Memorandum submitted by VT Education and
Skills (VTE&S)
VT Education and Skills (VTE&S) welcomes
the Committee's two inquiries into skills and is pleased to have
this opportunity to submit our views on post-16 skills training.
We have also submitted a response to the inquiry into 14-19 specialised
diplomas.
LEITCH & NATIONAL
POLICY/ISSUES
VTES broadly welcomes the final Leitch Report
and, whilst still examining the detail, we wish to comment in
general terms on some of its key recommendations.
1. Routing adult vocational funding through
Train to Gain and Learner Accounts—VTES agrees with the
Leitch Report's position that funding should support a demand-led
system as far as practicable. Train to Gain is an existing structure
and would therefore provide a useful route for funding whilst
maintaining an element of continuity to the system.
2. Increased employer engagement—This
is very important in ensuring that the benefits of increased skills
are fully realised for the UK as a whole, as it ensures that employers
make use of those increased skills and that the skills that are
gained by individuals are those that are economically valuable.
3. The extension of Train to Gain—VTES
holds Train to Gain contracts in seven of the nine English regions.
We welcome the Leitch report's view that Train to Gain is a positive
innovation that represents a shift to a demand-led system. We
agree that it is important that this approach be embedded across
the system and look forward to working with partners across government,
the Learning & Skills Council, local authorities and others
to take this forward.
4. The integration of skills and employment
services—Through our contracts for Connexions services VTES
works to reduce the number of young people not in education, employment
or training (NEETs). Key to achieving this is a combination of
improved skills, addressing individuals' barriers to learning,
and good quality information, advice and guidance services. There
is a need to recognise the role that training has in improving
self-esteem and soft skills which can help to make the transition
to employment sustainable. From our experience, we support the
recommendation to integrate skills and employment services.
5. New universal adult careers service—Clearly
there is shared concern about the rather fragmented nature of
IAG provision for young people and lack of access to a universal
adult careers service. We comment on this further below.
SUPPLY SIDE
As Sir Andrew Foster has recognised and government
has accepted, there is a need to raise the bar for the whole further
education and training sector and to tackle inadequate and coasting
provision. As well as this drive for higher quality and better
performance, there is a need to increase the capacity of the sector
in order to reduce the numbers of people with poor skill levels.
Good quality providers from all sectors should be able to expand
and we support the Government's proposals for commissioning alternative
provision to secure better performance.
At the same time, government needs to avoid
further segmentation of the sector. For example, DfES' current
consultation on personalisation implies that this is only for
those on skill-based courses. All young people need this approach
whatever their pathway and a unified, integrated personalised
approach across all post-16 education and training would deliver
benefits. Therefore, the (generally good) approach to personalisation
should not be aimed at vocationally related or skills based courses
in FE but should be developed as part of the 14-19 curriculum
with schools and colleges across all types of qualification pathways.
In addition, we believe that the best practice
that already exists in schools and colleges (such as Beacon schools)
should be shared and developed in local partnerships so that learners
may progress through levels of learning with a coherent and integrated
model of learning support centred upon them rather than the institutions
in which they learn.
DEMAND SIDE—EMPLOYERS
VTES agrees with Lord Leitch's observations
that central prediction and planning for skills has not worked
well in the past and that a demand-led system is needed. This
will not only deliver greater economic and social benefits for
the UK, it is also essential if employers are to contribute more,
financially, to training. This financial partnership is key to
unlocking greater investment in skills—itself crucial to
the UK's competitiveness and productivity in the global economy.
VTES is already set to act as a major partner
with the Government in delivery of the Train to Gain initiative.
We believe that for employers to take more responsibility for
training, as the government and the Leitch report are pointing
towards, businesses need to see very clearly the improvements
that such training will make to the financial returns of their
business. We believe that this could be addressed by modifying
the existing brokerage system.
