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Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

Clause 43 gives local authorities powers that the Learning and Skills Council currently has to require an institution within the further education sector to provide education to a named individual aged 16 or over but under 19. Amendment 106 seeks to limit the use of that power to those institutions within the local authorities’ own boundaries as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, made clear. I understand the intention behind the noble Lord’s amendment is to seek clarification on how funding across a local authority boundary will operate. The duties rest on every local authority to secure sufficient provision for the young people in their area. Young people move around, and local authorities must work together to ensure that they still have a choice, which seems to be have been the theme of a number of the debates that we have had today. To facilitate that co-operation, as I have previously said, local authorities have voluntarily come together into 43 sub-regional groupings to act as planning bodies. Over the next few months the lead commissioning authority for every provider will be identified. For many, this will be the authority in which they are physically located. The Young People’s Learning Agency will be established to ensure that the plans brought forward are coherent and affordable. The noble Lord seeks to know what happens to the funding when there is a cross-border flow of young people. The aim is to use that planning system and the information schools and colleges already have to better predict where young people will choose to study before any money flows at all. We do not want to return to the bureaucratic days of recoupment. Instead local authorities will be given indicative budgets based on the information from the current and next year’s 16 to 19 allocation processes that will enable them to plan more effectively. The YPLA will support that planning with high-quality, real-time analysis drawing on information from its own systems as well as from Connexions services, schools and colleges. As a plan is developed and signed off, it will be clear to where the vast majority of the money must flow, and the YPLA will then issue final budgets to ensure providers are paid. Where a local authority has directed a college to take a young person on, we would expect that the directing local authority would have discussed the issue with the "host" local authority and the college first, and that all parties have reached an agreement on how that place will be funded. The YPLA will have to be notified, so it continues to monitor and adjust its records of places and budgets. We do not expect, nor want, an authority to create a financial cost in another authority and we will look to the conditions of grant that the YPLA will establish under Clause 60 as the mechanism for ensuring the system operates smoothly when a local authority feels the need to use Clause 43. I would also like to address the practical implications of the amendment. There are two reasons why we should avoid putting in the Bill a limitation only to use the powers for colleges in their area.