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Path: Home > Advocacy > Learning to Succeed

Learning to succeed

Briefing on Key Issues

An early NIACE briefing - 2 July 1999

Our initial reaction to the White Paper is positive. What adults need from a lifelong learning policy is coherence and diversity. The White Paper offers the prospect of this at all levels. NIACE warmly welcomes the framework outlined in Learning to succeed.

NIACE’s Director, Alan Tuckett, comments: "Whilst there will be a great deal of work to do on the detail, the proposals outlined in the White Paper provide a platform to achieve the vision of a learning society. The strength of the proposals lies in the ending of the artificial divide between schedule 2 and non-schedule 2; the imaginative new duty given to local authorities; the endorsement of the role of lifelong learning partnerships, and the clear strategic duty residing in the Learning and Skills Council".

The full text of the White Paper Learning to Succeed - a new framework for post-16 learning (Cm4392) can be found on the internet (along with links to associated papers) at http://www.uuy.org.uk/projects/tecs98/wpaper/index.htm. Paper copies are available from The Stationery Office and a summary is also available from the DfEE. This briefing focuses upon those sections likely to have greatest impact on adult learners. It has been produced by the staff of NIACE in order to encourage debate by sharing early interpretations and flagging up issues for exploration and further discussion. It is not the policy of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education.

This briefing is organised to mirror the structure of the White Paper, although the order of elements within each section is not necessarily the same. It comprises:

The vision
The need for change
The Learning and Skills Council
A framework for success beyond 16
Improving quality
Education and training of young people
Supporting adult learners
Encouraging learning businesses
Transitional arrangements.
Responding to the White Paper.

Key features for adult learning

‘The task ahead is to modernise the framework for post-16 education and to raise quality.’

A Learning and Skills Council will replace the Further Education Funding Council and the Training and Enterprise Councils, working with a budget of £5 billion, and (subject to legislation) will be operational from 2001.
A new organisation, Connexions, will be responsible for advice and support to young people, taking on a role with/instead of the Careers and the Youth Services.
New arrangements will be established for inspection, giving Ofsted responsibility for inspection of education up to the age of 19, including the youth service, and an adult and work-based learning inspectorate for 19+ provision.
Up to 50 new sub-regional local Learning and Skills Councils working closely with, and building on, the work of Lifelong Learning Partnerships.
Key links between the new Learning and Skills Council, the University for Industry and other key partners at national and local levels.
A strengthened role for business, local authorities, providers and users of services in planning and overseeing delivery.
Lifelong Learning Partnerships will remain key forums for partnership, co-operation and link to local Learning and Skills Councils.
A revitalised role for local government in community-based adult learning.

1: The vision

Central to the Paper’s vision is a partnership between Government, individuals, employers, providers of learning and communities. The particular roles of partners are set out:

	Government: to steer the system and establish economic, social and institutional framework;
	Individuals: to take responsibility for their futures, assisted by advice and support; to improve and to invest in their personal success;
	Employers: to be responsible for improving the skills of their workforce and to contribute through Local Learning Partnerships and the new Learning and Skills Council;
	Communities (especially local education authorities): to support and extend adult and community learning; contribute to local learning partnerships and to new local and national arrangements;
	Providers: to be accountable for high quality and effective provision.

The Paper’s first chapter examines the scale and scope of the educational challenge facing the nation The principles first articulated in The Learning Age are re-affirmed, as is a commitment to achieving the National Learning Targets. Government will work towards:

	investment in learning to benefit everyone;
	lifting barriers to learning;
	putting people first;
	sharing responsibility with employers, employees and the community;
	achieving world class standards and value for money;
	working together.

New arrangements are intended to increase participation and raise standards, building on actions already announced including the University for Industry (UfI), individual learning accounts, New Deal and Modern Apprenticeships as well as initiatives in the school sector.

While realisation of the vision will depend on the active engagement of all partners, the paper singles out the ‘central role’ of local Learning Partnerships in helping local providers to meet skill needs and to assess and respond to local demand. The strategic role of new local Learning and Skills Councils and their discretionary funding are highlighted just as much as the responsibilities of the new national Council.

