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Final Report
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Chapter 2. Executive Summary and RecommendationsSkills for what? 22. The skills people have affect every aspect of their lives. They have a decisive influence on their ability to secure paid employment and maintain themselves in it; on their capacity to understand, take part in and contribute to the wider society in which they live; on their status within that society; on their sense of self; on the quality of their relationships with other members of their family and their local community; and on their ability to give their children effective support in school. 23. To play an effective role in the labour market, people need a formidable portfolio of skills. These include the basic skills of literacy and numeracy; occupationally-specific skills; and generic work-related skills - also referred to as "key skills" - like communication, problem-solving and teamworking, on which employers are increasingly placing a higher premium.
24. However, what makes people "employable" is more complex than the possession of the right clutch of accreditable skills. If they are to secure employment and maintain themselves in it, people also need a range of "deployment" skills, like the ability to present themselves and to navigate the labour market effectively, qualities like self-confidence and motivation and basic work habits, like time-keeping. The second report of the National Skills Task Force(5) analyses the range of skills and qualities required and discusses the relevant background.
25. There is good evidence that "learning pays" and that people with better skills and qualifications are more likely to be employed and to be better paid. There is an important exception to this general correlation in the case of ethnic minority people, whose relatively high representation in further and higher education is not reflected in their position and status in the labour market.
26. To contend with the many pressures of everyday life and in particular with the new challenges associated with economic and social change, people also need a variety of other "coping" and inter-personal skills.
27. The factors which affect whether any particular individual is able to acquire and develop all of these skills and qualities are self-evidently complex. Besides experiences of education and training, they also include culture, environment and personality. However, just as the risks and uncertainties associated with the modern economy are rapidly increasing, the capacity within many local communities to help people navigate those risks with confidence is diminishing. This decline in "social capital" - evident in, for example, the striking reduction in the number and importance of community-level organisations in former coalfield communities - is a long-run phenomenon with many causes - and consequences. But it has a significant role in cutting people in some disadvantaged communities off from learning and the labour market.
Skills and social disadvantage
28. As a general rule, people who live in areas that suffer from severe social disadvantage are disproportionately likely to have few or no qualifications; poor literacy and numeracy skills; and low self-confidence and "coping" skills. They are also more likely than people who live elsewhere to be reluctant or lack the confidence to take deliberate action to improve their skills or to engage in learning.
29. Not all disadvantaged areas are the same of course; and there are differences in the demography and traditions of particular neighbourhoods that account for significant variations in the skills of local populations.
30. Low levels of qualifications and skills do not only mean that people are more likely to be unemployed and hence poor. Low skill levels have a sapping effect on people's self-confidence and they also reduce individuals' capacity - and their willingness - to act to improve their situation. The problem of local capacity is exacerbated where, as is often the case, very few residents of disadvantaged areas have higher level qualifications or belong to the more skilled occupational groups. It does not help that so many of the professionals who work in disadvantaged areas do not live there and that there are therefore no role-models of professional attitudes and behaviour for those who grow up locally.
Improving skills
31. Action to improve skills in disadvantaged areas comes from six main sources:
b) investment by employers in improving the skills of their own workforce;
c) area-based regeneration programmes like the Single Regeneration Budget and the New Deal for Communities, which have often included a significant "human capital" element;
d) local community and voluntary organisations, whether their primary purpose is educational or not;
e) local public sector organisations from non-educational sectors, including in particular culture and health;
f) the actions of individuals themselves.
32. In practice, of course, action on the ground is usually the result of several of these different agents working together.
33. Total national investment in education and training is now enormous. In 1997-98, it was estimated to have exceeded £44 billion. Of that total, about £33 billion came from public sector sources. At today's prices, it has been estimated that an average person can now expect £70,000 to be spent on their education and training in their lifetime. While much of that sum will typically come from the taxpayer, an increasing amount is being invested by individuals themselves.
34. Of the £33 billion of public funding invested each year in education and training, a very significant amount is directed towards socially disadvantaged areas. There have, in addition, been a number of initiatives in recent years intended to ensure that the skills needs of people in disadvantaged areas are better addressed. However, a recent study(6) of the destinations of Government spending found that, while disadvantaged areas receive proportionately more public education and training expenditure than more prosperous areas, the differential is significantly less than for most other types of public spending.
What is going wrong?
35. Despite all the investment - both public and private - and the widespread acknowledgement of the priority that should be accorded to improving skills, there are areas of the country where the number of people who lack essential work-related or basic skills is extremely high - and where there is often little hope in sight. Why have the current arrangements failed them?
