Mr.
Gibb: In this case the National Apprenticeship Service is
an agency of an agency. It is not an agency established by the
Department
directly.
Mr.
Simon: No, the National Apprenticeship Service is not an
agency. It is a service that sits within the Skills Funding Agency. Its
chief executive has a direct reporting responsibility to the two
Secretaries of State because the National Apprenticeship Service job,
with its planning and delivering of apprenticeships, is so important.
The NAS is not an agency. The Skills Funding Agency, although we have
called it an agency for the sake of explaining what it does, is not an
Executive agency in the way that, for instance, Jobcentre Plus is. The
statutory power is vested in the statutory officeholder, who is the
chief executive of the Skills Funding
Agency.
Mr.
Gibb: Is the chief executive of the National
Apprenticeship Service the accounting officer of that
service?
Mr.
Simon: Before I answer that question, I will reply to the
hon. Gentleman’s point on transition costs. He made that point
very strongly in debate with my right hon. Friend the Member for South
Dorset, who said that he would write to him before Report stage. I can
confirm that he will write to Opposition Members about the details that
were not included in the way that they would have liked in the impact
assessment.
Mr.
Hayes: We want the letter to be as useful as possible for
all members of the Committee. Will it include a schedule for the
repayment of any costs? Relevant to my earlier intervention is the fact
that in the 2006-07 budget line for costs, the reorganisation of TECs
was still accounted for by the Learning and Skills Council. The last
reorganisation was still being paid off six or seven years
later.
Mr.
Simon: I am afraid that we will have to wait for the
letter to see what detail is in it. I simply do not know whether that
level of detail will be available. If the information is available and
can be got, then I am sure that my right hon. Friend will be happy to
share it with members of the Committee.
To reply to
the question from the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton
about the single performance framework, it is the framework for
excellence, which already exists, and is being developed and expanded.
It covers the same performance indicators for participation,
achievement and the drop rate, and will be implemented for 16 to 19 and
adult providers by
2010. On
the relationship between DIUS and the SFA, and the SFA and its
operational responsibilities, there is an outline of what the framework
document will look like. If that document is in a state to be
shared—I am pretty sure that it is—I will be happy to
write to Members before Report stage to share it with them.
I remind hon.
Members that we do not need to put the agency on the face of the Bill
at all; we could have gone about this administratively. We want to put
it in the Bill to create more distance in respect of the operational
delivery.
Mr.
Gibb: I understand that point very well, but I wonder
whether before the Minister concludes he can return to the names of the
accounting officers who will be accountable to the Public Accounts
Committee for the performance of the NAS and the
SFA?
Mr.
Simon: Sorry, I forgot that bit. The chief executive of
the SFA will be the accounting officer for
both.
Mr.
Hayes: That is a useful answer to the question of my hon.
Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, but given that
the NAS reports to two Departments, what line of political
responsibility will it be in terms of the proper scrutiny from
organisations such as the Public Accounts
Committee?
Mr.
Simon: I am not sure that I understand the hon.
Gentleman’s question. Is he asking whether the chief executive
of the NAS will appear before the Public Accounts Committee? In that
case, as he is not the accounting officer, then the answer is
no.
Mr.
Hayes: I will clarify my intervention. My hon. Friend the
Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton asked about the
responsibilities of the Public Accounts Committee regarding the
officers of the NAS. The point that I was making is that there is also
a line of political accountability, given that the NAS reports to two
separate Departments. What is that line of political accountability?
Which Ministers will take responsibility regarding the Public Accounts
Committee’s scrutiny of the
NAS?
Mr.
Simon: I am not sure whether it is for me to determine
which Ministers will appear before the Public Accounts Committee.
However, I envision that, given that the chief executive of the NAS
will make a dual political report, to each Secretary of State, if there
were to be officers from that organisation or Ministers appearing
before Select Committees to answer for that organisation, it will be
Ministers from both Departments. However, the ultimate answer is that
the chief executive of the SFA is the accounting officer, and that is
where the ultimate accountability for the operation of the NAS, which
is housed statutorily within the SFA, will
lie.
2.15
pm
Mr.
