Our second agenda item is evidence on the Scottish Government’s 2014-15 draft budget. The committee has agreed to focus its scrutiny on the Scottish Government’s youth employability commitments, on their funding and on how the policy focus on younger learners is impacting on lifelong learning.
Good afternoon. There has been a focus on trying to address employability issues, in particular youth unemployment. We have seen in a recent Audit Scotland report some of the implications of that for older and adult learners. Professor Gallacher referred to that in written evidence. What do you regard as being the current trade-offs and impact of the policy on employability generally among older and adult learners?
Before I start, convener, I point out for the record that although I am here in my capacity as an independent academic, I am also a member of the board of the City of Glasgow College.
Your written submission suggests that the number of part-time HNC courses has declined from around 14,800 back in 2001-02 to 5,380 in 2011-12. Obviously, there will be a variety of reasons for that—the reasons why people take up part-time courses go well beyond employability—but is there potentially a weakness in our overall employability strategy in having too dramatic a shift away from part-time provision, particularly given the needs, as we have heard in previous budget processes, of female learners and older learners? Is that an accurate representation?
Certainly, the college sector as a whole should be very cognisant of those figures. Significant questions should be asked about how we can ensure that there is more high-quality part-time work-based provision than there is at present, and we should look at ways of addressing that trend. As you said, those figures are but part of the overall picture, although they are significant.
The focus on full-time course provision has been a clearly stated objective of the Scottish Government. What latitude is there for individual colleges or colleges within regions to take a view about provision that would allow them to address potential weaknesses—for example, a shortfall of part-time provision?
That relates to the point that I made in the final section of my written submission, to which you have drawn attention. We need to consider the range of qualifications that we currently provide and whether that range provides the most appropriate courses for the needs of the Scottish economy at the present time.
I am conscious of time. I do not want to inhibit questions or answers, but we really have to try to be as snappy as possible. Joan, do you have a quick supplementary?
I have a very quick one. Professor Gallacher’s submission helpfully examines the age profiles of students in colleges from 2009-10 to 2011-12. As you rightly say, the 16 to 24-year-old age group profile goes up. What is interesting is that the 25-59 group—the lifelong learners—stays exactly the same and the only group that has experienced a significant fall is the 60 and over group, which is people of retirement age. Given that the cake is only so big—the Scottish Government is living off a fixed grant—if you had to set priorities, would you say that it is probably correct that the priority is to maintain training for people of employment age? We do not want to cut back on anything, but do you agree that if we have to cut back on something, courses for people who are retired might have to go?
As you suggest, we face difficult choices in everything. It is important to bear in mind the role of the colleges in providing a wide range of education opportunities. In that respect, the colleges have been extremely good at providing opportunities for adult learners to come back into the system. The 25-59 age group has remained relatively stable, which is good. In my paper I quote the number of enrolments; if you were to look at the number of full-time equivalents, you would see a rather different picture in which young people are a much higher percentage of FTEs—the picture turns round.
I have one very quick question. Your evidence mentions the reclassification of colleges and the implications for their reserves. What discussions have you had with the Scottish Government and the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council between 2010 and now, and what stage you are at?
Do you mean with regard to the Office for National Statistics, in particular?
Yes, because the matter was flagged up in 2010 and it will happen next year.
Obviously the issue is not just for me, but for the whole college sector; I have colleagues in the college sector that are much more involved. The crucial thing now—I have referred to it—is the implications for college reserves. Many colleges have significant reserves and continue to generate significant surplus income at the end of each year. The crucial question will be about how those reserves can be safeguarded.
I would like the panel to comment on the flexibility of the different employability initiatives and any difficulties that have occurred as a result of employability and training being split between the UK and Scottish Governments.
Would Ken Wimbor like to respond to that question?
First, we have only just had our second meeting with Sir Ian Wood, who is looking at improved employment prospects for our young people. You will be aware that his interim report makes particular recommendations about the role of further education in that process.
