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Further Education and Training Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 1: 1: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause— ““Area partnership learning and skills councils After section 18 of LSA 2000 insert— ““18A Area partnership learning and skills councils (1) The Council must establish, in consultation with its relevant partners, 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 those areas. (2) For the purposes of this section ““relevant partners”” has the same definition as ““responsible local authorities”” and ““partner authorities”” in sections 78 and 79 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, once again, the Government have done things back to front. When we discussed the Bill in Grand Committee, we on these Benches expressed our concern that it had been published a week before the Leitch review on skills. We also expressed concerns that Clause 19 had been put into the Bill without any consultation with the universities or even with most of the FE colleges. The fact that the Government have laid so many amendments at this stage could be an indication that they are rushing the Bill into law. Or it could be an indication that they are listening—perhaps I should give the Minister the benefit of the doubt. We have tabled Amendment No. 1 because we know that the Lyons review of local government is about to be published, certainly before the Budget on 21 March. We are sure from statements that have been made that it will emphasise that strategic regional bodies will need to work closely with local authorities and their partners. It seems strange to us that the local government Bill, too, has been published before the Lyons report. However, in line with what has been said by Lyons, the LGA, the CBI and others, we seek to insert into this Bill a firm duty for the Learning and Skills Council to consult and work with local area partnerships. The LGA and the CBI recently met to discuss the Lyons report. In their response, Making ‘Place Shaping’ a Reality, they made their commitment to working together crystal clear. They said: "““The CBI and LGA agreed that local government should have a more significant role in enabling local economic development and have agreed to a series of joint actions including improving the delivery of public services that underpin economic development and improving public and private sector engagement””." When we discussed the amendment in Committee, the Minister concentrated his reply on the local partnership teams of the LSC, which do not appear in the Bill. He emphasised that these teams, whose areas of operation would be coterminous with local authorities, would work flexibly with the local authorities and other partners to deliver services on the ground and ensure that decision-making and provision planning take account of local needs and conditions. While we agree wholeheartedly with the need for these teams, we believe that there is a need also for the LSC to be involved with strategic decision-making at sub-regional level. As my noble friend Lady Sharp of Guildford pointed out in Committee, there is evidence to show that travel-to-work areas and areas served by certain industries and centres of further education are formed by sub-regional hubs or clusters of towns and local authorities that have an identity of their own. These groups of authorities have common interests and often join together to undertake activities and make decisions. It is essential that the LSC works at this level, as well as at the strategic, regional andthe very local levels. We therefore envisage these partnerships to be of many different sizes as appropriate to the groupings that exist in the sub-region. We would be happier if there was reference to them in the Bill. I beg to move.