14 November 2008
The government is reaffirming the importance of training in the recession through both investment and legislation. But its 'demand-led' packages have been criticised by employers and colleges. Stephen Court reports
For those who learn and work in the UK's further education and skills sector, this is a momentous time of change. There is the threat of upheaval, as employers consider whether to respond to recession by cutting training budgets. To counter this, on October 21, Skills Secretary John Denham announced a £350m training package for small businesses. He said: 'Small businesses are an important engine of our economy and we must make sure that we support them during tough economic times. We know that firms that invest in skills do better than those that don't, which is why we will be urging small businesses to take up this offer.'
In the Education and Skills Bill currently going through Parliament, the government seeks to raise the age of compulsory education or training in England to 17 by 2013, and to 18 by 2015. This means that those who started secondary school in year seven in September must continue their education to at least age 17.
The government is proposing another Bill in the 2008/09 legislative programme to transfer funding and responsibility for delivering 16–18 education and training in England to local authorities. If the Bill is successful, then in two years' time, the Learning and Skills Council – which currently has an annual budget of more than £11bn – will be abolished. In its place, the 'streamlined' Young People's Learning Agency will be set up to 'support' town halls as they take up the reins for £7bn of funding for young people. Another public body, the Skills Funding Agency, will take over responsibility for funding for learners aged 19 and over who are not in higher education.
A September report of colleges' responses to a government consultation showed that more were opposed to transferring funding to local authorities than supported the move. One respondent said: 'Of real concern is the varying quality of local authorities and their capacity to undertake planning for an area of work for which they have had no real responsibility for over the past 15 years.' Colleges were under town hall control until 1993.
In schools and colleges in England, the fledgling diplomas have barely left the nest. These new qualifications, designed to bridge academic and vocational education, began this autumn and are set to play a major role in the government's reform of education for 14–19 year olds. In addition, revamped A-levels, including an A* grade designed to stretch the top candidates, are being introduced this year. Also, it is now possible for further education colleges to obtain the power to award their own two-year foundation degrees, as colleges increasingly provide higher education, often in partnership with universities.
The government's ambitions for the sector have, in recent years, been shown in significant levels of capital investment – shiny new high-tech buildings, in other words. More than £4bn has been pumped into infrastructure projects in England, but these have added to financial risks in the sector because of a sharp increase in college debts, according to a recent report by the National Audit Office.
Denham and Schools Secretary Ed Balls reaffirmed the commitment to demand-led education and skills in a letter to college principals. It said: 'We are continuing with our development of a demand-led system that frees up colleges and providers to respond to the needs of individuals and employers'. For principals, the implications of this are major.
The Train to Gain employment training programme, which was designed to be employer-led and began national roll-out in 2006, is being further extended. The scheme encourages and subsidises employers to put on training programmes for their workforces up to the first full level 2 qualification (equivalent to grades A*-C at GCSE), through independent brokers. Over the next two years, its funding will increase to £1bn.
This could cost colleges a significant part of their core business, because Train to Gain funding is open to competition between colleges and private providers. However, after training company Carter and Carter collapsed this year with £130m debts, private providers might be wary of taking on training in the public sector.
The government provides impressive statistics for the take-up of Train to Gain. But all is not well with this flagship programme, despite its £8m campaign budget. In its first year, about £100m of funding went unspent. Last year, only £313m of a total budget of £520m was spent. Of this, 47% was on training provided by companies, and 48% on training by colleges, according to recent research by the University and College Union.
Critics of Train to Gain, such as the Conservative Party, say that much of the scheme is taken up with accrediting existing skills, rather than teaching new ones, as well as subsidising employers for carrying out training they used to pay for. The CBI business lobby highlights flaws in the scheme, despite giving it support. 'Where employers haven't fully used the funding available, it's often because of issues around the relevance of the qualifications on offer to firms, too much red tape, patchy brokerage quality and a need for more flexibility,' said John Cridland, deputy director-general of the CBI.
