Examination of Witnesses (Questions 82-125)
Q82 Chair: Good morning. Thank
you very much for coming to give evidence to us this morning while
we talk about the impact of the spending review. I will fire straight
into questions, if I may. I will start with you, Dave. May we
use your first names? We like to keep things reasonably informal
here. What is the CSR going to mean for you and your institution?
Dave Linnell: My college is an
FE and HE college with an overall budget of £70 million.
The CSR has effects on different lines of activity. There will
be a reduction in the funding for 16 to 18 year-olds of, we anticipate,
about 4%. There will be significant changes in funding for 19-plus,
and obviously a change of entitlements, which will come in 2012.
Apprenticeships are good news for us because we are into them,
and we are a major provider of them in Cornwall and the south-west.
We need to restructure our employer responsiveness, though, because
while we are not a major supplier of Train to Gain, but will lose
some Train to Gain money.
There will be major changes in our HE. We have
1,700 full-time HE students. It could well be that we can serve
our community better in higher education with the changes that
are coming forward, provided that we have the autonomy to get
on and deliver the HE without the Higher Education Institute saying
what we can and can't do and top slicing money.
Q83 Chair: You said that there
will be significant changes for 19-plus. What are they?
Dave Linnell: In 19-plus, there
will be a reduction in funding of 25% over four years. In addition,
there will be changes to entitlements, so that from 2012 people
above 25 will be expected to pay for any level 3 qualification.
Q84 Chair: Thank you. Martin?
Martin Tune: The very quick answer
is: we are not sure yet. We're working with the local authority
to see how its reductions will impact on schools, and making plans
and contingency plans. It's clear that there will be a lot of
traded services that we will need to negotiate on and decide whether
or not we are going to buy. In terms of the school settlement,
clearly, at the moment we are at a stage where there is a lot
of anxiety and tension about what may be the picture when we get
told what money we will have in January, so there is a lot of
worst-case scenario planning, but clearly there are lots of unknowns
at the moment, so we aren't clear.
Q85 Chair: We were torn as a Committee
on whether it was too early to bring people in, but we thought
we would get an insight into what it was like on the front line,
to analyse whether it is worth hearing. Sally, can I come to you?
Sally Coates: We're an 11-to-18
academy with 1,200 students in White City. Again, I am not quite
sure what the implications are going to be. We are hoping that
where we lose on one hand, we will gain on the Pupil Premium.
Q86 Chair: Right. And Tony?
Tony Withell: I'm at a 13-to-18
upper school in Bedford, which is a rarity—not Bedford,
but an upper school. We are on the edge of uncertainty, if I can
be honest with you. I think we all recognise that we've been spared
the worst ravages of what might have been coming our way, and
we respect and understand that. We know the public situation,
but at the same time, we read the statistics in the public domain,
such as the Institute of Fiscal Studies suggesting that 87% of
secondary schools in shires will face cuts. In my association—I
am a secretary for the NAHT—we look at the figures and we
are suggesting possibly a 2% to 3% cut year on year for the next
few years. Something between the two might be more accurate, I
recognise that, but it's that uncertainty that is not helpful
currently. If our planning is important, and we believe it is,
we just don't know what figures we will have come 31 March.
To tease that out a little bit, I have been
asked to prepare a provisional budget for 1 January, which we're
now engaged in, but again, there is a lack of certainty over what
actually is going to happen to the DSG and 16-plus funding. In
the schools sector, yes, we have that 0.1% increase for the years
up to 16, but then we have the sixth form hit that comes after
that. What will happen to extended schools provision? In terms
of amalgamation of grants in general, what is going to be happening?
That is the uncertainty that we're in.
Q87 Chair: Has this uncertainty
led to any actions on your part so far? In other words, are you
cutting, fearing the worst, and taking action now in anticipation?
Dave Linnell: We have been modelling
on different reductions—of 5%, 7% and 10% reductions. The
implication of that is that you control your employment of staff;
you look at contracts very carefully to minimise the redundancies
at the end of the year.
Chair: I see nodding across the way,
so I assume that that is true for you all.
Q88 Neil Carmichael: I want to
look at the new powers and responsibilities that you're going
to have. Obviously, as heads or principals you're going to have
a lot more. I have three quick questions. First, do you welcome
that, in so far as it's a change from the past and you're going
to get more powers? Secondly, what do you think it will mean in
practice at your school or college? Thirdly, do you think there
is sufficient accountability in terms of checking what you're
doing? I have in mind governors, but also other mechanisms.
