During a recession it would make more sense for people to be supported to learn new skills in further education than paid to look for jobs that don’t exist. That is the simple headline message of a new report prepared by the 157 Group to be published this week.

Colleges maintain that there are many young people, and older people too, who would benefit from the opportunity to retrain or increase their qualifications but are prevented from doing so by the lack of maintenance support.

Colleges contribute in several ways to tackling unemployment and could do more were the right policies in place. The most obvious way they contribute is in providing a constructive alternative to staying at home on benefits or fruitless job search. Further education courses can equip people with the skills the economy will need when the upturn comes, to the benefit of both individuals and employers.

Colleges need to be able to offer those parts of courses that employers want, not just that which is on a government approved list.

For many, however, financial support is key. The latest figures on participation for 16 to 18-year-olds show that the percentage in education and training has fallen for the first time in a decade; and that it is concentrated among those groups hit by the loss of EMAs.

For adults the government’s impact assessment shows that many older learners will feel unable to continue if grant support for fees is replaced by loans. A first policy priority has to be to stop participation falling further.

But there are options for participation to grow. There is a marked lack of maintenance support available for those wanting to undertake full time FE compared with the billions spent on full time HE.

It ought to be possible to introduce a system of grants and loans on the same lines as for undergraduates that would, in part, be paid for by savings on Job Seeker’s Allowance and other benefits. It would make sense to give JSA claimants the option of a learning loan, rather than having a learning programme truncated by the vagaries of the 16-hour rule.

If business and colleges are pulling in the same direction it is hard to see how government can resist.

It would be good if self improvement through FE were actively encouraged rather than grudgingly conceded.

It is not, however, simply a question of money. The other major way FE contributes to tackling unemployment is by helping firms remain competitive and the report suggests colleges could do more were they not restricted in what they can offer. Firms need support with business problems and do not always want qualifications. Colleges need to be able to offer those parts of courses that employers want, not just that which is on a government approved list.

This latter point is picked up by John Cridland, director general of the CBI, in a foreword commending the report. “Now, the focus must be on ensuring colleges are freed up to work with businesses at the local level” he says, a point echoed by Paula Whittle, Principal of Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College who leads on unemployment for the 157 Group saying “We need funding flexibility and the promotion of the full range of FE programmes in the same way as government has actively promoted apprenticeships”.

If business and colleges are pulling in the same direction it is hard to see how government can resist.

Mick Fletcher is an FE consultant and author of the 157 Group Policy Paper

David Cameron has created a National Childcare Commission in the wake of Professor Cathy Nutbrown’s review of qualifications for the Early Years workforce. Nutbrown wants tougher entry requirements, starting at level 3, to raise the quality and status of childcare workers. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Truss MP, in a recent report for the think tank Centreforum, calls for complete deregulation and a stripping away of qualifications she insists are unnecessary.

How does this sit alongside Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s latest pledge to ensure free childcare places for an additional 260,000 of the most disadvantaged two-year-olds by 2014? He says he wants qualified staff to do the job. So, how do colleges and other providers go about training the army of staff needed within two years? Or will Truss’s arguments win out?

The challenge for the new commission will be to ensure that cutting costs does not take precedence over the urgent need to improve the quality of childcare – a difficult task given the state of the economy. But decades of research evidence tell us that cost-cutting is a false economy and argues persuasively for rigorous high-quality initial training and continuous professional development.

With high quality training and small childcare groups, there is a greater tendency towards self improvement.

A meta-analysis of international research, by the Thomas Coram Research Unit at the Institute of Education, showed conclusively that training, staff ratios and group size “have a direct impact on the ability of staff to provide sensitive, responsive care for children.” No research since that report in 2002 has contradicted this, as the Nutbrown review shows. Only competency-based training can provide childcare staff with the necessary skills and supportive theory.

A deeper argument emerges repeatedly in inspection reports on best providers. The Thomas Coram report echoes this: “In provision with high staff-child ratios, staff are more likely to be well qualified, have access to training, be better paid, and be less likely to leave their jobs. In high quality settings, staff spend more time planning how to deliver the curriculum, keep more effective records on the children in their care, and communicate more effectively with parents.”

In other words, with high quality training and small childcare groups, there is a greater tendency towards self improvement and, therefore, greater demand from parents. We know too from similar studies that such children are healthier and are more likely to find sustainable employment when older. This makes a strong business case: such spending is an investment not a cost.

The Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education (CACHE) has been the major provider of high quality qualifications in the children’s sector for 67 years, ever since it wrote the first national Nursery Education Board (NNEB) qualification in 1945. It is committed to providing quality and rigorously monitors the standards of all training providers who offer its qualifications.

Evidence shows young children gain from individual attention to a degree not possible if staff work with large numbers of children.

Children deserve a good start and most experts agree with Professor Nutbrown that training should last a minimum of 2 years and be at level 3 (equivalent to A-level standard). However, this means costs rise. It also reduces access to childcare because some potential recruits to the workforce won’t commit time to training before they start to earn.

Professor Nutbrown’s call for all childcare trainees to have level 2 (GCSE-equivalent) English and mathematics before they start training will further reduce the number of recruits. It is argued that a way to overcome this is to allow professional early years workers to take responsibility for larger groups. But I would urge caution here; the evidence shows young children gain from individual attention to a degree not possible if staff work with large numbers of children.

The Nutbrown’s report raises another issue. Young people who underachieve are often guided into childcare through poor careers advice at school. They need entry qualifications at levels 1 and 2 which allow them to work under supervision. If the entry grade is raised to level 3, this would remove the stepping stones these young people need. Equally, many adults who failed at school rediscover a love of learning through a level 1 childcare qualification. They gain self confidence and often progress to university. The entry level start therefore not only strengthens childcare provision but provides a springboard to other careers.

