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Education and Skills Bill

moved Amendment No. 2: 2: Clause 1, page 1, line 10, at end insert ““, and (d) is not engaged in voluntary activity for more than 20 hours per week.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 6, 7 and 64. Before making my remarks on Amendment No.2, I should say with regard to the previous amendment that the arrangements with Sure Start at the college in Newcastle-under-Lyme are just the sort of thing that we want. This amendment probes a little further on the discussion we had in Committee when we established that when a young person had left school but was engaged in voluntary activities for more than 20 hours a week, that voluntary activity might count as work-based learning provided that the person undertook training activities within that voluntary activity that led to some form of accreditation. For many voluntary activities, such as working with children or older people, that would pose no problems. There are recognised qualifications to be gained leading to NVQs that are now required to work in those areas. Volunteers can easily participate in such courses. A problem arises, however, in relation to the sorts of activities provided by the Prince’s Trust and Barnardo’s for young people who have been school drop-outs and who have left school with no qualifications and minimal, if any, literacy or numeracy skills. It is not clear whether they will be required to undertake courses that lead to accreditation. That is where Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 to Clauses 4 and 6 come in. The sort of programme provided by the Prince’s Trust might be called a personalised learning programme. The young people concerned are not ready to take accredited courses, but are pursuing courses of learning that are tailored to their needs and help them to gain fulfilment through education and to move on further. Those courses may equip them to move on to accredited learning at a later stage. It may be that their special educational needs are such that they are unlikely ever to attain levels of skill or competence required for accreditation. In response to some of the issues raised both by us and by other noble Lords during the Committee stage, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on 28 July 2008. His letter sets out in more detail what would be expected in these circumstances. I should like to read a number of extracts from the letter because it is important that this is on the record so that people will know what was said. In the letter the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said: "““I agree with you that it will be vital that the provision available to young people is personalised to meet their specific needs and to give them the skills they need to progress further in education and to enter employment in future. As I set out previously during debate on the raising the participation age clauses, Clause 4 provides for young people participating in full time education and training do so by following an unaccredited programme of learning. This could include the type of re-engagement provision that is often provided by third sector and voluntary organisations.""For those young people participating through the part time learning route, whilst we recognise the valuable skills and experience that young people in full-time employment will be gaining through their day-to-day work, we do believe that it is important that the course they are undertaking in their day a week of guided learning should be accredited. This will ensure that it is of good quality, and without this requirement employers could get away with providing very little training””." He then went on to say: "““For some of our most disadvantaged young people, who may have not enjoyed or progressed at school, the most appropriate option may be a programme of learning at ‘entry level’ or ‘level 1’. We recognise the vital role such programmes will play in successfully raising the participation age and are working hard to increase the range of provision available to young people. In the White Paper Further Education: Raising Skills, Improving Life Chances (March 2006) the Government confirmed its commitment to developing ‘The Foundation Learning Tier’ (FLT). This will be introduced across the country from September 2010, bringing coherence to entry level and level 1 qualifications and providing clear progression routes for young people onto level 2 and beyond. It will also include a skilled work pathway for young people who are not ready to undertake a full Apprenticeship.””" How far does all this fit in to what is being proposed under the learning support agreements, which we will be discussing later? In the Minister’s amendments after Clause 58, these, as she will admit, are not quite the same as personalised learning programmes, although such programmes could form a part of the conditional agreement between the local authority and the young person. In responses to amendments on Clause 4 in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, made it clear that those pursuing full-time education might pursue courses which in the end did not lead to an accredited outcome required by Clause 6 but those pursuing work-based learning were required to have some sort of accreditation. Does working as a volunteer count as education or training in this respect? Can pursuing a personalised learning programme with one of the voluntary organisations, such as the Prince’s Trust, count as education and are they therefore exempt from the requirement to have this first-stage accreditation? There is still a lack of clarity here and I wonder whether the Minister can clarify precisely what will happen in those circumstances. Amendment No. 64 relates to Part 2, dealing specifically with young adults with learning difficulties. It raises slightly different issues. In our discussions in Committee on Clause 64, which is now Clause 56, it was clear from the Minister’s reply that such services as are considered appropriate include the Connexions services. I pointed out to the Minister that many of these young people suffered from health problems, particularly mental health problems, and that providing them with appropriate services would mean bringing in the PCT and the child and adolescent mental health services. I asked him whether guidance would involve those two services as partners with Connexions. He promised to think further on those issues and I am encouraged that the Government’s amendment to Clause 58 on support learning contracts includes support in the form of medical and social care. But again, I seek clarification on whether Clause 56, which includes the words, "““such services as it considers appropriate””," includes health services, in particular mental health services. So many of these young people have mental health problems, and it is extremely important that the mental health services are brought in as partners with Connexions to help them to overcome them. I beg to move.