Memorandum 35
Submission from the Lifelong Learning
Networks in the Yorkshire and Humber Region
SUMMARY
Lifelong Learning Networks (LLNs) are partnerships
funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).
The overall objective for LLNs is to improve the coherence, clarity
and certainty of progression opportunities for vocational learners
into and through higher education. They are also increasingly
seen as change agents within the higher education system, supporting
institutions to respond to the challenges of the Skills Agenda.
Their work encompasses three main objectives in relation to Leitch:
a. Preventing waste of local talent within
regions/sub-regions by ensuring that clear and realistic articulated
progression routes are available for vocational and work-based
learners into and through higher education.
— Ensuring that the higher education
curriculum delivers the skills needed by employers through involving
sector skills councils, employer organisations and individual
employers more closely in curriculum development, especially at
(though not restricted to) Foundation Degree level.
— Development of accredited higher
education provision as flexible CPD to meet ongoing higher skills
development needs for employers and groups of employers.
This paper sets out the potential role of LLNs
in supporting the delivery of the High Level Skills / Leitch Agenda
using the Yorkshire and Humber Region as a demonstrator case study.
It contends that LLNs are the only structures that currently involve
all HE providing institutions, both HEIs and FE Colleges, and
therefore are able to play a unique role, both through their existing
funding and their membership, in co-ordinating HE and FE responses
to Leitch.
MAIN PAPER
1. The Yorkshire and Humber Region is home
to four LLNs: Higher York; Higher Futures (South Yorkshire); West
Yorkshire LLN and Yorkshire and Humber East LLN. They are inclusive
of all higher education providing institutions in the region.
Between them they have received grant funding of over £15M
from HEFCE, and approximately £6M in allocated funding to
their partner institutions for student places covering the period
2007-9.
2. The four LLNs are working strategically
with the RDA (Yorkshire Forward), Regional LSC, Regional Universities'
Association (Yorkshire Universities), the Regional Skills Partnership
and Foundation Degree Forward to develop a strategy for ensuring
that higher education can contribute to its full potential to
the support and development of the Yorkshire and Humber economy,
and to deliver a regional, integrated approach to the Skills Agenda.
3. Yorkshire and Humber has not been designated
a Higher Level Skills Pathfinder Area and therefore has not previously
been required to develop a regional infrastructure to stimulate
demand for, and meet employer expectations in relation to, higher
level skills. Instead solutions have begun to emerge organically
in the post-Leitch environment through a strong collaboration
between stakeholders as detailed in 3 above. We propose this as
a case study of note in considering national strategy for higher
level skills development in that:
a. It brings together all the institutions in
the region delivering funded higher education through existing,
proactive partnerships that are already focused on vocational
/ work based learners (LLNs).
b. There is an emerging model of joint regional
planning and strategic development between the RDA, LSC and higher
education delivery partners. This allows for a sharing and co-ordination
of effort and resources across the boundary of HEFCE funded HE
and all other vocational and work-based training. This builds
on and contextualises work carried out by the Joint Forum for
Higher Levels. Crucially, it also aligns the developing work of
the Train to Gain brokerage with individual HE and FE institutional
efforts to stimulate employer demand for higher level skills.
c. Fully coherent with this regional strategic
context, city-regional approaches are emerging through the work
of the partners which reflect the diversity of the region and
are better placed to respond to local higher level skills requirements.
It is envisaged that these will empower local groupings of higher
education providers, facilitated by the LLNs, to achieve a local
response to employer needs and to cohere with sub-regional bodies
(such as local authorities, chambers of commerce and economic
partnerships). This will be fully coherent with HEFCE strategic
frameworks for Employer Engagement and the Higher Education Innovation
Fund, and proposals within Innovation Nation for similar capacity
building programmes for Further Education.
4. The remainder of this paper addresses
two of the key consultation questions set out in the inquiry.
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
Sheffield Hallam University and Rotherham College
have developed a new Foundation Degree in Control Technology targeting
four advanced manufacturing sectors—Metals, Glass, Food
and Packaging—with collaborative involvement of CORUS, Cadbury
Schweppes and British Glass, and consultation with Yorkshire Forward
and SEMTA. This initiative has also sparked interest from the
NPower in the energy sector and current thinking is to develop
a range of industry-specific routes to support product and process
technology.
5. Both HE institutions and FE institutions
that deliver HE are well positioned to address employer and individual
skills needs, and most can already demonstrate effective examples
of such work. However capacity building, additional or changed
structures and a closer degree of cross-agency partnership working
are likely to be required if this activity is to scale up to the
level required to meet Leitch targets. While there are, for example,
just over 8,000 students registered on Foundation Degrees in the
Yorkshire and Humber Region in 2007-8, additional 850,000 individuals
would need to qualify at Level 4 in order to reach the new Regional
Economic Strategy targets by 2016.
