Memorandum 24
Submission from the University of Hertfordshire
and Oaklands College (CMS)
INTRODUCTION
i. This is a joint submission from the University
of Hertfordshire and Oaklands College to the Select Committee
Enquiry as we see a strong case for HE-FE partnership being the
core of delivering the Leitch agenda.
ii. The University and Oaklands College
are part of the Hertfordshire Higher Education Consortium, which
has been successfully delivering vocational higher education in
four colleges across the county and seamless progression routes
since 1992. Currently, around 1,300 undergraduates and nearly
60 postgraduate students are studying HE courses at the Consortium's
colleges, taking advantage of flexible access and study paths
towards a nationally recognised qualification validated by the
University. More than 13,000 students have graduated through these
progression routes since the partnership was formed.
iii. The four Hertfordshire colleges also
deliver around £100 million of Further Education annually
and are involved in a wide variety of educational provision—this
includes working with over 70 schools on the 14—19 agenda
as well as skills delivery and apprenticeships.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
iv. Our submission is focused on the need
for skills strategies to be developed at sub-regional level, which
is the level at which needs can be best identified and appropriate
solutions delivered; a demand-led system is necessarily a locally-focused
system. We propose a system of sub-regional partnership bodies,
including independent providers, contracting directly with national
funding bodies, with the support and advice of a regional agency.
We further suggest that partnerships sub-contract the management
to a third-party organisation, possibly owned by the providers
themselves. That organisation would be delegated the brokerage
and interface role between the partnership of providers and the
market, and would take on sales and marketing as part of its remit.
Any solution must be underpinned by a consortium-based approach
to ensure user need, not supplier preference, shapes the service.
SUBMISSION EVIDENCE
Our submission evidence is as follows, organised
according to the areas of interest stated by the Committee:
The responses of RDAs to Leitch and how coherent
and structured these are
1. The appointment of an Executive Director
for Skills & Communities by EEDA is a tangible response in
the East of England. Skills as an issue features strongly in the
Regional Economic Strategy and corporate objectives include reference
to demand-led skills.
2. By their very nature, regions are too
large, too diverse in their skills needs, profiles and provision
to allow these mechanisms to operate effectively; skills needs
are not homogenous across the region, but highly dependent on
the economic geography and the skills base of sub-regions.
3. We would argue that it is therefore problematic
to address skills at regional level. Strategy and delivery need
to do more than articulate; there needs to be mechanisms to ensure
that they consistently and coherently inform each other, and this
requires a sensitivity to local demands rather than region-wide
initiatives.
What the existing regional structures of delivery
are and what sub-regional strategies may be required
4. We would argue that skills strategies
are better made at sub-regional level and propose that sub-regional
groupings of Local Authorities as commissioners of services would
be the best level to site the development of strategy, informed
by local demand. It would bring a valuable strategic and joined-up
perspective the design and delivery of skills development within
a coherent economic geography. This approach is in line with the
Government's thinking on the delivery of the 14-19 agenda, as
expressed in Raising expectations: Enabling the system to deliver.
Questions of expertise within Local Authorities—as well
as the potential for effective collaboration across administrative
boundaries—deserve serious consideration.
5. A key question is whether there remains
a role for the region. The White Paper calls for a regional planning
group, for example. We would argue that available funding must
be focused at the point of delivery. There is a role for the region
to act as a facilitator of sub-regional delivery, with a regional
oversight to ensure dissemination of good practice and co-ordination
of sub-regions, but that role should not diminish the demand-led
characteristics of a localised system.
6. Within regional structures however, RDAs
consider strategic policy themes like skills as they re-focus
on economic development through their new responsibility for the
Single Regional Strategy. Their role would be to support the development
of sub-regional strategies, but, we would emphasise, not to determine
skills strategy in their own right. For example, it is at regional
level that engagement with the Sector Skills Councils should happen—for
example, a discussion about the bio-pharma industry needs to embrace
both Hertfordshire and Cambridge in the East—but advice
based on that engagement needs to be directed sub-regionally,
for sub-regional decision-making. So, while the region will embrace
sectoral concerns, create balance and coherence above the level
of delivery and, of course, undertake the planning that underpins
economic development, individual skills strategies should be made
at sub-regional level, where needs and priorities can best be
identified and delivery achieved. A demand-led system is necessarily
a locally-focused system.
