Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I move Amendment 156 and speak to Amendments 157, 158, 159 and 160. There are, so to speak, two separate sets of amendments within these four amendments, and I wish to speak separately to Amendment 160. Amendments 156 to 159 pick up the theme that I developed when we discussed the YPLA on Monday. Essentially, we talked then about the YPLA being a more friendly consultative body, but it is, of course, an appointed body. At the moment it is appointed largely by the Secretary of State although, as we indicated, we would like to see a wider representation in the membership of that body. The fundamental question behind this issue is whether an appointed body, the YPLA, should have the power to issue directions to elected local authorities. Our amendments seek to ensure that the YPLA is not a dictatorial body but is a consultative, friendly organisation working in partnership with local education authorities. If it needs to issue directions, as distinct from guidance, it must work through the Secretary of State. An elected Minister can tell an elected body what to do. Amendment 159 deals with complaints. Complaints should be directed to the Minister, who can then take action. The purport of these amendments is to make clear that directions should come from the Secretary of State, not the YPLA. Amendment 160 falls into a completely different category and comes from the Association of Colleges. The new system of funding for 16 to 19 provision by local authorities, via sub-regional groups and the Young People’s Learning Agency, could potentially be very complicated and increase the likelihood of delays occurring or genuine mistakes being made. The overall aim of the system must be to ensure that colleges and schools can plan and provide education and training for their students in an efficient and timely manner. When we discussed the first group of amendments this afternoon, we talked about the complications that will arise from the number of bodies that a further education college will have to deal with in terms of the YPLA, local authorities and others. However, colleges already deal with a large number of authorities. They deal with the HEFCE and employers with regard to apprenticeships, so they are dealing with a large number of different funding streams, and I greatly admire the way in which they do so. However, over the past few years the main funding stream for most further education colleges was undoubtedly the LSC. There have been problems with LSC funding because the colleges’ academic year starts in September but the financial year runs from August to the following August. Therefore, by the end of July, you need to have your budget in place for the following financial year. The aim has always been to get the final figures from the LSC by the end of March or the beginning of April. However, over the past few years these figures have not come through in many cases until the very end of July. Even when colleges are dealing with only one funding authority, the LSC, they are experiencing great difficulty in getting their future budgets agreed. Negotiations often continue right through to 31 July. The new system will be even more complicated. To date, colleges have negotiated only with the LSC. I have received a letter from the chief executive of the Association of Colleges. The letter states: ""To remind you this is the process through which funding will reach Colleges"." It is a seven-step process. The letter continues: ""The YPLA will help local authorities to carry out their new responsibilities by developing a national framework to support planning and commissioning, ensuring coherence of plans, managing the national funding formula and providing strategic data and analysis.""Each local authority will assess supply and demand for 16-19 provision in their area.""Each local authority will then take this assessment to one of the sub-regional groups of local authorities, of which it will be a member. This group will agree the commissioning plans for their sub-region.""The plans will then be agreed by a regional planning group which will scrutinise the local plans and ensure they are coherent, can be funded within the regional budget and will deliver the 14-19 entitlement.""Regional Government Offices ‘will contribute to discussion of regional priorities and support local authorities in undertaking ""their new responsibilities. They are, and will continue to be, a conduit for information to flow from sub-regional groupings … to DCSF’"." That came from a parliamentary Answer on 18 December last year. ""They will also have a role in assessing performance of local authorities.""The YPLA will check these plans to ensure that they cohere and are affordable and then fund local authorities appropriately. The local authorities will then pass the funding to Colleges"." That is the seventh step. Whereas to date you are negotiating with the local LSC and it is finding it difficult enough to agree your budget for the coming 12 months, in the future you are not only going to have to negotiate with your local authority, you are going to have to go through the local authority to the YPLA, the YPLA is going to have to go to the sub-regional groups, the sub-regional groups are going to have to go to the regional groups and the regional groups are going to have to cohere with the government offices. They are then going up to the YPLA and will have to be checked at the YPLA, and then it all comes back down to local authorities. When I was teaching economics, one of the courses I taught was about the Soviet Union and the Soviet economy. It was in the old days of the 1970s and 1980s, and there was an organisation known as Gosplan. One of the problems that the Soviet Union faced in those days was that every decision taken locally had to go all the way up to the top at the Moscow office of Gosplan and then come all the way down again. The process took a very long time. Perhaps one sees this today in some of the consultants who are around in the further education field. There were a lot of fixers, whose job it was to speed the process along and to try to make sure that these things actually worked in the end. We all know that the Soviet Union collapsed partly because of the sheer inefficiency of its economy. It is quite reasonable that colleges should wish to have some way in which, if they are not getting the information that they need out of their local authorities, they can go directly to the YPLA. Amendment 160 says precisely that: ""A further education college may inform the YPLA if it is satisfied that a local education authority is failing, or is likely to fail, to perform its duty under section 15ZA of the Education Act 1996"." That is really saying that it should be able to talk directly to the YPLA rather than necessarily waiting until the local authority comes back. The Government must recognise how difficult it is for organisations such as further education colleges, which do not have assurances. The Government have given the university sector a three-year forward assurance on its funding. The further education college does not have these assurances. It has to negotiate its funding, because it is being commissioned by a lot of different organisations. The core 16-to-19 function will now come from local authorities, and they will be the key commissioning agents. This will be a huge block of money for the college sector. The rest of the sector, which is demand-led, is totally uncertain. It comes through employers and individuals who decide whether they are going to attend courses at that college. There is gross uncertainty about that, and the college has to make best guesses as to how much it will be attracting people to courses in the following year. Colleges are enjoined to break even, as are all public sector organisations. It is very difficult to break even in those circumstances. The amendments say, first, that if there is an elected authority, direction should come from the Secretary of State not from the YPLA and, secondly, that the Government should have some sympathy with the college sector and allow it to be able to talk directly to the YPLA if it thinks that the local authority is not fulfilling its function. I beg to move.