6. All HE providing institutions are proud
of their institutional distinctiveness and are able to provide
expert education, higher skills training and knowledge transfer
in different niche areas. There are obvious benefits, therefore,
to strong and enduring partnerships between different institutions
within a region or sub-region, with expertise sourced from outside
the area where necessary. Joint approaches to planning, resourcing
and recognition/reward are essential in maintaining these partnerships
and in tempering the tendency for institutions to compete where
co-operation could also deliver a competitive market advantage.
This will allow for the skills needs of an area, and of individual
or groups of employers within the area, to be approached in a
holistic way that has the potential to be demand rather than supply
led.
7. Intensive public investment has already
gone into developing such partnerships through the LLNs—the
only spatially-based partnerships that are inclusive of HE delivered
in FE Colleges. In Yorkshire and Humber there are four LLNs that
are able to respond to the diverse needs of different parts of
a large region, and yet work closely together through their Directorates.
This allows for realistic planning and genuinely collaborative
and inclusive working between institutions in a way that a single
regional partnership would be unlikely to achieve, but within
a regionally coherent framework.
The Yorkshire and Humber East Lifelong Learning
Network, in partnership with Aimhigher Humber and Foundation Degree
Forward, have worked closely with a range of employers including
Jefco Services (an SME), HGB UK Ltd, and Hull and East Yorkshire
NHS Trust to create a generic specification for a Foundation Degree
in Construction Project Management. This award is now being developed
collaboratively between FE colleges in Hull, Grimsby and York,
with the first cohort of employer-supported students enrolling
in the autumn.
Northern College is undertaking pilot development
for a new City and Guilds Higher Professional Diploma in Community
Development. Work is progressing with both universities in Sheffield
to create progression routes into Foundation and Undergraduate
Degrees in sustainable communities, working with communities and
related fields. This is an entirely new Level 4 qualification
for the sector, designed to offer professional development and
HE progression for people working in community, voluntary and
public service environments.
Higher York has worked across the partnership
to develop a number of Foundation Degrees working with a range
of employers. These employers include those from the voluntary
and community sector. The Foundation Degree Visual Impairment
was developed with the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and
is delivered by York St John University. This qualification is
being delivered offered both part-time and full-time to suit the
needs of the learners.
What the existing regional structures of delivery
are and what sub-regional strategies may be required
All ten college partners in the Sheffield City-Region
have approved a progression agreement through Higher Futures to
provide a clear route from a wide range of Level 3 vocational
courses in health and social care to a Foundation Degree at Sheffield
College. This is the first multi-lateral agreement of its kind
within the partnership.
8. There is no national, regional or sub-regional
body that takes an overview of the planning and delivery of education
and skills at Level 4 and above. While, in common with other English
Regions, Yorkshire and Humber has a regional universities association,
this is not inclusive of the wealth of HE in FE provision that
is strategically important across the region. The current framework
tends to weaken the ability of HE providing institutions to act
collaboratively and for employers and employer representing organisations
to find a single point of contact to meet their skills needs.
9. The LLNs currently represent the only
structures in which all HE providing institutions are represented
and their resources are currently being used to begin to develop
the employer HE offer and to ensure that this meshes with the
current system of vocational and work-based education and training.
10. The LLNs, Yorkshire Forward, the LSC,
the Regional Skills Partnership, Foundation Degree Forward and
Yorkshire Universities have responded to this by initiating regular
strategic meetings and developing a "World Class Skills for
a World Class Region" outline strategy that is currently
under discussion. This includes both a regional and a city-regional
dimension. It seeks to create a coherent and planned approach
to meeting employers' and employees' needs for higher level skills
development, and to ensure that all HE providing institutions
are able to respond in line with their institutional strengths
and areas of expertise.
Through a franchise arrangement with the University
of Hull, Yorkshire and Humber East LLN member colleges are able
to offer "bitesize" 10 credit modules of higher education
to those in employment in order to introduce both employers and
employees to the benefits of higher education, and which offer
progression into longer qualifications. Examples include modules
in digital technologies such as Photoshop and Flash offered to
small businesses in Scarborough by Yorkshire Coast College, and
a module on the new animal legislation offered by Bishop Burton
College to pet shops and equestrian centres across the East Riding
of Yorkshire. Some colleges also offered two-hour "Expert
Sessions" to businesses, which have proved successful in
promoting the modules.
RECOMMENDATION
11. Lifelong Learning Networks represent
the first policy attempt to bring together the HE and FE sectors
to address high level skills needs. Substantial public investment
has already gone into establishing these Networks and, although
it is early days, results are already being seen. LLNs, in collaboration
with other regional and sub-regional structures and agencies,
have the potential to make a unique contribution to the delivery
of Leitch targets. As such their continued role needs to be given
consideration in decisions relating to regional and sub-regional
structure for implementing skills and training policies for high
level skills.
April 2008
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