Martin Tune: I am not completely
clear that the situation will be very different. When I look at
the autonomy that we have as a school and the things that we can
decide, I'm not sure how significant the changes will be. We decide
how many staff we have, what types of staff they are and how they're
deployed. We decide how the resources that come to the school
work.
Q89 Neil Carmichael: The obvious
question then is: do you want even more autonomy?
Martin Tune: I'm not searching
for any more autonomy than I have at the moment, no.
Tony Withell: I would welcome
the opportunity to be more autonomous, because that is what I
had as a grant-maintained head. So yes, as a school and as a head,
I am looking very seriously at what Sally's into regarding academy
status, and that's because of how it works. Yes, there may be
financial positive aspects for my students, in terms of what we
do or don't buy back—I am conscious of that. But being able
to decide within my local community and the community of schools
what I think we should be concentrating on, and looking at how
we can take it as our core agenda and develop it further, that
I welcome. The kilter to that, going back to the rider in your
question, is therefore to whom am I and my community accountable?
Currently I am accountable to my parents, to my governors, to
my SIP, to Ofsted and to a variety of places, and somehow we have
to streamline that into a more coherent review of where all institutions
are up to, rather than dancing to the same tune for different
masters.
Q90 Neil Carmichael: Do you have
any thoughts on how that streamlining might unfold?
Tony Withell: I would welcome
it. I came into this profession at a time when we had HMIs conducing
inspections, and we are almost at that stage now, but similarly,
we still have aspects of the local authority dropping in and having
a look, and aspects of SIPs having a look. I'd welcome the three
being in one.
Who loses in that respect I do not know, but
it seems to me that the triad that we currently have is not helpful
with regard to the amount of time that we end up sitting in offices
discussing where we are up to as opposed to actually being on
the patch and working with the kids and parents and supporting
staff. That's what I want to spend more time doing.
Dave Linnell: Colleges have been
incorporated since 1993, and in that sense we've had the independence
of all sorts of things, but with independence comes responsibility—responsibility
for the bottom line and for HR. The schools in Cornwall are recognising
that and asking support from us to help them to move into that
era, so that they have a greater understanding of how they can
run—excuse the terminology—an education business,
where they are accountable to their students, their parents and
their communities.
Q91 Neil Carmichael: But of course
John Hayes, Minister for Further Education and Lifelong Learning,
is giving you more freedom by removing 43 different regulations
and so on.
Dave Linnell: It is very helpful,
and certainly what's happening with the post-19 budget and the
merging of employer responsiveness and adult responsiveness is
a big, big, big advantage. To hit some of the targets is nigh
on impossible, because you're trying to hit a target for one particular
learner out of thousands who has achieved a particular qualification.
The increased flexibility that is coming from that is certainly
welcomed by the college sector. The FE sector is, by all definitions,
the most audited part of the public sector, so I hope that we'll
come to a degree of reality about auditing that is measured and
responsive to risk, as opposed to auditing everyone, because perhaps
one college gets it wrong.
Q92 Neil Carmichael:
You are in an interesting position, because you have various funding
streams in addition to schools. You have another problem in that
you are responsible to BIS, mainly, as well as to Education. I
am a governor of a college, so I know that you could have two
students in the same classroom who are being funded from different
bodies out of different levels. How do you feel about that? Are
there any implications connected to the CSR that you want to draw
out?
Dave Linnell: We might come to
other things in terms of EMAs later, but the separation of the
two Departments is unhelpful in my view. It is unhelpful that
the two Departments are articulating policies that are not always
consistent and coherent.
The fact that John Hayes was a joint appointment
between the two Departments is very helpful, because there was
a lack of consistency in what was coming through. I see education
as lifelong learning from a very young age all the way through,
and it needs to have a degree of coherency in terms of policy—there
is a danger of separation.
Q93 Neil Carmichael: Sally, we
seem to have moved into an interesting discussion. May I go back
to the accountability question, because you are in charge of an
academy? Do you find the academy abilities structures adequate?
Sally Coates: We are an Ark academy,
which is slightly different, because we have a sponsor rather
than being a stand-alone academy, where there is a network of
academies. It has been great being head of an academy, because
I welcome the autonomy to look at what curriculum I want to offer
and to be able to look at the priorities that I think are needed
within my school.
