Croydon, we have got the Home Office in the Borough.
We are told that asylum-seeking status gets sorted out in weeks;
we know we have got students who have been with us for two years
plus, who are still trying to have their asylum-seeker status
sorted. Irrespective, this is across the board in London where,
if we are not delivering Entry Level 1 and Entry Level 2 courses,
we are cutting off the future supply for being able to deliver
Entry Level 3 in full, which is a PSA target. Around all the colleges
at the moment they are trying to balance the unbalanceable, because
we know we have got to deliver this significant Level 2 target.
It has to be at the cost of something, because the adult funding
is being reduced; therefore, we have to reduce provision which
is non-PSA target-bearing. Because we have already cut out much
of what used to be called "other provision" or because
we have been very good at making sure that we are only delivering
things which are attached to relevant qualifications now we are
at the stage where we are having to shave into those non-PSA target-bearing
courses, which FE colleges should still be delivering. We need
to be able to grow the capacity of students with low levels of
achievement, to be able to work with them and get them to the
point where they are ready to do Level 2 etc. That is why
I think there is a crisis looming, and that is the pincer movement
of Level 2 in respect of our allocations and Train to Gain.
Q213 Fiona Mactaggart: I wonder if
either of the other two witnesses would like to comment on that
specific point, then I want to ask about advice and guidance?
Mr Stone: The figures at my old
college, the cut next year is £1.4 million, they believe,
and that is 1,000 ESOL learners, and we are talking about Somali
women living at home, with no basic skills, who are completely
isolated by their lack of English, with all that means for social
cohesion. Currently they have the students, the demand led is
there for that, and they have been asked essentially to replace
that with a stretch target of an additional 450 Level 2 students
for which currently they do not have demand. I think these are
distortions you get when targets are set outside the system, in
the Treasury, and then ripple down through the system and create
what is an unintended effect. The Government does not want to
hurt Somali women living at home but actually wants ESOL to be
a priority; but this is the impact of a rigid target system.
Mr Moore: Bill Rammell has presented
to the House on a number of occasions the number of students in
FE, and has had questions asked about that; you will see a significant
jump in the number of adult learners in FE. The answer to that
which the Government gives is that it is about refocusing the
effort on substantial learning amounts for people doing Level
2, so there is a very strong focus on the economic agenda; the
country needs both an economic and a social agenda. Employers
have got a very large say. I am worried that individuals are losing
out on this, and we must get the balance.
Q214 Fiona Mactaggart: In your evidence,
you describe the information, advice and guidance system, you
say: "is available from most colleges and Connexion services.
Learndirect on-line provides a nationwide coverage. A broad range
... " it goes on. Actually, reading this paragraph, about
your reference to information, advice and guidance, I was rather
taken by the evidence we have received from VT Education and Skills,
which says: "There is recognition that in England this is
somewhat fragmented," because I thought your description
was of a very fragmented service, "and many are comparing
this with the more coherent approach to careers information, advice
and guidance in Scotland and Wales." I am not asking you
to be experts on Scotland and Wales, but what is your view, is
it coherent; you do not say it is incoherent, in your evidence,
but it sounded incoherent?
Mr Moore: Obviously, there are
a lot of angles there. Are we talking about for individuals or
are we talking about for companies?
Q215 Fiona Mactaggart: For the individuals,
for the students?
Mr Moore: If we are talking about
it for individuals, students, where would they normally come;
for a student who wants advice, very typically, in most towns,
they would come through to local FE college to see what was available.
They might go to the Careers Service, as they used that when they
were younger, and many career selection services now have an adult
arm. There is a role, it seems to me, for local authorities, whether
that be their local partners, which would tend to be colleges,
for example, with a long-term presence in that community, to provide
that advice. If they were matrix-assessed, in other words, they
were tested to show that they were giving impartial advice, and
that was audited, or if they were giving advice about all of the
opportunities that were available, you have a ready-made system.
