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Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill
13 May 2009
What is the Bill?
On 28 June 2007, the Prime Minister announced a series of
Machinery of Government changes to sharpen the focus of Government
on the new and different challenges that Britain will face in the
years ahead. The Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning
Bill (“the Bill”) is a response to the MOG.
The Bill contains provisions on a range of policies which span
the responsibilities of both the Department for Children, Schools
and Families (“DCSF”) and the Department for Innovation,
Universities and Skills (“DIUS”). In summary the Bill aims to help
people achieve their talents to ensure that Britain has the
accomplished skillforce needed to compete in the global economy
What has been happening? The statistics
The Government continues to report year on year improvements in
attainment. To quote some of the statics:
- 73.9% of 19 year olds achieved at least level 2 qualifications
(equivalent to at least five higher grade GCSEs) in 2007
- 48% achieving level 3 (two A levels or the equivalent)
- Over two million adult learners have achieved a first
qualification in literacy, language or numeracy since 2001
- Over 1.7 million more adults have achieved a level 2
qualification
- Almost three quarters of the adult workforce are now qualified
to at least level 2 and over half are qualified to level 3
These statistics are by and large a government success story in
the field of education. So why do we need change?
Why the new Regime? The need for change
Put simply, the need for change is not borne out of failure of
the old system, but is borne out of the need to capitalise on the
headway that has already been made under the old system and to
maintain this progress and to respond to new challenges faced by
the country and market conditions. The sea change is not policy
led: many of the aims and ambitions underlying the Bill are the
same as or a rebranding of the old favourites. What is changing is
the vehicle for delivering the system: this is the most marked
shift.
What does the Bill aim to achieve?
The ambition is for every young person to be pursuing a
programme which engages them and enables them to progress in
learning and employment.
A key element of the Bill is the continued reform of 14 to 19
education and training. This builds on the Education and Skills Act
2008, which raised the age of participation in education or
training to 18 for all young people from 2015. In line with
proposals originally included in the March 2008 White Paper Raising
Expectations: Enabling the system to deliver, the Bill will put in
place the underpinning legislation required to deliver this
policy.
Alongside the challenge to ensure that an appropriate and
engaging learning opportunity is accessible to every 14-19
year-old, is a drive within the adult education and skills market
towards a more dynamic, demand led approach.
In short there will be two new systems responding to these
challenges and reflecting the different needs of young people and
adults. In the system for young people, responsibility and
accountability is given to local authorities, to deliver the right
education and training provision for every young person in their
area. The system for the adult sector is focused on establishing a
market which rewards success and brings together education and
skills in a high quality offer to respond to the needs of adults
and employers.
The idea is that across all parts of the education and training
system it will be critical to intervene less where there is success
but take robust action where there is failure. The intention is
that this will keep unnecessary costs and bureaucracy to a minimum,
creating what has been termed a ‘light touch environment’ that
supports those delivering learning and training to focus on
success.
In addition, this is the first apprenticeships legislation for
nearly 200 years giving all suitably qualified young people the
legal right to on-the-job training. The intention is that one in
five young people will undertake an apprenticeship by 2020 and deal
with the country’s long terms economic and social needs
Skills Secretary John Denham sums up the Bill as follows:
“Everyone deserves the best chance to reach their potential
throughout their lives. This new Bill will put in place new rights
so that at whatever stage you are in life, you can continue to
improve your skills and get training, to improve your career
prospects.
Enshrining apprenticeships in law and introducing a new
right to request time to train, coupled with proposals to improve
our schools will help deliver the skills in the economy we need
when the upturn comes.
We need to equip the country to meet the economic and social
needs now and in the long-term. It is vital we build a motivated,
highly skilled workforce to take us through the current challenging
economic times and build a secure, prosperous future.”
Key areas - overview of the changes
The key areas of change to be implemented by the Bill can be
summarised as follows.
Provides for a statutory framework for
apprenticeships and creates a right to an apprenticeship for
suitably qualified 16-19 year olds
The Bill incorporates proposals that were originally published
on 17 July 2008 as the Draft Apprenticeships Bill, and support the
Government’s plans for the expansion and strengthening of the
Apprenticeship programme set out in “World-class Apprenticeships:
Unlocking Talent, Building Skills for All (January 2008). The
proposals would place the Apprenticeships programme on a statutory
footing, and would guarantee that all suitably qualified young
people will be entitled to an apprenticeship place. The Bill will
also ensure that young people in schools receive proper
information, advice and guidance about vocational training
opportunities.
What is an apprenticeship?
Government apprenticeships have traditionally:
- Taught traditional skills such as engineering
- Been targeted at young people under 25
- Been targeted at new rather than existing staff
The new regime will aim to offer more flexible apprenticeships
and help staff to get skills for their current role or
redeployment. The main differences are that the apprenticeships
will:
- Have no age limit
- Be open to existing staff
As employees, apprentices work alongside experienced staff to
gain job-specific skills. Off-the-job, usually on a day release
basis, apprentices receive training with a local training provider
such as a college.