I was head of a local authority school before
that. However, I am a strong proponent of school accountability
and I believe that Ark is one of the more successful sponsors.
One of the reasons for that is the close monitoring—which
is extremely rigorous—of what is happening at Burlington
Danes on a half-termly basis. That is one of the drivers for the
improvement within the school. So I am not sure how I feel about
that ceasing to exist.
Certainly, when I was the head of a local authority
school, when the inspector came in once a year and held you to
account for what was going on, I thought that was very valuable.
Schools need monitoring in that way.
Q94 Charlotte Leslie: I want to
ask about the move of ring-fencing from funding and how it will
be redistributed. Two things—I did a bit of work a while
back on the levels of achievement of children with SEN on school
action plus and statements. It was rudimentary research, but I
seemed to find that those children who were on school action plus—whose
funding had been distributed to the school without the ring-fencing
that a statement would imply—had higher levels of exclusion
and attendance problems than those children with statements, for
whom the money was carefully allocated by the statement. Will
similar things happen if money is not ring-fenced when it goes
into schools? I want to hear your perspective on whether we need
to be worried about lack of ring-fenced money going into schools.
Tony Withell: It goes back to
what your accountability measure is. To explain that and be parochial,
we had issues regarding some of the progress of some of our less
able students and we have developed a student centre—that
costs a lot of money. The outcomes of that are the best in my
professional career, because student engagement, participation,
and enjoyment of learning are all so much more improved by the
concentration of support for them. My own take on the situation
would be that I don't mind ring-fencing being abandoned, as long
as we know what we are going to be held to account to. I believe
that in what you have raised is the opportunity to have an appropriate
programme—that personalised programme—that supports
that individual. The downside to that is that it costs money.
Q95 Chair: Does anyone else want
to comment on ring-fencing?
Sally Coates: I think that it
is good not to have ring-fencing; as an academy, we do not have
any. I agree that the money for children with statements should
continue to be ring-fenced, because that is their legal entitlement.
It is interesting that children with statements
often have parents who are more engaged, because they have gone
through the statemented process. I wonder if children on school
action plus do not have that same engagement at home—that
may be why they are less successful.
Q96 Charlotte Leslie: In terms
of the Pupil Premium funding, are you worried that, with the redistribution
of funding, many of the services and things that you might want
to buy into as a school with the Pupil Premium—you can look
at a buffet of services that you can buy into—might melt
away, as funding that has gone centrally to them is then given
to the school to buy into? So, things that you might want to buy
into might not be there. Is that something that you're considering,
or are these fears unfounded?
Tony Withell: That is a distinct
worry. The time scale is not helpful, as we well know. We're meant
to be receiving money for September 2011 for pupils who are already
in the system. To tease that out further, we are actually spending
money on some of those students already. So for a number of them
in schools already, I think that we know what their menu is that
we might want to buy—whether it is table d'hôte or
something else, I don't know.
However, my concern is what will be the amount
of money and indeed how will that money impact upon the overall
flexible programmes that we are trying to offer. To put that another
way—I am trying to be helpful—we have 110 students
who use my student centre regularly. On free school meal entitlement,
we will have funding for about 50, and there is a gap between
the two figures.
Dave Linnell: There's a concern
in the Cornish schools about how the Pupil Premium will be determined.
It could be based on free school meals, which is the simplest
way, but it might not allocate resources to meet particular needs.
The other thing from a college point of view
is that a lot of 14 to 16-year-olds are now educated in colleges,
so it's unclear what will happen to the Pupil Premium for those
pupils who are educated between 14 and 16 in colleges.
Q97 Nic Dakin: I just want to
pick up on the points that Charlotte has made just now and on
what was said earlier in the first panel, that there might well
be more things that schools need to buy into. Am I getting the
view that you don't quite know what those things will be at the
moment and you don't know how much they will cost?
Martin Tune: We've had some thoughts
about that. At the local authority that I work in, people have
provided information and we are having discussions and seminars
around traded services, and to decide whether the services are
viable or not. They have been able to provide things as and when
we've needed them, according to the different children we have
in the school at the time.
We are in a position where we will need to make
a long-term commitment to try to purchase those things, not knowing
whether we will need them year-in, year-out. So, it's likely that,
because of that, we will say, "No, we will do without them
in the short term" and they will go, and we will possibly
not have access to them in the future.
