Proposals for additional powers for GLA London Mayor

A NIACE response to the consultation by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Published February 2006

Click here for a PDF version of this response

NIACE

1. The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) is an independent non­-governmental organisation and charity. Its members come from a range of places where adults learn: in colleges and local community settings; in workplaces, prisons and universities as well as in their homes through the media and information technology. NIACE's work is supported by a wide range of bodies including the DfES (with which it has a formal voluntary sector compact) and other Departments of State, by the Local Government Association and by the Learning and Skills Council. The ends to which NIACE activities are directed can be summarised as being to secure more, different and better opportunities for adult learners, especially those who benefited least from their initial education. Since 2001 NIACE has established a presence in each of the nine English regions.

NIACE in London

2. The NIACE team in London works across the adult learning sector in London with a wide range or organisations:

Regionally, NIACE contributes to work on the learning and skills agenda in a number of ways. For example, NIACE is currently working with the London Development Agency and partners to raise the profile of the skills agenda in London through campaigns such as Adult Learners Week and participation in the BBC RaW campaign. We are currently running a capacity building programme for London voluntary organisations involved in delivering language, literacy and numeracy programmes. NIACE contributed to the ALM (Archives, Libraries and Museums) development of an adult learning strategy for London, which we strongly support.

This Paper

3. This paper sets out the NIACE response to the four questions in the consultation document relating to learning and skills (questions numbered 4-7 in the consultation document but unnumbered here for clarity’s sake). Further, it is a contribution to the public debate in London generated by the consultation, which NIACE warmly welcomes. NIACE has developed this paper against a national policy context defined by international competition, productivity concerns, social and geographic mobility and public service reforms. Much of the background to this paper therefore is rooted in NIACE’s support for the skills agenda mapped out in the Skills Strategy 2003 and its update in 2005.

NIACE hopes that whichever options are selected, the debate is continued beyond the consultation period. Comments on this paper are welcome and will refine and inform our work in the future. Please send to feedback@niace.org.uk.

4. Yes. NIACE believes that stakeholders across the adult learning sector in London support the case for change, either through the LSC’s Agenda for Change or other measures. However, NIACE would not support any changes to arrangements in London which may lead to ‘balkanisation’ nationally.

The Economic Case

5. NIACE believes that London needs a more effective and purposeful regional skills sector if the needs of the capital’s growing economy are to be met. NIACE recognises the progress made to date through the Framework for Regional Economic and Skills Action, which has had strong impact in some areas but is not yet widely seen as fully addressing the regional learning and skills agenda. NIACE welcomes the recent and coherent London Action Plan and believes there is a need for a co-ordinated approach to implementation of this alongside skills developments around the 2012 Olympics, Thames Gateway and Kings Cross.

6. In London’s design- rich global marketplace, where creativity and innovation are at a premium, it will not be a sufficient strategy only to prepare workers for today’s and yesterday’s jobs. Since no one can be sure where and how new economies will develop, a commitment to strengthening the skill of learning, whatever the content, must be a basis of a future strategy.

7. In the area of worklessness and employability the region faces a serious challenge to equip London’s disadvantaged communities to enter the labour market. This means an effective and cohesive approach to tackling the multiple barriers to participation in the job market faced by many Londoners locked into unemployment and ensuring capacity to meet London’s skills needs. Regional economic and employment policy in London has had impact in some areas but three key groups of potential employees will need to be targeted to meet the labour market needs of the UK economy over the next decade – older people, significant numbers of disabled people, women (particularly from minority ethnic and linguistic backgrounds), and migrants. As well as individuals from these groups, there are large numbers of other Londoners in employment with pressing Language, Literacy and Numeracy needs. There is an imperative to fill the type of jobs the city’s economic growth is generating and this is not going to be achieved simply through focusing on 14-19 skills. The targets & budgets for the skills-related activities of Jobcentre plus need to be fully integrated into a regional delivery framework.

8. Despite being the UK’s most prosperous region, London has a low employment rate, with East London suffering from particularly low rates. The employment problem is not due to a lack of available employment, but rather due to significant ‘supply-side’ problems such as low skills and recruitment practice. Detailed work is required to identify related employment opportunities and ensure that potential employees, often with low skills, are skilled so that they can access these opportunities.

The Planning Case

9. The track record of London LSCs is weak in a regional context. Although there are notable examples of progress within local LSC areas, each local LSC has taken a different approach to planning in their part of London. This appears less coherent to pan-London providers. With five separate local plans there is inconsistency, a lack of overall focus and a risk of losing the core message. Region-wide partnership working has been a low priority. This fragmentation also cuts across the integration of strategy for economic development. The Strategic Area Review process has had little real impact regionally despite being identified as a regional tool by the LSC.

