Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

The amendments are concentrated on crucial changes to the machinery of government to improve the delivery of education to young people and adults, and they demonstrate that we have listened to and taken seriously concerns from all sections of this House and the other place and worked hard to address them. As the House will recall, local authorities will be supported in their new central role in commissioning services for 16 to 19-year-olds by the new Young People's Learning Agency. ““Supported”” is the right word, because the YPLA will be there to assist local authorities, not tell them what to do. That was always our clear intention. Throughout the passage of the Bill we have listened to those who were concerned that that principle was not always obvious, and we have accordingly made a series of amendments to clarify our intention and make it more explicit in the Bill. Lords amendment 67 stipulates that when the YPLA uses its powers to commission provision, it must have regard to things done by local authorities as they perform their new duties in relation to young people aged 16 to 19, those aged 19 to 25 with a learning difficulty assessment and those subject to youth detention. Lords amendment 68 means that the YPLA will have to have approval from the Secretary of State before giving a direction to a local authority that is failing, or likely to fail, in its duties to secure provision for those groups of young people. I am due shortly to publish a consultation draft of the national commissioning framework, and I want to make it clear in that document that the powers in question will be used only as a very last resort and after all options of support and challenge have been explored and exhausted. Lords amendment 70 extends the YPLA's duty to issue guidance to local authorities to cover other aspects of their new role. Lords amendment 71 would give the YPLA a duty to consult local authorities and other persons it considered appropriate before issuing guidance about performance by local authorities of their new duties. Lords amendments 179 and 180 set out that the first chief executive is to be appointed by the Secretary of State and later chief executives will be appointed by the YPLA, subject to the Secretary of State's approval. That is entirely consistent with the approach to other non-departmental public bodies. I know that the Opposition have some concerns about that, but, having listened to the anxieties expressed in the other place, we are of the opinion that the recruitment of an executive employee should be carried out by the employer—in this instance, the YPLA—rather than be a public appointment by the Secretary of State. We do not believe that the amendment would lead to an increased separation of the YPLA from the Secretary of State, but that it gives the YPLA, like other NDPBs, a sensible amount of power to appoint its own chief executive, subject to approval by the Secretary of State.