Sally Coates: I myself don't often
buy into things; we tend to develop the expertise within the school.
I think that that is what works most effectively.
Chair: Neil, did you want to finish off
on the Pupil Premium?
Q98 Neil Carmichael: Yes, I did—that's
exactly why I put my hand up, because I thought, "Since I've
started it, I'll go on with it", and then we can save a bit
of time.
On the allocation of the Pupil Premium and free
school meals, do you think that there is a better way of doing
it?
Dave Linnell: Coming here, I was
trying to do my reading, to understand if there is a better way.
My understanding of the situation is that better ways are more
complex and difficult to apply. However, I just think that there
needs to be more research into the Pupil Premium, because it is
fundamentally crucial to the budgets of schools. So, rather than
going for the simplest way and moving quickly on it, surely it's
better to look at the impact of it and get it right.
Q99 Neil Carmichael: Let's be
radical here and pick up the point that we were talking about
before—autonomy. Would you like to be able to decide yourself?
Dave Linnell: In terms of?
Q100 Neil Carmichael: The allocation
of the Pupil Premium.
Dave Linnell: I think that it
would be very difficult to do that. I think that that would need
to come centrally, based on certain criteria. When that comes
in, I'm guessing that schools would actually then decide to use
it in a way that is most beneficial to them.
Q101 Neil Carmichael: But how
prescriptive should those criteria be and should they enable you
to start making choices in your college or your school?
Tony Withell: There have been
the beginnings of work with regard to how the formula can be scripted
in different ways, have there not? The present likely model will
have implications for schools, such as my own, which take pupils
at the age of 13, because there is a tradition that as pupils
go through the system they have less and less access to free school
meals. So, somewhere along the line—I think that my middle
schools have about a 7% FSM entitlement and we have a 4.8% FSM
entitlement, and there is real money in there with regard to what
it means.
So where am I getting to? I hope that there
is a willingness to engage in what the fairest system could be.
But the madness would be—that seems to be our best measure
currently and yet as we both know it is relatively archaic.
Q102 Chair: Has that ever had
free school meals then, because in the consultation, the Government
suggested they thought that might be a superior system than strictly
just free school meals?
Sally Coates: We have 54% free
school meals, so it is a significant amount. I worry about schools
wanting parents to continue to stay on free school meals because
of the funding, so I think the idea of ever having been eligible
is an interesting one to look at.
Q103 Neil Carmichael: So you're
open to—
Dave Linnell: Very much. Pupil
Premium has certain advantages. Where the money is coming from
is interesting. Obviously, you need to have certain criteria,
which underpin fairness, if you are going to hit the target that
you need to hit.
Q104 Neil Carmichael: It follows
that if you are tied to something like free school meals, it is
not really going to be that good. But you know more than anyone
else about the people coming to your school, because that's your
job. So therefore if you had more control over allocation, you
would be more satisfied with the outcomes.
Martin Tune: I think we have to
acknowledge that this is a complex area. This has been researched
lots and lots. People have gone into it and tried to present to
us different models of trying to see what's fairest. Because it
is such a fast-changing world, there is not going to be a simple
system of getting it right and pitching it at the right level.
Yes, we know our children very well, but even in my school, a
two-form entry primary school, it changes week on week. This thing
about having some sort of historical element to it, of children
who have been on free school meals, might level things up.
Q105 Nic Dakin: Can I come back
to the quantum? We know a 0.1% increase in funding is being stated,
but you seem to be saying that you expect to be no better off.
There are swings and roundabouts. In fact, listening to all four
of you, you seem to be saying you were planning for being worse
off.
Martin Tune: Yes, we are.
Tony Withell: That is the feeling
on the ground.
Sally Coates: I may be in a slightly
different position. I think schools have been quite generously
funded, certainly in the inner city in the past. We have had money
for disadvantaged children through different streams that have
come in. Obviously, I do not want any cuts to front-line services,
but I am not looking necessarily to have more money, as long as
it remains the same. On Pupil Premium, though, I think there should
be a regional variation—I might be speaking as a London
head. It is more expensive to buy teachers in London. We have
to pay inner London weighting, and one of the best things for
disadvantaged children are smaller classes in the first instance,
because they come in, unable to read, with illiterate backgrounds
in the home and so on. We have to compensate by giving to them.
