Jim
Knight: As we have heard, amendment 239 would make the
Young People’s Learning Agency part of the Skills Funding
Agency, effectively recreating the Learning and Skills Council. Going
down that road would confuse the distinct roles of the two bodies and
dilute their focus and effectiveness. The focus of the Skills Funding
Agency will be completely different from that of the YPLA, because it
is an adult learning agency, and will have a clear brief in that
regard. It will allocate funds to colleges and providers according to
the purchasing decisions of employers and individuals through Train to
Gain and skills accounts. Learning choices will reflect the specific
circumstances and skills needed by the employer and individual
concerned within a wider framework of national skills priorities.
Crucially, colleges—I have heard the concern expressed about
bureaucracy and/or the confusion for colleges—will have a single
account, which will reduce the conversations and commissioning that
they currently have to undergo with the Learning and Skills
Council. 6.30
pm That
approach to adult skills does not fit with the arrangements needed for
young people. Setting up the YPLA as part of the Skills Funding Agency
would not deliver the transformation in services that we want for
either group. Colleges will have a single conversation with local
authorities, so what are at present multiple conversations with the
Learning And Skills Council will be replaced by two conversations: one
with the SFA and the other with local authorities. The hon. Member for
Bognor Regis and Littlehampton worried that we were adding quangos. He
will correct me if I am wrong, but his party’s policy in respect
of academies and expansion, with the example of the Swedish model,
would involve the establishment of new schools with a new licensing
authority, which would have to be set up. It sounds as if it would
perform fairly similar functions to the academy functions performed by
the YPLA. I do not really understand why he makes that criticism when
it is his own party
policy. The
YPLA will support local authorities in fulfilling their new duties to
secure enough suitable learning places for all 16 to 19-year-olds in
their area and ensure
that the £7 billion budget that is being transferred is properly
managed. It is an enabling body. It will provide funding for local
authority provision of 16-to-19 learning, ensuring national budgetary
control and making sure that plans are consistent with the concept of
the 14-to-19 entitlement. It will consult on and provide a national
commissioning framework. We are planning next month or soon after to
publish the first framework for consultation that will help local
authorities’ commission provision. It will provide data on
participation, attainment and economic progression in local,
sub-regional and regional areas, preventing the need for that to be
done repeatedly at local
level. We
need funding and administrative frameworks that are suitable for the
circumstances of the two distinct sectors while ensuring co-ordination
and progression between them, and setting out the YPLA and the Skills
Funding Agency as separate organisations achieves that. It is
fundamental to the fulfilment of what we set out in the Education and
Skills Act 2008 about raising the participation age that we should have
local authorities for ages 0 to 19, or up to 25 for those with learning
difficulties, commissioning decisions supported by the YPLA, separate
from the SFA as an Executive agency of the Department for Innovation,
Universities and
Skills. Amendment
105 seeks to limit the number staff at the YPLA. I accept that at one
level, it is a device to ask a series of important questions, and I
will seek to address them as best I can. As a non-departmental public
body carrying out these functions, it is appropriate that the YPLA has
the flexibility to allocate administrative resources as its board
determines appropriate. The pay, terms and conditions for that body
will be accounted for to the Secretary of State and hence to
Parliament. Its funding will be accounted for in the
Department’s expenditure plans. The YPLA, like other NDPBs, will
be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor
General. We
expect about 500 staff to transfer from the LSC to the YPLA to perform
the LSC functions, as part of our strategy to ensure that the expertise
in the LSC is retained for the benefit of 16-to-19 education and
training. As the hon. Member for Yeovil said, we would also have to
transfer some staff from the Department to perform the academies
functions, and they are currently required to administer the number of
open academies that we have at the moment. That number is set to
increase dramatically, as we set out at the last departmental questions
in the House. We have agreed more than 100 new academies in the past 18
months, many of which will open in September. We will seek to ensure
that if the YPLA needs to grow staff, as an efficient organisation it
does so on a basis proportionate to need. On those grounds, I do not
think that it is appropriate to enshrine this or any other number of
staff in primary legislation. That aspect of the functions of the YPLA
is set to change and a cap on staff numbers would not allow the YPLA
and its board the flexibility to manage its staffing in a responsive
and appropriate manner.
Mr.
Hayes: When the estates of the National Apprenticeship
Service, the YPLA and the SFA are combined, according to the Minister,
the new estate is likely to be smaller. He spoke in the evidence
session on 10 March about operating from a smaller estate, so
collectively will those bodies employ fewer people than the LSC does
now?
