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ITEM EX13

EXECUTIVE – 27 MAY 2003

ADULT LEARNING PLAN

Report by the Director for Learning & Culture

1. This paper takes forward the process by which the County Council should agree an academic year 2003-4 plan for the Adult and Community Learning which it manages, under contract to the Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Learning and Skills Council (MKOB LSC). The LSC issued guidance for the plan in February 2003, indicating at the same time what their priorities for funding would be and changing the delivery date from 31 March to June 2003. Since that time the LSC Chief Executive has met County Council officers twice to negotiate the programme.
2. The Adult Learning Plan is one of the strategic plans which are subject to approval by full Council following consideration by both the Executive and relevant Scrutiny Committee, in accordance with the Budget and Policy Framework Procedure Rules set out in the Constitution. On 12 November 2002 the Executive agreed the Adult and Community Learning Service’s revised Purpose and Strategic Objectives, as the basis for the Plan, subject to any amendments and additions appropriate in the light of subsequent LSC guidance (Annex 1).

Content of the Plan

3. The Adult Learning Plan formally covers Adult and Community Learning (ACL) - the non-accredited learning that was the responsibility of the County Council until March 2001. The accredited learning and basic skills managed by the County Council Service for around a third of its learners still fall within the LSC’s separate Further Education planning framework, but the Plan wherever possible treats the whole service as one, since many of its elements – for instance quality and staff development – can sustain no realistic separation between the two.
4. The Council approved the 2002-3 Adult Learning Plan in Spring 2002, and this was the starting point for the plan for 2003-4. This paper notes the main areas where the 2003-4 Plan updates the 2002-3 plan, and raises the key concerns around its funding and delivery. The 2003-4 text is shorter and less descriptive, only updating the previous text where necessary. The compulsory element of the text (learner numbers to be funded, expressed as full-time equivalent learners, in standard curriculum areas) is attached as Annex 2 (download as .xls file). This, together with the Purpose and Strategic Objectives already agreed (Annex 1) and specific business plans will be the formal plan requiring Council approval. The most recent draft of the plan has been circulated separately to all members (download as .doc file).
5. The full plan will remain provisional, under discussion with the LSC and still subject to change, until formally submitted at the end of June. It may then be further revised before being agreed as the basis for funding from 1 August 2003 to 31 July 2004.
6. The Learning & Culture Scrutiny Committee are considering the draft plan on 20 May. Any comments on their part will be reported at the meeting.

Funding and Delivery Issues

7. The ‘funding guarantee’ to LEAs expires in July 2003, and formula-funding of ACL learners will not now be introduced universally until August 2004. A paper outlining a new funding regime for all adult learning is due in June, and there are concerns across the country that learning that contributes to the quality of life rather than to the skills agenda, including learning by older learners, may fare less well in it than hoped for at the time of consultation last year. County Council officers have been concerned to keep a balance between accredited and non-accredited learning, and to maintain our high level of provision for older learners, and the user satisfaction indicated by the MORI surveys. Some local LSCs have taken the opportunity to introduce transitional funding regimes: in the case of the MKOB LSC, the three LEA services were given a confirmed main allocation in February of 90% of the current year’s funding, and were told that remaining funds would be made available to all MKOB LEAs to bid into to run initiatives or projects which would directly help MKOB LSC meet local and national targets.
8. Apart from basic skills (which the County Council service delivers almost wholly via the FE funding stream) the main LSC targets for adults are numbers achieving at NVQ level 3 (equivalent to ‘A’ level), and Level 2 (equivalent to GCSE), and the LSC wishes to work with us to ensure that students accessing ACL provision progress to further accredited learning where possible. While such progression is certainly a County Council service aim, there is still work being done nationally on how best to satisfy both users and funders that the outcomes from non-accredited learning are verifiable. Meetings with the LSC have been reasonably productive, with agreement on additional support, guidance and signposting that we would put into progression from non-accredited to accredited courses, and future research – tracking destinations and progression from particular courses such as IT, courses for prospective childcare and teaching assistants, and GCSEs. The LSC was especially interested in the potential for further growth of the large Basic Skills at Work programme we manage.
9. The local LSC announced its indicative allocations for ACL in 2003-4 in April 2003: the full 100% has been granted, but there is as yet no funding for salary cost-of-living increases in 03-04 (actual is 3.3%) or for pension or NI increases. The FE allocation, however, does almost fully cover these increases. Officers have asked for further explanation. The allocations are shown below, with the equivalent sum for the previous academic year alongside for reference. The overall local LSC allocation is higher than last year (see below), and there are also higher capital sums, from the central LSC, for minor works and for measures required by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001. But the growth in the local allocation for family learning, for which there are challenging targets, appears at this stage to be at the expense of other revenue allocations.
10. There are other pressures that will be new in 2003-4: data collection for the first full individual learner reports on our ACL learners (more than twice as many as we have FE learners); funding for the new IT learning centres using New Opportunities Fund/Capital Modernisation Fund money when these national grants fall out, and funding for the new citizenship, neighbourhood and languages priorities named in LSC plans.
    
    

    	2003-4	2002-3
    Local LSC Funding category	£	£
    Main funding	1,931,528	1,940,222
    Family learning	131,427	140,186
    Family literacy and numeracy	216,953	43,391
    Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant	31,653	0
    MIS/Data	0	98,000
    	2,311,561	2,123,799

11. Officers may therefore need immediately to seek savings in some parts of the budget. Future funding regimes for non-accredited learning may make it necessary to pass some additional costs on to local centres to raise from learners via fee increases, but it will be important to maintain free or cheap courses for new and disadvantaged learners.
12. Other ongoing service changes precipitated by the terms of the plan and by other LSC guidance include the harmonising of course fees and concessions across the county from September 2003, development plans and self-assessment reports based on curriculum areas, proposed reductions in the number of small centres with local governing committees, and more extensive recognition that the overall governance rests with the County Council. The Adult Learning Plan reports the introduction of a common format for annual brochures in 2003, a revised Disability Statement, and a number of measures to improve the quality of teaching and learning, and prepare for inspection. There is a new major franchise (with Oxford Women’s Training Scheme) and very many other instances of collaborative provision in family learning, where our Service advises voluntary and community organisations involved with families, allocates LSC funds to their eligible courses, and supports and monitors the learners.

RECOMMENDATION

13. The Executive is RECOMMENDED, subject to consideration of any comments on the part of the Learning & Culture Scrutiny Committee, to:

(a) note the funding and delivery issues raised in the report; and

(b) RECOMMEND the Council to approve the draft Adult Learning Plan for submission to the Learning & Skills Council by the 30 June closing date, subject to incorporation of any matter required by further advice from consultees and/or the Learning & Skills Council.

KEITH BARTLEY
Director of Learning & Culture

Background Papers: Nil

Contact officer: Mari Prichard, Head of Adult and Community Learning Tel. (01865) 815153

May 2003

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