Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I thought I had endeavoured to cover that. I am happy, however, to return to the issue again. Local authorities are uniquely well placed to take on the crucial leadership to continue and increase on the improvements in participation and achievement. They will have access to detailed intelligence about the needs and aspirations of their communities through their responsibility for commissioning pre-16 education and through their ownership of Connexions. That intelligence will enable them to commission the 16-to-19 provision their learners want and need. They have also agreed that they want to work together in sub-regional groupings. They have seen the advantage of that. They already know that they cannot possibly provide every facility in each local authority. A degree of co-operation is required already. Working in sub-regional groupings, which have been agreed to, and supported by, local authorities, ought to enable them to ensure that, when they are commissioning, they are commissioning to meet the needs not just within their local authorities but across the whole of the sub-regional grouping. The noble Lord dismissed the transfer of LSC staff but we see as being important; they are people with the appropriate skills. There may be circumstances in which local authorities may need additional help in the commissioning process. Again, the YPLA will have resources to provide efficient and economic services to local authorities. This will include the provision of data analysis to support planning and commissioning, which crucially means that the college and school need provide information only once to be used many times. I can see the importance of getting clarity on the commissioning process, so perhaps there is some value in writing to the noble Lord to give him further details. However, we believe that because of the way in which it has been structured, with the sub-regional groupings and the support of the YPLA, it will be a collaborative process that ensures that commissioning does what it needs to do—to meet the needs of learners.