30 November 2007
The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills is one half of the most challenging education upheaval yet. Will it provide firm foundations for further and higher education and boost the UK skills base – or be a fast track to failure? Stephen Court investigates
Cutting up government departments can be a messy business. When Prime Minister Gordon Brown split the Department for Education and Skills this summer, not all of its remit was easy to separate.
Primary and secondary education went to the new Department for Children, Schools and Families under Ed Balls, former Chancellor Brown's close ministerial colleague at the Treasury. Balls' department stayed in the old DfES building in tranquil Great Smith Street, with its soothing water features and soaring atrium.
The rest of education went to John Denham at the new Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, known, rather grandly, as Dius for short. Denham has been based in offices around the corner in bustling Victoria Street, together with the science and innovation minister, Ian Pearson, and his civil servants, who were shunted over to Denham when the old Department of Trade and Industry went to the breaker's yard. Lord Triesman, in charge of intellectual property and quality, is also at Victoria Street.
But further and higher education minister Bill Rammell and skills minister David Lammy and their civil servants are still at Great Smith Street. Dius won't be under one roof until mid-December, when everyone moves into new buildings along Victoria Street. Insiders say that even making simple diary arrangements between both sides of the department has been challenging.
The piggy in the middle of the shake-up has been further education. Balls has control of school sixth forms and sixth-form colleges and the lead on 14–19 education, while Denham has the lead on further education and skills.
The University and College Union, representing teaching staff in further and higher education, argues that stringing out further education between the two departments is bad news. It believes that 14–19 education should be connected with adult learning to regain the concept of lifelong learning. The union also says that the reorganisation raises the question of whether further education capital spending in relation to 14–19 stays with Denham or goes to Balls.
Dius officials smooth over the potential for difficulty. A spokeswoman told Public Finance: 'Responsibility for education for 14–19 year-olds is overseen by both Dius and the DCSF. Government departments work closely together on a range of issues and the DCSF and Dius are no different.'
However, a report published last week by the not-for-profit education organisation CFBT, which provides skills training, teacher training and prison education, raised another potential source of tension. It expressed concern about the gap in Dius between the £10.3bn funding for teaching and student support in higher education and the £2.9bn for adult skills currently allocated through the Learning and Skills Council.
This 'raises the spectre of adult skills being swamped by higher education', according to report authors Mark Corney and Mick Fletcher. 'Changes in the machinery of government are more than just shifting the deckchairs in Whitehall. They signal new policy priorities. Above all, they crystallise public spending choices.'
But there are other, more supportive, voices. Lorna Unwin, professor of vocational education at the University of London's Institute of Education, believes the departmental split could mean 'much stronger attention is paid to both further education and work-based initiatives, as both suffered in a DfES that was heavily focused on schools'. And for many in the higher education sector, bringing science and innovation into the department responsible for universities has been a welcome move, given the key role higher education plays in innovation and research in the UK.
Is Denham up to the task of welding together basic skills training with cutting-edge science and innovation, and standing up to the influential Ed Balls at the schools department – as well as steering the government through the potentially explosive review of top-up fees in two years' time?
Well, he is certainly his own man. In 2003, he resigned his ministerial post at the Home Office over the invasion of Iraq. While on the backbenches, he took a respected critical stance over the 2006 education Bill. Now as a member of the Cabinet, he is developing a reputation for being quick on his feet, pragmatic and keeping his civil servants on their toes.
His recent decision to cut £100m funding for people studying in higher education at a level equivalent to or lower than a previous qualification was seen as undermining lifelong learning. But his efforts to bring funding back into adult learning, including English as a second language, have shown a willingness to listen to critics.
Denham will need his political abilities in dealing with his portfolio, not least because his further education colleges include many of the 16–19 year old learners who are technically in Balls' domain. Denham's tasks extended in November to include setting up an agency by 2010/11 to help low-paid, unskilled workers get better jobs.
This forms part of the reforms to education and welfare announced by Brown on November 26, when the prime minister said: 'Making education for skilled work our first priority, we need to provide new incentives and new obligations to train; we need to transfer resources from welfare to education and move claimants from passive recipients of welfare benefit to active job and skill seekers.'
In addition, funding for school sixth forms, sixth-form colleges and the 14–19 phase in further education colleges is moving from the LSC – under Denham – to local education authorities. It was notable that November's grant letter to the LSC for 2008/09, which showed how its different funding streams are split between the two education departments, was signed jointly by Denham and Balls.
