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ITEM EX11

LEARNING & CULTURE SCRUTINY COMMITTEE – 11 MAY 2004

ADULT LEARNING PLAN 2004/05

Report by Director for Learning & Culture

1. This paper summarises the 2004-05 Adult Learning planning process and the proposed service priorities and development themes for adult learning managed by the County Council. It invites the Executive to confirm or modify those priorities, as a first step in the process leading to a completed plan being negotiated and agreed with the local Learning and Skills Council (LSC). It presents as the core of the plan a revised mission statement, aims and objectives for the Service. In particular the Executive is invited to note cross-directorate working, and to indicate any additional cross-directorate adult learning needs that could be analysed for possible inclusion in 2004-05 or subsequent planning years.
2. This paper also briefs the Executive on the considerations which now drive a review of the current structure of the Service, and on the timetable for consultation and implementation.

Planning Process

3. For the academic year 2003-04 there was, as in previous years, an Adult Learning Plan for the part of the County Council's provision that had been funded by the County until 2001 - Adult and Community Learning (ACL). This plan was funded by grant. It was expected that a national formula would be introduced for non-accredited ACL learners in 2004-05, but this has been delayed, and therefore the ACL plan is still based on a block grant attached to a business plan.
4. In 2003 the LSC changed its separate annual planning process for further education (FE). It instituted a Three-year Strategic Plan, with headline improvement targets for learner numbers and achievements in accredited and basic skills courses, for employer engagement, and for teacher qualifications. This plan is the basis of a formula allocation, using the FE formula of learners weighted by curriculum area, and is dependent on learner numbers being achieved. Each year's allocation is now revised on the basis of in-year and final, audited, end-of-year learner data.
5. Since the LSC was working towards a single plan for both ACL and FE, and most of the staffing and infrastructure for adult learning cannot be rationally divided between non-accredited and accredited learning, the Three-year Strategic Plan for 2003 to 2006 covered some whole service issues and targets.
6. For 2004-05 the Adult Learning Plan will consist of revisions to the Three-year Strategic Plan, and a Business Plan. The plan is expected to be negotiated with LSC on 30 April which will be verbally reported to the Learning & Culture Scrutiny Committee on 11 May, and finally to the Executive on 18 May respectively. The LSC has given 21 May as the deadline for the refined plan to be taken into account for 2004/05 funding. The Plan will however be subject to ratification by the full Council at its meeting on 15 June, in accordance with the Budget and Policy Framework Procedure Rules set down in the Constitution.
7. This paper summarises the main elements of each strand for 2004-05. As each part is negotiated with the LSC it will be deposited in the Members' Resource Centre.

Mission Review

8. Staff, partners and users have been consulted with the object of producing a revised and updated Mission Statement, Aims and Objectives for the Service. (A summary of the consultation is included at Annex 1, together with the outline of the Service that accompanied it at Annex 2). The Mission Statement, Aims and Objectives have been revised, and the following are now proposed:

Learning for adults and families in the 21st century - unlocking potential, enriching lives, serving communities

• Respond to identified learner and skills needs to help people to fulfil their potential and improve their quality of life,
• Widen participation by working in their own settings with people living in deprived communities, with people who are new to adult learning, and with those who have low skills
• Develop learning which contributes to the economic and social well-being of individuals and communities
• Offer information, advice and guidance to prospective and current adult learners

• Provide first-rung learning and progression choices for adult learners
• Provide a coherent, targeted, inclusive and high quality curriculum in communities
• Provide learning in a wide variety of local settings, with flexible, distance, and online alternatives
• Provide non-accredited learning as well as increasing the number of programmes that accredit learners’ achievements
• Develop the skills of low-skilled workers in public, voluntary and private employment sectors
• Work with a range of partners to develop and co-ordinate learning opportunities and to contribute to neighbourhood renewal. Our partners will include schools and family centres, health and care services, other local authority services, employers, the voluntary and community sector, arts organisations and other providers of adult, further and higher education.

9. The County Council’s workplace training for care workers in homes for the elderly, managed within Social & Health Care Directorate, will for the first time be within the FE programme, with additional funding from the European Social Fund. In 2004-5 it will have a target of approximately 325 learners beginning NVQ courses in care skills. At the same time the ACL service will pilot an introductory ‘What’s it like to be a care worker’ course for potential new staff.
10. Basic skills comprise almost half of the FE programme, and of that around one third of the learners study English as second or additional language (ESOL). The target for 2004-05 will be 2148 learners, including 300 in the workplace, in hospitals and elsewhere.
11. Engaging with employers is one of the headline improvement targets in the FE plan and workplace basic skills is a key development theme. In 2004-05 the Basic Skills at Work project will have a target of 300 workplace learners: employees in a variety of small and medium-sized enterprises including ethnic restaurants, care workers (basic skills being provided alongside the above NVQs), County Council cleaners in schools, teaching assistants, City Council car park attendants and refuse collectors. A possible future development is work with cleaning staff in the Fire Service. Additionally 500 workplace learners in the Oxford Radcliffe Hospital Trust and working for the Primary Care Trust will be funded by South East England Development Agency.
12. The programme of skills for teaching assistants will expand, with an introductory recruitment course ‘What’s it like to be a Teaching Assistant’, and in-service courses with the potential for progression to Higher Education.
13. Introductory-level computer-based courses and IT skills have enrolled fewer numbers in 2003-4, partly due to the growing competence of learners, and their need for more advanced or specialist courses, partly due to competition from colleges and other providers choosing to expand their provision with free courses. In 2004-05 the County Council Service’s fee policy will be to make IT skills in FE free at entry and first level, to enable the courses to be promoted as free, analogous to the basic skills of literacy and numeracy, particularly to the harder-to-reach learners. This is costed to break even with the achievement of an additional 500 learners.
14. Childcare training NVQ courses continue to be a high priority, and the Service intends to develop a wider programme within the FE stream, training 120 people as its share of the countywide target of 400 learners.
15. It is not yet possible to indicate what the level of funding for FE will be in 2004-05 (2002-03 outturn was £1,534,871) but it may be possible to report it to the May Executive meeting.