I have a sixth-form entry going to seven forms. I would like to
go to eight forms, certainly for year 7, but cannot afford to
at the moment. They need very small-group teaching to get them
up to be able to read by the end of year 7, and then they do not
get excluded in year 9 and become the criminals of the future.
So I do think in London we might need more money just because
teachers are more expensive to buy.
Q106 Nic Dakin: May I follow that
with a question to Martin? In an inner-city primary school, does
it look at the moment, on your understanding of the way funding
is going, that you are likely to have funding diverted away from
you, or your funding is going to be confirmed?
Martin Tune: I obviously work
in my own school, but I chair the local schools forum as well,
so I am interested in seeing what the picture has been. We have
been talking about it for a while. All the indications are that
we are planning for a significant reduction in resource. We talked
earlier about our ongoing commitments. If we have a 0.1% increase
across the board, and that actually arrived in my school bank
account, that would be eaten up more by teachers' incremental
movement up the salary scale this year, so there would immediately
be a decrease. Obviously, while there are other issues around
pay freezes, we are still subject very significantly to all the
inflationary costs that we are hearing about. Some 80% of my costs
are staff, which are, as I said, subject to incremental pressures,
but for the other 20% we are anticipating very significant price
rises, so yes, the picture is not a positive one at the moment.
Q107 Chair: But overall you are
expecting an equal impact across the country. Representing a rural
seat, where children from poorer families are just as much in
need of support as they are in the inner city, we certainly have
seen vast increases in spending in inner cities and a failure
to provide that in rural areas. Are you expecting there to be
no redistribution between areas based on need?
Sally Coates:
I'm a bit puzzled by the free school meals indicator, because
I think those with a family income of £16,000 or less are
required to be entitled to free school meals. £16,000 buys
more, surely, in a rural area than it does in some city areas.
Neil Carmichael: Not necessarily.
Q108 Chair: Rather less, if you
have small, sparsely populated areas. In a rural area on the coast
with a circle around the school, half of which is in the sea,
things such as transport are expensive. None of that appears in
the city.
Sally Coates: I agree with you,
though, that deprived children are deprived children wherever
they live.
Q109 Chair: But the biggest gap
in the country between children on free school meals and the rest
is in fact in the East Riding of Yorkshire, where I represent.
Dave Linnell: One of the things
that we will perhaps come on to is EMA. That will have a significant
effect in the rural area that is Cornwall, just as it will have
in east Yorkshire and Bridlington, and areas around there.
Tony Withell: There's not a great
deal of difference between free school meal assessment and EMA
assessment—a tiny bit of adjustment of the figures, but
they are not that massively different. Out of my 425 sixth-form
students, 99 are on varying levels of EMA, which contrasts significantly
with how the provisions of free school meals is working out currently.
That goes back to the issue of rural schools failing a little
bit in areas that are sparse.
Q110 Charlotte Leslie: I would
like to ask Martin about the idea of refocusing Sure Start on
its original purpose, which was for the most vulnerable. What
sort of impact do you expect that to have on the attainment levels
of pupils arriving in your school?
Martin Tune: Sure Start needs
to be focused on the most vulnerable children. I have seen a significant
difference in the confidence of families and children who have
come into my school since Sure Start was established. I have been
nervous in recent times about the expansion of some of the activities
that Sure Start centres have tried to take on. It feels a little
bit as though it has been at the expense of those most vulnerable
children at whom it was targeted at the beginning. As long as
the resource is there, I actually quite welcome the fact that
it is targeted at its original purpose.
Q111 Pat Glass: Dave, can I ask
you about the discretionary learner support fund, which comes
specifically into colleges? This is something over which the college
has a lot of control. Can I ask you about how it is administered,
particularly in your college? Do you think the colleges are in
the best position to judge when and where it is spent, which students
get it and what points to intervene? If you were to receive an
increase in discretionary fund, where would you target that?
Dave Linnell: There are lots of
bits and pieces, and I will try to be as brief as I can. The amount
that we get in the discretionary support fund is very small relative
to the EMAs that students get. As a very large college we get
about £100,000 in LSF funds. It is targeted to those students
who have particular needs, whether it is equipment or being forced
to live independently for a short period of time before they can
claim benefits. The college has very clear criteria that it applies,
otherwise it would be subject to complaints that it is not being
done fairly. Colleges are in a good position to make that decision
and to target it in the right way. Administratively it is quite
complex, because for any benefit or any support that you are actually
going to give, you need to make certain that the rules and procedures
are in place, that payments are made on time and that payments
are made to ensure that students stay in college.
