Mr.
Simon: I will speak to the amendment before
responding to some of the points made by hon.
Members. Amendment
3 would require the chief executive of Skills Funding to secure the
provision of financial resources to the persons listed in clause 97(1),
thereby removing the chief executive’s discretion to decide how
the financial resources will be allocated. Clause 80 provides a power
for the chief executive to secure apprenticeship places for 16 to
18-year-olds and for people aged over 19 but under 25 who are subject
to a learning difficulty assessment. Furthermore, clause 83 imposes an
obligation on the chief executive to exercise that power in order to
secure sufficient apprenticeship places for everyone who wants
one. The
amendment would have some unintended consequences; for example, it
would require the chief executive to fund all those providing, or
proposing to provide, goods or services in connection with the
provision by others of education or training that falls within the
chief executive’s remit, irrespective of the quality of such
goods or services. I am sure that that is not the intention of the hon.
Member for Bristol, West; he would rather, as he has said, raise the
more general question of the funding of adult apprenticeships, and ask
what deductions or inferences can be drawn from the Bill and the
structures in it about the future funding of adult apprenticeships in
particular and apprenticeships as a whole.
It would be
wrong to believe that we are trying to send coded signals of any kind
about any intention to change or reshape the future priorities or
direction of the apprenticeships system. We fund them as we fund them
now—very successfully, and increasingly so year on year. Last
year, at every level and age group, there was an increase and
improvement from the year before—indeed, to a record level. That
is what we intend to continue
doing. 11.30
am The
hon. Member for Bristol, West mentioned his party’s and the
Conservative party’s plan to cut Train to Gain. We think that is
a mistake, because it is an increasingly successful programme that has
high satisfaction rates. In two years’ time, there will be 1
million people learning in the workplace, with work-relevant, high
quality learning. A programme that seeks to make progress by cutting
Train to Gain is a mistake for him and for the hon. Member for South
Holland and The Deepings.
The questions
of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings were more general
still, about the funding formula and funding flow. The SFA will
allocate
funds according to the purchasing decisions of employers and
individuals, expressed through Train to Gain and skills accounts. The
rates that colleges receive will be based on a national funding
formula, which will reflect delivery costs. That fundamentally is why
it is not just rhetorically, but actually, demand led. We will also
move to a system of accrediting providers who receive public funding,
for overseeing which the SFA will be responsible. Accredited colleges
and providers will be given an overall funding envelope based on track
record, within which they—the providers—will have the
freedom to respond to local employer and individual demand. They will
not be constrained by detailed plans and frequent oversight by the SFA,
as they have been by the
LSC. Mr.
Hayes: As I understood it, the intervention powers of the
LSC will be transferred to the SFA.
Mr.
Simon: We are not talking about the intervention powers,
but about the delivery model—not that that is actually what is
before us at present, but as the hon. Gentleman has moved on to that
conversation I am happy to have it as long as you, Mrs.
Humble, permit me.
Review of the
decisions and performance in that funding envelope will be taken up at
regular points during the year; the single account manager—the
single funding interlocutor—will be able to vary the funding
envelope in-year if demand is lower than expected, or if a provider is
underperforming. The process will not be too complex because the
funding will flow in direct response to learner choices, which frees up
providers from being constrained by rigid funding agreements, and
enables them to provide the courses that students and employers want,
rather than the courses that the LSC thinks they want. In return, money
will be routed more quickly to colleges and providers, and be settled
more quickly, because it will be based on real demand, not on complex
planning
decisions.
Mr.
Hayes: The reason I mentioned intervention powers is that
the LSC and therefore, I assume, the SFA have the ability to adopt or
create performance assessment systems, which could be directly linked
to funding. Perhaps, therefore, the Minister might comment on the 157
Group’s suggestion that the SFA should have been a
non-departmental public body. Was that option considered, particularly
given the fact that the Young People’s Learning Agency enjoys
that
status?
The
Chairman: Before I call the Minister, I must point out
that we are wandering away from what is a very narrowly drawn
amendment. I must advise members of the Committee that, if they
continue in this fashion, I shall treat the debate as a stand part
debate.
Mr.
