Meeting documents

The Executive
Tuesday, 19 March 2002

EX190302-13

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ITEM EX13


EXECUTIVE - 19 MARCH 2002

THE ADULT LEARNING PLAN 2002-03

Report by Acting Chief Education Officer

Introduction

  1. The Adult Learning Plan is required by the Department for Education and Skills from all local authorities that deliver, or secure by subcontracting, a programme of non-accredited learning. The plan must be delivered to the local and national offices of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) by 28 March 2002. This report summarises the background, outlines the consultation arrangements, and selects key items from the text of the Plan. A copy of the Plan has been placed in the Members’ Resource Centre and is available for public inspection

    2. Background

  2. Oxfordshire County Council governs two strands of adult learning under contract to the Learning and Skills Council:

    • Around 18,000 learners (some 25,000 enrolments) in non-accredited classes, which Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) funded itself until March 2001, and which it continues to provide, with LSC funding at a level guaranteed until the end of summer 2003.This strand will then be funded via a learner-based formula. Nationally this strand has now become known as Adult and Community Learning, or ACL, to distinguish it from the other strands the LSC inherited. The Adult Learning Plan is the Plan for that work, and the structure of the Plan is determined by guidance published by the LSC in December 2001.

    • Around 4,000 learners in accredited and basic skills classes – what used to be called ‘Schedule 2’ - and which OCC delivered, until March 2001, under contract to the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) via a funding formula. This was generally known as the Further Education sector and OCC, because it was not a College of Further Education, was termed an External Institution. A separate planning process applies to this strand. Formula-funded units, reflecting length and costs of programmes, have been negotiated annually since the sector left Local Education Authority (LEA) control in 1993.

  1. In Oxfordshire’s adult education service the two strands have always been planned and managed together at the local level, to promote coherent local programmes, and because for most purposes learners had no need to distinguish between the strands. The whole OCC adult learning service, including ex-FEFC provision, is now known in Oxfordshire as the Adult and Community Learning Service, and in many cases the strands cannot sensibly be separated in the Plan. But to avoid confusion in this report and in the Plan, since Adult Community Learning (ACL) is the term that the LSC currently uses only for ex LEA, provision, the title OCC Adult and Community Learning Service, or OCC Service, is normally used for the whole service, and the term Adult Learning Plan, is used for specific reference to the more limited remit of the Plan. The ‘further education’ provision is referred to as ex-FEFC.

    2. Adult Learning Plan

  2. This plan is the second submission for LSC funding for the academic year 2002-03. The first submission was made in December 2001, and gave the first breakdown of the predicted learners, as well as specifying the allocations OCC was seeking under the various headings. Both these key documents are repeated in the Plan. The LSC’s provisional allocation to Oxfordshire County Council to fund the ALP programme of learning in 2002-03 is £1,940,222, including allocations that in previous years were separate Standards Fund sums.

  3. This Plan has a different structure from the December 2000 Adult Learning Plan, the first for the LSC, which described the aims and achievements of the whole service. The plan required by the Department for Education and Employment in December 1999 was different again, in seeking an overview of the lifelong learning opportunities contributed by all departments and branches of the local authority.

    4. Main Aims and Targets of the Plan

  4. The plan proposes an updated overall statement of purpose for the LEA’s Adult and Community Learning Service as a whole:

    5. "To develop and sustain across Oxfordshire a range of high quality lifelong learning opportunities that will engage new adult learners and enable all learners to gain knowledge and skills, progress in learning, and play an active and creative part in their communities"

  5. The plan characterises the OCC Adult and Community Learning Service as one that focuses on providing local learning opportunities distributed equitably across the County, underpinned by countywide provision of basic skills, guidance and learning disability services. The OCC Service provides programmes that are broadly-based or at specific levels, from first rung up to level 2 with some gap-filling at level 3, and aims to maximise the value to learners of being a local authority adult learning service, operating across the whole County as the largest single provider of adult learning opportunities, and playing a major role in local planning for lifelong learning. The OCC Service plans its provision to complement that of voluntary and private providers, Further Education colleges, and Higher Education institutions.

