Examination of Witnesses (Questions 246-259)
STEVE BROOMHEAD,
DAVID CRAGG
AND DAVID
HUGHES
25 JUNE 2008
Q246 Chairman: Apologies for starting
this session late, but we welcome our second group of witnesses:
Steve Broomhead, the Chief Executive of the North West Development
Agency; David Cragg, the National Director of Adult Learning and
Employment at the Learning and Skills Council; and David Hughes,
the Regional Director of the Learning and Skills Council London.
If I could begin really with you, David Hughes, RDAs have a central
role in implementing the Leitch Agenda, but are they up for it?
David Hughes: Yes, I think they
are. We, in London, are very fortunate because we have got the
Mayor.
Q247 Chairman: You are very fortunate?
David Hughes: Yes, Ken to Boris
has been quite an interesting experience, but what we have had
throughout the last 18 months is the London Employment and Skills
Board, led by the Mayor, but very much business-dominated. That
Board is now about to publish its strategy which is due to come
out in a couple of weeks' time, and the fantastic news is that
there is enormous continuity in thinking about what is needed
for London between the old Mayor and the new Mayor, and what we
are able to do, because of that, is get the LDA, the London Development
Agency, working with us on a proper joint investment plan.
Q248 Chairman: But the RDAs have
a clear role, in your view?
David Hughes: Yes, absolutely
a clear role.
Q249 Chairman: The same with you,
Steve?
Steven Broomhead: Yes, absolutely.
Since 1999, we are probably one of the most stable organisations
around in a sea of change. We have ensured that skills is an integrated
part of regional economic strategies, it has been given focus
and priority, we have linked skills to competitiveness and productivity,
but, not only have we done that policy work, we have also taken
some specific action on the ground, which perhaps I will talk
about later on, Chair.
David Cragg: Just to add a little
to this just so I do not mislead you at the start, I am taking
on a dual role at the moment. My normal day job has been as the
Regional Director for the West Midlands and I am, 50% of my time
currently, overseeing the transition to the Skills Funding Agency
within the national operation, which is why you have got a national
badge on me. Can I say, with my West Midlands hat on, that I think
that not only is the relationship with RDAs working well, but
we have made enormous strides in recent times. If I look at that
through my own kind of prism of the West Midlands, we have now
got a fully integrated approach with skills embedded firmly through
a really profoundly and collectively developed Regional Skills
Action Plan embedded firmly within the Regional Economic Strategy;
it represents the best step forward we have seen since the RDAs
were established.
Q250 Mr Marsden: That absolutely
sounds wonderful, but I am just slightly curious, Chairman, if
it is so wonderful, why it was that, when we had Professors Unwin
and Wolf before the Committee and they were asked what role had
the RDAs had in the Skills Strategy, they said there was none,
which, I think, surprised some of us. I do not know whether you
feel there is a mismatch between your perception of what you are
all doing and the perception certainly of commentators in the
outside world, but could I ask, on the back of that, is it appropriate
that every region should be trying to address all the issues in
its Skills Strategy for Leitch, or in fact is it more appropriate
that there should be a sort of informal divvying up of championship
of key areas? Steve, I do not know if you want to start off on
that.
Steven Broomhead: Well, I cannot
comment on why academics do not recognise actually what is going
out on the ground in terms of RDA involvement in the shaping of
policy and the delivery of skills, particularly around employability
and economic growth; I think that is plain for all to see. In
answer to your question, I think all the RDAs share the Leitch
ambition and Leitch Agenda about demand-led, and that is demand-led
from employers, but also, I think, demand-led from individuals,
and sometimes that whole area is not given enough importance,
particularly in the workforce development and the very important
role that trade unions play in that particular area, so we share
the ambition, I think, for the nine RDAs. What, I think, is different,
RDA and region by region, is that we have different sectors which
will produce economic growth, so in the North East it is different
from the North West, and perhaps our relationships with those
sectoral organisations needs to be differentiated. For instance,
we are making a great deal of effort in the North West to ensure,
around the creative digital industries which are going to be very
important to both Manchester and Liverpool and will have a ripple
effect out across the north of England, that we have got a real
focus around that particular area with that particular sector
skills council, so I think it is sector by sector, but also increasingly,
because of SNR, it is place by place. We have got to differentiate
the sorts of skills developments we want to see in certain places
compared to others, so it is a differentiated approach, it seems
to work well and I think we have got coverage across the 23/24
SSCs that exist.
