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Further Education and Training Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 4: 4: After Clause 1 , insert the following new Clause— ““Area partnership learning and skills councils After section 18 of LSA 2000 (supplementary functions) insert— ““18A Area partnership learning and skills councils (1) The Council must establish, in consultation with its relevant partners and representatives of employers, trade unions, further education colleges and schools, committees (to be called area partnership learning and skills councils) in local or sub-regional areas, to perform the Council’s duties in relation to that area. (2) For the purposes of this section, ““relevant partners”” has the same meaning as ““responsible local authorities”” and ““partner authorities”” in sections 78 and 79 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. (3) The term ““local learning and skills area”” in subsection (2) of section 3D is to be interpreted as the local or sub-regional area in subsection (1).”””” The noble Baroness said: The amendment would require the LSC to establish local, subregional partnership groups which will work in co-operation and collaboration with local authorities and other local bodies to meet the needs of the local learning and skills market. Irrespective of whether Clause 2, on the creation of the nine regional LSCs, will stand part, there is a considerable body of evidence emerging to show that what matter most are not the big, somewhat artificial regional groupings that the Government have created but subregional clusterings around cities and city regions and, in the shire counties, around large towns and their travel-to-work areas. For example, 78 per cent of journeys to work take less than 40 minutes; 70 per cent of house moves are within 20 miles. Industrial clusters and skills markets develop around those subregional hubs. Therefore, establishing the strategic labour market planning at a regional level misses the point unless it is firmly linked into local developments and thinking at subregional level. Clause 4 picks that up in a different fashion and allows the LSC to establish area groupings of different shapes and sizes. The arrangements for the Greater London area are perhaps a precursor to giving other city regions a degree of autonomy in developing their own skills strategies. By no means every part of the country falls into a city region; nor is autonomy likely to be granted in the short term. The proposed new clause would ensure that the LSC and its newly established regional partners worked with the pre-existing local authorities and partnerships that are already linking up to serve the needs of local labour markets. The new Local Government Bill, which has just been introduced into the House of Commons, establishes these new local area partnerships only to ignore them. It is clearly logical that the LSC, both nationally and regionally, should work in conjunction with local authorities and well established partnerships. This would ensure strong, effective, local collaboration and consultation between the LSC, further education institutions, local businesses and local councils to meet the needs of the local labour and skills markets. The LSC has other duties. Section 10 of the Children Act 2004 requires it to take account of local area agreements and to work in co-operation with local authorities, and new Section 3D(2) of the Learning and Skills Act 2000, which was inserted into the Act by the Education and Inspections Act 2006, requires the LSC to work in co-operation with LEA plans and to deliver all the 14-to-19 entitlement curriculum in each LSC area unless the LSC determines that such provision would be uneconomic. It therefore becomes increasingly clear that the LSC needs to focus on delivering on its duties at local and sub-regional levels. These amendments are aimed at ensuring strong and effective local collaboration and consultation between the LSC, further education colleges and other trainers, local businesses and local authorities. The national and regional councils may involve themselves in the broader, strategic issues, but delivery needs to be focused on the sub-regional level. I beg to move.