  6. Flowing from its mission and needs analysis, the OCC Adult and Community Learning Service has these main strategic objectives for 2002 – 03 across the whole of its provision – both its ex-FEFC and its Adult Learning Plan provision:

    1. To widen participation in learning by:

        1. Working collaboratively with a range of partners to:

    • assess the needs of individuals, communities and employers;

    • maximise the value to communities of the different strengths and resources of partners;

    • secure new resources;

    • attract learners.

        1. Outreach – taking information, advice and guidance, and a range of learning opportunities to new learners in their own settings; providing an independent education and training guidance that is free and biased towards outreach and new learners.

        2. Expanding the number of first rung opportunities for new learners, with special emphasis on basic skills, ICT, family learning and childcare.

        3. Using the unique features of a local authority provider to increase the number of local learning centres, and to secure equality of opportunity for specific groups of learners who are underrepresented in learning, or who experience particular disadvantage.

      b. To improve the quality of learning, and the achievement and satisfaction of learners, by:

        1. Listening to learners and helping them voice their wants and needs;

        2. Maintaining a range of initial and in-service tutor training programmes and other quality systems to monitor and develop good practice in teaching and learning support;

        3. Continuing to develop curriculum that excites, challenges and retains learners, and actively promotes progress and progression.

      c. To develop high quality management and leadership at all levels of the service by:

        1. Improving internal communication;

        2. Ensuring the professional development of staff;

        3. Securing management information that is timely and accurate, and that is used at all levels of planning in the service;

        4. Managing the change from local authority to LSC funding to secure for learners and communities the benefits of both of change and continuity.

  1. To achieve these strategic objectives the OCC Service must attract learners to a broad and balanced curriculum across Oxfordshire and, alongside all its partners, stimulate the demand for adult learning in general, and attract learners to the two strands of provision:

    1. the strand funded under the Adult Learning Plan - provision for approximately 18,000 learners, with entry, level 1 and 2, or multi-level, learning opportunities, a balance in each locality across most of the adult curriculum range, and reasonable access across Oxfordshire to all 14 areas of learning, with concentration in areas 6 (ICT), 8 (Sports, Leisure), 10 (Health, Social Care and Public Services), 11 (Visual and Performing Arts), 13 (Languages);

    2. the strand funded under the plan for further education (ex-FEFC) - provision for around 4000 learners (to be confirmed in April 2002) – currently with a concentration in Learning Areas 5 (Business, Management and Professional), 10 (Health etc), 14 (Foundation Programmes including basic skills, learning disability).

  2. The Adult Learning Plan and the planned numbers of learners (rounded in the targets below) reflect the potential for growth across Oxfordshire in:

    • First rung ICT skills and community-based ICT with the clients and contacts of voluntary organisations: 750 additional learners, largely building on outreach and informal learning in local New Opportunities Fund projects.

    • Family learning in targeted communities: see paragraph 13 below.

    • First rung learning for women returning to work, or in poorly paid work related to childcare, learning support assistant work in schools, or care of the elderly: 60 learners, additional to the growth in 2001-2.

    • Adult basic skills awareness for the staff of other agencies, businesses and voluntary organisations – as a prerequisite for increasing the numbers of basic skills learners: 40 additional learners.

    • Foundation programmes, including specific and integrated programmes for adults with learning disabilities, and basic skills for recently arrived non-EU learners who will become members of the settled population, but do not yet qualify for ex-FEFC programmes: 90 additional learners.

Because much of the growth is aimed at new learners and targeted communities, it is likely to be more costly to establish and maintain than average; this is reflected in the bid to the LSC and in the OCC Service’s efforts to secure supplementary funding.

  1. In terms of service maintenance -

    • The OCC Service plans to sustain current levels of provision in a broad and balanced programme of learning that provides the context and progression for all targeted provision. The Adult Learning Plan will support a range of health, well-being, creative and personal development programmes across Oxfordshire and will actively aim to widen participation in that provision for people with few or no qualifications, people with disabilities, members of minority communities, and older learners.