Jim
Knight: Across the numbers of those transferring to the
local authorities, the SFA and the YPLA, I do not expect a reduction in
the head count. I expect it to be neutral. There may be some small
variation on the margins, but we are currently agreeing with staff that
there will be no compulsory redundancies, and attached to that is the
notion that, consistent with cost neutrality, staff will transfer. As I
said, we do not want to lose their
expertise.
Jim
Knight: I want to move on to some of the points that were
raised in the initial debate, but I shall give way, first, to the hon.
Member for Beverley and
Holderness.
Mr.
Stuart: I am extremely grateful to the Minister. Would he
confirm that the quantum of people employed by the SFA and the YPLA
will be less than the number currently employed by the
LSC?
Jim
Knight: I would certainly think so, given that a number of
staff will be transferring to local
authorities.
Mr.
Laws: I am grateful to the Minister for his patience and
for the comments that he has made about what he expects to be a neutral
staffing position. Just so that there is no doubt about this, because
such organisations sometimes tend to grow rapidly if left uncontrolled,
how will he ensure that there is not a big increase, and is he
confident that a year or so after the bodies have been established we
will not find that staff numbers have gone up by 10 or 15 per
cent.?
Jim
Knight: I shall come on to that when I address the
questions that have been raised about the impact assessment and my
evidence. To
assist the Committee, in broad-brush terms, the LSC currently employs
some 3,300 staff. We expect about 1,800 to transfer to the SFA and
about 500 to transfer to the YPLA, leaving about 1,000 to
transfer to local authorities. That is a substantial
difference, to return to the question asked by the hon. Member for
Beverley and
Holderness.
Mr.
Stuart: I am grateful to the Minister for those figures.
They cover the number of people who will be transferred to the new
agencies but do not specifically cover any plan to hire additional
people on top of that. For the elimination of doubt, I thought that I
would provide him with an opportunity to put our minds at rest on the
matter.
Jim
Knight: I do not anticipate that the organisations will
take on significant numbers of staff beyond those who transfer. Many of
the details on staff transfers are being worked through and negotiated
at present. There may be some staff who choose not to transfer, whose
function may need to be replaced. I cannot put a straitjacket on the
bodies. It is important that they perform their function, but it is
equally important that they perform them within a restricted cost
envelope.
On what is
said in the impact assessment and what I said in evidence, it is fair
to say that the impact assessment reflects in full where we were at the
time that it was written. The picture is ever-changing as we refine
costs and get closer to implementation. I commit myself to update the
Committee in writing on where we are as the figures are refined,
because it is important that it have more clarity about them. When the
Bill completes its passage through the Commons and goes to the Lords,
assuming that it does, there will be a refreshed impact assessment in
which I would want to see much more detail in this regard. If I gave
the impression in my evidence to the Committee that there was fuller
information in the impact assessment than there is, I regret
it.
Mr.
Laws: In that spirit of openness, will the Minister or the
Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills undertake to provide
the Committee with a note on the Government machinery costs of the new
arrangement, compared with the costs of the old arrangement, not only
for 2008-09 but projected to 2009-10, and 2010-11 to the end of the
spending review? We can then compare what would have happened if the
Learning and Skills Council had continued with the cost estimates under
the new
arrangements.
Jim
Knight: I want to be as helpful as I can to the Committee,
and I will set out something as close to what the hon. Gentleman asked
for as I am able. The Committee will understand that since the impact
assessment was published, we have been working on issues of staff
pensions and the movement of staff to the three bodies, and there is
still some negotiation going on. However, I can assure the Committee
that the measure will be
cost-neutral. Within
the comprehensive spending review period, there are limitations on the
size of the budget to be spent for this, and every part of Government
will have to make efficiency savings as per the announcements in the
pre-Budget report. Furthermore, the Department’s accounting
rules and the Treasury rules on efficiency savings are being followed
and scrutinised externally by the National Audit Office, which puts
constraints on us to deliver our promise that the measure will be
cost-neutral, as our fulfilment of that promise will be scrutinised. I
can assure the Committee that there will be no double-counting, as
described by the hon. Member for Yeovil. The measure will be genuinely
revenue-neutral. I hope that on the basis of those assurances—to
some extent promises—the hon. Member for South Holland and The
Deepings will not press the
amendments.
Mr.