Non-accredited Adult and Community Learning (ACL)

16. The main programme of non-accredited learning has an indicative allocation of £1,984,838, compared with £1,931,528 in 2003-04. It will be dependent on 2003-04 targets being met. The LSC has still to report on the approach it will take in 2005-6 and other LSC priorities, such as funding free Level 2 work, may jeopardise the funding of any non-vocational adult learning above a ‘safeguarded’ percentage.
17. Family learning, and family literacy, language and numeracy (FLLN) continue to be priorities. In 2004-05 family learning programmes in ACL centres, schools, libraries and other settings will have a target of 1100 adult learners (children being additional), against a grant of £131,427. The target number of adult learners for FLLN in schools and family centres will be 700, against an LSC grant of £216,953.
18. An indicative further Adult Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant of £31,653 will fund progression projects, including building on this year’s programme of accredited courses leading to qualifications in interpreting and translating.
19. Funding for Neighbourhood Learning in Deprived Communities of £99,358 (specifying wards in Oxford, Banbury and Berinsfield) will help develop sustainable learning programmes in the community IT centres funded originally by New Opportunities Fund, but now needing to adapt their work to mainstream revenue.
20. The County’s New Start Adult Guidance service, part of the interagency Information, Advice and Guidance group, will have a target of 1000 one-to-one interviews as well as group work and information and advice services for the public.

Governance

21. The first meeting of the core new advisory group will be in summer 2004, with full implementation from September 2005. Representatives of school, voluntary and community sector and business partners and staff will be recruited. The Scrutiny Committee is invited to decide its representative on the advisory group.

Review of staffing structure in the ACL Service

22. The structure of the ACL service has been based, since the service began, on locating professional staff in centres, most of them attached to schools, with a small central team for staff development and, increasingly, supporting national curriculum initiatives such as basic skills, family learning, and the development of centres for IT and electronic learning. Local managers managed most of the curriculum range for their locality, with the support of administrative staff and, more recently, outreach workers and part-time curriculum co-ordinators in the larger centres.
23. Since 2001 learner numbers, curriculum development and quality have been resourced and reported in a tight curriculum framework. This has stretched the roles of local staff, and required complex communication routes, in all rural services. Many local authorities have restructured to some extent to give more emphasis to curriculum and to central development and quality functions, in at least the major curriculum areas. Curriculum focus is one driver for review of Oxfordshire’s staffing structure. A further rationale is that the number of learners enrolling in each academic year and the level of funding for them will continue to be uncertain, and so a future service structure will have to be more flexible and cost-effective in order to sustain the different types of provision, level of service, choice and local responsiveness that have characterised Oxfordshire’s offer.
24. The 2003-06 Three-Year Plan committed the Service to reviewing its structure, with an implementation date for the outcome of review of structure of January 2005. Options for consultation will be published for consultation with staff, unions and stakeholders in May 2004. The options are likely to be alternative structures for balancing the need for strong organization to support main curriculum areas, as well as excellent local networks to be in touch with local communities’ learning needs, to outreach and market informally and to tap into local resources. Options will be deposited in the Members’ Resource Centre as soon as they are sufficiently developed and costed and it is hoped that they will be at a stage at which they can be outlined in the version of this paper going to Scrutiny.

Infrastructure

25. Locally-managed finances will come into the County Council cost centre structure so that fee income can be managed and audited within the same process as grant expenditure. Many local tutoring staff (there are some 650 altogether) are currently paid via a local payroll agent, and this will be reviewed as soon as in-house capacity permits.
26. Data-collection is currently outsourced to a specialist firm. It will need to become an in-house operation again as soon as possible in order to achieve speed and comprehensiveness of monitoring and a tender for software is likely to be developed in summer 2004.
27. Assessment of ACL use of school premises is also close to completion, and will have a bearing on where key administrative bases for the Service are located in future.

RECOMMENDATIONS

28. The Scrutiny Committee is RECOMMENDED to:

1. note the planning process for Learning and Skills Council funded FE and Adult and Community Learning for the academic year 2004-05, and the timescale for negotiation and confirmed allocations;
2. advise the Executive on the revised Mission, Aims and Objectives, the outline plans for main areas of activity in 2004-05, and the staffing and infrastructure considerations set out in this report;
3. decide its representative on the core new Advisory Group.

KEITH BARTLEY
Director for Learning & Culture

Background Papers: Consultation letter and responses

Contact officers:
Mari Prichard, Head of Adult and Community Learning Tel. (01865) 815153
Suzanne Bridgewater, Adult and Community Learning Officer Tel. (01865) 815232

April 2004

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