  1. Possible reductions over the period of the plan -

    • Learning Areas 8 and 11. These may be vulnerable to the consequences of changed priorities and staff shortages (e.g. exercise, fitness, art and craft tutors, retiring or preferring to operate independently, outside the conditions set by LSC/OCC funding, though this is balanced by tutors fully committed to working with OCC to widen participation in learning). A possible overall loss of up to 400 places for learners is envisaged, making a proposed net gain of 540 learners for the core sum bid for.

  1. The plan also gives detailed plans for a proposed development of family learning (excluding family literacy and numeracy, which are differently funded), costed at £100,000, to extend the current provision and offer places for 900 adults and 965 children across Oxfordshire, in a variety of courses and partnership work. The proportion of the new national allocation for this work that will come to Oxfordshire is still not known, and a different allocation would entail different targets.

    2. Accommodation and Management Information Systems Developments

  2. The Service was invited to bid for (a) a programme of minor works, and (b) for adaptations and equipment to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act, both programmes limited to premises used wholly or mainly for adult learning. The provisional allocations for Oxfordshire were £80,178 and £115,056 respectively, and the proposed programme was part of the first submission, in December 2001. The OCC Service also supplied an outline accommodation strategy at that time to justify a series of major works, costing between £5,000,000 and £1,000,000, and on the basis of this was one of many LEAs invited to go through to the second stage of bidding – that proposed programme is also part of the Plan. If unsuccessful, it would be expected that the OCC Service would bid again next year.

  3. The final element of the plan is a bid for financial support to bring the infrastructure for Management Information up the point where it can more effectively support the LSC’s increasing requirements for timely and accurate learner data. The plan bids for £98,000 for broadband installation at 15 sites (linking into the overall OCC broadband project), ISDN installation at a further 14 sites, specialist software and inputting.

    4. Consultation

  4. Consultation on this plan has been by means of:

    • Local Community Education Committees;

    • OCC Adult and Community Learning staff;

    • Oxfordshire Learning Partnership District Widening Participation Planning Groups, representing a range of other providers and stakeholders in lifelong learning in Oxfordshire; and

    • OCC education partners (OCC education intranet).

Financial and Staff Implications

  1. The LSC main provisional allocation of £1.94M represents the core funding for the OCC Adult and Community Learning Service, paying the greatest single contribution to existing salary, premises and recharged OCC infrastructure costs. Some additional outreach and teaching staff would need to be appointed to fulfil OCC’s commitment, if the plan is accepted, to achieve the planned numbers in targeted provision across the core programme. But staffing for a responsive teaching programme across Oxfordshire is hard to quantify; the norm is for OCC Community Education Committees and countywide services to appoint such staff on the basis of professional judgement about available funds, likely take-up, and fee income, if any. The bids for Family Learning and for an MIS allocation, if successful, would entail the appointment of approximately 3 fte new staff.

  2. The Major Works application requires at least 20% matching funding from the LEA, and at the time of writing a mixture of OCC capital programme funds and non-LSC building grants already committed to adult learning (such as relocation costs in the Oxford City Schools Reorganisation, and elements of the Banbury Early Excellence Centre) are being proposed to the LSC as the main way to achieve this.

    3. RECOMMENDATIONS

  3. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to:

          1. approve the principles outlined in the report for the Adult Learning Plan for 2002-03, Second Submission, and authorise its submission to the Learning & Skills Council;

          2. subject to (c) below, approve the implementation of the proposals, so far as funded;

          3. authorise the Executive Member for Learning & Culture to approve, any changes requested by the Learning and Skills Council after submission;

          4. authorise the creation of new local and central posts, as described in the report, subject to the level of additional, bid-for, LSC funding.

ROY SMITH
Acting Chief Education Officer

Background Papers: Nil

Contact Officer: Mari Prichard, Head of Adult and Community Learning Tel: (01865) 810525

February 2002

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