Issues

	The broad principles set out are non-contentious.
	While there is no specific request for responses, readers may wish to comment on the balance of analysis between arguments for economic competitiveness; for social inclusion and for cultural enrichment. Something of the breadth and generosity of the Secretary of State’s foreword to The Learning Age has been lost with more apparent concern with personal prosperity than with community capacity.

2: The need for change

Chapter Two sets out what progress has been made towards a learning society, including the achievements of the FE sector and TECs. But it also highlights how the system fails many in the community, demonstrating the consequences of the system’s weaknesses including:

	low rates of learning and staying-on rates at 16;
	a cycle of deprivation and disadvantage;
	people with particular difficulties (including disabilities; poor basic skills);
	skills shortages and recruitment difficulties;
	patchy support and guidance for young people;
	lack of flexibility in learning methods available.

The chapter sets out how Government has addressed these concerns and the benefits hoped for. Difficulties resulting from funding and planning are listed (such as variable performance and quality in small school sixth forms; poor retention rates for full-time FE students; and variable completion and achievement rates in TEC-funded training. Weaknesses in funding and planning as well as in inspection and quality control are examined, followed by the case for structural reform. A detailed list of objectives for change is set out, including:

	promoting excellence;
	giving employers a substantial stake in what is provided;
	creating responsive systems driven by individual, employer and community need;
	widening access to education, training and skills (and recognising that the needs of ‘vulnerable groups’ will be more costly to meet);
	access to effective support through information and advice;
	efficient systems which minimise fragmentation and bureaucracy;
	improved standards of accountability and probity;
	evolutionary change, building on best practice.

NIACE supports the objectives of change. We believe there is a need to recognise as weaknesses in current policy:

	the artificial and unhelpful distinction between ‘vocational’ and ‘non-vocational’ opportunities;
	the widening ‘learning divide’ between those adults who participate in and value learning and the significant number who do not;
	the funding of much provision solely against qualifications, some of which have little validity or useful purpose;
	insufficient evidence of collaborative work between the Training Standards Council, the Further Education Funding Council and the Office for Standards in Education.

We note that while the new arrangements proposed may move away from the hierarchical, seven-stage ‘bureaucratic minefield’ illustrated in this chapter, the new partnerships require the increased number of agencies involved to work flexibly and imaginatively together to avoid a new rash of bureaucratic overload.

3: The Learning and Skills Council

The centrepiece of the new framework is a new Learning and Skills Council to replace the Further Education Funding Council, the Training and Enterprise Councils and the National Advisory Council for Education and Training Targets. The new Council will:

	be established by 2001;
	have a £5 billion budget, serving 5 million adults’ and young people’s learning;
	be responsible for strategic development, planning, funding, management and quality assurance of post-16 education and training (excluding higher education);
	have a remit to include further education, community and adult learning, adult guidance and workforce development;
	take FE funding from FEFC; Government funding for training and workforce development from TECs; adult and community learning block grant from LEAs; advice on Targets from NACETT;
	be advised by an Adult Learning Committee and a Young Learners’ Committee
	be supported by up to 50 local Learning and Skills Councils;
	have a broad-based membership of 16 including a Chair with ‘consumers of education and skills’ in the majority and employers being the largest single grouping.

Issues

	The unification of funding through the Council signals the end of the artificial ‘schedule 2’/’non-schedule 2’ curriculum divide.
	How will the Council’s responsibility for funding information, advice and guidance for adults work in practice?
	An innovative relationship with local government is proposed.
	Agencies with a national remit offering learning opportunities to adults (e.g. residential colleges, the National Federation of Women’s Institutes and the WEA) will need a mechanism for national direct funding.

The Adult Learning Committee

The national Learning and Skills Council will have two committees – one for young people’s learning, the other for adult learning. The Adult Learning Committee will be responsible for advising the Council on achieving the National Learning Targets for adults and for organisations, on raising and widening participation and for advising on:

	adult education and training in further education colleges;
	adult learning at home and in the community;
	workforce development including the promotion of NVQs and Investors in People, and linking with the Young People’s Learning Committee on Modern Apprenticeships and National Traineeships;
	more flexible access to learning;
	information, advice and guidance for adults.

