Clause
6
Duty
in relation to diversity and
choice
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Sarah
Teather:
I want to probe the Minister a little further on
the purpose of the clause. When we talk about diversity, there is
sometimes a danger that we talk only about diversity of providers, when
what the learner wants is diversity in the provision of courses. Few
people particularly care who provides the courses; they want to know
whether the type of course that they want to study is available locally
and whether it is of high quality.
Ms
Angela C. Smith (Sheffield, Hillsborough) (Lab): Is it not
the case, however, that many young people need different environments
for their learning post-16 and even before? Is it not the case that
some need a pastoral sixth-form environment, whereas others will
survive perfectly well and, indeed, flourish in the independent
learning environment of a sixth-form college or further education
college?
Sarah
Teather:
I take the hon. Lady’s point, but that is
not what I was getting at. The point that I am trying to make is that
much of what has been said about diversity relates to competition
between private providers, who come in and provide one type of course,
as opposed to colleges that provide a range of courses. However, I
accept the hon. Lady’s point about a sixth form versus an FE
college environment, which is valid.
Colleges have
expressed concern that private providers will often undercut them on
the cost of a particular course, because private providers do not do
many of the more complex things that colleges do, such as providing for
vulnerable young people or working with schools on their increased
flexibility programme, for which all colleges complain that they are
not fully funded. It is therefore quite easy for colleges as a whole to
be undercut, and all that I am trying to establish is whether we will
continue to safeguard the whole range of courses that young people may
want to take, rather than focusing on different types of providers who
provide the same
course.
Mr.
Boswell:
I very much echo the comments that have been made
and, in a sense, I rise only to reinforce those that were made about
clause 5. We are talking about a mixed economy, which will function
best if people have the widest variety of institutions and vehicles,
including workplace institutions, in which to carry out their studies
and the widest range of modes of delivery to help them to do so,
including distance learning, which we have not discussed but which is
important.
There are
some structural questions about the way in which the Government channel
the money, and I have some slight reservations, although not in a
contentious way, about train to gain. I agree with the Minister that we
need to put the emphasis on business employment, which he discussed
under the previous clause, and the train-to-gain mechanism, although it
has not yet been fully tested, is at least interesting. However, what I
would not like him to do—I do not think that he has done this
yet—is to put all the funding into that mechanism and leave
nothing for other activities.
As we have discussed, Ministers
may need to reserve some money for national competencies and networks
of vocational excellence. However, it is extremely
important and in the spirit of clause 5, which we have just debated,
that we consider the position of the individual learner. I still have
considerable sympathy with the concept of individual learner accounts.
We will not debate what went wrong last time—I am not sure
whether any of us quite knows—but it is valuable to give people
the opportunity to unlock their own potential and to make their own
choices as stakeholders in the process. We should facilitate and
celebrate that. The clause is facilitative and positive, and I
therefore welcome it. We need a market-driven system,
because we live in a market economy and have competing providers. We
also have competition in the choice available to individuals, whom we
need to empower particularly in relation to the social return of their
own learning. It may be that those at later levels can cope with the
process and self-fund, but we need to keep all that in mind. The clause
should help us to deliver that mixed economy or at least to debate
whether it is taking place. It is important for us to encourage that,
and when Ministers get something right, we should encourage them in
doing
so.
Bill
Rammell:
The debate has been short but instructive. I
agree with the hon. Member for Brent, East that there should be
diversity of not only provision of courses, but providers. We should
certainly be seeking the highest possible quality, and we should
acknowledge the improvement in quality in both further education
colleges and independent providers in the past five to six years. In
further education colleges, for example, the success rate has risen
from 59 per cent. to 77 per cent., which is a very significant
improvement in
performance.
I also
agree explicitly with my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield,
Hillsborough that in the provider structure we need a range of
provision for the individual at a local level, whether that involves a
school sixth form, a sixth-form college, a further education college or
an independent provider. Often the judgment will be for the individual
to make based on their particular circumstances.
I respect the track record and
involvement in the issue of the hon. Member for Daventry. However, I am
getting a little confused. In previous debates, I have heard strong
demands from the Opposition Benches that we should implement what
Leitch said about moving in a demand-led direction. Now we hear that
not everything should lead in a demand-led direction and that we should
hold back on some things. If there is a need for clarity from the
Government, then I think that there is a need for clarity from the
Opposition.
Mr.
Boswell:
Perhaps I can assist the Minister by saying, as a
matter of general principle—I have no executive responsibility
for this, as he will have noticed—that my view is that we need
to move towards a demand-led system. I merely suggest to the Minister,
if only for his own protection, that he should moderate or modulate
that approach by giving a proportion of assistance for self-funding and
self-selection to supplement the system but in no sense to take it
over.
