Regional Response Fund project

1. Regional Response Fund project Changing Landscapes

2. West Midlands Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training (WMCETT) established 2007 after a successful bid to QIA (now LSIS) by the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of Warwick to set up a CETT. Works with FE, WBL, AVC/ACL, and skills sectors. Who are we?

3. Regional Response Fund project • February 2011 put in a bid to RRF fund. • Aim of the fund “activities that allow providers to deal collectively with the operational, funding and planning implications of the changes to funding mechanisms and allocations (resulting from current government policy)” (LSIS).

4. Change Exchanges • Aim – three/four sub-regional networks across the West Midlands that enable providers in the lifelong learning sector to share responses and solutions to recent funding changes and new policy priorities. • - encourage greater collaboration and cooperation between sector providers. • - stronger links with LEPs and other regional and national agencies.

5. How they will work Worcst, Warks and Cov

6. Changing Landscapes • Having set up the ‘Change Exchange’ the project has continued to look at how the new government policy New Challenges, New Chances is being implemented and how it is changing the Learning and Skills Landscape.

7. New Challenges, New Chances • Students at the heart of the system. • National Careers service. • A ladder of Opportunity. • Excellence in teaching and learning. • Relevant learning programmes and quals. • Strategic Governance. • Freedom and flexibility.

8. New Challenges, New Chances • Simplified funding. • Empowered Students. • Global FE.

9. New Challenges ……. • A greater emphasis on ‘learner voice’. Links to wider policy on consumer choice in health and social care. • A market economy in educational provision. • Review of Vocational learning and Quals. • A stronger role for Governors/Trustees in accounting to learners and community.

10. New Challenges…. • Governors and Trustees more accountable for quality of T and L. • Freedom to change organisational structures – to take over other organisations and become a prime contractor. • Simple funding – big contracts. • Entrepreneurialism.

11. Recent policy announcements • 24+ loans announced. 50 million bursary for disadvantaged. • FE Guild – bids. Deregulation of Quals. • Commission of Adult Vocational T and L. • BIS launched Maths and English in Prisons Pilot. • 15 Community Learning Trusts announced.

12. Policy…. • New Studio Schools – Stoke, Walsall, Midlands. • New City Deals announced. (Birmingham) • A survey has been set up to understand the make up, dynamics and scale of the Third Sector’s delivery of learning and skills. • New repository of Social and Economic data.

13. Policy…. • SEN Green paper – A new duty for joint commissioning requiring LAs Health, Education and Social Care for people with SEN from 0 -25. FE and academies now have same responsibilities as schools for provision of education for students with SEN up to 25.

14. Changing Landscapes – findings • Interviews are taking place with providers across the sector in the West Midland region. This is what we have found so far.

15. LEPs • Most LEPs have established a ‘Learning and Skills’ group. But FE does not feel well represented. Too HE focused. • New models emerging like Staffs Educational Trust. • LEPs are about economic development and enterprise. The kind of employees they need are not the students that FE deal with day to day.

16. LEPs • LEPs are not focused on basic skills etc

17. FE Colleges • Very varied responses – some have embraced new policy landscape – becoming a prime contractor and taking over smaller colleges, WBLs, charities, ACLs. • Some small, rural and not well placed - waiting to see what happens. • New models emerging – Gazelle, Big College groups, Global. • Some seeing themselves in a very competitive position. • Others seeing that regional collaboration is critical. • Some seeing themselves in the schools market. • Others withdrawing, concerned about future of 14 - 19 provision.

18. FE • Some partnering or developing prime contractor status with WBL. • Others concerned about fraud and inappropriate use of money. • Some picking up on local accountability context and changing governance arrangements. Devolved Governance. • Some developing partnerships. • Some becoming UTCs. • Some partnering with major employers.

19. HE in FE • Development of University Colleges. • Loans for level 3 and above– unknown potential or trap. • Who will take out loans? • Will employers stop paying for training? • HE are opening their own UTC. • Access funding – returned on completion.

20. Adult Community Learning • John Hayes has been moved from BIS. He safeguarded ACL. • Range of delivery models – fully commissioned out – full Direct delivery. Makes ACL vulnerable. • Many LAs cutting direct delivery due to head count and funding cuts. • ACLs are collaborating with voluntary sector providers and focusing on delivering community based outcomes. • Some colleges are recognising that ACL could be a useful way into local community. In some areas the FE college delivers most ACL.

21. ACL Are there cultural barriers between ACL and FE? • Is FE sufficiently in tune with the kind of approach that works in hard-to-reach communities? • Does FE see outcomes in terms of qualifications rather than outcomes around community cohesion or engagement? • If barriers exist how can they be addressed?

22. Voluntary Sector • Disparate range of providers – no single point of contact. • History of developing partnerships and co-production. • Have a perspective on the needs of the hard-to-reach community. Have a real understanding of local context. • Many doing employment training – funded by LAs etc. • Generally have not been strategically connected into FE • Cultural and sector barriers. • Relationship between this sector and other providers is seen as crucial in policy terms re: Big Society.

23. Work-based learning • Business and profit focus or • Social Enterprise. • Collaborating together – Associations • Concerned about the identification of future skills and use of Innovation funding. • Mergers, partnerships etc. • Soc Enterprises have links with Vol sector. • Some delivering JCP work.

24. Key messages: • Landscape is looking different from area to area. • Much turbulence. Market forces at work. • Local knowledge is valuable in being responsive and is often lost when large organisations elsewhere deliver. • It is hard for sectors to work together when the drivers and incentives are different. Jobs, Qualifications, Outcomes.

25. Messages…. • The market driven approach is deliberately creating fewer prime contractors who are managing large contracts. This flies in the face of local responsiveness. • FE Colleges have been positioned to support smaller providers but are often seen as predatory. Taking on this mantle is easier for some than others depending on previous politics.

26. Key messages • Employers continually say that trainees are not ‘work ready’ but cannot define what that means. • More of a divide between education up to 19 and employment-focused learning beyond 19. Dept. Ed/Dept.BIS.

27. Project Team • Fergus McKay • Jill Hardman • Susie Knight • Julie Chamberlain • Anna Hraboweckyj • Barbara Parkinson • J.chamberlain@warwick.ac.uk • 024 7615 0661