10. NIACE has consistently and strongly emphasized the importance of viewing adult learning as cross cutting theme through a number of policy agendas, as opposed to a lesser relative of schools and 14-19 agendas. In London, this approach would enable a structure that facilitates delivery on learning and skills aspects of positive London developments such as the economic strategy, regeneration strategy and refugees agenda. For example NIACE actively supports the recent LORECA initiative, sitting between regional government and RCOs. We believe that such models could enable effective integration of learning into other key policy agendas.

Demographics

11. Demographic trends in London means despite its relatively young population, the needs of London’s job market in the next decade cannot be filled by young labour market entrants because there are not enough young people in the age cohort. Technological change and mounting pressure on older adults to defer full retirement from the waged labour market mean that a central challenge in the capital will be to ensure mature workers are able to refresh and extend the currency of their skills. Older people have much lower levels of participation in education and training, inside and outside the labour force, and have lower levels of qualification This requires a shift to a lifelong learning perspective in London’s approach to learning and skills.

12. Exceptionally high levels of mobility, or labour market ‘churn’, in London’s diverse population create the particular educational needs of a heterogeneous and mobile population. There is therefore a need for the kind of outreach work in community settings and workplaces to engage and encourage many to undertake the skills development needed to maintain competitiveness. Much of this in community settings can be undertaken by voluntary and community sector agencies, properly supported. There is a wealth of experience in the sector in London in how to undertake such work successfully, but it is currently at risk given current funding pressures.

The Funding Case

13. It is important not to lose sight of the key current preoccupation of most providers and partners, namely funding issues as they relate to learning and skills. The providers feel that increasingly risk is being shifted from funder to funded, with the risk buck often stopping at the door of relatively small and vulnerable organisations. NIACE believes there is a need for more equitable partnerships between mainstream and community organisations working in the London learning and skills arena. Partnership size and contractual arrangements carrying perverse incentives are increasingly being brought to our attention. NIACE notes the recent underspend in London for European Social Fund rounds and believes that many organisations with the will and expertises to contribute to the London learning and skills agenda are not applying for funding for these reasons.

14. NIACE believes that a thoughtful consideration of the range and diversity of London agencies tackling disadvantage demands urgent attention. There is a concern in a number of quarters that there should not be a drift to funding arrangements where larger providers and partnerships “mop up” in arenas or communities where they have little expertise.

The Pace of Change

15. NIACE believes the pace of change in publicly funded education and training in London is insufficiently urgent compared to change in industry. Many cutting-edge organisations cannot predict the skill sets they will need in three years time with any precision and will require training that is devised and delivered in a rapid turnaround time. The time taken to reposition the London offer is increasingly unsatisfactory – especially if they must negotiate the separate planning agendas of such bodies as the LSC or LDA. E learning can provide some solutions in this regard but to succeed it requires confident and motivated learners – and many adults need support to become ready to learn.

16. NIACE notes that the options are not mutually exclusive and therefore unreservedly supports options 1-3 as a viable means of achieving a coherent planning arrangement for the region. Given the point we make in paragraph four about the need to avoid unintended national effects, we believe that options 1-3 could also create a mechanism for ensuring that local delivery conforms to region plans. Regional government agencies and others such as Sector Skills Councils, professional associations and the Regional Development Agency need to have a stronger influence in shaping and planning supply and in stimulating demand. A stronger LDA and mayoral role in the learning and skills regional tier and an enhanced leadership role for the Mayor on skills in London would constitute a step towards this.

17. Importantly, NIACE believes a carefully balanced solution around options 1-3 would constitute a relatively low-risk means of bringing together resources from a number of arenas to secure a cohesive employer-led skills approach against clear regional priorities. However, it is important to note that not all aspects of the skills agenda are best planned regionally and accommodation needs to remain for national planning where appropriate.

18. NIACE is ‘agnostic’ on option 4. That is to say, we support a region wide approach for learning and skills but we are agnostic about where it should sit. NIACE’s view is that restructuring tends to have a negative impact upon learners, but also recognises the prime need to find a sustainable settlement. The possible impact upon learners means a high threshold for acceptance of option four. NIACE sees the need to balance the benefits to be gained from improved and accountable leadership against the risk inherent in wholesale restructuring that would take at least eighteen months to bed down. NIACE believes good governance arrangements last for the long term and that there is a real need in the region for stability and continuity, so the settlement needs to be one that will work for the foreseeable future.

