Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
BILL RAMMELL
MP AND PROFESSOR
DAVID EASTWOOD
17 JANUARY 2008
Q80 Mr Marsden: Do you accept that,
that the majority of the programmes that will be co-funded with
employers will be part-time?
Professor Eastwood: They would
be normally studied over a longer of period of time, and that
is the experience we are having so far, so we will continue to
work with institutions, as we have over the last 18 months, to
get institutions committed to delivering employer co-funded provision
in order to meet that target. The remainder of the numbers we
are committed to distributing in accordance with the priorities
that will be set out in the grant letter and I think they are
actually already well-known, they are to continue to try to widen
participation, so we will be looking to work with those institutions
which are best able to widen participation in higher education,
they are to continue to increase the number of foundation degrees
to 100,000 by 2010 and they are to ensure that we have appropriate
capacity in strategic and other valued subjects.
Q81 Mr Marsden: That is all very
broad. There are no specifics there between the three categories
that I put to the Minister.
Professor Eastwood: Well, the
issue that we face in a higher-education system which is market-responsive
is to identify the institutions that can deliver those numbers,
and also the categorisation is not as straightforward as that
because a student can simultaneously be a widening-participation
student and a student on a strategic subject, for example, so
it would be inappropriate in a system of allocation simply to
put them into pots and identify them as driving one student type.
Q82 Chairman: You have not a clue,
have you, how you are going to get these extra students in? That
is the reality.
Professor Eastwood: On the contrary;
all our evidence over the past few years, as the Government has
increased the available number of students, is that we have had
no difficulty in distributing them between institutions. What
we need to do is to ensure that distribution is appropriate to
institutions which are able to deliver to the priorities established.
Q83 Chairman: But the assumption
here is that ELQ students are in fact preventing FTE students
entering our universities, be it Birkbeck, the Open University
or our regional universities, for first degrees, and you have
not produced a single piece of evidence to say that that is the
case.
Bill Rammell: Well, that is the
financial reality. That is what has been happening within the
system. Even with a government that has significantly increased
investment in higher education, you have a limited pot, and within
that limited pot at the moment people have been studying for ELQs
financially, because numbers are managed through HEFCE, at the
expense of first-degree entrants. There are 100,000 people who
apply to university each year who do not succeed.
Q84 Dr Harris: Let us take the Open
University. Do you have any idea how many applicants to the Open
University who were suitable applicants for first-time degrees
were turned down because 100,000 people may be turned down because
they simply do not qualify for the courses and you would not want
to argue that anyone should not apply again, so how many Open
University applicants, do you know, were turned down because there
was not the budget or the space for them when they were applying
for first-time degrees?
Professor Eastwood: That is not
data we would collect because they are—
Q85 Chairman: On a similar question
then, there are 100,000, as the Minister has said, who apply for
first degrees who are turned down because there are not the places,
so how many of those were suitably qualified, so they just did
not get in because we are now demanding three A-stars from our
A2 students, or whatever the bar is?
Professor Eastwood: The data that
we have is that there are out there in the marketplace, and the
Minister has already referred to them, two million students who
have—
Q86 Chairman: I am not debating the
figures.
Professor Eastwood: There are
potential students who are qualified to enter higher education,
so, of the 100,000 that the Minister has referred to, institutions
are making admissions choices. Those are constrained admissions
choices because their numbers are constrained and, when they are
making those judgments, in part, they will of course from time
to time prefer an ELQ to a first-time applicant because the ELQ
applicant may leave that institution better qualified.
Bill Rammell: Also, in addition
to that, and I made this point earlier and, when we were looking
at these figures, I have to say, I was surprised by the numbers
initially when we first looked at them, six million adults within
the workforce who are educated and qualified to A-level equivalent
who do not go on to higher education, surely there is space and
capacity within that volume over three years, with effort, with
creativity, with the funding lever, to get 100,000.
Q87 Dr Harris: But I have just checked
and in the earlier session I believe Brenda Gourley said that,
despite spending an awful lot on marketing, and obviously you
cannot accept students unless they apply, they have not found
any students, pretty much, whom they have had to turn down for
first-time degrees who are suitably qualified because of the cap
or their budget. Therefore, that suggests that, firstly, you need
to get these people you think are out there to apply rather than
take money away and say, "If you fill them with people who
are not applying, your position will be restored". Do you
see the problem they face, that, if people are not applying, they
can never replace that funding that you have taken from them?
Bill Rammell: But, if we were
proposing that this change comes in in September and the whole
£100 million is redistributed, I, in part, could accept some
of that argument. That is not what we are saying. We are saying
that there are three years to phase this in, it will only be £20
million that is redistributed in the first year and, with the
funding lever, with a much stronger focus on those adults within
the workforce and the need to recruit them, I am confident that
we can get that redirection over three years. The evidence to
back that up is that actually universities, certainly over the
last ten years and indeed before, have responded to the changes
in the funding lever that have been administered through HEFCE.
Q88 Chairman: You have made your
point very forcefully, Minister. Would it be possible to let us
have, because this data clearly must be available, the details
of those 100,000 students who have applied to our universities
last year and to say whether, and how many of, those were suitably
qualified for the courses for which they have applied because
I think that is the essential data to put into the pot?
Bill Rammell: Chairman, I will
happily do that. I did not say all of them were suitably qualified
and the real force is the six million adults.
Chairman: But, if it was 50% of them,
then it is a very significant number of fish that are in the pot,
one of whom is my daughter.