It is vital that this quality is not sacrificed in the interest of saving money and providing accessibility – or it will be a time bomb ticking for the next generation.

Richard Dorrance is chief executive of the Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education (CACHE)

The publication of the recent Local Government Association (LGA) report on a so-called “skills mismatch” in further education is deeply disappointing.

It represents a backward step to outdated and discredited approaches to labour market planning and threatens to undermine moves towards a more fruitful strategic co-operation between colleges and local authorities that we in the 157 Group have been seeking to encourage. If local authorities seriously think that it is practicable to manage the supply of courses on the basis of incomplete and imperfect statistics about jobs and vacancies they will find themselves seriously out of step with current thinking in vocational education.

The links between education and employment are complex and the public debate is not well served by oversimplifying them. In relation to jobs, for example, one needs to take into account opportunities for self employment as well as advertised vacancies; to take account of informal as well as formal channels of recruitment and reflect the fact that when employers recruit they do not always select using those qualifications that observers think that they should. Occupations differ in the extent to which they train and promote in house, and the extent to which they recruit young people rather than adults.

In relation to vocational education for young people, we need to remember that it is more than training in a narrow set of skills for current jobs. It is concerned to prepare them for a lifetime as citizens as well as employees; for a world in which they are likely to change jobs several times and where they will need regularly to update their skills: and as countless opinion surveys repeat “soft skills” such as attitude to work, adaptability and the willingness to learn are far more important to employers than specific skills or knowledge.

In the light of these complexities it is sad
that the LGA report continues to churn out tired stereotypes on the basis of highly imperfect data – by their own admission about two thirds of their qualifications data
cannot be neatly fitted into a sectoral analysis of occupations.

Those in further education know, for example, that hairdressing offers lots of opportunities for self employment and part-time work, and provides transferable skills that are valued in many other contexts,such as reception
and call centre businesses. It is no surprise to anyone who knows more than just statistics that industry doesn’t recruit health and
safety officers from 17-year-olds with shiny new certificates; and it doesn’t need much research to find out that there are more
vacancies per qualified individual in London than in the North East.

Local authorities have much to offer the learning and skills system if they step back from attempting to micro-manage provision. They have important roles in promoting economic development, in leading social regeneration and in helping shape and support communities. Working with employers and others in LEPs they have the potential to catalyse growth in their locality.

If they act as strategic partners to colleges sharing their aspirations and knowledge, and aligning their resources with those of the sector they will find that colleges are only too ready to respond; but if they hark back to the days when town halls tried to dictate course planning they will condemn themselves to sitting on the sidelines as decisions are taken elsewhere.

Lynne Sedgmore, Executive director of the 157 Group

Should FE colleges be allowed to charge their sub-contractors “management fees”?

That is charging external education providers for passing business their way if they are unable to fulfil a contract themselves.

For instance, a business needs to train new staff members in a certain skill, and seeks their local FE college for assistance. Unfortunately the college offers no such course, but knows of another local educator – or sub-contractor – who can do the job.

Here’s the rub though: there are documented cases of colleges charging sub-contractors as much as 50 per cent of the cost of the actual training merely for passing the business their way. For many reasons this is wrong.

The fact that they even charge a “passer’s fee” is, in the Forum’s view at least, a contentious issue. If they can’t provide the training themselves, then should what is essentially a public sector organisation be allowed to indulge in such shameless profiteering at the expense of private sector business? For it is small firms who ultimately pick up the tab as naturally costs are passed on.

If colleges are greedily taking bigger, and bigger slices of the pie then that has to impact on the overall quality of the training.

Colleges would no doubt argue that it’s a justifiable revenue generator given the austere times, when no doubt they are looking at all ways to bridge gaps caused by Government cuts.

Perhaps the real focus therefore, should be on the actual prices the FE colleges are charging – or allowed to charge. With prices as high as 50 per cent, some colleges are, frankly, adopting a blatant rip-off mentality as and when they can.

So what can be done about it?

The Skills Funding Agency does not impose a maximum percentage that the colleges can charge, but suggests it should not exceed 15 per cent. Even that’s generous for merely passing on someone’s details, most right-thinking people surely would agree.

The problem lies with the power of the colleges to simply do as they please. There is nothing to govern their behaviour that allows them to lord it over sub-contractors increasingly desperate for work.

This essentially goes against the fundamental practice of sub-contracting which should be a collaboration of equals – not one bossing the other about thanks to financial clout.

Whilst this practice might happen to a degree in certain private sector industries, there really is no place for it in the public sector.

It’s time that we had guidelines that govern what the colleges can charge.

Quite simply FE colleges should not be making huge profits at the expense of sub-contractors or businesses, the latter of whom are parting with money in good faith so that their staff are trained to the best possible standard.

If colleges are greedily taking bigger, and bigger slices of the pie then that has to impact on the overall quality of the training.

We would advise businesses to clarify with training providers exactly who will be carrying out the training they are paying for.

Most businesses would naturally assume that if they pay a college for training then it will be the college who does the work, not simply passing it to a sub-contractor as a means to make a quick buck via a crude passer’s fee.

Cutting out the middle man usually tends to save money.

It could be that FE colleges are finding themselves short of money in the current climate with government reining in spending, but it is certainly not for them to be milking the system to make a quick buck at the expense of other providers and ultimately the businesses paying for the training.

It’s time that we had guidelines that govern what the colleges can charge.

Robert Downes, policy advisor for Forum of Private Business