‘Skills’ is a slippery term in English public policy. Read a story about investment in skills and you often find a report of government investment in universities. Read about devolution of skills however and it’s unambiguous – skills in this context equals FE, though oddly only FE for adults. Devolution is an even more slippery concept so the two combined spell double trouble.
The government has agreed that the ‘commissioning’ of adult skills will be devolved as part of a number of ‘deals’ cut with local authority areas covering nearly half the country; but not all the FE budget will be devolved even there.
Devolution will exclude apprenticeships – the fastest growing and politically most important part of ‘skills’ policy. While some apprenticeship choices are being devolved to employers using the new levy, all big decisions in fact remain at the centre. Rules on what counts as an apprenticeship; what ‘cap’ is placed on funding for specific standards and where the levy can be spent cannot be changed locally.
The same is true of the only other part of the adult FE budget that is expanding. Loans will continue to be managed by the Student Loans Company under rules set by central government; the scope for local involvement is minimal.
Not even all of the shrinking rump of the adult education budget can be devolved. National entitlements to free provision – for basic skills for example – will be protected; and as the total shrinks they will constitute an ever greater share.
The fact that what will be devolved is vanishingly small perhaps explains the absence of any clear thinking about how it will be devolved. Will for example the Greater Manchester combined authority receive (or perhaps just influence ) a budget based on the colleges and other providers based in Manchester; or on students from Manchester wherever they study; or perhaps the population of Manchester. All have their problems.
Take the first option. Once they have the devolved budget can they spend it anywhere or only in Manchester? Could they refuse to support citizens from Liverpool who attend Manchester colleges? Or provision made by Manchester providers in other parts of the country. Or to look at it the other way round, why should only Manchester politicians be involved in decisions that affect regional or national provision – key to the Technical and Professional agenda at level 4+.
A budget based on Manchester students is no better. A college would have to bill Manchester for Manchester students and, assuming all devo deals are the same, send bills to up to 30 or more other devolved localities as well as one for the balance to the EFA. Could Manchester refuse to pay say, Liverpool College for a Manchester student arguing that there are equivalent courses closer to home? Could it refuse to pay for hairdressers anywhere? Could it change the rates paid?
Some argue that the historical approach is intrinsically unfair. Why should local communities be denied funding because their colleges were not so entrepreneurial in the past? A sum based on relative share of the adult population, adjusted perhaps for deprivation or sparsity, would seem fairer. However, it raises exactly the same questions about what the devolved authority can or cannot do with its funding – plus the extra problem that some areas would not have enough funding to pay for existing colleges or students while others would have a surplus.
It goes on and on. After devolution could Manchester spend its ‘skills’ cash on roundabouts? Or housing? If it did could Cheshire colleges turn back Mancunians not able to access FE in their own city?
One of the few attempts to address the problem has been by the Skills Commission which, in a recent report[1] advocated that devolved funding should be based on an area’s ‘capability and ambition’. Sadly this could be the worst of all worlds. It would leave central government free to judge capability and ambition behind closed doors (just as in the murky city deal process) while not answering any of the technical complexities sketched above. It seems an issue destined for the longest of long grass.
[1] ‘Going Places: Innovation in FE and Skills’ 2016