Issues

	Will the Committee advise on FE/HE links?
	How will the Council consider partnership arrangements with other Government departments – e.g. Home Office Prison Service; Department of Health – for work with older people, people recovering from mental illness?
	How will national providers of adult learning outside the workplace have their concerns raised?
	Links with pre-16 learning to support adult learning in school settings.

Local Learning and Skills Councils

The national Learning and Skills Council will need to respond to the skills and learning needs of local labour markets and communities. It will operate through up to 50 local Learning and Skills Councils. These will be arms of the national Council. They will be based on areas determined by Regional Development Agencies and the London Development Partnership, on the building block of local authority areas.

They will be responsible, with the support of Local Learning Partnerships, for:

	comprehensive data collection;
	assessment of local skills needs;
	preparing an annual statement of priorities;
	managing a discretionary budget to meet local learning and skills needs;
	working with business to promote Modern Apprenticeships and National Traneeships,

and for

	ensuring a fair and competitive market for provision;
	the development of local delivery plans, in partnership with others;
	an overall quality improvement strategy;
	college and other mergers;
	focusing provision on customer needs;
	ensuring accurate information is available.

Membership of local Councils will broadly follow that of the national body but the inputs of trades unions and representatives of the social economy are highlighted.

Issues

How effectively will the Councils link with the work of other regional bodies whose work impacts on learning – e.g. Regional Development Agencies; Regional Health Authorities?

Local Learning Partnerships

Local Learning Partnerships receive strong endorsement in the paper. Local Learning and Skills Councils will work closely with the Partnerships.

Local Learning Partnerships are encouraged to broaden participation to include voluntary and community organisations and learners. They will advise Local Learning and Skills Councils on:

	planning and delivering strategy to maximise participation of young people in learning;
	providing a voice for local businesses;
	strengthening the work of Education Business Partnerships;
	local knowledge on economic development;
	youth issues – through Youth Forums;
	adult and community education, taking into account local education authority lifelong learning development plans.

Issues

	How can the Partnerships foster effective collaboration in meeting adults’ learning needs?
	How can they be inclusive – giving voice to partners without economic clout?
	How and to whom will members of the Partnerships be accountable?

4: Planning and funding to support adult learning

The incoherence, over-complexity and inconsistency of existing arrangements are to be replaced by a simpler, more transparent and more standardised system intended to result in substantial savings. The new system has the goals of:

	promotion of excellence and high-quality service delivery
	maximisation of participation, retention and achievement of national targets;
	responsiveness to individuals and employers;
	promotion of employability for individuals;
	ensuring targeted support for disadvantaged groups;
	securing the 16-19 learning entitlement;
	removing unnecessary bureaucracy;
	maximising effectiveness and value for money.

In addition to comprehensive data collection and tracking systems, the Learning and Skills Council must develop a new demand-focused, tariff-based system for most learning – building upon the strengths of the FEFC system. The detailed work required to devise arrangements that work effectively for the range of learning environments for which the Council will be responsible is to be the subject of further consultation.

Local flexibility and autonomy

The system is intended to balance local flexibility and responsiveness to need with the benefits of national consistency and standards. Local discretion will operate in the fields of:

	quality improvement;
	capacity building;
	adult and community learning (where the planning system must include local learning partnerships);
	Education Business Partnership;
	Investors in People;
	other discretionary funding.

Integration

Local Learning and Skills Councils should take account of direct employer provision in their planning as well as other sources of public funding such as the Single Regeneration Budget and the European Social Fund in order to obtain maximum synergy and impact. Government invites comment about how integration can be ensured.

Issues

	Ensuring that whatever tariff is devised is sensitive to adult and community learning and to independent UfI learners.
	The balance that will have to be struck between local autonomy and national consistency.