At present, although the brokerage system has
been designed to help the employer to step over the threshold
of training by forming relationships with them and providing impartial
guidance with regard to training provision, the brokers themselves
are not charged with demonstrating overtly the commercial benefit
to the employers' business that the training will deliver. The
role of skills brokers could usefully be expanded so that they
can examine the business of each employer with a view to proving
how training will make it more successful. This would require
a simple tool kit which we ourselves have used to analyse the
"Return on Investment" of training in VT's shipyard.
Necessarily the additional expectations would
place more of a burden on the broker but the potential outcome,
along with greater commitment from the employers is so powerful
as to make such a burden a creative one. Any scheme designed to
address the longer term skills needs of our economy will work
if sustainability is built into its core. Therefore it is well
worth the extra pain and investment in getting the Train to Gain
model right, from the outset.
DEMAND SIDE—LEARNERS
We wish to focus our comments in this section
on the provision of information, advice and guidance (IAG). There
is recognition that in England this is somewhat fragmented, and
many are comparing this with the more coherent approach to careers
information, advice and guidance in Scotland and Wales.
The patchy nature of careers education provision,
the lack of a sustained approach to workforce development for
those involved in delivering IAG (through from front line tutors,
careers co-ordinators to specialist personal advisers) and poor
use of labour market information all mean that IAG is an area
that needs consistent investment and improved national leadership.
DfES needs to plan sufficiently ahead to allow the development
of CPD packages to support the IAG workforce.
IAG is very important to the skills agenda.
The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) notes in
guidance to its members that:
"There is evidence that learners who receive
good quality IAG achieve better and are less likely to drop out
of learning or change course after they are 16. [1]There
is also evidence that effective CEG [careers education and guidance]
programmes contribute to ... raising aspirations, increasing motivation,
challenging stereotyping and enabling young people to make the
most appropriate choices ... "
QUALIFICATIONS
Government is naturally concerned primarily
with qualification and success rates but we would also stress
that the real benefit of personalisation is the ability of the
learner to become autonomous which leads to life-long learning
and supports employability in the long-term.
It is also very valuable that information, advice
and guidance (IAG) has been recognised as one of the core areas
that must be developed for young people to benefit fully from
the roll out of the specialised diplomas.
ABOUT VT EDUCATION
& SKILLS
VT Education and Skills (VTES), a division of
VT Group plc, is a private sector company working almost exclusively
in the public sector where our major customers are the DfES, LSC,
Home Office, Local Authorities and government agencies.
VTES is among the largest and fastest growing
private sector providers of education services in value, range
and quality. We are the largest provider of independent careers
guidance in the country and one of the largest providers of work-based
learning. VTES' main areas of activity are information, advice
and guidance (IAG), work-based learning and school support services,
each delivered by a separate business unit. This coverage is unmatched
in the private sector in the UK.
VT Careers Management is one of the leading
IAG companies in England, delivering high quality and innovative
services under contract to the DfES and LSC to seven Connexions
Partnerships and managing eight Nextstep agencies.
VT Training is the largest work-based training
provider in the UK, specialising in delivering NVQs and workplace
assessment in five main sectors: hospitality; social care; engineering;
active sport and leisure, retail and business administration.
VT Training holds work-based learning contracts in each of the
nine regions across the country and Train to Gain contracts in
the South East, South West, London, East of England, East Midlands,
West Midlands and North East.
For the last two years we have been involved
in a unique partnership with Surrey County Council—VT Four
S—to deliver school and Local Education Authority Services
across the UK. It combines the best commercial practices with
the values and principles of the public sector. Already this new
partnership is one of the largest school support service organisations
in the country, providing consultancy, advice, training and development
Most recently, we have become involved in the
Building Schools for the Future programme, and in the last few
weeks have been appointed as the long-term strategic partner of
the London Borough of Greenwich. We are looking forward to starting
work on this exciting project which will see the renewal of 13
schools within the borough in a way that will transform educational
opportunity for young people in the area, and for the wider community.
January 2007
1 Bowes, Smith & Morgan, Centre for Guidance Studies,
University of Derby (2005). Back
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