I work in a college as well as being the vice-chair of the Unison FE committee. I believe that you are asking people to start monitoring students’ progress once they have left college and gone on to employment. With the funding cuts that we have had, it is difficult for colleges to do that. We do get monetary funding from SDS to monitor how students progress after they leave, but if you are asking colleges to do that in the normal financial environment, I do not believe that we have the necessary support staff.
I am reluctant to pre-empt the Wood report. Ken Wimbor made a point about how we encourage apprenticeships. We are interested in the quality of apprenticeships, to which no equivalent of a quality-assurance process is applied. It is important for us to look at that, and we do not need to wait for the Wood commission’s report to do that.
I echo, in some measure, what Ken Wimbor said. The Wood commission is providing us with a valuable opportunity to address such questions. Some extremely important issues emerged in the interim report. To go back to my response to Mr McArthur’s questions, we in Scotland need to think much more carefully about how we address vocational education and training issues.
The panel might be aware that the committee has done work on the educational attainment of and outcomes for looked-after children. Does the current range of employability initiatives adequately address concerns about reaching harder-to-reach groups in society—those who were previously described as NEETS, or not in education, employment or training?
I echo to an extent what I said about the Wood commission. One outcome of the difficult financial position that FE has been in is that school-college partnership programmes, which have been on the go for a considerable time, have diminished. I hesitate to mention his name again, but Wood indicates in his interim report that he wants school-college partnerships to be reinvigorated. That relates directly to the youngsters whom you refer to and would improve the service that could be provided for that group.
As the committee is probably aware, the funding council has focused in recent years on the issue. Continuing recognition of and support for such work is important.
One issue is the support during education that is available to care leavers. Funding is available for higher education students who have left care, but we know anecdotally that take-up is much below even the abysmally low number of care leavers who make it into higher education.
Another problem for such students relates to the merged colleges. We will stop running certain courses at certain locations, so some students will have to travel an awful long way for the course that they want to take. We have problems with young men who face a fear of violence when they travel away from their communities. Some young people lack the confidence to take up education; if it is provided in their communities, they might take it up, but if we ask them to travel 20 or 30 miles to another community, they might not do that.
Are not a number of initiatives already in place in which colleges provide outreach services in communities?
Yes, but those are being cut. I work at the college in Stranraer, which is a remote college, and we had another resource at Newton Stewart, but the campus there has been cut. There are initiatives, but we no longer have the funding to be able to provide the outreach services that we used to provide. The situation is becoming more and more difficult.
There is a good point here. I do not think that regionalisation in itself is the problem, but community-based provision is a soft area. I have done quite a lot of research on the role of community-based education in the college sector, which is extremely important in providing opportunities, but it is a soft area, and when colleges look for cuts, there is a danger that that is how they will see community-based education.
Skills Development Scotland is responsible for a range of initiatives, including employability initiatives, and its funding comes from SFC budget allocations. How successful has SDS been at delivering college-based employability initiatives?
The get ready for work initiative worked quite well. However, SDS has stopped that and is moving on to a new type of funding. Obviously, that has only just started, so we cannot say how well it will work. With get ready for work, young people went into something like an apprenticeship—they worked in companies, and there was very little work in the college. The college provided employability skills such as CV writing, but the young people also had the experience of going into the workplace. I believe that the new funding is more college based, and I am not too sure how that will work—only time will tell with that. However, some of the SDS funding works very well.
Some of it?
Yes. Colleges also do a good job. Given the budget cuts, perhaps the money would be more wisely spent in further education colleges.
Obviously, that is a big question. The crucial issues go back to something that we have said several times already and are to do with how we move forward on vocational education and training. We have already made several references to the report that Sir Ian Wood’s commission is producing. We have to consider how, in future, we get the various organisations—SDS, the colleges and the other significant stakeholders—to work together to provide a better-quality vocationally based education. Until now, quite a lot of it has not been sufficiently good and there has not been sufficient joined-up thinking. There is a real need to look critically at that question.
If 1,200 staff have already left colleges, how can the regionalisation agenda make the expected savings of £50 million each year? Can the further education sector absorb further teaching number losses? What will the impact be on teaching numbers in the coming years?