Hayes: I do not want to be unnecessarily inquisitive about
this, although I suppose to be so is our purpose. The NAS relationship
with the SFA is becoming clearer as a result of the Minister’s
comments. However, I understand that the SFA does not report to both
Departments, so presumably if the accountability is assured through the
SFA, it is hard to understand why Ministers from a Department with
which the SFA has no relationship would be involved in an inquiry
concerning those matters by a body such as the Public Accounts
Committee.
Mr.
Simon: I now understand the point that the hon. Gentleman
is making. The distinction, which I perhaps have explained better, is
that the statutory relationship is through the chief executive of
Skills Funding, who is a civil servant accountable to the permanent
secretary at DIUS. Beneath that, there is a relatively unusual dual
report from the chief executive of the NAS directly to the two
Secretaries of State. As for how that reporting line would manifest
itself in ministerial responsibilities to Select
Committees—
Mr.
Hayes: If that were to be drawn, it would be a mix of
Jackson Pollock and Heath Robinson. We need to know how that political
line of responsibility marries with the administrative responsibility,
which the hon. Gentleman has made clear. It might be more
straightforward if the Minister were to write to me about that, so that
we could make progress.
Mr.
Simon: I will be happy to reflect and write to the hon.
Gentleman, should I have any inspired thoughts of anything that I have
not said. However, I do not want to
promise to write to him with new information that I do not have. I have
explained the situation to him as best I can and as it is envisaged. On
that basis, and on the basis of everything else, I hope that Opposition
Members will feel able to withdraw their amendment and that we might
make some
progress.
Mr.
Gibb: It was nice to hear the Minister say that he has no
desire to create a bloated new bureaucracy. I have never heard a
Minister say that he would like to create a bloated new bureaucracy,
yet our country is riddled with them and, I suspect, will continue to
be so. He went on to say that the chief executive must have discretion
to employ numbers as he sees fit—he saw no reason to have an
upper limit on those numbers. However he said that he thought that
there was no intention to increase that number, which is assuring.
Perhaps that is a phrase that the Public Accounts Committee can use
when quizzing the various accounting officers who come before them,
following the establishment of these organisations.
I get
depressed when we have these debates. I read the impact assessment and
I see phrases about setting up a single performance management
framework, which I now understand is going to create excellence. If one
looks at our state sector, one can see the waste, and the
reorganisations that seem to take place every five, six or seven years.
I am not assured by this debate that we have got this right and that
our management techniques within the state sector will produce a
streamlined, highly efficient operation. However, we will wait to see
the letter that has been promised from the Minister for Schools and
Learners setting out some proper facts and figures about the transition
costs of transferring these operations from the LSC to the YPLA and the
SFA. Pending the arrival of that letter, I beg to ask leave to withdraw
the amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn Amendment
made: 306, in schedule 4, page 163, line 28,
leave out ‘this or any other’ and insert
‘any’.—(Jim
Knight.) See
Member’s explanatory statement for amendment
291. Schedule
4, as amended, agreed
to.
Clause
79Apprenticeship
functions
Mr.
Hayes: I beg to move amendment 107, in
clause 79, page 48, line 27, at
end insert— ‘(e) requiring
the Chief Executive to secure that the person designated under
subsection (1) is responsive to employers’ needs in relation to
the provision of
apprenticeships.’.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following: clause stand
part. New
clause 8—Payments to
employers— ‘(1) The
Chief Executive of Skills Funding shall ensure
that— (a) all employers
who take on an apprentice within a recognised apprenticeships framework
are paid directly by the Chief Executive of Skills
Funding; (b) funding for
apprentices is paid out in one sum at the beginning of the
apprenticeship framework;
and (c) another sum is paid out
upon completion.
(2) The Chief Executive of
Skills Funding shall ensure
that— (a) any company
with between 1 and 250 employees that subsequently takes on a full-time
apprentice within a recognised apprenticeship framework should be paid
a direct bonus on the learner’s completion of the full
apprenticeship framework; (b)
the bonus stipulated is paid in one sum upon completion of the full
apprenticeship framework;
and (c) a consultation process
with small to medium companies engaged in fields related to science,
engineering, technology and mathematics is undertaken with reference to
the size of the financial incentive for these
sectors. (3) The Chief
Executive of Skills Funding
shall— (a) ensure that
funds shall be provided for group training associations to provide
apprenticeship training; (b)
ensure that funding is paid to employers involved in the establishment
of group training
associations; (c) encourage
employers who already operate successful apprenticeship schemes to
support group training
associations.’.