Apprenticeships will be designed by employers for employers, and
therefore tailored to meet the needs of each specific sector.
Their aim will be to improve an organisation’s productivity and
profitability, and are an effective means of filling skills gaps in
current and future workforces. There are many business benefits,
from low training costs to increased staff retention.
In the spirit of devolution, it will be the responsibility of
local authorities to judge demand for different forms of provision,
and the extent to which the available supply meets that demand and
makes a full reality of the new entitlements to diplomas,
Apprenticeships and the Foundation Learning Tier. They will then
decide where to commission more provision, where to expand the best
provision to fill gaps, and where to remove the least effective
provision. In doing so, they will aim to make the new entitlements
available in full to all young people at the highest possible
standard.
Dissolution of the Learning and Skills
Council
It is now 10 years after plans were first developed for a new
post – 16 education system to be built around the Learning and
Skills Council (“LSC”). The LSC was brought in to tackle the lack
of clarity, co-ordination and coherence that preceded it (for
example in the form of the Further Education Funding Council,
National Training Organisations, infant RDAs etc).
The LSC is currently responsible for the planning and funding of
all post-16 education. Its major tasks are to:
- Raise participation and achievement by young people
- Increase adult demand for learning
- Raise skills levels for national competitiveness
- Improve the quality of education and training delivery
- Equalise opportunities through better access to learning
- Improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the sector
Since its creation in 2001, the LSC has helped drive significant
progress towards its goal of improving the skills of England’s
young people and adults to create a workforce of world-class
standard. Together with schools, colleges and other providers, the
LSC has delivered year on year improvements in participation and
success rates, with more young people and adults than ever before
gaining the skills and qualifications that employers need and
value. Government statistics show that 87% of all 16 year-olds are
now staying on in education or training, and over a quarter of a
million young people are on an apprenticeship programme.
Many of the issues that the LSC was originally set up to tackle
enevitably still require tackling under the new regime. However,
the LSC no longer looks “the most significant and far – reaching
reform ever enacted in post – 16 learning in this country.” (as it
was hailed by David Blunkett when he addressed the House of
Commons). It is time to bring the model up to date.
2010 will mark the end of the LSC and will welcome new bodies
and systems to deliver education. The aim, of the new system, as
the White Paper Raising Expectations: Enabling the system to
deliver points out, is about ‘hiding the wiring’ and ‘creating
clear pathways for customers.’ It will do the following:
- Put strategic commissioning of learning for 16-19 year olds in
the hands of a single body
- Enable Local Authorities to take a more integrated approach to
provision of all Children’s Services
- Reflect the principle of local decision making
- Support delivery of the full national entitlement for all young
people (2013)
- Create the necessary link with economic planning
From 2010 local authorities will have responsibility for
commissioning and funding all education and training for young
people up to the age of 19, making them the strategic lead for all
children's services from 0-19.
The LSC’s responsibility for post-19 education and training will
transfer to the chief executive for skills funding who will head up
the new Skills Funding Agency (SFA).
We will look at both of these steps in greater detail...
Transfers the responsibility for funding education
and training for 16-19-year-olds to local
authorities
Responsibility for securing education for all 16- to
19-year-olds will be transferred to local authorities, who will
plan, commission and fund provision for young people in their area.
Because many young people may live in one local authority but
receive education in another, local authorities will work together
in sub-regional and regional groupings to ensure that commissioning
plans are coherent and reflect the ways young people travel for
provision across local authority boundaries.
In essence, Local Authorities will be charged with planning and
funding 14 – 19 provision, ensuring that the entitlement is
available for every young person and that funding follows the
learner. They will start by drawing up a local commissioning plan,
based on intelligence from local 14 – 19 partnerships and any other
demand mechanisms, and incorporated as part of their Children and
Young People’s Plan. This Plan will be critical as it will provide
the basis for commissioning or de – commissioning provision and for
allocating funding to follow.
The emphasis is clearly on local responsibility and
accountability (fitting in with the aim to create a ‘light touch
environment’) but there are some anomalies. For a start, local
commissioning plans need to be shared with other local authorities
in ‘sub – regional groupings’ to ensure provision is coherent and
aggregated. Plans may also need to be ‘squared’ at a Regional
Planning Forum with RDAs and the local Government Office, while the
Young People’s Learning Agency “will perform a final moderation of
the commissioning plans to ensure they fit within overall budget
and that the new entitlement is being delivered.”
Although providers will only have to face one strategic
commissioning dialogue with one Local Authority, it may prove a
little heavy going and complex in practice.