Q251 Mr Marsden: David Cragg, perhaps
I could put that question to you. It is interesting, we have three
RDAs here this morning that are actually fairly tightly focused—
David Cragg: No, one RDA and two
from the Learning and Skills Council.
Q252 Mr Marsden: Yes, but the West
Midlands, London, the North West are quite strong, coherent, identified
regions and other regions are not the same. How do you deal with
regions that do not have that coherence in terms of an LSC strategy?
David Cragg: I think the point
you make is a very fair one, but surely the whole basis of having
a regional approach is the absolute necessity to differentiate
local context and local circumstance. I would take you back to
some of the earlier discussions you have had this morning. I think
the most important work we have done in the region in developing
this joint Skills Action Plan, forget the mechanics of all of
that, was that actually it defined roles and responsibilities
for all the organisations, not just the Regional Development Agency
and the Learning and Skills Council, it positioned sector skills
councils very helpfully as supporting all the qualifications reform,
the introduction of much greater flexibility, it positioned the
spatial dimensions sub-regionally, so it had the full support
of local authorities and the Local Government Association, it
had the support overwhelmingly of the employer organisations,
so, as part of the process of developing that, we had a new partnership
around employer engagement. You have talked a lot about the confusion
for employers and I can tell you that all—
Q253 Chairman: Sorry, can I just
stop you there because the question you were asked was not about
your region which is successful and which is clearly identifiable,
but it was about those regions that do not have that clear identity,
so have you anything to say about those?
David Cragg: Fine, I take the
point, Chairman. I would say, if you get clarity of roles and
responsibilities in a region, if you have a very clear shared
intelligence base within a region, which are common features,
and if you look at the spatial economic geography of a region,
all those components will give you the opportunity to address
the very specific employment and skills needs and the contribution
they need to make to the regional economy. That is my point and
forgive me, Chairman, if I went into too much detail about my
own region.
Chairman: I think we were thinking of
the South West.
Q254 Mr Marsden: I was thinking of
one or two other areas actually, Chairman, but you are absolutely
right to make that point. David Hughes, if I can hone it on London
for the moment, yes, we know that the circumstances and the structure
are exceptional in terms of the way in which these things are
delivered, and we are also aware, in terms of what witnesses said
earlier, that within London you have the whole gamut of needing
to address higher-level skills as opposed to some very basic literacy
and numeracy-level skills. Now, how can that be delivered best
in a London context or indeed in other contexts? Is it best done
on a sectoral basis or is it best done on a geographical basis?
David Hughes: It is both, is it
not? You talked earlier about systems and what we want to try
and create is a system where we have got clear economic opportunities,
so in London we have got some massive opportunities around the
Olympics and Crossrail, for instance, and around that level there
will be jobs at all levels that are required and there will be
skills shortages at all levels, so the system needs to respond
to that. In London, we have got all of the business organisations,
the CBI, London First and the chambers of commerce, working with
us with employers. We have got Jobcentre Plus, LSC, the Regional
Development Agency and local authorities working on the other
side putting together that opportunity with the barriers that
are stopping people getting those jobs, and the barriers are not
just about skills, they are about childcare, they are about transport,
they are about housing costs, they are about all sorts of issues
and you need a partnership approach to that, so you need to do
that through a systematic approach and you need to pull people
together in the right geography. If you go back to the earlier
question, it is probably more important in the South West that
you get that geography right to get the systems of people coming
together than it is in London because London is broadly one labour
market with a massive number of people, in excess of one million
people, not accessing it.
Q255 Mr Marsden: Steve, can I just
take you back to the North West for the moment and, if you want
to comment more widely outside the North West, please do, but
how are you coping, as an RDA in the North West, between the tension
of doing those two things, hitting the higher-level skills, and
obviously you have got a good relationship with the HE sector
in the North West which works well together, but also some very
fundamental and alarming skills gaps still right at the Level
2, particularly in places like Merseyside and other parts of the
region?