Provision for learners with learning difficulties and disabilities

New arrangements will be based on the principles of the FEFC Tomlinson Committee’s Inclusive learning report plus good practice from TEC-funded work. The Learning and Skills Council will have:

	a duty to meet the needs of learners with disabilities or learning difficulties;
	a power to fund specialist provision (including residential provision) outside the adult and further education sectors;
	a power to agree joint funding for students (for example with social service departments or health authorities)

Current legal duties on local authorities to fund the care of those with profound learning difficulties or disabilities remain unchanged.

Measuring success

The Learning and Skills Council will review and evaluate its performance against a number of objectives and seven ‘critical success factors’ are identified:

	meeting individual and employer needs, thereby encouraging investment in training;
	promotion of lifelong learning;
	driving up standards;
	adaptability and responsiveness to community needs;
	accountability for achievement of the targets;
	tackling social exclusion and promoting equal opportunity;
	improving effectiveness and efficiency.

Partnership working

The White Paper explores where the work of the Learning and Skills Council needs to interact with others:

Regional Development Agencies
National and local links are anticipated to share labour market information and economic assessments; to ensure that local plans are drawn up within the framework of the regional strategy; to ensure that the National Skills Agenda is informed by regional priorities. In addition, Councils will need to be aware of how the RDAs’ Skills Development Fund will be deployed. RDAs will identify sectors of key importance to regions and offer guidance to the Learning and Skills Council; assess local plans for consistency with regional strategies; be represented on the local Learning and Skills Councils and the national Council; and work on the development of skills packages for inward investment programmes.

Issues

RDA guidance and RDA assessment of local plans will need to be ‘light-touch’ rather than directive if local autonomy is to be meaningful.

Local authorities
The comprehensive and strategic approach of local authorities in tackling issues of social exclusion and promoting regeneration is highlighted. Representation on local Learning and Skills Councils and as key partners in local Learning Partnerships will allow them greater influence than through their existing role on TEC Boards, and their planning and /or funding roles will broadly continue.

Issues

NIACE warmly welcomes these proposals. The Government is consulting on further ways in which the Learning and Skills Council can deliver improvements in adult learning.

UfI
Government believes that there should be a close and effective working relationship from the start between UfI and the Learning and Skills Council, with links at national and local levels, joint planning and interlocking targets. In addition funding arrangements which support UfI learning and a co-ordinated approach to the development of local learning centres are anticipated.

Issues

The key task is for UfI to create effective links with existing providers to expand the learning community without producing ‘turf-wars’.

Voluntary sector
Subject to meeting quality and accountability thresholds, voluntary organisations will be funded under the same arrangements as colleges and other providers. The particular strength of the sector in tackling social exclusion and in providing for learners with special or basic skill needs is acknowledged.

Issues

	It will be important to ensure that the system has the capacity to work effectively with the large national voluntary bodies as well as small local ones.
	As well as voluntary sector training providers, the voice ofdistinctive educational institutions (such as the adult residential colleges) and other organisations will need to be heard.
	How representatives of individual organisations are expected to also represent the interests of the whole sector may be an issue, given its diversity.

National Training Organisations
The new arrangements anticipate a stronger role for National Training Organisations. The national Learning and Skills Council will be required to seek agreement with NTOs and their own National Council on their workforce development plans and targets and to be informed by their analysis of future learning and skill requirements. The Council will also have the capacity to invest in and deliver through the NTO network.

Small Business Service
The white paper complements a separate consultation document on the establishment of a new Small Business Service to provide support to firms with fewer than 250 employees – and those wishing to become self-employed. Local Learning and Skills Councils will need to work closely with the new service in the area of workforce development services and programmes.

Issues

Responses to the SBS consultation paper might consider area co-terminosity (and even co-location) between local Learning and Skills Councils and the local SBS infrastructure.

Higher education
Although higher education is beyond the scope of the White Paper, its role in workforce training is acknowledged and collaboration at local and national levels is encouraged.

Issues

	The significant amount of higher education which takes place in further education colleges may need greater recognition inplanning and funding arrangements so as to ensure synergy and encourage progression.
	Credit transfer issues may require detailed exploration.

