The People Bulletin

The Skills Funding Agency opens for business in April 2010, routing around £4bn of funding to further education colleges and other providers in response to customer (employer and learner) choice on programmes such as Train to Gain.  What this means is that training providers will receive funding as they attract customers rather than a block grant based on estimates of expected demand. This has followed the publication of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills strategy for skills, Skills for Growth, on 11 November 2009, in which it commits to:

• creating a modern technician class through more advanced apprenticeships;
• investing in skills in the sectors on which future growth and jobs depend;
• empowering individuals through skills accounts giving people ‘consumer choice’ and better information about courses;
• the introduction of light touch monitoring arrangements for our best providers; and
• simplifying the skills landscape, working with UKCES to implement their recommendation to reduce the number of separately publicly funded agencies by over 30 in the next three years.

One of the biggest quangos, The Learning and Skills Council, will be broken up into a number of smaller ones, each with their own back office function.  The idea is that a single contractor for all publicly funded post-19 education and training (not higher education) will deliver a faster response to user demand and feedback.  It will operate through the following services:

• National Apprenticeship Service (NAS). This has complete responsibility for the apprenticeship programme.
• Employer Skills Services.  This is designed to match skills services to all sizes of businesses in all sectors via Skills Funding Agency managed services, such as Train to Gain and the National Employer Service.
• Adult Advancement and Careers Service.  This is a universal advice service for individuals both in and out of work.
• Learner Skills Services.  These include Skills Accounts, funding FE colleges and providers, integrated employment and skills services for the unemployed, offender learning, informal adult learning etc.

However, there is widespread concern that many of the key personnel from the LSC, including its chief executive, will merely transfer to the new agency and there will be no infusion of new ideas and some wasteful duplication.

The EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation, has complained to Kevin Brennan, the Skills Minister, on grounds that the upheaval would be worth it if the new structure would deliver substantial improvements.  But, it says ‘It is unclear how this new agency will be substantially different from the old one without the culture change that is really needed across the organisation. Therefore, a further reshuffle which results in many of the same people undertaking the same roles under new titles would be the worst of all worlds. And if we are to develop world class skills we need a system that is responsive to the training needs of both employers and individuals.’

Tom Richmond, policy adviser at the CIPD agrees that the new structure is not exactly user-centric.  He told The People Bulletin:

‘The creation of the Skills Funding Agency is supposed to help bring about a ‘demand-led’ approach to the funding for training courses, but the early indications are that the Skills Funding Agency will in fact retain considerable power over which courses get funded, It is employers and learners, not quangos and government departments, who know what skills and qualifications this country needs.  Unless the Skills Funding Agency reflects this simple truth, the UK will struggle to meet the considerable economic challenges that lie ahead.’

http://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/skills-for-growth

www.dius.gov.uk/further_education/fe_reform/skills-funding-agency-transition