Steven Broomhead: I think, as
you quite rightly say, we have forged broad enabling links with
the 15 higher education institutions that are in the North West,
not just on issues around the economy, but issues around research
and development and the Science and Innovation Agenda. What is
important, I think, is the third leg in terms of the universities
outward-facing in terms of providing support for the development
of small businesses, and I think we have done that. How have we
done that? I think we have done it by a process of continuous
dialogue and being reflective about each other's needs and making
sure that the universities were taking account of changing circumstances
and, in particular, account of the Lambert Review, which is only
three years old, which encouraged universities to make sure they
were facing up to the real issues, so we do have that. We have
also, I think, developed a policy of working particularly with
local authorities in sub-regional partnerships to ensure that
we have got policies around social inclusion and community cohesion,
so we are emphasising that skills is about Level 1 and Level 2
employability, and indeed it is only recently that the Government,
through DIUS and DCSF, ensured that we could actually perhaps
move away entirely from Level 2 to Level 3. We have always wanted
to be about Level 3 actually because Level 3 is about basically
ensuring that you grow your economy and those are the skills for
improving productivity, so our arrangements, I think, have worked
well. We have had a very strong universities association, we have
got strong enabling relationships with our 46 local authorities
through sub-regional partnerships, and the development of a regional
skills partnership, which is again inclusive of all parts of my
region, has helped in that way.
Q256 Dr Turner: We seem to have a
whole lot of people falling over themselves to plan for this area,
and it includes the RDAs, regional economic strategies, sub-regional
plans, local area agreements, MAAs, ESP plans, sector skills agreements.
What does all this planning lead to? What is the outcome and is
it not all just too complicated?
David Cragg: I think you have
had the debate earlier. I think complexity is something which
certainly is inherent in the system. If you accept that we have
inherited a relatively complex system, and we may be about to
make it more complex, I think the absolute essential point of
that is to be clear about roles of individual organisations and
especially to be clear about, I think as Chris Humphries said
to you earlier, what needs to be done nationally, what needs to
be done regionally and what needs to be done locally. One of the
great benefits, I think, we have had working regionally is, for
example, we have had one place where everybody has effectively
co-commissioned or pooled their analytical and research capacity.
I think that is a sensible joining up of how things work. For
example, again if you look, and I am not mentioning the West Midlands,
Chairman, but perhaps at another area, if you look at the work
in Greater Manchester, which Steve would point to, in the creation
of a multi-area agreement, I think the roles and responsibilities
of individual agencies in a single coherent approach to employment
and skills is a genuine benefit. Ultimately, accepting that complexity
is probably excessive or probably unquestionably excessive, the
problem really occurs if there is a lack of clarity as to what
the roles and responsibilities of individual organisations are.
If we suddenly think, for example, that we want a local authority
to start taking on a commissioning role in training and skills,
is that a good idea? That should not be a product, for example,
of local area agreements or multi-area agreements. If we can get
that clarity and especially if we can get a layering, so, to come
back to your debate about sector skills councils, I would contend
that the primary role of sector skills councils is at a national
level and to be able to articulate the overall sectoral needs,
skills needs, of employers in that sector and to support the development
of the right qualifications framework. Any role at a regional
level will be about mediating that in a regional context, not
duplicating, for example, employer engagement as that would seem,
frankly, a very, very serious waste of public resource and a huge
confusion to employers.
Q257 Dr Turner: Would it not be better
if there were just one clearly identified body in each region
or sub-region that co-ordinated all of the activity so that an
employer knows exactly where to go to and a would-be student knows
exactly who to go to?
David Cragg: Well, simplistically,
if you will forgive me for putting it that way, I would probably
agree with you, and I would say, if, for example, business support
is through a single route, and we have been very, very clear with
our RDA that we want to accelerate the whole process of creating
a single focus for business support, I think that is right. If
the commissioning of certainly all skills training, especially
workforce and workplace training, is done through one agency,
which, frankly, it overwhelmingly is currently through the Learning
and Skills Council, I think that is a benefit and I think you
then start to get a clarity of the route into the system. I would
add one other thing. If we are going to engage employers, we have,
I think, very foolishly overlooked the legitimate representative
bodies for employers. The best benefit and the best step forward
I have seen in recent times is the level of engagement we have
secured recently with chambers, the CBI and the Employers' Federation
and even the Federation of Small Businesses because, if you can
get a route to market and use the natural representative bodies
which work with employers as opposed to, arguably, artificially
created and created by the public sector, which, you might argue,
sector skills councils have been, I think you will be in a better
place.