19. NIACE offers therefore the following four features as test of the “fit for purposeness” of any emerging a model:

I. Maintenance of existing infrastructure

II. Enhanced trust in public institutions

III. Equity and fairness

IV. Resilience in organisations and systems/ Value for Money

20. Most centrally, the region needs a structure focused upon sustainability, performance and innovation.

21. The chosen model or combination of options should be the one which best enables co-ordination across the entire learning and skills arena in London and this paper has made clear that NIACE believes that the current organisational context does not support this. However, the existing trend towards a regional LSC focus and greater regional dialogue could result in the following improvements:

What would the benefits of change be to learners and/or employers? Do those benefits outweigh any risks of destabilising learning and skills provision?

22. NIACE believes that by taking the opportunity to reduce fragmentation, streamline responsibility for learning in London and reduce the number of LSCs, the general benefits could be:

The Case for a London Curriculum

23. NIACE believes the foremost potential benefit from the change is the opportunity to

define the characteristics of a “London curriculum” for adults. Whilst this is not the appropriate space to attempt such a definition, we feel it may be useful to signpost some possible characteristics of such a curriculum. The remarks in the following paragraphs follow on form the assertion in paragraph 7 that the skills agenda around worklessness would be the central plank of a new adult learning framework for London.

Diversity and Skills for Life

24. In any such attempt to outline a London curriculum, the singular demographics and diversity issues that apply to London need to be factored in. Some current regional developments are leading towards shaping such a curriculum. For example, any such definition would have to take on board the wealth of SfL and in particular ESOL delivery in London, which is currently being addressed through development of the Three Year Action Plan for Skills for Life in London. NIACE strongly supports the Skills Strategy and the Skills for Life agenda and we support proposals to move towards a single Regional Skills Partnership Skills for Life body bringing together LDA, RSP and JCP functions in order to deliver a coherent regional purchasing strategy. The challenges are formidable. London has the largest share of the UK population who require English foreign language training. There are 600 000 Londoners with ESOL needs. This is driven by the significant number of refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants in the capital with estimates that at least 75% of the UK’s asylum seekers are resident in London. The lower level ESOL courses do not contribute to government targets. Providers are likely to reduce their work in this area, which is provision for the most vulnerable and where we are already failing to meet demand. Significant numbers of migrants in London have high levels of skills and qualifications that are at present not recognised, thus preventing individuals from making an economic contribution up to their full potential.

Soft skills

25. As well as technical competences, many employers in London recognise the importance of skills of communication and personal effectiveness and, above all, the centrality of learning to learn as the fundamental meta-skill in an economy and society in which communications are increasingly instant and technological change rapid. There is increasing evidence of the importance of soft skills to employer-led initiatives from a number of countries including the UK. Several recent reports stress that for many members of ethnic minority groups, understanding workplace culture and expectation is an early and important barrier.

Regeneration and the 2012 Olympics

26. Curriculum developments around regeneration in Kings Cross, Thames Gateway and for the Olympics need to be included in any regional approach. What is clear is that those cities that have benefited most from staging the Olympics– Barcelona being the most cited example – have the Olympics within a broader urban strategy. For London, the important thing is the deadline that this now puts on an integrated skills element of the regeneration for Stratford and other areas of east London. It is crucial that there is regional skills capacity to take advantage of the economic development and infrastructure programmes created by the Olympics and the other major regeneration projects to ensure employment outcomes form these major investments.

Sustainability and Citizenship

27. The Olympics legacy is only one of the sustainability challenges a London curriculum would need to address. In terms of learning and skills, sustainability is less a technical issue and more a matter of breaking through cultural inertia. This will require a proactive process engaging London communities with a learning and skills agenda geared to better health, improved social networks, meaningful work choices and ensuring a stake in sustaining London's development. Indeed, part of the UK’s commercial advantage lies in the quality of its civic life, and to maintain and enhance social cohesion and to foster an active citizenship in a diverse and growing city will also make demands on post-compulsory education and training

28. We therefore provisionally suggest that the key features of such a London curriculum would be:

Conclusion

29. This paper has attempted to make the case for the need to negotiate a new settlement between Londoners, employers and regional government. We believe this settlement must allow for two things: firstly, a more strategic approach to the regional planning and funding of learning and skills and secondly, for greater integration of learning and skills with other policy themes. Indeed, we believe that one cannot be achieved without the other.

30. The eventual structure for London needs a clear and distinctive brand, able to engage Londoners with a clear and purposeful regional learning and skills agenda. The creation and promotion of a positive inclusive identity as a citizen of London must be central to this. NIACE emphasises the important role of promotional campaigns in the mass media (especially broadcasting) have had in promoting learning through celebrations of education and training such as the UK's annual Adult Learners’ Week. NIACE hopes that the structures resulting from this useful consultation will be predicated upon valuing learning both for its intrinsic worth and as a central component of the three themes above.

Contact Officer

Simon Beer, Regional Development Officer, London
simon.beer@niace.org.uk
079 20 040 653

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