36. The PAT believes that there are three main reasons why this situation persists:
b) local capacity to develop and sustain initiatives which can help people improve their skills is usually weak and, as a result, local involvement in and ownership of learning activities equally so;
c) residents of socially disadvantaged areas believe they have nothing to gain from improving their skills and that, no matter what they learn, it will make no difference to their prospects, in the labour market or more generally.
37. We believe that the education and training system is failing to meet the needs of socially disadvantaged adults because:
b) education and training provision for adults is often physically remote, intimidating or for other reasons difficult for socially disadvantaged people to access;
c) not enough is done actively to engage adults in disadvantaged communities in learning;
d) not enough is done to provide first-rung provision of the kind that is most likely to appeal to adults with low self-confidence and to help them take the first steps back into learning and the labour market. In part, that is because public policy has concentrated strongly in recent years on providing education and training which leads to qualifications. This has led to a significant mismatch between the provision that is available and what is actually needed;
e) for similar reasons, there is little provision available to help people develop generic skills like self-confidence, self-presentation and timekeeping. There is evidence that these have a role equal in importance to vocational skills in helping people to access the labour market;
f) the qualifications system is itself complex and confusing and puts people off;
g) public sector organisations whose purpose is to deliver education and training for adults do not always treat the needs of socially disadvantaged adults as a priority. In part, this is a consequence of institutional incentives and disincentives created by funding systems operating at the national level;
h) the same organisations do not always work well together in either planning or provision. Again, this is in part because incentives and disincentives created by action at the national level which local agencies can often do little about; and
i) people who work in publicly funded education and training organisations are not always effective at addressing the needs of socially disadvantaged people.
38. Local capacity is weak because:
b) where local voluntary and community structures do exist, their effectiveness is significantly hampered by the funding and regulatory environment in the public sector, which is not well adapted to the needs of small organisations and which can make it difficult for them to cross the necessary threshold to become providers of learning.
39. People feel they have nothing to gain from improving their skills because:
b) physical and psychological isolation, combined with little experience of regular, paid employment, means that people do not feel a sense of connection with the labour market;
c) the benefit system and fear of losing benefit can act as powerful disincentives to engage in learning;
d) some employers, typically SMEs, give a low priority to the training and development of their own workforce and there are few opportunities for people in low-paid employment to train independently of their employer. Some employers consciously or unconsciously also engage in recruitment practices that are perverse, unfair or discriminatory, particularly towards members of ethnic minority communities, but also towards the residents of particular areas;
e) Taken together, these factors have a significant "backwash" effect on people's attitude to learning. They send the message that, just as the supply of suitable learning opportunities for disadvantaged people is inadequate, the perceived demand for skills does not make acquiring them worth the effort. People believe that improving their skills will have little practical effect in improving their prospects in the labour market and that getting a job depends not on what you know, but on who you know.
Recommendations
40. The Team is clear that the complexity of these problems will not respond to a single solution, but to patient sustained work on a number of fronts over an extended period.
41. The Team's recommendations are listed below. In a number of cases, there are close links between our recommendations and the emerging conclusions of other PATs. We have indicated these links where they exist.
The education and training system
Recommendation 1 - Neighbourhood learning centres
42. We believe that a new approach is needed to the delivery of education and training for adults who live in socially disadvantaged areas. It needs to recognise where people are starting from and to ensure that learning is truly accessible. We think that means that the right kind of learning opportunities - those which really engage people's interests and which help them develop the skills they want and need - should be made available in suitable local settings and that those involved in providing them need to take an active approach to engaging people, based on outreach. Engagement is much more likely to be effective where those involved in it have some credibility with local people, so the greater the involvement of local people in the management and delivery of learning, the better.
43. We therefore recommend that, to ensure that people in disadvantaged areas have access to the education and training they need, there should be a step-change in the level of "first-rung" provision that is available to them. Such provision should be delivered where people live through neighbourhood learning centres, in the management and operation of which local people should wherever possible have a significant stake.
44. Neighbourhood learning centres could take a variety of forms, including FE premises used for outreach work and UfI Learning Centres, as well as local community centres. They could also be used to deliver a wide variety of learning programmes, including provision organised by community and voluntary organisations, the local college, employers and the UfI as well as "learning" elements of over-arching regeneration programmes.
45. Their most important characteristics are that they should deliver learning which engages local people's interests; that, while recognising where people are starting from, what they offer should help people develop the skills they need in practice to access the labour market successfully, including building their confidence and motivation; that they should be truly local and accessible in practice; and that they should have an active approach to the engagement of local residents.