Mr.
Hayes: We have seen off the Under-Secretary of State and
the Minister is back to discuss clause 79 and amendment
107. Clause
79 allows the Secretary of State to direct the chief executive of
Skills Funding to designate a person to carry out apprenticeship
functions on behalf of the chief executive. As we heard a few moments
ago, the Government expect that the person designated will be the chief
executive of the National Apprenticeship Service. We also heard that
the NAS will be a discrete service within the Skills Funding Agency,
which we now learn is not an agency at all. The chief executive of the
National Apprenticeship Service will undertake apprenticeship
functions, including the duty to give places to young people on
apprenticeship schemes. Subsection (5) sets out the apprenticeship
functions that will be carried out under this clause. The clause allows
the Secretary of State to define and regulate the relationship between
the two postholders and to set out the functions on which the chief
executive of the NAS or any other designated person will be required to
report to the Secretary of State. As we heard a few moments ago,
Secretary of State refers here to the Secretaries of State of both
Departments. Amendment
107 is relatively straightforward and I will therefore speak briefly to
it. However, I am afraid that I will speak at some length about new
clause 8, which is a pivotal clause in our estimation because it sets
out an entirely different set of views on how the matters should be
managed. The Minister will note that our amendment is devised to ensure
that the design of the National Apprenticeship Service enables the
Government to fulfil its pledge of world-class apprenticeships that
provide high quality employer places and build support for more
employer ownership of apprenticeships. His objection to earlier
amendments, the purpose of which was to ensure greater employer
involvement in building their frameworks and so better deliver
apprenticeships, was that they were too bureaucratic. No such claim
could be made about amendment 107. It merely seeks to ensure that the
NAS does what it is supposed to do, building an effective
apprenticeship service and having an apprenticeship brand that is alert
to and responds to employer need.
I spoke
previously about the Lords Economic Affairs Committee, and its
“Apprenticeships: a key route to skills” paper. The noble
Members of that eminent body
concluded: “The
Government has given individual employers too little involvement in how
apprenticeships are run, rendering them little more than passive
partners. Employers need to be at the centre of apprenticeship
provision. Within five years, all Government funding for
apprenticeships should go directly to employers, rather than through
training providers as happens
today.” The
Innovation, Universities and Skills Committee on the draft
Apprenticeships Bill, which preceded this Bill, reaffirmed concerns
about employer engagement in the apprenticeship system. My hon. Friend
the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) questioned the CBI
witness who gave evidence to that Committee. When he asked about
employer engagement, particularly about the prescriptive model that he
perceived as the likely product of the Government policy and the NAS,
the CBI witness
replied: “I
think that is a
concern”. The
Minister’s hon. Friend, the Member for Brigg and Goole
(Mr. Cawsey), asked whether the system was likely to be a
success and the CBI witness
replied: “In
terms of whether it will be a success, it really has to focus on
helping employers reduce the time they spend on bureaucracy,
encouraging more young people of all abilities to take an
apprenticeship.” We
understand that the Bill will prevent funding flowing directly to
employers, advancing it instead through the intermediary of the NAS. At
the very least we should ensure that the service itself is responsive
to employer need. That is the minimum that employers require and
apprentices deserve, hence our
amendment. I
shall speak more freely about new clause 8, which sets out an
alternative vision for rejuvenating apprenticeships, and that lies at
the heart of Conservative thinking. We know that the current system is
imperfect—I use the word with moderation, because others have
been more critical. The chairman of BT, Sir Michael Rake, who is also
chairman of the Commission for Employment and Skills, said that he has
met no one who does not believe that the system is incredibly
over-complex, and that it is ridiculous in cost of delivery,
effectiveness and so on. That is a damning criticism from the man who
has been appointed to chair the commission, so my comments, by
comparison, are extraordinarily understated and
moderate. We
know that the average public funding for an apprenticeship is around
£3,750 per annum. We believe that it would be best if the
payment were simplified into a single stream of money going direct to
employers.
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