Q89 Ian Stewart: This proposal demands,
as you have said, Bill, a culture change. Now, if, for example,
you wish to encourage employers to contribute, some of us would
support that concept, but how are you going to ensure that? How
are you going to ensure that employers do not just employ people
from abroad who are already skilled? Secondly, why did you not
just consider leaving this and including the whole lot of this
in the review that you have proposed for fees and so on?
Bill Rammell: On the need for
employers to move, we do need a cultural change. In addition to
this, we have announced before Christmas at least £100 million
over the coming CSR period for employer co-financing schemes,
and what I am convinced of, given the need for that cultural—
Q90 Dr Gibson: You said £100
million?
Bill Rammell: That is right.
Q91 Dr Gibson: The same figure?
Bill Rammell: No, £100 million
for co-financing, and then there is £100 million for—
Q92 Chairman: It is not the same
£100 million?
Bill Rammell: No. What I am convinced
of is that we cannot be prescriptive in absolute terms about how
those co-financing initiatives need to take place. That is why
at the moment HEFCE already have 15 pilot initiatives across the
country and we need to engage and encourage employers to work
with us. In terms of your second question—
Q93 Ian Stewart: Before you move
on to the second question, the weakness of any previous levy system
or anything else was that those good employers who invested in
training and education got the benefits of that and those who
did not invest had to pay a levy. That was the system in the past.
That was a mandatory system. You are proposing here a voluntary
system. How are you going to ensure that, even if the good employers
will invest, those that do not wish to invest do not get away
with it scot-free?
Bill Rammell: Well, we are not
proposing levies, and there has never been a levy system at this
level of qualification, because we are not convinced, based on
the evidence, that that is the best way.
Q94 Ian Stewart: I heard you say
that earlier though. What is your evidence? How are you going
to ensure with the voluntary system that employers just do not
employ people from abroad who are already skilled?
Bill Rammell: The whole of our
strategy is focused right the way through the qualification chain
at upskilling the existing indigenous workforce so that the claim
that is made of "I can't get the home-grown workers that
I need" does not have force. That is what the whole strategy
at Level 2, Level 3, Level 4, the whole Leitch analysis is about,
actually ensuring that British citizens have the skills to enable
them to compete within that marketplace. Your second point, and
this was played out quite significantly during the Opposition
Day debate that we had on the floor of the House, that this should
just be kicked off into the 2009 Commission, although I was interested
that I did not hear anyone across any of the parties actually
objecting to the policy in principle, it was a debate about delay,
the problem with referring it to the 2009 Commission is that we
have said that that Commission needs to address the first full
three years of operation of the new variable fees system. That
means that the Commission, and it will be a Commission with a
report, it will not be proposals for action, is unlikely to report
until the middle/end of 2009. If we delayed it, that would effectively
mean that we have agreed here and now that we are going to make
none of these changes during the whole of this CSR period. Given
the Leitch skills imperative, I believe that would be the wrong
thing to do.
Q95 Mr Cawsey: I just want to ask
two very quick questions, one on timing and one on support. It
strikes me that, if there were to be a simple analysis of your
policy, you would be saying that there are 20 million people out
there or six million who are ready to go, and both are big numbers,
which the system is completely missing at the moment and, therefore,
they have to be incentivised and you believe that the financial
lever is the way to do it. Now, we heard evidence today that said
that actually there is precious little evidence that there is
the demand from these people, so is the lever by itself going
to be enough? Let us just suggest for one second that it is. How
can you be certain that 20,000 full-timers, which is actually
a much, much bigger number—
Bill Rammell: Full-time equivalents.
Q96 Mr Cawsey: Exactly, so the actual
number is going to be much, much larger than that. How on earth
do you think that the universities are going to be able to recruit
that amount of people who, from everything we have been told this
morning, are not asking to come into the system? Is it simply
going to be achieved by saying that, because it will be funded
that way, that is what you are going to go out and do?
Q97 Bill Rammell: Well, in part,
it is based upon experience. We have actually got 300,000 more
students in higher education today than we had ten years ago,
and, I have to say, at every stage in the debate about the expansion
of higher education, the critics have said, "We have enough
people in the system, we shouldn't go any further, it is destabilising
and actually the demand isn't out there", and at every stage
the system, responding to the funding steers from government,
has actually managed to significantly expand the higher-education
system. The really critical point about this is that that analysis
which says, "Look, this is difficult, it is challenging.
We're not sure that the demand is there", if we just accept
that, then we accept we are going to fall behind. That Leitch
target of 40% of the adult workforce by 2020, America, Japan and
Canada are already there in terms of those percentages and they
are not going to stand still, they are going to continue to move
forward, and that is why I think it would be an abdication of
responsibility simply to say, "We accept the status quo",
and we do not.
Q98 Mr Cawsey: But the timing, because
the question is about timing, you think that this is a realistic
timescale to expect all these institutions to change which they
clearly have not been doing because these people have been ignored
for so long?
Bill Rammell: Yes, I do. We are
not asking for it overnight. The target is for the end of three
years and it is 20,000 full-time equivalents. I am very confident,
based upon the track record of the institutions that we are talking
about, that they have the wherewithal with the funding support
to achieve that change.
Q99 Mr Cawsey: Even more quickly,
you say, and we have had you in front of us before about that,
that it is all about Leitch imperatives, blah, blah, blah, but
you clearly must have, therefore, discussed all of this with him.
What is his view on all of this?
Bill Rammell: I think you need
to talk to Sandy about that. It would be wrong for me to pass
on whatever private conversations I may or may not have had about
this.
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