46. The DfEE should publish a plan setting out an approach to the development of neighbourhood learning centres, indicating how they will build on existing initiatives, in particular the local learning centres of the UfI, the learning centres being set up under the Capital Modernisation Fund, the work of the Adult and Community Learning Fund and the New Opportunities Fund. The plan should be published by Easter 2000.
47. The structural changes that have been proposed to post-16 education and training mean there is an opportunity, from the start, to ensure that the new structures give the right priority to helping people in socially disadvantaged areas and take a strategic approach to ensuring that the right kind of community-level learning is available in the right places.
Recommendation 2 - Priority for socially disadvantaged people in planning and funding systems
48. Better planning, co-ordination and responsiveness to the needs of the socially disadvantaged should be high priorities in the development of the proposed Learning and Skills Council and its local arms. The thorough reform of the institutions responsible for funding post-16 learning over the next two years means there is an opportunity that should not be missed to "design in" a much greater degree of responsiveness to the needs of the socially disadvantaged.
49. We therefore recommend that, in the essential development work following the publication of the White Paper, the DfEE should ensure that:
Recommendation 3 - Training for practitioners
50. Many people who work for providers of education and training work very effectively in socially disadvantaged communities, have a good understanding of local people's problems and are able to communicate and empathise with them effectively. This is not universally true however. If better connections are to be established or re-established between socially disadvantaged people and learning, more staff need to acquire the necessary skills. While, as proposed in recommendation 1, more involvement of local people in the management and delivery of learning will help in this respect, more and better training for the salaried staff involved is also important.
51. We therefore recommend that a programme of training and support should be put in place to ensure that practitioners responsible for delivering learning in disadvantaged areas are better able to meet the needs of local people. As a first step - and joining up with the cross-Government recommendation from PAT 16 - the DfEE should agree with FENTO by January 2000 how this recommendation might best be implemented for staff working in FE colleges.
Capacity-building
Recommendation 4 - Simpler funding systems
52. The most effective work we have seen with disadvantaged people has been delivered by local community and voluntary organisations, who usually have a much better understanding of local people's needs - and more credibility with them - than larger, more inflexible organisations in the public sector.
53. People who work for these organisations, however, say that the multiplicity of funding regimes and the often burdensome auditing and reporting requirements that go with them make their lives much more difficult. In particular, they say that the "bidding culture" that has grown up in recent years, as a response by the public sector to pressure to improve value for money, means that scarce administrative time has to be invested in putting together complex funding "cocktails". The short-termism of much public funding, which can make it very difficult to plan from one year to the next, is also frequently mentioned, as is an often unhelpful emphasis on "hard" output measures where these may be inappropriate and indeed at variance with desirable outcomes.
54. At the same time as these factors make life for community and voluntary organisations already involved in learning harder than it needs to be, they also make it more difficult for others to enter the market. So there is an argument for change on economic efficiency grounds too.
55. Central government, working with the voluntary sector, has begun to address these problems through the Compact with the voluntary sector and in other ways. We think it is essential that the implications of this work are fully worked through in the education and training field.
56. We recommend that, by April 2001, the DfEE should review its funding programmes and practices with a view to creating a funding and regulatory environment that allows for more community-generated initiative and enterprise in the delivery of education and training. As part of the related work on the Compact between central Government and the voluntary sector, the Home Office and the Treasury should together take the lead on the development of a code of good practice for Government funding programmes that are relevant to the community and voluntary organisations.
Recommendation 5 - Advice about funding
57. On a related point, many community and voluntary organisations say that they find it hard to make their way through the maze of requirements surrounding various funding programmes and that a local and sympathetic source of advice about how to navigate these would be immeasurably useful.
58. We therefore recommend that, to help small community and voluntary organisations in disadvantaged areas to access funding more easily and to reduce the bureaucratic burden on them, a publicly funded local service should be available to:
b) act as a signpost to other funding streams.
59. The Home Office should consult with DETR, DfEE, DTI, GOs, LAs and existing organisations already funded to provide this type of service with a view to making an advisory service more widely available to small community and voluntary organisations from April 2000.
Recommendation 6 - Community leadership training
60. If capacity is to be effectively built at local level - and in particular if more local people and local organisations are to be involved in the management and delivery of learning - , more needs to be done to encourage residents of disadvantaged areas to get involved in their community. Although it is by no means a complete answer, we think an important step is to give more encouragement to people who have the potential to start or lead locally generated initiatives.