On the regionalisation agenda, we support the principle of moving towards a more coherent strategic overview of the delivery of further education as opposed to the atomised system that we had through incorporation. It is unfortunate that that process of change, which is under way at the moment, coincides with a period of significant cutback in resource. That is a key issue. The 1,200 to 1,300 staff who have gone are split roughly evenly between teaching staff and support staff. It goes across the board.
As Ken Wimbor said, there is quite a lot of scope for constructive restructuring of the college sector. We have a college sector that was developed many years ago for a different era and there is a real opportunity for significant restructuring, to make the colleges much more focused and to address questions such as those that we are talking about.
There has been a reduction in the number of staff. The number of full-time equivalent students may have stayed the same, but there has been a reduction in head count. What will be the long-term general and economic impact of there being fewer staff and students in further education?
It is having a huge impact. I do not know whether you have read some of the recent press reports. Coatbridge College already has a £430,000 shortfall in its childcare budget and other colleges report that they are unable to cope with the demand for bursaries and childcare. Because of the cuts, there are reduced staff numbers, so staff are unable to cope with all the demands on them.
I am conscious of the time and I want to make sure that everybody gets a chance to answer. Some members want to ask questions. Gordon, did you want to add anything to that point, or has it been covered?
I think that that covers it. Obviously, there are big challenges in terms of regionalisation, which, as Ken Wimbor said, we support in principle. It is unfortunate that it is happening at a time of tight budgets. As Shirley Sephton said, we have heard lots of stories of students’ applications not being processed in time for them to receive their Student Awards Agency for Scotland loans. It is not clear whether that is due to the reorganisation of the colleges and processes not being put in place. We suspect that it is a capacity issue and that many of the staff who have left are not just teaching staff but administrative staff. They are people who perform crucial roles.
I would like to talk about some of the positive aspects of colleges. It is my nature—I cannot help myself.
I am very conscious of time. I apologise for asking for very short answers.
Yes, there are very useful things there. On the question of education provision for young people, one of the crucial questions is what kind of education they get. This goes back to my earlier point that we must make sure that we have the right qualification structure in place. It is not enough just to bring people into college. We have to ensure that when they are in the college they get a high-quality educational experience. That is a crucial question on which we should all focus very carefully.
I broadly agree. There are clearly good opportunities available and it would be a shame if other factors meant that those opportunities were not available to students and young people. The point about student support is important. It would be a huge shame if, for the sake of the relatively small sums of money that would give them adequate student support, students were pushed into payday lenders or into commercial debt, or were pushed out of their studies entirely and were not able to take up those opportunities.
The Government has increased the weighted SUMs targets this year for all colleges. In order to meet them, the colleges are increasing class sizes. I do not believe that that gives the child a better education. I recently talked to a lecturer who had been in the college for many years. She used to teach one class for 27 hours a week; that class is now being taught for 15 hours a week with one hour of self-study. There is no way that the colleges can give children the education and qualifications that they used to get with such a reduced number of hours. The only way that we can teach the numbers that we are being asked to teach, with the weighted SUMs targets, is by not delivering as good an education. That is not down to the lecturer; the lecturers are trying as much as they can. It is not down to the support staff, who are trying to support them. It is because we do not have the resources to teach those children as we should.
Unlike George Adam, I am a born pessimist—I am seldom disappointed.
You will balance each other up, Ken.
I want to make a point about funding in FE. The 2013-14 and 2014-15 budgets are an improvement on what went before but, to put it in context, the sector has lost £30 million since 2011. That is just under a 6 per cent cut in money terms, which does not take inflation into account. Bearing in mind restructuring and the desire to grab hold of any signs of recovery, particularly any signs of increased employment in the economy, FE has an important role, which will not be fulfilled with the kind of financial regime that it is facing at the moment.
Thank you all very much. I apologise yet again for the rather squeezed time that we had today. When I was busy apologising at the start for the squeezed time and the lateness of the start, I forget to mention your names. I thank very much Professor Jim Gallacher; Ken Wimbor, from the Educational Institute of Scotland; Shirley Sephton, from Unison; and Gordon Maloney, from the National Union of Students Scotland.