Bill
Rammell:
I think that those comments were directed at the
hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings rather than at
me.
I strongly agree with the hon.
Member for Daventry about the importance of individual learning
accounts. If he examines the commitments that we gave in the further
education White Paper, he will see that we have made it clear that from
September we will trial individual learning accounts at level 3. We all
know the difficulties that we had with the original notion of
individual learning accounts, but virtually everyone to whom I have
spoken in the further education and training sector has acknowledged
that that initiative, although there were flaws in its design
structure, unleashed something in personal commitment to education and
training that we should value and capture. That is why, in my view
rightly, we are looking to trial those learner accounts from
September.
On the
specific arguments, the clause is about ensuring that there is a duty
in relation to diversity and
choice.
Mr.
Wilson:
We spoke earlier about savings to the Learning and
Skills Council. Does the Minister agree that the provision of diversity
and choice could actually lead to an increase in costs for the LSC?
Once choice is introduced into the system, it has the potential to
cause major shifts in the nature of the market because of the
introduction of learner choice into the marketplace. Has an impact
assessment of the potential for the LSC to incur increased costs been
carried
out?
Bill
Rammell:
The hon. Gentleman is eliding the issue of
expenditure on administration, which was his original point, with
expenditure on the provision of the service to the young person or
adult. In terms of a variety of providers being able to meet that
demand, we stand by the Government’s track record of investing
in the further education and training sector in a way that has not
happened in the
past.
In certain
circumstances, there will be a need to open up the market to new
entrants, which is only one of a range of options that can be used to
tackle poor quality. The right intervention will depend on the
circumstances, but under the right circumstances contestability in
competition can act as a powerful lever to raise quality by increasing
the rewards to good providers and the penalties for poor providers.
However, as we said in the White Paper, it is important that there is
not competition for its own sake. The LSC will review provision every
five years in each area to establish whether competition is needed to
improve quality, promote innovation or expand provision, and new and
existing providers throughout the country will be able to
bid.
To respond to the
point made by the hon. Member for Brent, East, all providers will have
to meet rigorous quality criteria, which will include the ability and
commitment to collaborate with other providers when appropriate and to
deliver curriculum choice in 14-to-19 learning.
I want to make it clear that
further education colleges have nothing to fear from that competition
and the expansion of the demand-led approach. Before we launched the
train-to-gain initiative, further
education colleges were nervous about how successful they would be under
it. In fact, they have been very successful in gaining the business,
which demonstrates their quality and their success. I urge the
Committee to agree that the clause stand
part.
Question put and agreed
to.
Clause 6
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clauses 7
to 13 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
14
Incorporation
of further education
institutions
12.30
pm
Mr.
Hayes:
I beg to move amendment No. 26, in
clause 14, page 10, line 7, leave
out ‘Learning and Skills Council for England’ and insert
‘Secretary of
State’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss
amendment No. 28, in clause 15, page 10, line 40, leave out
‘Learning and Skills Council for England’ and insert
‘Secretary of
State’.
Mr.
Hayes:
We are making progress and storming through our
consideration of the Bill with the alacrity that one would
expect.
Clause 14
concerns the power to incorporate further education colleges. In Wales,
the power is being transferred to Welsh Ministers, yet in England, the
powers are being transferred from the Secretary of State to the
Learning and Skills Council. Why should the powers be held by
accountable Ministers in Wales, but by the somewhat less
accountable—I choose my words carefully—Learning and
Skills Council in
England?
These are
probing amendments to discover from Ministers why the Learning and
Skills Council is being given this role. I said earlier that the
problem is not what the Bill contains, but what it does not contain,
but at this juncture I want to point out an exception to that general
rule. In some ways the Bill reinforces, or embeds, the Learning and
Skills Council in a process of managing and funding skills that is not
entirely consistent with where the Leitch review and its likely
repercussions will take us. I suspect that in the coming months and
years we might seek to remove powers from the LSC, rather than adding
to its already extensive competence.
This small aspect of the Bill
is an example of where it seems to me that we are embedding the
authority of the LSC. When we come to consider the LSC’s
relationship with further education colleges in respect of college
principals, governors and managers, we will see another example. I thus
qualify my earlier remark just to say, in that respect, that what the
Bill does might not be helpful or in tune with current thinking. This
probing amendment is designed to establish exactly what Ministers feel
about that issue. I look forward to hearing the
Under-Secretary’s response before deciding whether to test the
mood of the Committee on this small but important
matter.
