My Lords, the Government appreciate the importance of all forms of education in improving life chances, both through employment and through meeting broader social goals. For example, recent research from the Workers’ Educational Association, a leading adult provider, found that 22% of its students took part in activities to improve their local community as a result of their course.
Many of the skills mentioned in the amendment are particularly associated with community learning provision. The objectives of community learning provision are to develop the skills of adults to help them improve their health and well-being, develop stronger communities and progress towards formal learning or employment. Since 2019-20, a significant part of our £230 million funding for community learning has been devolved to mayoral combined authorities and the Greater London Authority. In line with their strategic skills plans, those authorities are shaping education and skills provision, including supporting adults in developing new skills to improve well-being in their local communities. In May 2021, we announced that up to 7,800 colleges and schools will be able to access senior mental health lead training by March next year, as part of the Government’s commitment to offer this training to all colleges and state schools by 2025.
We are also supporting community participation elsewhere in the education system through the teaching of citizenship, which is in the secondary school national curriculum. The programmes of study are to direct teaching towards the core knowledge of citizenship to help prepare pupils to play a full and active part in our society. At key stage 4, pupils will be taught about the different electoral systems in and beyond the United Kingdom and how citizens influence decisions locally, nationally and beyond.
Pupils in the school system also currently receive financial education through the maths and citizenship curricula. To reassure the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare,
first aid and CPR are included in the national curriculum and are therefore compulsory in maintained schools and a benchmark in academies and free schools.
Improving the responsiveness of provision to the skills needs of local learners and potential future learners is already a key part of the proposals in the Bill. I do not accept that the Government artificially separate employment skills from social or life skills. The new duty set out in Clause 5 would require colleges and designated institutions to review how well the education or training they provide meets local needs and to consider what action might be taken to address any local skills gaps.
As described in our draft statutory guidance, the needs covered by a review would cover the whole of the institution’s education and training offer, including wider social needs of the kind currently addressed through community learning provision. The Government’s view is that decisions on how effective provision is in meeting local needs is a judgment best reached at a local level, by providers working in partnership with both employers and the wider communities they serve. This duty strengthens that process by establishing a legal framework that will help ensure transparency and consistency, and which promotes accountability around decisions on provision that is vital for local communities.
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To answer the point from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, the Government absolutely understand the value and the importance of the creative industries and are committed to supporting them. We expect that the Bill will help a vast range of sectors across the economy, including the creative industries, to better link up their needs with the skills that the Government are helping to deliver.
On the basis of what I have set out, the Government’s view is that it is not necessary or appropriate for the Secretary of State to seek to prescribe the process for the assessment of the local skills gaps mentioned, as envisaged by the amendment. Indeed, I acknowledge colleges and other FE sector institutions for the work they already do to meet the wider needs of their communities and learners, and the very positive impacts of their education and training provision. In reviewing its provision under Clause 5, the governing body of a college must do so in a way that considers the needs of all local learners. As set out in our draft statutory guidance, this is not limited to academic needs, or solely to the needs of local employers.
I therefore hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is able to withdraw her amendment and takes some comfort from the fact that the Government acknowledge the importance of the kinds of skills she has set out in her amendment and are seeking to address them both within existing provisions in this Bill but also crucially elsewhere in our policy and agenda.