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Education and Skills Bill

I have a sense of déjà vu, because a year ago we debated the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 and talked about this question of local area agreements and co-operation with different bodies. I am advised that it is appropriate to resist the amendment because it is not necessary, not because we do not agree with it. It is of course important that the LSC co-operates with local education authorities. The LSC already engages with local authorities in a range of contexts. Local authorities prepare local area agreements that set out the deal between central and local government and their partners to improve services and the quality of life for local people. The Learning and Skills Council is a key partner authority and plays a central role in ensuring that local area agreements can help to deliver the right level of skills in the right priority areas. Ninety per cent of local area agreements include a skills target. The best model for securing the achievement of the skills target is through the creation of a local coalition of partners who together bring a wide understanding of the community—such as future employment trends and the skills and qualifications that local people will need to secure those jobs. Further to strengthen those arrangements, the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 introduced a new duty on responsible local authorities and partner bodies to co-operate in agreeing local improvement targets in local area agreements. In addition, the LSC now works with around 150 local partnership teams. Their role is to work on a day-to-day basis with local stakeholders, including local authorities, employers and others, to identify the learning and skills needs of each area. The geographic area of the local partnership teams that the LSC has established broadly follows those of local authorities. This approach has already provided a positive model for local partnership working and a more flexible response to local and sub-local learning and skill needs. In London, the London Skills and Employment Board, which is chaired by the Mayor of London, formulates strategies for the work of the LSC in Greater London. That has given us the model for a strategic body that can lead on employment and skills issues on a city-wide basis. The amendment would impose an additional requirement on the LSC so that when performing its duty to secure the provision of proper facilities for education and training under proposed new Section 4A(1) to be inserted into the Learning and Skills Act 2000, the LSC would be required to co-operate where appropriate with local education authorities. As we have heard, proposed new subsection (5) provides a list of factors that the LSC must take into account, or act on, when performing the duty to secure the provision of proper facilities for education and training. The LSC must, for example, "““act with a view to encouraging the diversity of education and training”” ," and, "““act with a view to increasing opportunities for individuals to exercise choice””." It is implicit in such requirements that in order to fulfil its duty in proposed new Section 4A(1), the LSC will need to co-operate with a range of partners at local, regional or national levels—local education authorities, Sector Skills Councils, Jobcentre Plus and regional development agencies, for example. None of those partners is specified in this section of the Bill. As part of the machinery of government changes announced in June 2007, we proposed creating two bodies. Responsibility for funding the education and training of young people aged 16 to 19 will transfer to local authorities, supported by, as the Committee is aware, a new Young People’s Learning Agency. For adults, the Skills Funding Agency will underpin a new system that will be developed to deliver a comprehensive set of entitlements for learning, advice and support, with colleges and providers having the freedom that they need to meet the needs of employers and individual learners. Clearly, it will be important for both the new funding bodies to engage with each other and local authorities in order to respond to the skills needs at national, regional and local level. I hope that the Committee will see that the Learning and Skills Council already works co-operatively with local authorities, and co-operation by the Learning and Skills Council and local education authorities is implicit in the duty in the new section. In addition, introducing the requirement would create a mismatch with the duty on the LSC in Section 2 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000. Given the approach I have described, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.