The devolution of adult skills funding to regions across England will disrupt provision and risks creating additional costs and bureaucracy, sector leaders have warned.
Devolving powers, including the commissioning of some FE provision, to regional authorities was one of the Conservative Party’s key general election pledges.
But, just two years before a significant portion of government funding for post-16 education and training is due to be diverted through combined local authorities instead of nationally through the Skills Funding Agency, many questions remain unanswered.
Labour peer Lord David Blunkett has claimed that “no one has a clue” about how the new arrangements will work. “I’m very worried about this,” he said at a debate in London last month, organised by the Learning and Work Institute and the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce). “Not because the principle isn’t right, but because, sitting in a city region and now voluntarily chairing the Sheffield partnership, it’s absolutely clear that no one’s got a clue what they’re doing.”
Deals have been agreed with several cities and regions which will transfer accountability for the delivery of a number of objectives - including those regarding skills training through the new adult education budget (which covers most non-apprenticeship provision).
But, while the process of transition remains unclear and arrangements are likely to vary between regions, it is anticipated that the adult education budget will not simply flow to independent learning providers and colleges from combined local authorities as it currently does.
From 2017-18, regions and cities with responsibility for skills are expected to put contracts for provision from independent learning providers out to tender. Several experts told TES that college provision was also expected to be put out to tender in some parts of the country, raising the prospect of providers losing out to geographically distant competitors for provision on their own doorstep.
Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said that he believed that each provider could have a minimum level of contract without tendering. However, he added that the new process would “disrupt existing provision and any tendering process involves cost that gets diverted away from frontline delivery”.
Sue Pember, director of policy at adult community learning provider network Holex, said: “There is much good practice where services such as adult education and health have worked together locally to help find a solution to social problems. We hope that practice will become the blueprint for localism. However, there is also the risk that we just replace a relatively flexible centralised system with a more bureaucratic, rule-driven regional one that doesn’t allow for real local decision-making and the needs of the student are lost in the process.”
This is an edited version of an article from the 11 March issue of TES, which is part of a four-page special investigation into skills devolution. Subscribers can read it in full here.
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