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Further Education and Training Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 29: 29: Clause 6 , page 6, line 17, at end insert ““of course and place of learning except where this would involve disproportionate expenditure”” The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 29 I shall speak also to Amendment No. 31. The difference between the two amendments is that the first refers to learners aged 16 to 19 and the second refers to learners who are over the age of 19. The amendments seek to clarify what is meant in Clause 6 by the words ““diversity”” and ““choice””. The clause places a duty on the Learning and Skills Council to act with a view to promote diversity in education and training and increase opportunities for individuals to exercise choice. That duty applies both to 16 to 19 year-olds and to adults. The amendments are designed to clarify exactly what is meant by ““choice”” and to ensure that the LSC does not focus solely on institutional structures when fulfilling this new duty, but also takes into account the need to ensure that there is sufficient choice of courses, qualifications and types of place in which to learn. There is widespread agreement about the need to improve the choices available to young people and to ensure that more of them progress to university or to productive employment, but there are differences on how that can be best achieved. Under the terms of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 any school which wants to establish or expand a sixth form has to apply to the local authority for approval. It is important to highlight the decision-making process on sixth-form provision because all post-16 education is funded not by local authorities but by learning and skills councils. Local authorities approve new sixth-form education but have no accompanying responsibility to fund it. So we have a disconnect between decision-making and funding. Many local authorities want the majority or even all the schools in their area to have sixth forms. Indeed, the Government have made this easier under the terms of the five-year plan where there is a presumption in favour of it. Having a sixth form is often a matter of status and makes a school more attractive to students. Clause 6 makes the situation even more complicated by adding a new duty for the LSC to provide diversity and choice in the education and training available for students aged between 16 and 19 as well as for adults. Under the Education and Inspections Act 2006 it is for the LEA to determine which 16 to 19 provision should be approved. That makes it difficult for the LSC, which has a duty to provide diversity and choice in the 16 to 19 provision, when it cannot decide what is provided and where. So there are concerns about the new duty being placed on the LSC, particularly when it is not accompanied by any definition of the word ““choice””. There is a danger that the LSC may choose to define ““choice”” solely as being about institutions, but there is an argument that a local area solely made up of further education, tertiary and sixth-form colleges can provide more choice in terms of courses and qualifications at all levels than one made up entirely of school sixth forms. On the other hand, some people take the alternative view. We are concerned that any new provision—college or school sixth form—should offer different provision to local youngsters from what is already available and play an important role in offering the widest possible choice of qualifications and courses. However, that is not always the case and the opening of new school sixth forms could, in fact, endanger the future of some courses at other post-16 providers, and in some extreme cases a whole institution’s future. Indeed, Stockport College expressed those concerns to me some time ago. So we need to be sure that when a new sixth form is proposed, it will actually choice and provide the necessary high quality education, but of course not at disproportionate cost. We have put the word ““disproportionate”” in our amendment because it must be noted that there are considerable variations in funding levels for 16 to 18 year-olds depending on where and what they are studying. The Government accepted in 2005 that there was a 13 per cent gap in funding between a student in a school sixth form and a college offering the same type of course—a matter about which we on these Benches have often complained. The Government have pledged to reduce this gap and are now consulting on proposals for a common 16 to 18 funding system. But the existence of funding variations reinforces the need to consider value for money. So, while we wait for that gap to be closed, including a duty on the LSC to avoid disproportionate expenditure will make it easier for it to balance its new duty to improve choice and diversity for some learners with its duty to all learners to use public funds equitably and reasonably. I beg to move.