12 October 2007

Rapidly branded by the Opposition as the magpie Chancellor for taking ideas on inheritance tax from the Conservatives and on green taxes from the Lib Dems, was there anything to crow about for the world of education and skills in Alistair Darling’s thumping Comprehensive Spending Review announcement and Pre Budget Report this week?

His 32 minute speech started ominously enough, “as my Rt Hon Friend made clear in the Budget earlier this year, this Spending Review is tighter for many departments” but by the end of the speech, it was clear that education would escape reasonably lightly, “I can announce the final figures for education will be higher than originally proposed.”

In fact they were 0.3% better, meaning that for England at least, spending on education and skills will grow by an average 2.8% a year over the 3 year Spending review period, 2007/8 – 2010/11, rising to £74bn or 5.6% of gross domestic product by that time. As ever, this money comes at an important time. By 2010/11, the 14 – 19 system will need to be embedded, the first of the Leitch interim targets met, the review of HE tuition fees completed and progress made towards 80% employment. The particular performance measures for the next three years, Public Service Agreements or (PSAs,) all 30 of them, are set out in accompanying Annexes. At least 12 of these depend on some input from the education and skills system, 6 directly and 6, such as the health and welfare of children and maximised employment opportunities, indirectly.

The 2.8% increase may appear tight against the 5%+ increases in the 2002 and 2004 Spending Reviews and is below the 4% increase for the NHS but it compares favourably with the 1.5% for defence, 1.1% for the Home Office and 2.1% for public spending generally. Certainly both Education Secretaries were quick to express their pleasure, “this is a very good settlement” declaring Ed Balls.

At the DCSF three features stand out from the Chancellor’s announcements.

First an additional £250m over the CSR07 period, meaning £400m a year by 2010/11, to help embed personalisation. Specific details on how this is to be allocated will come as part of the launch of the Children’s Plan later this year but we already know some has been set aside to personalise tuition for children in Key Stage English and maths. The CSR also endorses the extension of extended hours services in schools especially in disadvantaged areas with £217m a year by 2010/11. CSR07 is thus continuing to support two of the more opaque Labour education policies, namely educare and personalisation.

Second, an additional £200m of capital investment on top of the Budget £1.15bn is being set aside to accelerate primary school building. Along with 3,500 Sure Start Children’s Centres due by 2010, this money ensures the bricks and mortar are being put in place to support the Every Child Matters agenda. And third, and another hot topic at present, a lot of attention is being focused on young people and NEETS with three PSAs, numbers 10,11 and 14 in this area.

Over at DIUS, equal gleeful counting up of money is going on. The biggest chunk is to support the Leitch agenda, the HE and skills budget rising from £14.2bn in 2007/8 to £16.4bn by 2010/11 and the overall DIUS budget from £18bn to £20.8bn over the same period. Included in this is the projected and already variously announced increase in Train to Gain money to just under £1bn by 2010/11 but the £5.3bn a year set aside for skills by 2010/11 is a big slug of money and shows the commitment to Leitch.

It’s intended to deliver 3.7m adult qualifications over the 3 year period as indicated in PSA 2. This has six Leitch based targets, many of which, to coin the phrase, are pretty challenging including a rise in the proportion of people of working age achieving functional literacy and numeracy, 597,000 for L1 literacy and 390,000 for Entry 3 numeracy, 79% of working age adults qualified to L2, 56% to L3, 34% to L4 and 130,000 apprenticeship completions.

The target spells out some of the changes currently sweeping through the skills system involving employer prioritisation of qualifications, a focus on economically valuable skills and a shift towards demand led provision. However, it has less to say on transforming the demand side; as ever it is the supply side that has to be knocked into shape to deliver on the perceived demand. The Report also confirms the extension of the contentious brokerage model, with the promise of the launch of a ‘single, integrated business support brokerage service, including skills brokerage’ in April 2009. Other bits of the skills system, the Commission for Employment and Skills, roles of RDAs and Local Authorities, outlined in the summer sub national review and elsewhere, are also confirmed.

Apart from Leitch, another familiar name now joins the DIUS target sheet and that’s Sainsbury. Lord Sainsbury was commissioned last autumn to conduct a further review on Science and Innovation in the UK, updating some of the priorities in the existing 10 Year Strategy. His Report came out just before the CSR and features heavily in it.

Along with over £1bn to support the Technology Strategy over the 3 year period, CSR07 confirms spending on science will increase from £5.4bn to £6.3bn over the same period. Both sectors are dear to Gordon Brown’s heart and they will be driven along by PSA 4 which includes amongst its six targets an increase in the numbers of young people taking A level sciences, an area which saw some small welcome increases in this summer’s exam entries.

Finally, we should not forget the ‘U’ bit of DIUS. Along with all of the above, over £1bn extra funding will be pumped into HE over the next three years to increase participation by around 50,000 by 2010/11, to maintain student funding levels and to provide for the extended financial support for students.

The Chancellor may have got the bird but the two education depts seem fairly chirpy.

© Edexcel Policy Watch 2007. Steve Besley is General Manger of Education Policy at Edexcel. Policy watch is a service intended to help busy people understand developments in the world of education. Visit Edexcel at www.edexcel.org.uk