For a national skills provider, English devolution can seem like a maze. And just like real mazes, there is very little signage pointing to the desired destination.
Despite this challenge, Twin Group has built up a significant presence and fantastic partnerships with programme commissioners in seven devolved areas across the country, covering a mix of youth, employability, skills and health and wellbeing programmes.
But as more areas become devolved, national providers are finding it difficult to plan strategically. This means employers and local learners miss out and value for money is not being fully delivered from the allocated budgets for skills. In short, we need clarity on where we are heading and what the ground rules will be.
Let’s start with the ground rules. Devolution is defined by local authorities having discretion to do things differently, and this presents a challenge that national providers have to accept.
But when we hear central government insist that this is not a free-for-all and that there must be accountability frameworks in place, we can be a little confused.
An example is the Department for Education’s adult skills fund (ASF) funding framework which acts as ‘guidance’ for the devolved authorities.
It says devolved areas are welcome to use the Education and Skills Funding Agency non-devolved ASF funding rates and are in fact “encouraged to do so where possible”. This is because doing so will reduce complexity for providers and prevent the potential of funding variance between learners on the same course.
At the same time, the DfE doesn’t want to “dictate” an approach, but it wants solutions which could lead to “a more unified approach across all areas leading to a less complex landscape for providers and ultimately learners”.
Providers can’t be blamed for being confused when they end up encountering different rules across the country.
Another example is contestability, which seems to drift in and out of fashion according to which white paper you read. Procurement is often the only route for providers to enter devolved or non-devolved adult education, but as we have witnessed with recent legal challenges, it can present an unwanted headache for the officials who manage the process.
DfE guidance says it expects “all devolved authorities will have embedded commercial specialists who will be experts in public procurement”. The Procurement Act 2023 also contains expectations on public bodies to ease access to programmes for smaller providers and social enterprises.
And yet, grant allocated funding and frameworks can seem a safer option.
Even among recently devolved authorities, one can find references to tender exercises being there for independent training providers to simply ‘fill the gaps’ in local provision. But the thousands of disadvantaged learners which Twin Group has supported into jobs don’t look at us in that way, and hopefully our existing commissioners don’t either. We need a clearer steer on this issue from Skills England.
When a local area is devolved, a national ASF provider has deducted from its non-devolved funding an amount which covers its delivery in the devolved area with absolutely no guarantee that the new local commissioners will opt for the provider to continue delivery in the contract’s third year.
Given that the provider’s initial set-up investment is taking a hit and the funding in question can be considerable, this also needs to be reviewed.
Finally, there are the sector priorities in the government’s industrial strategy, the DfE’s national priorities and the local skills improvement plans (LSIPs).
It would be helpful for providers to know for certain that it is only the LSIPs which should concern them in the delivery of devolved programmes.
It’s encouraging that a very experienced official from a devolved authority (Gemma Marsh, previously Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s director of education, work and skills) has been appointed deputy chief executive of Skills England.
Providers hope she can help replace the maze with a clearer route for programme delivery.
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