Gibb: I find that response unsatisfactory. The
Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills
said: “The
cost is already set out in the impact assessment; we have not memorised
it. It is on the record”——[Official
Report, Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Public Bill
Committee, 10 March 2009; c. 179,
Q427.], and
the Minister for Schools and Learners
said: “That
is certainly set out in full in the impact assessment. We can obviously
return to that during our
debate.”——[Official Report,
Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Public Bill Committee,
10 March 2009; c. 180, Q429.]
The impact assessment is
full of statements that the figures were too complicated to calculate,
so the assumption is that the cost is nil. That is an unsatisfactory
way to produce an impact assessment. When the House implemented
arrangements for impact assessments, their purpose was not to become an
obfuscation document that considers things too hard to
calculate. We
are talking about replacing one quango with three, and the Committee
deserves to know the best estimate of the costs arising from that
transfer, the long-term or medium-term costs of staff transfer, as well
as the transition costs. I do not believe that those transition costs
do not reside somewhere in one of the two Departments. If they do, the
Minister should promise today to write to members of the Committee so
that we can return to the issue on Report. If the figures do not reside
in either Department, something incompetent is going on in the
administration of the transition. To transfer 3,300 people to the two
bodies and to 150 local authorities and have no idea of the removal
costs, the pension arrangements, or the compensation needed for moving
people around the country is negligent Government administration. I
hope that the Minister will provide us with those figures. He assured
us that they existed when he gave evidence. That is the only way out
for the Minister in dealing with the inaccurate evidence he gave in the
fifth sitting of the
Bill.
Mr.
Hayes: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for
putting the case on amendment 105 so clearly. He spoke in his final
remarks like the accountant that he is. He wants detail. He wants
things to be specific, and he is right to do so. He speaks for the
people of Britain and expects taxpayers to be assured about these
matters. We know that when this kind of Government reorganisation
happens—and they have happened primarily under this
Government—costs escalate and things get out of control. They
swell and mushroom. There is no better example of that than the
Learning and Skills Council, which grew as it took on additional
responsibilities and additional people, becoming ever more bureaucratic
and finding new functions for itself as it interfered in the work of
further education colleges and extended its scope and range. I
suspect that the new organisations will do the
same. 6.45
pm We
can say one thing with certainty. The new system will not be
streamlined. It is a not a slimmed-down new structure. Indeed, the
Minister has finally acknowledged that it will not be any smaller. He
said that there will be no compulsory redundancies, but what he
probably meant to say is that there will be no redundancies at all, or
at least no reduction in staff numbers. I suggest that staff numbers
will grow. Although my hon. Friend spoke in firm—I will not say
“lurid”—terms about the matter, I acknowledge the
Minister’s humility in accepting that he may have got it wrong
in the witness session. He said that he regretted giving the wrong
impression. At least he is not like Edith Piaf: he does have regrets,
and humility too. As Chesterton told us, “humility is the mother
of giants”, for one sees much more from the valley than from the
mountain top.
We now need
the Minister, having regretted what he said originally, to regret what
he has failed to say today and provide the Committee with more
information at
the earliest opportunity. That would be a fitting and appropriate way to
resolve the differences between us. We do not like to disagree; we like
to progress with equanimity and good will. I am sure that that good
will might be re-established if we receive more detail. It is
inconceivable that the detail does not exist in the Department. No
responsible Minister would fail to model the costs. No responsible
Government would fail to say to their officials, “We want some
estimate of what is likely to happen as a result of these significant
changes.” The figures must exist. The modelling must be
available. It should be made openly available to members of the
Committee. At
the witness session, I pressed the Minister hard for precisely those
reasons. I am grateful for the support, both then and today, of the
hon. Member for Yeovil and my hon. Friend, who as ever brought his
remarkable diligence to these affairs. I hope that we can move on and
that the Minister, even at this late stage, will commit to do as my
hon. Friend asked and write to the Committee about amendment
105. Amendment
239 is pertinent to this discussion. I mentioned at the outset that it
was a probing amendment, but nevertheless, our mission in moving
it—it has been our mission throughout our considerations and
will ever be thus—is to try to make the changes as
cost-effective as possible. We want a simpler, less complicated, more
responsive, streamlined structure, but my goodness, that is not what
the Bill gives us. It gives us ever more cost, ever more complication
and an increased likelihood of contradiction and incoherence. It is not
just more costly; it will not work, and that is even worse, because it
is young people’s futures that we are dealing with, and with
which the Minister is
toying. On
the basis that the amendment was a probing amendment, I beg to ask
leave to withdraw the amendment. I hope that the Minister will do
better in future.
Amendment,
by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 57
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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