Creates the Young Person’s Learning Agency, the
Skills Funding Agency, a new regulatory body for qualifications
(Ofqual), and a new agency to carry out the non-regulatory
functions currently performed by the Qualifications and Curriculum
Authority
Young Person’s Learning Agency
The Young People’s Learning Agency (“YPLA”) is the
non-departmental public body that will be set up to assist local
authorities. The primary purpose of the YPLA will be to support and
enable local authorities to carry out their new responsibilities by
providing national frameworks to support planning and
commissioning, ensuring coherence of plans, managing the national
funding formula, and providing strategic data and analysis. Once
local authority commissioning plans are agreed by the sub-regional
group and the regional planning group, the YPLA will check these to
ensure that they cohere and are affordable. The YPLA will then fund
local authorities to meet their agreed commissioning plans. The
YPLA will also have powers to intervene where there is significant
risk that local authorities will not be able to develop robust
commissioning plans within the time constraints of the
commissioning cycle. The YPLA will also perform a number of
functions on the Secretary of State’s behalf in relation to open
Academies.
The YPLA’a role will be to:
- Provide strategic direction for 14-19 phase
- Set national budgetary and commissioning framework (including
maintaining formula)
- Secure resources for delivery and provide regional/local
indicative budgets
- Manage integrated learner support service
- ‘Step in’ if sub-regional groups fail to agree
- Commission GFE until sub-regional groups approved
- Contract with 3rd sector and specialist providers
- Provide data/MI/strategic analysis to commissioners
- Manage 16-19 Capital Fund
- Convene and provide executive support to Regional Planning
Forum
Concerns have been raised that the local authorities’ ability to
commission education will be undermined unless the government keeps
the powers of the YPLA in check.
Skills Funding Agency
The Agency will oversee the new demand-led approach to adult
education and training. Its main tasks will include:
- Overseeing the "coherence and performance" of the whole FE
service, "especially its responsiveness to the strategic skills
needs of employers and learners"
- Managing the National Employer Service - the single service for
employers with more than 5,000 employees
- Managing the new adult advancement and careers service that is
to be set up in England
Strengthens the accountability of children’s
services
The Bill will strengthen Children’s Trusts by putting Children’s
Trust Boards on a statutory footing. There is an existing duty to
cooperate to promote children’s well being. The Bill will extend
this duty to include all maintained schools, Academies, SFCs, FE
colleges and Jobcentre Plus. It will also place a duty on the CT
Board to prepare, publish and monitor a strategic Children and
Young People’s Plan.
Changes will be made so that private, voluntary and independent
early years providers as well as maintained providers will be
funded from the individual schools budget and be subject to the
school funding regulations.
What are Children’s Trusts?
Children's Trusts bring together all services for children and
young people in an area, underpinned by the Children Act 2004 duty
to cooperate, to focus on improving outcomes for all children and
young people.
The term Children's Trust includes the concept of the totality
of change needed to deliver better and more responsive integrated
services a change process that is still ongoing.
Revised guidance on the 'duty to cooperate' was published on 18
November 2008. The new guidance raises the bar for Children's Trust
partners to champion and take responsibility for achieving
measurable improvements in the lives of children. It aims to help
partners engage more effectively within the Children's Trust and to
promote a step change in early intervention, in narrowing the gap,
and in the involvement of schools. In future, all schools should be
strongly supported by their Children's Trust and schools need to
have a real involvement in the strategic work of the Children's
Trust.
The essential features of a Children's Trust are:
- A child-centred, outcome-led vision for all children and young
people, clearly informed by their views and those of their
families
- Inter-agency governance, with robust arrangements for
inter-agency co-operation
- Integrated strategy: joint planning and commissioning, pooled
budgets
- Integrated processes: effective joint working sustained by a
shared language and shared processes
- Integrated front-line delivery organised around the child,
young person or family rather than professional boundaries or
existing agencies
Children’s Trust Board
Under the new legislation, for the first time, every local
authority will be required by law to have a Children’s Trust Board
with responsibility for improving the safety and well-being of all
children and young people in the area.
The Children’s Trust Boards will consist of the local authority,
health, police, schools and other services who will be legally
required to work together to agree and deliver a Children &
Young People’s Plan. Local areas now need to build on their
experience of developing CYPPs and bring a step-change to improving
children's outcomes. By 2010 all areas are expected to have
consistent and high quality arrangements in place for prevention,
early identification and early intervention in order to narrow gaps
and improve outcomes for all.
New non-statutory CYPP guidance for local authorities has been
published to help achieve these aims. The new guidance replaces
previous guidance on the Children and Young People's Plan issued in
2005 and 2007. It brings together the 2005 and 2007 CYPP
regulations in one place, reflects the new performance management
arrangements including Local Area Agreements, and sets out the
proposed legislative changes for 2011.
The new legislation will mean putting the Children's Trust Board
on a statutory footing, extending the ownership of CYPPs to all
statutory partners and placing the duty to produce the CYPP on the
Children's Trust Board. It is expected that all areas will need to
develop new CYPPs for 2011.
This article was first published in Sec
Ed
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