Phil
Hope:
The amendment moved by the hon. Gentleman would, in
effect, maintain the current arrangements. We set out our ambition in
our White Paper on FE reform entitled “Further Education:
Raising Skills, Improving Life Chances”. Our ambition is a
simplified and more flexible FE system, and we have the aim of
improving performance, increasing choice and improving participation.
It is by transferring the powers of the Secretary of State to establish
or dissolve a FE corporation to the LSC that we are underpinning the
reforms that we set out in that White Paper.
Under the current arrangements,
the Secretary of State’s decision to establish or dissolve FE
institutions is based on information and a recommendation provided by
the LSC. By transferring those powers to the LSC, we are making the
current practice simpler, quicker and less bureaucratic—I must
say that I think that it will also be more transparent.
Having listened to the hon.
Member for South Holland and The Deepings debating issues of
bureaucracy in many other parts of the House, I am sure that he would
welcome the fact that the clause will not only improve the pace at
which decisions can be made and the transparency of those decisions,
but reduce the bureaucracy involved. As the LSC is the body responsible
for planning and funding high-quality education and training, both for
young people and adults, we believe that it is best placed to ensure
that the most appropriate delivery arrangements are in place for
learners in any particular area.
I want to make the important
point that we will retain the current requirement that the LSC must
publish proposals to establish and dissolve FE corporations, with some
appropriate modifications. That requirement is set out in
regulation—S.I. 2001, No. 782. In particular, there is a
requirement to consult local partners and consider their views before
any proposals are finalised. I hope that that gives the hon. Member for
South Holland and The Deepings the assurance that after making this
technical change, there will be no diminution in the extent of
consultation or engagement with the local
community.
Mr.
Hayes:
One can imagine the circumstances that the Minister
describes being fairly dramatic ones. The power that we are discussing
would be unusual and would not be exercised in the usual course of
events. What right of appeal would there be? What procedure would take
place in respect of an appeal? Also, at what point and in what
circumstances would the Secretary of State take the power? Answers to
those questions might be beneficial to the Committee as we try to
decide whether we need to vote on this
issue.
Phil
Hope:
The regulations spell out the conditions under which
the LSC must publish its proposals. Clause 16 goes into more detail and
clause 10, which we have already considered, gives further
clarification on the directions that a Secretary of State might need to
give if the LSC was to make a decision that could be described as
unreasonable or flawed in some way. The Secretary of State will still
have the ability to intervene if he judges that a decision falls into
one of those categories. We have considered already clauses that will
give the Secretary of State the opportunity to intervene when those rare
circumstances
occur.
Mr.
Hayes:
I am seeking clarification because I am beginning
to regret the fact that we sped through clause 10—it sounds like
we should have had an immensely detailed debate on it. However, will
the Under-Secretary be absolutely clear? He said that if the Learning
and Skills Council was to act in an unreasonable or perverse way, the
Secretary of State would have the power to intervene. Could that be
stimulated by an appeal? Would there be an opportunity for those
affected to make a case to the Secretary of State? Are there
circumstances in which his scrutiny would be
required?
Phil
Hope:
Clause 16 clarifies the process under which the LSC
must publish, consult on and carry forward its proposals. A complete
process is in place whereby local partners and others affected by its
decisions can be consulted formally on the proposals and see the
LSC’s decision-making process. I hope that that gives the hon.
Gentleman the reassurance that he requires.
If the Secretary of State feels
that the LSC has failed to discharge its duty to publish proposals or
to carry out that consultation process, or that it is proposing to act
unreasonably, he can issue directions. I hope that we have processes in
place to ensure that there are opportunities for individuals to
influence the LSC’s decisions through the publication of, and
consultation on, its proposals, and a fall-back position if the LSC is
deemed to have acted unreasonably or failed to discharge its
duty.
Mr.
Hayes:
The Under-Secretary is being immensely generous in
giving way and clarifying his position. Will he deal with my initial
point about the apparent inconsistency between Wales and England? I
made the point that one set of circumstances will apply on one side of
the border, but that a different one will apply on the other. It would
be helpful if he made clear his views on
that.
Phil
Hope:
I regret not responding to that point before. The
power to establish FE corporations in Wales was transferred to the
National Assembly for Wales in 1999. By virtue of the Government of
Wales Act 2006, that power thus transferred to Welsh Ministers when the
new First Minister was appointed. The clause thus makes no substantive
change to the situation in Wales, unlike the decisions that affect
England. On that basis, I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his
amendment.
Mr.
Hayes:
We are making such good progress that I think that
it would be unreasonable to press the amendment to a Division. I beg to
ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause
14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
| 
