Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I am sorry, I was not clear. There is existing funding for education within the juvenile estate. The funding of education takes place currently through the Learning and Skills Council and the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales. That will be redirected to local authorities to deal particularly with the concerns highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, to ensure that the local authorities have that ring-fenced resource. Turning to Amendments 136A and 136B, making local authorities responsible for education for young people in youth custody is central to ending what we have described as the disapplication of education law for this group of young people. We see that as the fundamental step forward. For the first time, this legislation will place clear responsibilities for a young person’s learning while they are in youth custody on local authorities—the people who know about education in their locality. This is vital for improving standards and the quality of the experience for these young people, which is what we are aiming to achieve. Giving responsibility to local authorities will help to align education inside and outside custody and facilitate the sharing of expertise and experience between the mainstream and custodial sectors, which is what we are trying to achieve. It will also create incentives for local authorities to invest in preventing young people entering custody as they will have responsibility for "their" young people in custody even if they are held in a different area. That is the joined-up thinking that on other occasions noble Lords have been keen to see. The Standing Committee for Youth Justice has welcomed this reform, recommending that it is a significant step forward in the education of this vulnerable group. Placing an overarching duty on governors of youth custody to have overall responsibility for ensuring that local authorities fulfil their duties, which is what the amendment is about, would potentially create further confusion in responsibilities, which we are trying to avoid. I understand that the noble Baroness was pursuing this as a probing, challenging amendment, and not necessarily to see the detail enacted. I agree that we must have appropriate mechanisms in place to ensure that local authorities fulfil these duties. The noble Baroness is absolutely right that that these duties must be fulfilled; we must ensure that things happen on the ground. We will be clear through statutory guidance that we expect host local authorities to develop partnership arrangements—this is important in a practical sense—with the custodial establishments fully to involve them in the commissioning process of securing learning provision in youth custody. Not wishing to count my chickens, but following Royal Assent, should we achieve it, we will also amend secondary legislation relating to the conduct and management of youth custodial establishments to require custodial operators to co-operate with local authorities in the fulfilment of their duties towards learning for persons in youth custody. There is a range of checks and balances in the system to ensure that local authorities fulfil their duties, and that includes the facilitation role that the YPLA will have in agreeing commissioning plans, releasing funds to host local authorities and monitoring provision by them. As we know, the YPLA also has a power in the most extreme circumstances to intervene in a local authority if it were to be failing in its duties. Ultimately, if a local authority fails to fulfil its duties under the Bill or exercises its functions unreasonably, the Secretary of State can intervene, in the way that Secretaries of State can intervene in lots of other areas, to ensure that education is delivered. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, was concerned about Welsh interests. In Wales, the Welsh Ministers will have that function of intervention, so a failure to comply with the duties will amount to a breach of a statutory duty that can ultimately be enforced by the courts. As we have discussed, Ofsted already inspects provision for young people in the youth justice system and will continue to do so under the new arrangements—again, an important lever—and we will specifically ask it to ensure that the new duties for learning for young people in youth custody are reflected in its future work programmes, so that noble Lords can see the progress being made in the secure estates. I hope that, with that further detail and reassurances, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.