Q6. We would welcome your views on our proposal for a single Skills Fund: do you agree that we should formally merge the existing AEB including community learning, and National Skills Fund (NSF) investment into a single stream of funding?
No, we do not think that Community Learning should be merged into the National Skills Fund, or at the very this element should be ringfenced within it so that this provision is protected. The two funds have a very different focus. The Skills Fund quite rightly focuses on productivity, while Community Learning funding aimed at the most disadvantaged should remain focused on inclusion and community engagement. The LGA is concerned that any amalgamation risks losing significant community capacity, especially at a time when local authorities and their partners are already experiencing a tailing off European Social Fund, coupled with delays in replacing ESF with an uncertain quantum of Shared Prosperity Fund.
All local authorities felt that there is now an urgent need to prioritise and fund activity to help adults progress from community-based, pre-entry level learning through to Level 2. Providers can best support adults to reach Level 3 equivalency by being encouraged to work with existing Level 2 and below fully funded provision, which are in the main provided by local authority adult and community learning (ACL) services who are expert in delivering community outreach and intensive work required to meet need below Level 3. Current FE reforms should enhance rather than restrict this activity.
Funding for adult skills mainly comes from the £1.5 billion annual Adult Education Budget (AEB), which has been vital in providing support for those without Level 2 to improve their basic skills and gain essential qualifications, and we know that where it is devolved, MCAs have used it innovatively. The overall AEB funding pot has reduced by 50 per cent over the last decade, which has coincided with a drop in learner numbers. The Government should:
- at the very least restore adult skills funding (Level 2 and below) to 2010 levels and devolve it to all local and combined authorities
- focus efforts on supporting and funding both parts of the training network (those specialising in below L3 and those delivering above level 3) to work together and better align their respective provision to maximise the throughput to Level 3
- ensure the complementary role of local authority adult education provision is understood, resourced and integral to a joined up local provider base and recognised in proposals to reform the FE system.
- with MCAs in the lead for adult skills in devolved areas, outside of devolution areas, councils should have a new ‘Community Skills Lead’ role with strategic responsibility for adult education planning and work with the proposed employer representative bodies and the provider base to align provision and ensure progression routes
- this should include adequacy of ESOL language tuition, when English is not the first language.
Q7. How can we implement this Skills Fund in a way which best supports individuals to access skills which meet the needs of local employers?
Depending entirely on employer representative bodies to articulate skills needs for a whole area risks focusing on current need only, and we have raised separately that it needs to include the needs of all employers – large to small, public, private and third sector. Care must be taken to ensure that employers of all sizes are included in articulating which skills are required within a region both now and for the future. Not all employers especially smaller ones will have the capacity or capability to do this.
Local authorities and the Employment and Skills Boards / Panels (or similar that they facilitate to bring businesses and educationalist in local areas) are uniquely placed to do this given its role working with incoming and existing businesses of all sizes: insight into current / pipeline employer skills demand, lead authority for infrastructure, and leadership of regeneration, employment, and trade and investment strategies as well as being the largest employers in many local areas, who also have their own skills challenges. These are the organisations that know their people and economy the best and can really match qualifications to local jobs needs. They should play a lead role in helping them to contribute.
A clear process of devolution to local delivery partnerships which bring together businesses, providers, local government / and wider stakeholders would however be the best way to determine what is needed for a local area. LSIPs as they currently stand fall short of this.
Reports
Democratically elected local authorities, working in partnership with local and national partners should have the powers and funding to design a locally determined offer which would plan, commission and oversee a joined-up careers advice and guidance, employment, skills, apprenticeships and business support service for individuals and employers. This should include the Skills Fund. It would be underpinned by multiyear local labour market and skills outcome agreements. The LGA has a framework for this to happen.
Now is the time to put Work Local into action through the Levelling Up White Paper. The Government should use it to back and fund pathfinders across rural, coastal and metropolitan areas and deepen existing devolution deals whilst not forgetting London and the areas of deprivation. For a medium-sized combined authority each year, our Work Local model could lead to an additional 8,500 people leaving benefits and 5,700 people increasing their qualification levels, with additional local fiscal benefits of £280 million per year and £420 million to the economy.