Q112 Pat Glass: Given that the
funding going into EMAs is going to be reduced by 90% and replaced
by something that is otherwise targeted, what do you think the
impact will be?
Dave Linnell: I have more than
2,000 students aged 16 to 18 on EMAs at Cornwall College, of whom
the majority are on a full EMA. There is clear evidence, despite
the findings of the National Foundation for Educational Research,
that EMAs have encouraged students to continue into further education.
Students have stayed there and they have achieved more. Indeed,
the contextual value-added is better as a consequence of EMA encouraging
students actually to come into college. If EMAs are reduced, and
if the money is severely reduced, we will see two things. We will
see a reduction in those students who come, stay and actually
succeed. There will also be an equality issue in rural areas,
because somebody in a rural area who is in receipt of an EMA currently
has access to FE or training, but if the EMA goes, it will distort
the choices that they have at the age of 16.
Q113 Chair: Is that because of
the cost of transport?
Dave Linnell: The cost of transport
and the availability of other opportunities in those areas. Certainly
in Cornwall that is the situation. I guess that in east Yorkshire
and other rural parts of the country it will be the same.
Q114 Chair: Can you give us any
figures on that? I know that it is the same in east Yorkshire
and a lot of the EMA is used directly to pay for the rather expensive
bus travel to get to college.
Dave Linnell: I have evidence
I can share with the Committee of where a certain percentage of
students use it for transport. Others use their EMA just to live
because they are independent of the family.
It is fundamentally wrong, in my view, that
EMA is being removed from students in the current year 12. They
decided to go into year 12 based on certain assumptions. Those
assumptions should continue through to year 13. It has always
been an underlying principle of schools, FE and HE that if you
make a decision at 16, it is honoured by the school, college or
university until the end of the course. The thought that it will
be removed from students in year 12 is wrong.
Tony Withell: To add to that,
we did a little focus group with some of my sixth-form students
and I would like to read you two or three of their statements.
I acknowledge that I am being selective, but there is nevertheless
something of worth. One student wrote, "If I was not able
to receive EMA any more, I feel that my studying at sixth form
would be under jeopardy." Another student wrote, "It
supports me at school by allowing me lunch money to buy lunch
and other things my mum cannot afford. My parents are splitting
up soon and my mum cannot afford to provide me with the basic
things I need." Statements like that come from the hearts
of students. There is concern among students who are currently
in the system that they are not being listened to with regard
to the proposal on EMA.
I have grave concerns about what it will do
to the participation rate and the type of participation at 16-plus,
as Dave said. Everybody at this table signs up to wanting youngsters
to be successful and to have every opportunity that our schools
can avail them of, but there is a risk that certain students will
feel under financial pressure so that they cannot go into that
knowingly and willingly. Already, about 75% of my students in
the sixth form do part-time work. They fear a rather stressful
life and this will not help.
Q115 Pat Glass: Sally, it is slightly
different in London, given that students get free transport.
Sally Coates: It's interesting
that we haven't got the learning support grant—16 to 18
schools don't get that, but colleges do. That is by the bye. I
think that it will have less impact. I agree with my colleagues
that it will have far more impact in rural areas because of travel
and so on. I spoke to the head of sixth form about this yesterday
and he felt that when we withhold it because they do not come
in on time, for example, it does not have that much impact and
they do not seem that bothered, interestingly enough.
Q116 Pat Glass: So there is a
different position in inner cities compared with rural counties.
A final question for David. What do you think
will be the impact of reductions in the 16 to 19 unit costs for
your college?
Dave Linnell: It will inevitably
mean an increase in class sizes. It will also mean a review of
what is and is not viable. To go back to the earlier question
about accountability, when you're responsible for your own budget,
you have to make certain that the budget balances at the end of
the year in such a way that the college is viable for the next
year. The question is whether we will run all the courses that
are currently on offer. We are in that process at the moment.
Indeed, there is a day's curriculum review at my college today.
What courses will we provide and what courses can we afford to
provide? There could be a rationalisation.
Q117 Pat Glass: So bigger classes
and reduced choice in courses. Is that the same in schools?