The main change to 14–19 education is the introduction from next year of diplomas, which are designed to bridge the academic/vocational divide between schools and further education. Balls has the lead responsibility for this, but the diplomas will need schools and further education colleges to work closely together. They will also need universities on board, both to help develop the curriculum and to be assured that the diplomas are up to scratch as an entrance qualification for higher education.
The CBI business organisation notes that Dius is taking the lead on the government's apprenticeships programme but that strong input is needed from the schools side.
University and College Union general secretary Sally Hunt this month asked the children, schools and families select committee to ensure that cross-departmental responsibility for further education did not lead to lack of clarity in either policy or communication to the sector.
Universities and schools also need to work closely together over widening social class participation in higher education, to encourage 'non-traditional' learners to take degrees. There is potential for rivalry here. One of Balls' first moves as schools secretary was to urge all universities to sponsor an academy school. By contrast, Denham is on record as a sceptic about the publicly funded independent academies.
Denham also has the job of implementing the highly ambitious reforms that follow on from Lord Leitch's Review of Skills last year, which covered all levels from functional literacy and numeracy, up to higher education (ie, Level Four and above). The recommendations included boosting the number of young people past 16 who stay in education and substantially increasing the proportion of public funding for adult training that is 'demand-led'. This includes employer-led, through Train to Gain, the government's flagship vocational training programme, and learner-led, through Skills Accounts, which allow adults to choose their learning.
On qualifications, Dius has set interim targets for increases by 2011 and 2014. Although the government is legislating to raise to 18 the age for young people staying on in education or training, that is not due to happen for a number of years.
In further and higher education, Dius is firmly behind the policy of demand-led provision, but not quite to the extent of the Leitch review, which wanted all adult vocational skills funding in England to be demand-led by 2010. Dius thought this would destabilise colleges and training providers. Nevertheless, out of a total of £1.3bn spent on work-based employer training programmes by 2010/11, more than £900m in public funding will be spent through Train to Gain.
Train to Gain is based around free training up to a first full Level Two qualification (equivalent to five 'good' GCSE grades). It uses brokers – meant to be independent and impartial – to assess an employer's current and future training and skills needs, and then to link the employer with a training provider, either public or private. Brokers are particularly expected to work with small and medium-sized enterprises, generally considered to have a low level of training for staff.
Given that the programme went into national operation only in 2006, a lot is being demanded and expected of it – perhaps too soon. According to the Times Educational Supplement in September, less than half the businesses contacted by Train to Gain brokers were actually sending staff for training. Lower than expected student numbers meant that about one-third of its first year's £268m budget went unspent.
A report published in August by the former education and skills select committee expressed concern about the quality of Train to Gain brokers, who were in some cases succeeding only in adding 'an extra, unwelcome layer of bureaucracy'. The committee was also concerned that much of what was funded under Train to Gain might otherwise be paid for by employers themselves.
Unwin argues that what is needed is a much more localised and adaptive approach that helps to bring providers and employers closer together, rather than the highly centralised approach of Train to Gain.
And lecturers' representatives are wary of the emphasis on economic instrumentalism and short-term employment needs, rather than adult education in the round. Not surprisingly, employers want more say in leading on skills and qualifications. The CBI would like the demand-led policy to be extended from Level Two and below.
Demand-led provision is also being implemented through Skills Accounts. The government's response to the Leitch Review said it would pilot the accounts by giving adult learners access to funds covering all or part of their course fees. Through these accounts, adults will choose their learning as part of a demand-led system.
The focus of demand-led training is going beyond Level Two. The government has asked universities to work with employers to develop courses at higher education level as well. Employer-led 'pathfinder projects' are being piloted in three English regions.
The pathfinder project in the Northwest has been helping to set up a master's degree in construction management at the University of Salford, starting in January. The course will be delivered through distance learning, with tutors available for online support, and with the additional option of face-to-face contact at the university.
The course has been developed through employer demand, particularly with the involvement of the construction company Balfour Beatty. Core funding for teaching on the course is provided by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, but from next year, employers will be expected to contribute to core funding, as well as assist with tuition fees.
Although the number of students on employer-led courses in higher education is minute in comparison with the rest of the sector, the government is keen that this area should grow. In a recent speech to the CBI, Denham said the training system needed to operate more effectively. 'For that, it must be employer- led – able to deliver what employers want at every level… We are remodelling the whole training system around that goal.'
That's a big ask, not just for the trainers – but for the employers too. And it's a big challenge for Dius, as it attempts to weld together all the disparate elements in Denham's in-tray into one enduring edifice.
Stephen Court is senior research officer at the University and College Union
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