Institutions and private providers
Colleges are encouraged to develop stronger partnership approaches – indeed the White Paper states that local Councils ‘will not succeed’ without strong relationships with local institutions. The place of private sector providers, funded under the same inspection and quality assurance arrangements as colleges, is also confirmed.

Issues

The role of many colleges as major providers of adult and community education as well as opportunities for adults alongside the 16-19 cohort will need to be acknowledged.

5. Improving Quality

The White Paper notes weaknesses in all sectors of post-16 learning provision. It proposes to support providers through independent inspection and the Learning and Skills Council’s quality improvement strategy. There will now be two independent inspectorates (as opposed to OFSTED, the FEFC and TSC inspectorates). Changes to inspection structures are as follows:

	OFSTED to keep responsibility for schools and the Youth Service but to take on provision for 16-19-year-olds in colleges;
	a new inspectorate for post-19 provision in colleges, work-based training and all adult and community education work, including UfI;
	the two inspectorates to plan together and work together over sixth forms, tertiary and FE colleges;
	the two inspectorates to work to a common framework with clear responsibilities set out and a single reporting approach;
	OFSTED to increase its focus on sixth form provision and lead area-wide inspections of 16-19 education and training (where there are achievement/participation issues), in partnership with the adult inspectorate;
	both inspectorates to advise the Council on action plans following inspections; monitor providers causing concern; write good practice reports; carry out national surveys; carry out international studies.

The Learning and Skills Council’s quality improvement strategy is set out although the Government itself will take the lead in developing a range of qualifications for all post-16 teaching and training staff, building on the work of the FE and Employment NTOs. More consultation is promised on this. The Further Education Development Agency will be asked how best it can help the Learning and Skills Council, particularly on staff training and development. The Government wants responses on quality issues: ‘What more should we do to ensure we drive up quality?’

Issues

	The proposed arrangements for inspection are a muddle.
	There will be obvious issues requiring resolution for colleges with mixed age groups of learners. NIACE believes that there must, as a minimum, be a team approach for areas of overlap in order to avoid duplication.
	Clear guidelines for co-operation will be required and the track record of OFSTED and the FEFC Inspectorate in collaborative working is not inspiring.
	How will the welcome commitment to staff training be extended to teachers in adult and community education – many of who work part time?

Qualifications

The White Paper describes the Government's current position notes work in hand led by QCA and the FEFC. However, it acknowledges that adults qualification needs are different.

Adults need to be able to take small steps and to have units based on standards, which reflect industry’s needs. The Learning and Skills Council will fund units of qualification for adult learners and there will be national standards of basic skills attainment to underpin qualifications and national tests. The paper proposes the removal of the artificial divide between ‘vocational’ and ‘non vocational’ courses (schedule 2 and non- schedule 2) in order to allow local Learning Partnerships to develop broader learning programmes (such as basic skills, local history and vocational skills) without needing to turn to different funding for each. The Learning and Skills Council will be expected to give priority to courses that lead to nationally recognised qualifications.

NIACE welcomes the explicit recognition that adults’ needs are not the same as those of young people. This may need to be repeated at frequent intervals.

Issues

	Is there sufficient recognition that many adults undertaking basic skills courses do not want or need a qualification in basic skills?
	Do national tests for adults in basic skills have any purpose, either for learners or providers? Will it attract new learners?
	Flexibility is about more than ‘recognising small steps of achievement’. Valuing diversity and the ability to update rapidly are also desirable qualities.
	Is there enough recognition of the value of informal learning programmes, which can enhance confidence and progression; benefit individuals, families and the community; and contribute to the economy?
	What are the implications of giving ‘priority to courses leading to nationally recognised qualifications’? This may result in a rush to accredit learning which should not be accredited and general adult education being treated as second class, to be paid for only after the ‘important’ vocational courses.

6. Young adults

This chapter of the White Paper is under-developed in comparison to other parts. After some broad contextual generalisations it focuses on two substantive issues:

	the case for a new support service for young people (Connexions);
	the practical and political problems surrounding any attempt to reform poorly-performing and inefficient school sixth forms without jeopardising provision which is popular and effective (albeit expensive compared to that made by sixth form colleges funded through FEFC).

