To approve the adult and community learning plan 2015/18

The senior adviser, post 16 learning and skills, presented the plan, which is essential for the delivery of the Skills Funding Agency contract. The main points being:

•           much of the contract is fulfilled though community and voluntary organisations which enables access to specialist providers and reduces the need to appoint staff directly to the council;

•           the plan supports access to those furthest away from the labour markets and success rates were high with people engaging and achieving qualifications particularly in English, maths and ICT;

•           learning is in the community to encourage access to learning and over 1000 people have been engaged;

•           there was close working with the Department for Work and Pensions and Jobcentre Plus, children’s centres and troubled families teams;

•           there were many benefits to supporting improved life chances;

•           within its small budget, the service was achieving its aims;

•           adult and community learning is personal to the individual. However, it was intended to establish an impact analysis and so a follow up survey would be sent out to see how it has helped to improve outcomes.  Responses showed that people were able to progress to further learning or to employment;

•           the fees policy is in place on the basis that if people can pay for learning, they should pay.

The cabinet member, young people and children’s wellbeing, added that this was an important service for people to access and had benefits to the wider community and securing their wellbeing. Officers were thanked and their work was welcomed, and it was evident that it was appreciated within the community.

The Leader thanked officers and acknowledged the value of this work. 

In answer to a question from the group leader of the Herefordshire Independents regarding the resilience of small organisations such as Herefordshire Headway, it was explained that as it is hard for smaller organisations to operate, support was available with quality assurance and access to funding streams such as the Big Lottery Fund to support growth of their business. 

The Green group leader commended the report and the work of the service and noted the positive outcomes. She noted that the budget has been static and so the number of learners that could be accommodated was dropping. Officers acknowledged that Herefordshire had a small settlement in 2000 which had not changed and which had prompted debate regarding whether the community learning programme should remain. There were opportunities to look at funding such as European Social Funding and Local Enterprise Partnership.

The leader of It’s Our County endorsed the comments and asked about the timing of evaluation surveys which might have shown a better position if learners were tracked over a longer period of time.  He also commented on the relationship between fees and cost of delivery and whether this reflected subsidy levels. It was explained that learner evaluation is longer term and personalised with the focus on the most deprived areas. As regards fees, consideration was being given to whether to grow the business and where it could be placed in the market.

The leader of It’s Our County asked if the report had been to scrutiny and it was confirmed that it had not.

The Leader thanked officers for superb work.

RESOLVED

THAT:

(a)        the Adult and Community Learning Service’s (ACLS) delivery and outcomes for 2013/2014 be noted;

(b)       the Adult and Community Plan for 2015/2018 be approved;

(c)        the expenditure of the grant allocation for the academic year 2015/16 from the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) against priorities identified be approved; and

(d)       the Fees Policy for 2015/2016 academic year be approved.