Q258 Dr Turner: You mentioned your
Learning and Skills Council, but there is a big question mark
over the future of the learning and skills councils, so there
is more upheaval to come, is there not?
David Cragg: There is more upheaval
to come and I have got either the enviable or unenviable task
of steering through our side of the work on the transition to
the Skills Funding Agency. We do seem to be very preoccupied with
structural change in this country and it seems to be a phenomenon.
What I would say, and I would say very loudly to you, is that
the key thing we should all be fixated on is that we have got
again a proper alignment of whatever we do on 14 to 19 and with
whatever we do on 19-plus and, most importantly, if we are changing
some of the bigger geography, especially around the role of the
RDAs, then we have got to see where this fits with the Sub-National
Review because there is no point having a silo over here which
looks at economic development and regeneration and another silo
over here which looks at 19-plus working-age skills and another
silo over here on 14 to 19. Therefore, I would say I am back to
the same slightly cracked record, Chairman, which is that, unless
you have got a clarity of roles and responsibilities and, most
importantly, locally and regionally a spatial alignment, then
you will get it wrong.
Steven Broomhead: On your first
question, I think we have a very complex duplicating mess at national,
regional and sub-regional levels at the moment in terms of planning,
and what we should have is evidence-based prioritisation and inclusivity
about what those policies are at a regional level, and we do not
have that and it is likely to get worse. The Government's consultation
period on Raising Expectations, changing the machinery
of government, has just closed, so obviously consideration must
be given to what is going to be said, but I very much regret the
fact that the LSC is actually going to disappear by the end of
2010. Through the change agenda that the LSC has gone through
in the last few years, I think they have moved much more away
from national targets, but keeping national targets at the forefront,
to regional employment and economic issues, they have put the
right structures in place, they have got the right alignments
in place, they have got the right enabling structures in place,
they have got relationships now quite well-established around
local authorities and particularly around the sixth form funding
of capital schemes, and yet all that is to go in the air to be
replaced by two separate agencies, two different types in two
different departments which are new and the communication structures
between those two departments are not always as good as perhaps
they should be. Employers are hardly mentioned in the Raising
Expectations document and employers cannot believe what is
going on. They do get involved in the wiring and it would have
been quite simple, if you wanted to empower local authorities
and devolve resources and planning and commissioning to local
authorities on a sub-regional or even on a local level, you could
have done that through the existing arrangements of the LSC. You
do not need this enormous upheaval which is going to be very costly
at a time when the public purse is under enormous pressure, so,
if that is my `Save the LSC' speech to you, Chairman, that is
it. We do like to do continuous upheaval, particularly in the
skills area actually, and, certainly from my employers who do
sit agog with amazement that all this is now changing yet again.
You are creating an LSC Board at a regional level which will probably
last actually six or seven months, but those structures should
actually be nurtured and developed and we should go with what
we have got rather than change it in a wholesale way.
Q259 Dr Turner: One of our previous
panel of witnesses commented that this is starting to begin to
work and it is now going to be torn up and turned over again,
so, if the learning and skills councils, as you suggest, have
finally started to shake down into a role and started to deliver,
it would seem that they have a role to deliver, so something very
like them will be needed in the future. What is your reaction
to that?
Steven Broomhead: My point is
that, for whatever reason that these arrangements through the
consultation document have come forward, there is no need actually
to change the role and the function of the LSC. You can adapt
it to different conditions and you can particularly adapt it to
ensuring that there is more of a local approach to the 14 to 19
commissioning and planning and you do not necessarily need two
new agencies, one of which will be very centrally determined and
will probably not recognise regional objectives and regional economic
issues, that is the adult skills, the Skills Funding Agency, so
why are we going through all these changes? I predict that, if
you set these two up by 2011, by 2013 you will be thinking again,
and we do not need that. Employers do not need that, learners
do not need it, colleges and training providers do not need it
when we have gone through a process of enormous change with the
LSC, which has been very, very positive over the last two years.
Dr Turner: It is a typically British
process and it does not just happen in the education sphere.
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