Extracts

Structural re-shaping: the new ministries and the LSC

3.48 These new challenges call for a renewed and refreshed focus from central Government. The new Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) will, for the first time, bring together all key aspects of policy affecting children and young people and deliver a step change in providing the excellent education and the integrated support to all children and their families and communities to which the Government is committed.

3.49 …The new Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) will lead work to deliver the Government’s long-term vision to make Britain one of the best places in the world for science, research and innovation. It will also lead work to ensure that the nation has the skilled workforce it needs to compete in the global economy.

3.50 Sponsorship of the further education service as a whole, its post-19 funding, and sponsorship and funding of Apprenticeships and work-based training providers, will sit with the new Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. To provide strong strategic leadership for the 14-19 phase overall planning responsibilities for that phase will transfer to DCSF as will all funding for 14-19 learners with the exception of that for Apprenticeships. Subject to consultation on the details and timing, to ensure there is no disruption to schools, colleges and training providers and the introduction of new diplomas, and the need to pass the necessary legislation, funding for school sixth forms, sixth form colleges and the contribution of FE colleges to the 14-19 phase will transfer from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) to Local Authorities’ ring-fenced education budgets.

3.51 To implement these changes for 14-19 policy and funding, we will need new legislation. There will be consultation on the details and timing of the changes. In the short term, the LSC therefore remains responsible in law for the allocation of funds to all forms of post-16 education and training outside of higher education. The LSC has demonstrated in recent years a powerful focus on delivery and an excellent record in the management of public funds. In the interests of learners, schools and colleges, continuing that high performance will remain essential as we work through the new organisational arrangements. The LSC will have a central role to play in managing the transition successfully.

3.52 In relation to post-19 education and training, we will consider, and consult on, the best way of delivering all of those functions and services that are necessary to support the FE sector and to achieve our skills ambitions. That will build on and sustain the progress made with the LSC over recent years in developing a demand-led approach that meets the needs of employers and learners, particularly through the successful Train to Gainprogramme.

So there will be a further diminution of the role of the LSC, with the precise outline only emerging with legislation transferring the funding of FE to local authorities. FE teachers and providers of hospitality education will want to be reassured that a ministry, whose title seems to reach for the skies, doesn’t only see ambition in science and technology-related programmes and is able to look behind the connotations of ‘skills’ to welcome knowledge and expertise in vocational areas.

Delivering higher level skills for the workforce:
the mission for HE

3.55 In creating the new Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, we recognised that the UK needs to foster greater and more sustained engagement between universities, colleges and employers in training, skill development and innovation. This implies a culture change within HE as well as FE.

3.56 Many HE institutions have already built up excellent working relationships with employers through their research and enterprise programmes, and the increasing impact of lifelong learning networks. A growing number are developing models for delivering higher level skills in a way that meet the needs of employers and employees. But all HE institutions need to grow their capacity to engage on a large scale with employers, in ways adapted to their different profiles and missions. Those activities should share equal status with research and academic activities. ‘Business facing’ should be a description with which any higher education institution feels comfortable.

It is great to see parity between vocational and academic activities as an explicit part of the new department’s mission, although this is much easier to say than to deliver. [There will also be some relief that the document's authors don't present upskillling for economic growth as the sole mission for the whole of HE.] A serious expansion of work-based learning at HE level is outlined, with a new co-financed funding model envisaged:

3.57 Moving in this direction will be a long-term process and we will want, with the sector, to explore its implications more fully in the coming months. Initial action is already underway:

1. We have asked HEFCE to develop a new funding model that is co-financed with employers, achieves sustained growth in employer-based student places and introduces the principle of employer demand-led funding.
2. We have asked HEFCE to support an additional 5,000 employer co-funded student places in 2008-09, and to deliver further growth of at least 5,000 additional entrants year-on-year in each year up to 2010-11. In allocating funding for these places, HEFCE will prioritise support for programmes of work-based learning and those designed or delivered in conjunction with employers and SSCs. This three-year period will provide a crucial testing ground for establishing good practice and exploring how best to stimulate demand for HE in a range of new markets.
3. We will continue to develop the higher level skills offer within Train to Gain so that the service can respond to employers’ skills needs at higher levels. In addition to the three regional Higher Level Skills Pathfinders (in the North West, North East and South West Regions), HEFCE is encouraging partnerships between institutions and employers in other regions and will consider how to build on these approaches. An early review of the pathfinders will report in December 2007.

Higher Education institutions engaging with employers

…Cambridge-based Anglia Ruskin University has established a joint venture company, Anglia Distance Learning, with major high-street opticians, Specsavers. This enables Specsavers’ staff to join a learning programme which can lead to employment as a clinical assistant, progress to accreditation as a dispensing optician, and to qualification as an optometrist. More than 3000 Specsavers’ staff and staff from other companies have benefited from the programme.

A new theme of this policy document is the involvement of sector skills councils with HE, and specifically in the design of courses. People 1st may be interested in leadership, but as a group of employers they are not the ones that you would necessarily associate with high-level skills in hospitality, tourism and leisure. Will they be able to overcome the industries’ stereotypical aversion to universities and research? How will more adventurous higher educational approaches to hospitality and tourism fare in this regime?

3.58 As the HE sector’s focus on working closely with employers enters a new phase, there will also need to be stronger interaction between HE institutions and SSCs. There are already good examples of HE institutions and SSCs working together:

1. the Higher Education Academy has established a special interest group of more than 60 Pro Vice-Chancellors to develop best practice guidance on employer collaboration;
2. through the Higher Education Academy HEFCE has provided additional funding of £500,000 for the network of 24 HE Subject Centres, which work with SSCs in the development of Sector Skills Agreements and Qualification Strategies; and
3. the SSDA and HEFCE are encouraging SSCs to work with HE institutions to develop joint proposals on workforce development.

HE institutions and SSCs working together

e-Skills UK has worked with HE institutions to develop an employer-supported Information Technology Management for Business (ITMB) degree programme. The degree was designed with input from business to provide employers with IT staff with the business, technology and communication skills needed in today’s IT workplaces. 13 universities are committed to running an endorsed ITMB degree by this October.

Skillset are developing a network of Skillset Academies, to help the audio-visual industries partner with HE institutions in training and recruiting the innovative, skilled and entrepreneurial individuals they need. The centres of excellence will set new standards in the design and delivery of practice-based education and training.

3.59 But this activity is still underdeveloped compared to its potential, both for SSCs and for higher education. Several of the SSCs cover sectors where employers’ main concern is higher level skills, and all of them will have an interest in subjects such as leadership, where universities and business schools have much to contribute. To achieve our world class skills ambitions we need more, and more ambitious, models of collaboration between relevant SSCs and HE institutions, and we will support the speedier development and growth of such models.

3.60 Where appropriate, professional bodies will need to collaborate with SSCs and HE institutions to influence higher level provision. Working with the Higher Education Regulation Review Group and the Gateways to Professions Collaborative Forum we will look to strengthen the partnerships between these stakeholders, including holding an event by the end of 2007.

The first instalment looked at how World Class Skills proposed to implement a more employer-led structure of further education. The next story will look at the underpinnings of Leitch, and the research on which its arguments are based.