7. So how should sub-regional skills strategies
develop? We propose a system of sub-regional partnership bodies,
contracting directly with national funding bodies, with the support
and advice of the regional agency. It is local providers, FE and
HE, working in partnership to create learning pathways that will
deliver the targets around skills, including 50% HE participation.
The role of the Learning and Skills Council and
Sector Skills Councils in this context
8. The transfer from LSCs to Local Authorities
of 16-18 funding is being accelerated where relationships are
strong. We would endorse this approach and propose such acceleration
is considered across the country where it is appropriate to local
circumstances and where authorities can demonstrate expertise,
whether in-house or through a sub-contracted body. The existence
of a mature and successful Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) will
benefit this process. Within this proposal we also suggest that
the adult agenda be driven through the sub-regional level, with
LSPs at their core.
9. A clear understanding of the role of
Sector Skills Councils needs to be established. In our view, their
role should not be to fund, validate or commission, but rather
to inform skills requirements and planning in these areas by the
local partnership. Their input would be most valuable in terms
of identifying in what skills/roles additional training is required
in that particular sector and as a channel of communication with
employers around curriculum design. This would ensure that partnerships
develop the right qualifications for each sector, government funding
is channelled to qualifications that employers need, and yet also
maintain sensitivity to local need.
The respective roles of the further education
and higher education sectors in delivering a region-based agenda
for Leitch and their coordination with one other
10. Demand should be identified at local
level—that is the strong message from both providers and
business—and an effective partnership body responds to that
demand and creates appropriate pathways within and between providers.
The Hertfordshire HE Consortium has been operating in this way
since 1992, each partner meeting demand according to its capability.
There are many examples of success here, including STEM skills
development and construction skills pathways. The partnerships
would offer the full range of programmes, including those co-
or fully funded by Government and others delivered at a price
set by the partnership. The four Colleges in Hertfordshire operate
as a Federation, which has allowed a collective FE approach to
the County's needs, both in representation and delivery (for example,
the very successful Train to Gain Hertfordshire Consortium).
11. These partnerships would help to bring
LSC-driven (currently) course developments at FE level and HEFCE-influenced
(through ASN allocations) course developments at HE level into
complete alignment at sub-regional level, the level where they
are needed. While the Hertfordshire HE Consortium has a strong
track record of success, we would acknowledge that there improvements
could be made. A key task is to achieve the co-ordinated planning
of educational provision to ensure not only that there is seamless
progression from primary school or from adult entry level to graduation
and beyond, but also that the entire system is designed to meet
skills needs. That means partnerships taking input from a wide
range of stakeholders, including employers.
12. Our proposal for sub-regional partnerships
would build on the existing HE in FE consortium model, introducing
independent providers, to address remaining gaps in provision
and ensure clarity about the educational offer to individuals
and employers.
13. This model requires partnerships to
establish a sales and marketing role in engaging employers, a
role in which, historically, providers have been less than optimally
effective. There are a number of solutions to this issue, but
a consortium approach will need to underpin any solution to ensure
user need, not supplier preference, shapes the service.
14. This opens up a broader question about
how best to manage and deliver an effective partnership. One option
that deserves serious consideration is the sub-contracting of
the management to a third-party organisation, possibly owned by
the providers themselves. That organisation would have a key relationship
with the LSP; it may be that it is directly accountable to the
LSP or that the LSP has a formal role inputting into the understanding
of local needs. It is vital that the sub-contracted body could
operate effectively, without conflicting pressures from the LSP,
the provider base and the sectoral needs of each economic area.
15. That organisation would be delegated
the brokerage and interface role between the partnership of providers
and the market, and would take on sales and marketing as part
of its remit. It would be vital, however, that the next stage
of engagement, that is, the creation of the educational offer,
was led by the appropriate provider or group of providers.