After all, every college in the country, as far as I am aware,
has teams of advisers that are available there already to help
individuals, and most local authorities have teams; you probably
do not need to go much beyond that for advice and guidance for
individuals, I would suggest.
Q216 Fiona Mactaggart: You think
it works; you think it does not need to be more coherent?
Mr Moore: I do not think necessarily
it works; it has not been particularly well funded, and so on,
so it is a Cinderella provision at the moment.
Mr Stone: It is patchy, I think.
All the information I get is that, yes, there are patches of good
advice and there are patches of no advice at all, and I think
probably that is a reasonable summary of where we are on it. I
think the whole Connexions partnership ideal was rather too complicated
an agenda for a large, sprawling partnership to deliver; you need
something which is much more focused and, frankly, much more managed,
but at the moment it is patchy.
Chairman: We are moving on, to national
policy issues and Leitch.
Q217 Mr Marsden: I was going to ask
all three of you to what extent your work was target-driven and
what you saw as the negative and positive consequences of national
targets, but I think we have been over that ground quite fairly.
Perhaps I could put it round another way, and perhaps, for the
moment, I can put myself in the position of a beleaguered minister.
We are told frequently by ministers and by people in DfES that
they are not against a broader provision, in terms of adult students,
but what they want to see is progression. Can I can start by asking
you, Graham, to what extent you feel, given that the work, as
you have said, is very time-driven, you can give progression in
adult studies beyond the narrow targets which are given, or not?
Mr Moore: I think it is our job
to build a curriculum which provides the opportunities for progression.
I believe very much in lifelong learning, that further education
should be there for you whenever you need it during your career,
and we have done as much as we possibly can, and I guess many
colleges have done the same, trying to preserve that range, working
with local authorities as well, which have the adult and community
learning budgets. Remember, those are being protected but not
in real terms, only in money terms, so you can progress from those
ACL courses, the community courses, which again have been restructured
to identify progression routes in them, on to college courses.
If you take out some of those steps, because the money is being
rationed, if you take out some of those entry-level steps and
Level 1 steps, which there is a danger of taking place, then there
are some gaps in that provision which people will fall through,
they cannot leap the gap. Certainly, the Government has talked
about the foundation levels of learning as a priority for it,
and they are trying to put something in place, but it has not
really happened. What is happening with the FE budget is that
16-18 numbers that is the first priority so money goes into that,
everybody is guaranteed a place 16-18, one way or another; adult
funding is residual, it is what is left after that money has been
allocated, and within that is this very high priority on economic
focus. We have to hold up our hands, as the FE sector; if you
looked at the balance of the work we did, we did not do enough
on the economic front and we did quite a lot on the social front,
and it is a rebalancing. Of course, whether we are going from
one extreme to the other now and not providing those social routes
through, I think there is a danger you go from one extreme to
the other.
Q218 Mr Marsden: You may be throwing
out the baby with the bath-water?
Mr Moore: I think that is the
case.
Q219 Mr Marsden: John, can I come
to you and ask you perhaps a broader question about targets and
how they have done, because, again, one of the things we are hearing
a lot in this inquiry, and it has been talked about a lot outside,
is vital enabling skills, soft skills, call them what you will,
how far are they catered for, in the sorts of targets that you
are set currently, and if they are not should they be more so,
is it feasible to do that?
Mr Stone: I suppose they are catered
for in targets in the sense that they are part of a full qualification.
Certainly there is a lot of discussion around the new Diplomas,
what is coming back from employers about what they want in personal
learning and thinking skills, and I think, on an international
stage, there has been a drift in what employers want, away from
specific vocational and more into that area, that tends to be
more what they ask for. I think though it is a big leap to say
that you need full qualifications to deliver that. In some of
the earlier evidence, I think the Chairman mentioned a scheme
in east London where people were given just a small amount of
soft skills, which was making people employable. I think it is
an illustration, in a way, of how you can do a fairly small-scale
initiative and just put in that extra amount needed to be creative.
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