61. To help engage more residents of disadvantaged areas in community activities, the DfEE, working closely with the Home Office, should organise a number of pilot community leadership programmes designed for local residents, to begin by January 2000. On the basis of the evaluation of the programmes, the two Departments should consider the case for a national programme of training in community leadership.
Attitudes to learning
Recommendation 7 - Information, advice and guidance
62. There is good evidence(7) that sympathetic information, advice and guidance services delivered in the right way can have an important role in changing people's minds about learning and in seeing how it might benefit them. A range of recent national policy developments recognise the importance of effective guidance. There is therefore an opportunity that should not be missed to ensure that the right kind of services are made available in socially disadvantaged areas.
63. We recommend that, to encourage people in disadvantaged areas to engage in learning, the DfEE should work with the UfI, the Employment Service, Learning Direct and Learning Partnerships responsible for developing local information, advice and guidance services for adults to ensure that all of these services cater adequately for people who live in socially disadvantaged areas and, where appropriate, reach out to and engage them. That should be a key priority for the national specification which will shape the development of local information, advice and guidance services after April 2000.
Recommendation 8 - School-business links
64. Experience of compulsory education exercises an important influence on adults' attitudes to learning and work. Effective activity in primary and secondary schools which demonstrates to young people the relevance of schooling to their future employment and which encourages a culture of enterprise is critical in laying the foundations for the future development of skills. This can be particularly important in socially disadvantaged areas, where young people may know few others from their direct experience who have improved their job prospects through learning and who can serve as suitable role models.
65. We recommend that, as part of its work, the Schools Plus PAT should consider the quality and effectiveness of current activity in disadvantaged areas to forge effective school business links and to encourage young people to be enterprising in their approach to work and make recommendations about how it might be improved.
Recommendation 9 - Employers
66. We believe that action is needed to change the messages that people in disadvantaged areas receive about demand
for skills in the labour market. Although they may say they think the skills of their workforce are critical, the behaviour of some employers may give the impression that they do not value them. Some continue to provide little training for their employees. Others also appear to make recruitment decisions on the basis not of the skills and aptitudes that people possess, but through informal recruitment networks and - worse - on the basis of prejudice about race or about where people live.
67. The DfEE should encourage employers to invest more in training for people from socially disadvantaged areas, who are likely to be low paid or employed on a part-time or insecure basis. Individual Learning Accounts, the Union Learning Fund, Investors in People, the National Training Organisations and the work of the Skills Task Force -particularly with SMEs - could all have an important role in helping employers to develop training programmes that are designed to help workers who currently receive little encouragement to learn.
68. To eliminate discrimination in recruitment decisions against people from particular neighbourhoods and ethnic minority people - and as also recommended by the Jobs PAT - central Government should take action to help employers improve their recruitment practices by promoting good practice and by taking a lead in its own approach to recruitment.
Recommendation 10 - Data
69. We do not know enough about the levels of skills in disadvantaged areas. That places obvious limitations on the effectiveness of plans to improve them. In particular, while it is generally clear that people in disadvantaged areas have lower levels of basic and employment-related skills than elsewhere, we know little about the skills which are particularly lacking in individual areas or about the differences between areas.
70. The DfEE should make firm recommendations by December 1999 about the data that should be collected to inform policy on improving skills in socially disadvantaged areas and on target-setting in the same areas (see recommendation 11 below). This work will need to be taken forward in the wider context of PAT 18's work on assembling better small-area information.
Recommendation 11 - Targets
71. We believe that, if all of these changes are implemented, they will make a significant difference in helping people in disadvantaged areas to become involved in learning, to enhance their skills and to improve their prospects in the labour market. We also believe that, provided the right baseline information can be established, these changes will be measurable.
72. There are good arguments for setting a clear over-arching goal to guide all the activity that is needed and to allow progress to be monitored. The Government recently adopted(8) a set of national targets for improving participation and attainment in adult learning up to 2002. The key targets were that:
73. Local Learning Partnerships have been asked to develop local strategies to determine how they might contribute to the achievement of these targets in their areas.
74. We feel nevertheless that it would not be right for the Government to set specific external targets for the improvement of skills in disadvantaged areas. That would be inconsistent with the general message of this report that policy on education and training in disadvantaged areas has often been too "top-down" and that this has resulted in too little local ownership of initiatives aimed at improving skills.
75. We recommend instead that:
5. Second Report of the National Skills Task Force, DfEE, 1999
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