‘Connexions’

The ‘enhanced strategy’ for ensuring consistent and co-ordinated support for young people, badged in the White Paper as ‘Connexions’ can, in fact, be seen as repackaging an existing approach, ‘Investing in young people’ – a raft of initiatives designed to improve the participation, retention and achievement of young people in learning. An enhanced support service for young people, in particular those who are disengaged, is promised but the details are yet to be unveiled. The structure implied is a closer working relationship between youth and careers services alongside specialist agencies who help young people in transition to independence.

Clarity can be expected in the forthcoming Social Exclusion Unit report on 16- and 17-year-olds not in education, training and employment. This is likely to give a clearer indication of how the service is to be delivered.

Issues

	Will the existing duty on local authorities to secure youth work be enhanced, changed, or retained?
	Will the Government as local authorities be able to respond to the challenge to modernise services for young people as proposed in the recent paper from the National Youth Agency?
	How will the local Learning and Skills Councils and Local Learning Partnerships relate their efforts in the increasingly corporate approaches local authorities are taking to youth affairs?

16-19 provision

School sixth-form funding is a topic which is not central to the NIACE remit. A separate consultation document is available from the DfEE.

7. Supporting adult learners

Chapter Seven of the White Paper affirms the importance of adult learning and acknowledges the contribution it makes to both social and economic policy agendas. Enhanced employability through updating and retraining is highlighted as a benefit, along with competitiveness and productivity. The contributions which adult learning also makes to citizenship, community self-help and strengthening of the family are also stressed as is the value of broader learning (including the study of art, music and literature). The paper is explicit in its commitment to an inclusive approach and there is welcome acknowledgement of the need to reduce barriers to participation encountered by older people. The role of Information and Communication Technology in making provision more flexible, responsive and accessible is also highlighted.

Bringing greater coherence to a fragmented system is seen as essential and the creation of a single Learning and Skills Council for all forms of (non-higher) adult learning is presented as the key to effecting change along with other initiatives.

Demand for learning

Individual Learning Accounts (ILAs)
Government’s commitment to ILAs is outlined and the incentives so far announced are described. The Learning and Skills Council is expected to promote and market them.

Issues

The extent to which a financial mechanism can succeed in motivating individuals to plan and manage their own learning – and attract employer investment – is not yet known.

UfI
The role of UfI in providing adults with greater choice and flexibility is summarised. The Learning and Skills Council is expected to work with UfI to improve the coherence and responsiveness of adult provision.

Issues

The potentially significant role of UfI in overcoming distinctions between workplace-led learning and employability-led learning will need to be developed and articulated.

Promoting adult learning
The Learning and Skills Council is expected to develop a clear strategy to promote adult learning in innovate ways – including working with terrestrial and digital broadcaster and with Adult Learners' Week.

Issues

The Learning and Skills Council will need to consider how it can best encourage cultural change.

Information, guidance and advice
The case for adults to be provided with information, advice and guidance about learning is accepted and recent steps to overcome the variability of local arrangements through local Learning Partnerships are described. The ‘long march’ of adult information, advice and guidance from the margins to the mainstream of policy making is confirmed with the announcement that responsibility for planning and funding services will transfer to the Learning and Skills Council from 2001.

Supply of learning opportunities
Greater responsiveness and flexibility in the supply of learning opportunities will be achieved through:

Learning in the community
The contribution made by adult and community-based learning to the widening participation agenda is highlighted and its curricular range and variety of delivery points are acknowledged.

While noting that funding for adult and community education has diversified to include significant support from the Single Regeneration Budget; European structural funds and the National Lottery, the disparity of spending (from 50p to £25 per head) of the local authority block grant by LEAs is highlighted. The resulting patchiness of provision across England is seen as a major problem.

The paper proposes the establishment of a new Learning and Skills Council – with local arms – which will integrate adult learning more effectively with other education and training by:

	giving the Council a duty to arrange adequate and sufficient adult and community learning provision – and transferring to it the element of expenditure related to adult education from the local authority block grant;
	giving LEAs a changed duty to "contribute to arrangements for provision" at local level and requiring them to continue to prepare lifelong learning plans for the emerging local learning partnerships;
	directing the Council, through its local arms, to arrange provision based on the plans of the Partnerships, within which LEAs are expected to make a key contribution.

