College and ITP Accountability to Meet Labour Market Needs
For the first time since the Learning and Skills Council closed in 2010, further education colleges (and independent training providers and higher education institutions to a lesser extent) are producing and contracting with DfE for a form of skills plan, showing how their curriculum is developing to meet labour market needs.
Since the LSC closed DfE has maintained the fiction that FE and apprenticeships operate in a “free” market where the demands of employers and students are exerted directly on providers and price/cost is the only major lever that DfE use to drive the system. This market-based philosophy has led to a position whereby there the delivery of training and education is not aligned with employer need, for example:
Apprenticeship providers are effectively incentivised to deliver cross sector skills such as management (at all levels) rather than occupations requiring investment in teaching staff and capital equipment, such as engineering.
Full time, largely college-based hairdressing courses have grown in number while employers cry out for apprentice recruits.
FE courses/qualifications have developed at a level higher than the actual occupation (eg bricklaying level 3 when the occupation is level 2)
Gaps in 16 to 19 provision persist, delivered by very few FE colleges at all (such as in logistics and marketing).
The Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 has placed a statutory requirement on FE colleges, sixth form colleges and local authority providers to review their provision, “have regard to” the Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP) produced by a local employer-led organisation, and collaborate with other colleges/providers to produce an “accountability statement”. This requirement is reinforced by “enhanced inspections” by Ofsted which include a sub judgment on the extent to which the college is meeting labour market needs.
Each college will develop its accountability statement based on four sources:
Guidance on accountability agreements from the Secretary of State. This has just been re-issued with a firmer requirement to address seven national priority sectors (construction, manufacturing, digital and technology, health and social care, haulage and logistics, engineering, and science and mathematics). Notably the description of these sectors does not align with how they are defined in occupational maps. There may also be priority given to transferable skills.
The LSIP in their area, which will likely contain sectoral priorities (including occupations) overlapping with those listed above as well as cross sector skills needs in relation to digital, net zero and transferable skills. LSIPs will usually also contain granular skills gaps relating to local employers’ existing workforce skill needs.
The skills report of the local LEP or skills plan from a combined authority
Colleges’ own review based on LMI and links with employers.
No individual college is going to deliver all of these sectors, meaning that the college response must be, at least in part, about all local colleges. For example, only a few colleges are likely to deliver logistics courses while the number of colleges delivering engineering have reduced significantly over the past decade. Health provision is a minefield given the budgetary control in the Dept of Health rather than DfE. Colleges, perhaps working with their ERB and LEP/CA are going to have to take decisions on specialisms across any given area (if they have not already done so). This is not easy with a funding system that incentivises competition.
However, sector priorities are very limited if there is no prioritisation of occupations or skills within those sectors. Skills shortage occupations within these sectors are going to be largely at levels 3,4, 5 and 6 and could be very large in number. Colleges need to know which occupations are the real priorities and determine which could be the subject of viable programmes. Therefore, even within the national priority sectors, the actual priority occupations can only really come from the LSIP, the LEP/CA or the college itself.
Employer Representative Bodies (ERBs) have all published their “emerging priorities” documents at the end of March and must produce their final LSIP by the end of May. Between these two dates, ERBs are required by the guidance, to work collaboratively with colleges and other providers, in order to turn their employer requirements into “specific actionable priorities”. This is actually the key period for ERBs and colleges to get this right. It is not in the interests of Colleges for LSIP priorities to be too large in number, too vague or too generic. These partners need to engage now (if not already) on the nitty gritty of this if LSIPs are going to add any value for the employers and students.