16. We would propose that within each partnership,
leadership for provision in particular sectors is taken by the
provider/s with particular expertise and capacity, within an overall
consortium approach. Where FE-HE progression pathways are needed,
the appropriate FEC and HEI would hold that leadership jointly.
This is a new challenge for many in the education sector as it
requires a group of individuals who would be considered "technical
sales" in the corporate world. Their role calls for a skill
set that includes a deep understanding of the curriculum and of
the delivery of learning and skills, as well as the ability to
communicate with employers in their language and understand the
business need, ie neither a broker nor a traditional academic.
17. We would argue that this sectoral leadership
is best done by providers, informed by SSC guidance. It is important
that the educational offer is developed as close to the actual
provision as possible. Proximity matters, both in terms of content
development and delivery and in terms of access and geography.
18. This devolutionary drive will also help
to create local accountability as part of a genuinely demand-led
system. With local partnerships taking direct commissioning responsibility
there would be an opportunity to streamline the bureaucracy of
the skills system—including funding—and reduce the
burden on the public purse.
19. The partnership model has the potential
to transform the approach to meeting skills needs and gaps. Current
thinking often focuses on planning, with SSCs expected to direct
curricula to address present requirements. A key issue with this
approach is its lack of agility; it may take years before the
effects of changing curricula are translated into skilled individuals
in the workplace, by which time the critical competencies for
the area may well be different. Graduates trained only in sector-specific
skills will be left behind as their area of employment evolves;
employers will find themselves with ongoing skills gaps.
20. This skills obsolescence—and hence
upskilling requirement—requires a two-fold approach that
partnerships could take. The first phase would ensure that employability,
innovation and enterprise skills are embedded across their curricula,
meaning all students passing their courses are ready for work
and equipped with the generic skills and adaptability that employers
consistently say they value. A second phase, addressing skills
renewal, would develop a "rapid response" CPD offer,
which employees and employers can access to address specific skills
needs and gaps as they emerge in a rapidly changing and increasingly
global marketplace.
21. The Hertfordshire Consortium is currently
developing a flexible and responsive 5-credit short course offer,
in which new programmes can be validated in 3 weeks using short
course descriptors. We believe this system of generic skills plus
CPD would be a powerful, effective and agile solution to skills
needs as well as being demand-led.
22. The third party brokerage organisation
also meets this requirement; it also makes the link between economic
development and skills. These two core skills themes have until
recently been considered separately; the creation of DIUS—and
the IUSS Select Committee—reflect a recognition that these
agendas are essentially interlinked. But making this linkage really
deliver at local level, which is where people learn and progress
and businesses innovate and grow, means applying that same thinking
at that level.
23. In Hertfordshire, economic development
has been contracted by the county to a local economic partnership
called Hertfordshire Prosperity, which reports directly to the
LSP. As an apolitical organisation, it can really drive economic
development in the county. While it is not within the remit of
this Inquiry to consider the merits of such a model, it does represent
an opportunity to bring the two core policy themes together, and
to produce coherent needs-driven sub-regional skills strategies.
The impact on students of these initiatives, particularly
in the context of policies for lifelong learning.
24. The current system does, in our view,
create confusion for both students and employers, the key target
markets for this agenda. Even where partnerships between providers
exist, the set-up often doesn't meet consumer needs and gaps in
provision make entry into the system and progression within it
unclear. Our proposal is strongly demand-led and accountable to
the community through the LSP.
25. Furthermore, lifelong learning—particularly
for people in employment—is generally driven by the need
for specific competencies; the current pattern of provision, with
its emphasis on full awards (eg honours degrees), often appears
to be an inefficient and discouraging way to meet those needs.
We would emphasise, therefore, the value of the bite-sized learning
approach, driven by and focusing on, local and sub-regional needs.
26. We would be delighted to provide further
evidence and to have the opportunity to appear as witnesses should
the Committee require.
April 2008
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