Tony Withell: There is undoubtedly
that potential. From the viewpoint of running a business, that
is a fair scenario to start from. It is quite mad at times that
we have very small groups, where the unit cost—that is,
a member of staff—is very expensive. Making us work in a
different way is, I think, also going to be in the students' better
interest. It is making us reconsider the business plan for 16-plus.
That said, to move it on a little step, from the viewpoint of
the parent who has bought into a particular institution on the
basis of it being the particular style of learning and values
that they subscribe to, we are going to have educate them in a
different way, because they may be having parts of their learning
done in a different way, and elsewhere. It is not just that the
number of courses might decrease, not just that the class size
might increase, it is also that where they do it might not be
the same.
Q118 Pat Glass: Can I ask one
very quick question as there is a follow-up to that? Given that
local authorities are going to have to make very significant cuts,
and from what we have heard this morning and I have heard out
there in local authorities, it is areas such as Connexions and
careers advice that may well disappear, what will be the impact
on schools, because that is going to fall back on you?
Tony Withell: One of our major
strands for CPD for staff next year, is impartial careers advice
and guidance. They will be the deliverers, as opposed to an external
body.
Q119 Pat Glass: You think you
can step in and fill that gap?
Tony Withell: We're having to
do that.
Q120 Chair: Do you get your teachers
to go to FE colleges? Every time I meet a teacher I ask them if
they have ever been to their local FE college, and if I have discovered
any, it has been very few so far.
Tony Withell: We run a 14-to-16
programme with the local FE college. Some of our staff do accompany
students down to the college, but that is not a majority, to be
fair.
Dave Linnell: Three interesting
words there, Chair—IAG—is there guidance, is there
advice, is it impartial? I would question whether those three
things always go together.
Q121 Damian Hinds: We were talking
about the various ways to reduce costs: class sizes, dropping
small or newer subject areas, we could talk about extra-curricular
stuff as well. We are in the context here of 16-to-19, but you
might want to address it more generally as well. If you had total
control over the British education system, are there other things
that you might ditch altogether in order to reduce costs but maintain
some of the enrichment programmes, some of those small subjects
and so on? I don't want to put words in your mouth, but obviously
I have my own thoughts.
Dave Linnell: Alton college is
a very good college. There are things that all of us will be looking
at, as to how you can deliver more for less. All of us are looking
at the value for money we get from awarding bodies. Awarding bodies
seem to be doing quite nicely so we all need to look at that.
Colleges are looking at buying in to awarding bodies as a group.
You think, can that be done more cheaply, more efficiently than
it currently is?
Q122 Damian Hinds: How much do
AS-levels cost the sector?
Dave Linnell: It will vary from
college to college, but an AS-level entry is probably about £40
per entry, times a lot of entries.
Q123 Damian Hinds: So, that's
per kid per subject.
Dave Linnell: It would be quite
expensive. There are efficiencies that can apply to the awarding
bodies. It would suit me that there was clarity on education throughout,
and that we had clarity on what we wanted from the education system,
and the frequency of changes did not mean that you were moving
from one initiative to another. That clarity would mean that you
could deploy resources more clearly and get better value for money.
Q124 Chair: Sally, would you like
to come in on that? You are the Secretary of State and you can
do what you like. What would you do to make the system better?
Sally Coates: I agree with Dave.
Some of the things you have mentioned are probably going to go,
such as Connexions and careers advice. They are useful but we
can manage without them. I certainly agree that an enormous amount
of money is spent on exams. GCSE level is lots of subjects and
modular, so you enter, they fail, you re-enter, and it's not a
good life message anyway. A lot of money could be saved on exams.
Q125 Chair: We'll end with the
primary sector view from Martin.
Martin Tune: Obviously, circumstances
are different in the primary sector and we don't have to buy in
some of the things that colleagues have talked about. This goes
back to some of the things we were talking about earlier. One
of the things that we are looking at at the moment is to do things
through co-operation and collaboration. Where services are not
going to be provided through the local authority, we will see
if we can co-operate with other local organisations to get them.
That is just sometimes replicating what was an effective and efficient
service in our particular local authority, so that is a worry
for us. Truly, in a primary school in inner London there is not
a great deal of extra that we would want to be diminishing or
cutting down on.
Chair: Thank you all for giving evidence
this morning. We have had three panels and have got through a
lot. I am very grateful to all of you for joining us.
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