Simon: Thank you, Mrs.
Humble. I
have said this before, but I can tell the hon. Member for South Holland
and The Deepings that we did consider whether the SFA should be a
non-departmental public body or a typical executive agency, which it is
not, or the more unusual body we finally decided on, or whether we
needed to legislate at all, which, strictly speaking, we do not.
Fundamentally, the reason that we decided on
the body that we now have—as I say, we have covered all this
before—was that we wanted the SFA to be closer to Ministers, as
part of a more streamlined process that gets from policy making to
delivery in colleges and on high streets more quickly, efficiently and
cost-effectively, while retaining some of the distance and operational
independence that is also appropriate for the use of such large sums of
public money. The hon.
Gentleman made an initial point. I would be grateful if he could remind
me of
it.
Mr.
Hayes: The LSC enjoys intervention powers around
performance and the relationship between funding and performance. When
I intervened on intervention powers, the Minister replied in a way that
suggested that those two things are not associated with one another,
but we know that, in practice, they are. There is close alignment in
the relationship between funding regimes or methods and the powers to
deal with performance in colleges, is there
not?
Mr.
Simon: Obviously, there is a relationship and when we say
“demand-led”, that does not mean “quality
neutral”. Yes, the intervention powers transfer to the new body,
as do many of the previous powers of the LSC. The LSC is a body that
evolved over nine years and it was, in many ways, very successful, with
much good practice that we can continue. We are not chucking the baby
out with the bathwater.
Mr.
Hayes: Including the management of the FE capital
budget?
Mr.
Simon: In framework for excellence, we have a single
quality performance management tool for the whole of the 16-plus
environment, and the SFA’s chief executive has explicit powers
on top of that. However, the operational intention is for the process
to be as light-touch and streamlined as possible.
On that note,
I still hope that the hon. Member for Bristol, West will withdraw the
amendment.
Stephen
Williams: I have been listening carefully to what the
Minister said in his responses to me and to the hon. Member for South
Holland and The Deepings, who speaks for the Conservatives.
The purpose
of the amendment, and indeed of many previous amendments, was to see if
a way could be found to make it easier for employers to offer
apprenticeship places. In response to previous amendments, we received
assurances from the Minister, for example that the Government would
foster the creation of group training associations, through the chief
executive of the SFA, to make it easier for small employers in
particular to offer apprenticeship places.
I was looking
for an assurance from the Minister that the funding regime might be
amended to make it easier for employers to fund the off-the-job
training costs of an apprenticeship place. It is necessary for me to
clear up a comment that the Minister made about my party’s
policy—the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, who
speaks for the Conservatives, can defend himself. We are not proposing
to cut the Train to Gain budget. We are simply saying that the future
growth of that budget, which is quite substantial at around
£500 million over the remainder of this comprehensive
spending review period, should be specifically allocated to the funding
of the off-the-job training costs of adult apprenticeships. Rather than
a cut in expenditure, it is more imaginative use of existing budgeted
Government resources, and it is important that we have such debates to
make clear what we each propose. None the
less, it would not be appropriate for a simple amendment to alter
fundamentally the Government’s current budgetary provisions.
That is a matter beyond the Minister’s pay grade, let alone
mine. We look forward to the Budget statement on 22 April to see
whether something more imaginative will come from the Treasury to fund
skills during the difficult economic circumstances that we are
facing.
I beg to ask
leave to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. Clause
97 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
98Financial
resources:
conditions Amendment
made: 277, in
clause 98, page 60, line 7, leave
out ‘a learning difficulty assessment’ and
insert ‘an assessment
under section 139A or 140 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000
(c. 21) (assessments relating to learning
difficulties)’.—(Mr.
Simon.) This amendment is
consequent on amendment
278. Clause
98, as amended, ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
99Performance
assessments
Mr.