A report published in November by the standards watchdog Ofsted said Train to Gain programmes were effective in raising qualification levels among the workforce, but did not make substantial improvements to employees' technical or practical skills unless they progressed to work and training at level 3. Ofsted found 'little evidence that the programme was driving up the demand for training among employers'. The report called for increasing uptake in skills for life training and programmes leading to higher level technical skills.
In response to criticism of the complexity facing employers wanting help with training, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills proposed in October that all contact between employers and government programmes should be through the Business Link scheme, and all training – from basic to higher education – should be under the Train to Gain badge. In addition, colleges and private training providers should be able to act as 'tied brokers' to employers for the provision they offer, alongside the existing independent brokers. Denham has supported the principle of making access to skills training simpler and more flexible.
Skills accounts for learners are another aspect of the demand-led system. These accounts, which give adult learners access to funds covering all or part of their course fees, and enable them to choose their learning as part of a demand-led system, will be trialled in England. By 2010, the government plans to route £500m to individuals through the initiative.
The Leitch Review of Skills in 2006 recommended routing all public funding for adult vocational skills in England, apart from community learning, through Train to Gain and learner accounts by 2010. However, following criticism from the sector, the government felt that this could destabilise FE colleges, and is not implementing this in full.
The government will be hoping that the skills accounts don't meet similar problems as Individual Learning Accounts, a national scheme for subsidised learning that was rolled out in 2000. The government had to close that programme in November 2001 'due to evidence of abuse by a small minority of providers'.
The government is also setting up: a new guidance and careers service; a new qualifications regulator; a new body to develop qualifications and the curriculum; a new quality assurance body; and a new national apprenticeship service, with a legal entitlement to an apprenticeship for each suitably qualified young person who wants one (with a planned increase in the number of apprenticeships in England to 400,000 by 2020). And for the first time employees will gain the right to request from their employers time to undertake relevant training – a move that could create almost a third of a million extra adult learners.
Amid all these changes and initiatives, there is one more innovation: last week was the first ever Colleges Week, which is intended to celebrate the role of colleges in developing skills and local communities.
While in England the government has imposed a programme of continual revolution on the learning and skills sector, in other parts of the UK the pace is a little more measured. In particular, the demand-led approach has been pushed less emphatically in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is careful to point out that Leitch's recommendation for all publicly funded adult vocational skills – except community learning – to be demand-led is for England only.
Nevertheless, the targets for increasing the level of qualification attainment are indeed more ambitious in Wales and Northern Ireland than Leitch's overall targets for the UK. And in Scotland and Wales, learning accounts already exist.
Commenting in October on the Welsh strategy, Skills that Work for Wales, launched in July, deputy minister for skills John Griffiths, said: 'This strategy is vital to Wales and our One Wales vision of a strong economy with full employment and high-quality jobs: taking a demand-led approach and making hard connections between skills, employment and business development.'
Wales has also introduced the employer-led Baccalaureate qualification for 14–19 year olds, which includes key skills. The Welsh Baccalaureate is being integrated with apprenticeships, to bridge the divide between work-based and classroom-based learning.
And in Scotland, following the Skills for Scotland strategy review last year, Education and Lifelong Learning Secretary Fiona Hyslop set up Skills Development Scotland. This is a new body created in April from Careers Scotland, the Scottish University for Industry and elements of Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, to deliver the Scottish government's skills policies. Scotland's updated skills strategy will be published by the government early next year.
Some elements of learning and skills policy cover the whole of the UK. Over the coming year the UK Commission for Employment and Skills – set up in April – will be relicensing the 25 sector skills councils. These are designed to link employers in particular areas of the economy with the training system, and have themselves been set up only very recently.
The process, due to be completed by the end of 2009, could result in some of the current councils being restructured, merged or having their functions handed to another organisation.
Whatever happens, one thing in further education, learning and skills is certain: more change. Meanwhile, with the recession upon us, the government is keen that employers don't cut back on training. As Siôn Simon, the new FE under-secretary at the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, said in October: 'We've got to work even harder to demonstrate the value of investing in skills – for getting through tough times and emerging stronger.'
Stephen Court is senior research officer at the University and College Union
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