Agenda item

The Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act became law in November 2009. The act transfers the Learning and Skills Council’s (LSC) responsibilities for funding and commissioning 16-19 education provision to local authorities from 1 April 2010. The transfer of these responsibilities will help Brent Children’s Partnership to integrate the planning, funding and local accountability of services provided for young people and their families.  It will help to ensure that provision meets the needs of young people and that their outcomes improve. This report sets out the responsibilities which the local authority (LA) will have and the progress the LA has made in planning for the commissioning of 16-19 education provision.

The Committee agreed to take this item before the item on improving outcomes for underachieving groups.

John Galligan (Strategic Co-ordinator for 14-19 Education and Training) introduced the report which provided the Committee with an update on the transfer of responsibility for 16-19 provision from the Learning and Skills Council to the local authority.  He explained that the Apprenticeship, Skills, Children and Learning Act had transferred the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) responsibilities for the funding and commissioning of 16-19 education provision to local authorities from 1^st April 2010.  He stated that the transfer of these responsibilities would help ensure that provision meets the needs of young people and that their outcomes improve. He informed the Committee that the LSC currently fund 6,048 places for 16-19 year old learning in Brent this academic year and that this represented a total budget of nearly £33 million.  He added that approximately 35% of Brent’s 16-19 year olds learners were from other local authority areas and that 45% of Brent’s 16-19 year old residents studied in other boroughs.

John Galligan highlighted the local authority’s new commissioning responsibilities as set out in the report.  He added that Brent Council’s Children and Families Department had established the 16-19 Funding and Commissioning Steering Group in March 2009 to plan the transfer of responsibilities.  Furthermore, he informed the Committee of the 3 new national organisations which had been established to support the process.  He explained that the London Regional Planning Group has been set up to lead and support local authority led 16-19 commissioning in London and that Brent would be a member of two inter-borough commissioning groups based upon the travel to lean patterns as set out in paragraph 3.3 of the report.

John Galligan set out the proposed commissioning principles which the commissioning process must be based upon.   He informed the Committee that ‘value for money’ had since been added as an agreed principle.  He stressed the need for the other relevant boroughs to be signed up to these same principles. John Galligan also highlighted the commissioning priorities which included local, regional and national priorities.   The local authority would, he explained, be responsible for monitoring the success of all provision commissioned by the LSC that finishes or starts after April 2010.  He added that LSC was legally responsible for commissioning places for the academic year commencing September 2010 and that local authority officers were developing their skills by supporting the LSC’s final commissioning round.  John Galligan concluded by setting out some of the challenges that Brent faced, which included the need for ensuring that high quality impartial information, advice and guidance would be available to learners and the fact that whilst the proportion of Brent’s young people attaining level 2 by age 19 and level 3 by 19 was above the national average, there were significant differences between groups of learners such as between those who received free school meals at age of 15 and those that did not.

In the discussion which followed, the Committee considered the implications of the new responsibilities. It was felt that the new responsibilities would provide the local authority with an important opportunity to improve young people’s provision and job opportunities.  It was noted that the Committee were in support of the principles of commissioning as set out in paragraph 4.6 of the report.     It was mentioned, by a member of the Committee, that there was a need to ensure that Brent was able to provide a wide ranging curriculum in order to encourage young people to remain studying in the Borough.  The fact that a number of post 16 year olds were travelling out of the Borough to undertake foundation learning as there was a lack of provision in the Borough was discussed. In addition, it was noted that there was a need to ensure that provision was matched with current skills gaps in the Borough.

A concern was raised by Mrs Gouldbourne (Observer – Teachers’ Panel) that the 16-19 Funding and Commissioning Steering Group did not have a teacher representative on the group, thus was lacking input from those who were delivering the commissioned service.  In response, John Galligan stated that he would feed this comment back. However, he noted that the 14-19 Partnership, that included representation from schools and the Secondary Education Improvement Partnership, which was made up of all headteachers and the college vice-principal, were being consulted at each stage of the planning. Legally he stated that the local authority was the lead commissioner.  He explained that there must be clear separation between this role and the education providers that were being commissioned. He added that he did see a role for the Schools Forum in the future.

The importance of providing quality information advice and guidance to support young people in their choices and inform parents was noted by the Committee. The fact that often young people did not understand the transition to Level 3 and therefore did not appreciate what was involved was raised.  With regards to the significant differences between groups of learners, John Galligan explained that free school meals was just one example of the gaps that needed to be narrowed.  In response to a query regarding the monitoring of truancy and attendance when pupils go outside the borough, John Galligan (Strategic Co-ordinator for 14-19 Education and Training) explained that it was the responsibility of the local authority where the establishment was to monitor these. 

RESOLVED:-

i)             that the information provided in the report and the implications for the local authority and Brent’s young people as discussed at the meeting be noted;

ii)            that the commissioning principles, as set out in paragraph 4.6 of the report, be noted.