Subject to the LEA/Partnership relationship working effectively, the Council will also be expected to direct a substantial part of its adult education resources towards local authority-arranged provision. It is expected that this will, over time, achieve a greater national consistency between areas in the range and scale of provision.

Issue

	There is a need to ensure that in operating new national and local authority duties, that there is no weakening of financial support to authorities with strong and responsive adult and community education services.
	Reforms should not weaken excellent or even adequate services to create opportunities for areas with under-developed provision. More funding will be needed.

Other supply-side activities are also highlighted:

	IT Learning Centres: 700 of which will be established for adult learners and businesses over the next three years through Capital Modernisation Fund provision;
	Further Education: The number of learners in FE is set to increase and colleges are working to further widen participation, supported by UfI;
	Basic Skills: The Council will be required specifically to ensure that basic skills provision – wherever it is made – is given a high priority, is of high quality and is effectively resourced. Local Learning Partnerships will give specific consideration to basic skills in their adult and community planning.

Supporting unemployed people
The role which learning can play in helping unemployed people back to work is outlined along with a description of the ways in which people who are not in employment can upgrade their skills. In order to simplify current arrangements, responsibility for work-based learning for adults will transfer from TECs to the Employment Service – thus integrating the skills agenda more closely with the Welfare to Work agenda – especially the New Deal.

Other issues concerning tensions between the perspectives of the education sector and those of the Employment Service and Benefits Agency are discussed and possible solutions considered. The need for further work is noted and the importance of the Employment Service and Learning and Skills Council working together is stressed.

Issues

	How can learners on Employment Service-supported work be ensured access to advice on progression routes and from best practice elsewhere in the system?
	How can the learning needs and aspirations of adults moving in both directions between work and welfare be properly acknowledged and met?

8: Learning businesses

The White Paper is intended to bring more skilled people into the workforce and give businesses stronger links to the education system. It ensures a strong business voice in the national and local Learning and Skills Councils to support the existing involvement of business in RDAs.

At national level the Learning and Skills Council will:

	draw upon better sources of information on sectoral trend from NTOs;
	establish new initiatives for workplace skills development, drawing on the work of the TUC/TEC Bargaining for Skills initiative, the Union Learning Fund and the work of UfI as it develops;
	work with Investors in People (UK);
	work directly with national and multi-site companies.

At local level the Learning and Skills Council will:

	identify and disseminate best practice in work-based training such as the People Skills Scoreboard developed by the EEF and EMTA;
	provide practical support to businesses, for example through Investors in People, Modern Apprenticeships and National Traineeships;
	develop collaboration through effective networks (including supply chains) and ‘preferred supplier’ arrangements;
	encourage the establishment of Employee Development Schemes, linked to individual learning accounts;
	develop services in conjunction with the Small Business Service.

Issues

	While Government remains committed to an essentially voluntarist approach to workforce training, there may be a case for encouraging businesses to make public disclosure of their learning policies and practice.
	There may be confusion about the respective boundaries of the Small Business Service and local Learning and Skills Councils. Early clarification may be needed to avoid misplaced expectations taking hold.
	The provision of Learning and Skills Council information, advice and guidance services to adults within the workplace may need some consideration.

9: Responding to the White Paper

NIACE would urge all those involved in adult learning in whatever capacity to consult widely with their members, users and staff. NIACE is happy to assist colleagues in this process. Please contact Helen Prew, tel: 0116 204 4255 or helenp@niace.org.uk in the first instance.

The Government is seeking comments on the White Paper by Friday 15 October, 1999. You can respond:

	by post to Mike Morley, Post-16 Review Implementation Group, Level 3, Department for Education and Employment, Moorfoot, Sheffield, S1 4PQ
	by email to: mike.morley.consultation@dfee.gov.uk

Responses may be made publicly available unless you state in your response that you wish it to remain confidential.

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