Funding and Finance
Learning for the 21st Century - Part One: Agenda Point 10
1.32 All providers, sponsors and funders of learning should
review and modify their own practices and arrangements to ensure
that these stimulate a far wider group of participants and do
not constitute barriers and incentives to lifelong learning. Over
the lifetime of this Parliament the aim should be, step-by-step
to increase the total volume of funding deployed to support lifelong
learning by Government, other public authorities, employers, charitable
bodies and individuals themselves.
1.33 The aim of public funding should be to:
- Release maximum leverage from public investment
- Relate the balance of public and private expenditure to evidence
on rates of return to individuals from learning
- Concentrate the release of new public resources on those who
have not yet achieved qualifications to NVQ Level 3
- Stimulate employer investment for all employees in all sectors
of the economy
- Encourage increased individual investment in learning, including
through use of Individual Learning Accounts
- Create a regulatory and funding regime where institutions
are responsive to the needs of lifelong learners
- Widen participation to include people currently excluded from
existing provision.
1.34 Government should take the lead in setting up a new Lifelong
Learning Millennium Foundation, building on the ideas set out
by Helena Kennedy to create a Learning Regeneration Fund. The
new foundation should promote innovation, disseminate good practice,
and 'pump prime' new initiatives. It should be a public-private
sector initiative with a small executive staff. It should draw
on lottery funding from the year 2000 with matching public and
private sector funding (until such funding is available, Government
should make interim funds available for specific local initiatives).
Its principal aims should be to:
- Foster innovation in lifelong learning
- Support specific initiatives to develop lifelong learning
for non-participant groups
- Encourage projects which support learning through the family
and in the community
1.35 The principles informing access to public funds should be
the same for part-time and full-time students, and the Government
should move towards equalising public investment for the
same 'episode of learning' irrespective of sector, mode or level
of learning. As an initial step, and once the new scheme for
full-time students in higher education has been implemented, plans
should be made for loans for learners to be available on a means
tested basis to part-time learners. Steps should also be taken
to end the age discrimination which denies access to loans to
people over 50 years of age.
1.36 Over the lifetime of this Parliament, Government should initiate
discussions to facilitate a full review by all concerned of the
appropriate balance of funding to be achieved between different
forms and levels of lifelong learning. This should include consideration
of priorities for funding within different levels of provision
and achievement as well as between them. Particular attention
should be given to the devotion of resources to securing basic
education, core skills and skills in information technology for
the whole of the population. The review should include a consideration
of how best employers and individuals can contribute resources
to lifelong learning. This should be not only through their energetic
support for, and use of, Individual Learning Accounts and through
varieties of workplace learning, but also by making use of possible
tax and fiscal incentives that might be introduced, following
consultation and costing.