Hayes: I beg to move amendment 136, in
clause 99, page 60, line 20, at
end add— ‘(3) The Chief
Executive must consult with the following when adopting or developing
schemes as set out in subsection
(1)— (a) The
YPLA, (b) a local education
authority, (c) Ofsted,
and (d) the Quality Assurance
Agency for Higher
Education.’. The
amendment would ensure that, when the CEO of the Skills Funding Agency
is adopting or developing a performance assessment scheme, he does so
in conjunction with the YPLA, an LEA, Ofsted and the Quality Assurance
Agency for Higher Education. As we discussed earlier, the CEO of the
Skills Funding Agency is in charge of a large centralised and
relatively unaccountable body. I share the 157 Group’s fears
about that. It suggests strongly in what it describes as its
supplementary evidence to the Committee that the status of the newly
created Skills Funding Agency be formally clarified under the Bill and,
as I have argued, that it should have the same status as the YPLA
rather than being the close-to-Ministers body the Minister described,
which simultaneously is supposed to be decentralised, responsive and
light touch. I am not sure that those things can be reconciled, given
the past experience of how Governments have managed their
affairs.
The 157 Group
was at pains to point out that too much power is being placed in the
hands of Ministers and officials, which is out of line with the
experience at HEFCE and with the proposed status of the YPLA. The
amendment is designed to ensure that even if the SFA must remain within
the Department, it consults closely with other key agencies in the
development and adoption of performance methods and schemes. The
performance schemes are vital when deciding where funding should go
and, as such, are vital to the continuing existence and success of many
education
providers. We
should ensure that every effort is made to see that the performance
schemes are developed with the closest co-operation of the providers,
namely LEAs and the YPLA. It is critical for the vitality of the sector
and to progressing to the light-touch mode that the Government claim
they want to see characterising the new system for the funding and
management of skills.
As the 157
Group commented:
“You
have to remember that the SFA does not actually deliver anything. The
delivery has to be done through the provider network with employers and
so on, which is where you want to put the most resources to ensure that
you can do the maximum to help the
nation.”——[Official Report,
Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Public Bill Committee,
3 March 2009; c. 31,
Q85.] It
argued for more power and action at local level with local authorities,
providers and employers. That is central to the Bill and to our
disagreement with the Government. A theme emerges from the analysis and
recommendations of the Leitch report on how the system needs to
change—with much of which we agree—the comments of
witnesses in the evidence sessions of the Committee and other
statements from experts in the field. There is a need to decentralise,
to move to a lighter-touch regime, to be more responsive to demand and
to involve employers at every stage of devising and delivering skills
training. However, time and again, those who have commented on the Bill
have concluded that the Government are at best paying lip service to
that approach, while simultaneously establishing a byzantine
bureaucracy that is frankly unlikely to deliver what they want or the
nation needs. At the very least, the Government should accept the
amendment to ensure that the SFA is consultative, if they must have an
SFA in the proposed form at
all. 11.45
am
Stephen
Williams: I rise briefly to support the amendment. It is
common sense that consultation should take place with the YPLA and
local education authorities as they are co-funders under the new
arrangements for the provision offered by colleges and other training
providers. It is good practice to consult with other bodies that are
already concerned with quality assurance in higher education, such as
Ofsted and the QAA. The only point that I would add to the amendment is
consultation with representatives who offer a learner’s
perspective on how the quality of the provision offered by colleges and
other providers should be assessed. The National Union of Students or
some other mechanism could be used to ascertain the opinions of
learners of the training courses that are delivered to them. I support
the amendment, but I would add that
point.
Mr.
Simon: I do not know whether to deal first with the
amendment or with the concerns of hon. Members, which do not seem to be
exactly the same.
Amendment 136
would place a duty on the chief executive to consult specified
organisations when adopting or developing schemes for the performance
assessment of training or education providers that fall within his
remit. It is similar to amendment 135 in respect of the YPLA, which we
debated last
Tuesday. We
share two of the concerns. First, we must ensure that the interests of
certain bodies are considered when adopting or developing performance
assessment schemes. That is essential in ensuring that learning
providers are treated fairly and encouraged to take responsibility for
self-assessment and improvement. Secondly, we must encourage the YPLA,
the SFA and others to work together to develop a co-ordinated approach
to performance assessment that keeps the burdens on colleges and other
providers to a minimum. All of that is already happening, as is joint
working. In
the “Raising Expectations” White Paper, we committed to a
single tool for the assessment of all post-16
providers.
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