UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 401-viii

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

WELSH AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

THE PROVISION OF CROSS-BORDER PUBLIC SERVICES FOR WALES

Tuesday 17 June 2008

MS SARA MOGEL and MR DAVID JONES

DR JOHN GRAYSTONE and MR JOHN STEPHENSON

Evidence heard in Public Questions 637 - 728

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Welsh Affairs Committee

on Tuesday 17 June 2008

Members present

Dr Hywel Francis, in the Chair

Nia Griffith

Mrs Siān C James

Mr David Jones

Alun Michael

Albert Owen

________________

Memorandum submitted by Association of Colleges

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Ms Sara Mogel, Principal, West Cheshire College (and nominated representative of the Association of Colleges), and Mr David Jones, Principal, Deeside College, gave evidence.

Q637 Chairman: Good morning. Welcome to the Welsh Affairs Committee. For the record, could you introduce yourselves, please.

Ms Mogel: I am Sara Mogel, I am the Principal of West Cheshire College.

Mr Jones: My name is David Jones, I am the Principal of Deeside College in Flintshire.

Q638 Chairman: Thank you very much. Could I begin by asking a very straightforward question. According to the statistics you gave us, West Cheshire College is the English college with the greatest number of Welsh-domiciled students. What would you consider, other than the obvious reason, to be the explanation for that?

Ms Mogel: As you say, there is an obvious reason that one of our campuses is a mile from the border, therefore for many students we are their nearest college. I think that is one of the reasons. There are also quite good transport links, particularly into Chester but also by train into Ellesmere Port. It often is the easy route for some of the nearer students to come to. The other reason is that they come to us sometimes for specialist provision that they cannot receive elsewhere. For example, we do a lot of pharmacy provision and we get hospital pharmacists coming to us from North Wales. We do an awful lot of work with employers, we are a specialist vocational college and one of the first 26 colleges to be awarded the Training Quality Standard for Excellence in working with employers. Probably quite a lot of them are living in Wales but actually coming to us via their employers. You have got to remember that does not necessarily mean they are coming on to the campus because over 40% of our students do not actually learn at the campus, they learn in their workplace.

Q639 Nia Griffith: Following on from that, does the number of Welsh-domiciled students that you have pose any challenges or particular issues for West Cheshire College?

Ms Mogel: They do not really pose us any major issues. I guess our real issue is that adult funding in England has declined and, therefore, that is an issue for all of our adult learners, but it is not necessarily different for a Welsh-domiciled learner than it is for an English-domiciled learner. They do not cause us issues in that sort of way.

Q640 Nia Griffith: Do you know whether the fact that the Lifelong Learning Networks scheme, which I understand does not operate in Wales and, therefore, Welsh-domiciled students cannot access that, in any way prevents them progressing to higher education with you and attending the English colleges to do that?

Ms Mogel: I do not think it prevents them progressing. One of the major advantages of the Lifelong Learning Networks is the planning and the strategy behind higher education particularly, as you say, in FE colleges so the development of foundation degrees, for example, is done as a co-operative. Probably there is some disadvantage to Welsh learners that their needs and aspirations are not involved in that sort of development activity. It does not actually stop them progressing on to higher education. I guess there is also the issue that we are not picking up the expertise from sister colleges that just happen to be across the border when we are having a look at how we are developing that provision.

Q641 Nia Griffith: So do you think more could be done in that respect?

Ms Mogel: I do think there is an opportunity there to have a look at how the Lifelong Learning Networks draw their boundaries, if you like. I know that makes life quite complicated but it might be worth having a review of that system.

Q642 Alun Michael: Could I just quote one thing from what you say. You say that Welsh-domiciled learners are "pushed to study at Welsh colleges even if less convenient or less suitable" and that English colleges are restricted in their ability to recruit and tailor their courses to local students. Do you have factual evidence of that because it is clearly quite a serious allegation?

Ms Mogel: Can I take this in two parts, one on recruitment, which I will come back to. You are quoting from the Association of Colleges' report. I do not think I would have personally used the word "pushed". If you want more evidence on that then I am sure the Association of Colleges could provide you with more evidence in writing.

Q643 Alun Michael: With respect, did we not ask the Association of Colleges to give evidence and you are it?

Ms Mogel: I am not sure that I am "it" in that I can ---

Q644 Alun Michael: It was the Association of Colleges who thought it would be best for the evidence to be provided by you.

Ms Mogel: I personally do not have any evidence of students being pushed to study in Welsh colleges.

Q645 Alun Michael: In that case, could we respectfully ask you as you are their representative to ask them to supplement those comments?

Ms Mogel: I will do that. I think the real issue is about recruitment. You will know that in the funding agreement we are told that we cannot recruit specific cohorts, so we are not able to give information to learners who might be very close to our college about the sort of opportunities that we offer. For a student, what they need to do in order to make a decision is they need to have full and informed choice and those who are on the border currently do not have that because we are not able to do it.

Q646 Alun Michael: What is the line between providing information and recruiting?

Ms Mogel: I guess there is quite a fine line between providing information and recruiting. Providing information allows people to make a decision on what is best for them in order to fulfil their potential and achieve their ambition. If you do not know all the opportunities that are available to you within your area because of a line on a map then that limits what you might want to be able to do. In terms of recruiting, English border colleges cannot go into Welsh schools even if the college is closest to that Welsh school.

Q647 Alun Michael: Can I be quite clear. Are you saying that the inhibition on recruitment is actually preventing you providing information?

Ms Mogel: Yes. If we "actively recruit", which is the phrase, then we could be prevented from drawing down funding.

Q648 Alun Michael: Are you saying that actively providing information is prevented by the restriction on recruitment? Is that not carrying it a bit too far?

Ms Mogel: I think it limits people's choice. I understand why it happens, but it does seem a shame that a line on a map that actually makes very little difference to people's travel has that implication for some students.

Q649 Alun Michael: Let me put the question another way. Are you being over-restrictive on yourselves if you are saying that a restriction on recruitment stops you providing information?

Ms Mogel: We provide information openly. For example, we have a website and anybody can do that, but we know that some of the active things we do on the English side of the border, such as our arrangements for working with schools, our arrangements with talking to employers about their up-skilling needs, some of the activities that take place to try to raise the profile of Lifelong Learning on the English side of the border, I am prevented from doing. If I did those activities on the Welsh side of the border then my funding would be in jeopardy.

Q650 Alun Michael: What changes would you like to see made, or do you think would remove undue restriction on what you can do?

Ms Mogel: One of the things that would be helpful is if we were able, both Welsh and English colleges, because the Welsh colleges also have some restrictions, to fully inform everybody of what opportunities are available. I do think that the watershed agreement on funding is clearer than the situation in terms of recruitment, which is strange but true. I also think that there is an issue about how the work with employers is funded and there is a very strict regulation on how we are able to fund work with employers. Train to Gain funding is not applicable for Welsh-based employers. Therefore, we are in the strange situation where we can offer English employers the advantage of Train to Gain but we can cross the road to a Welsh employer who wants to work with us and we cannot offer them that advantage.

Q651 Mr Jones: I have a brief supplementary to Mr Jones. Do you have similar inhibitions on recruitment your side of the border?

Mr Jones: Not really. As Sara has said, the information is out there, it is available, but we do not actively recruit across the border. One of the first things that comes to my mind when people talk about the border, as somebody who lives in Denbighshire, works in Flintshire, does his shopping in Chester and Wrexham and goes to watch football in Manchester, is what border? That is what it is like for the people on the ground and that is the reality of it. People move across that border and the information is actively available. From my own college's perspective, I do not feel that there is a great deal of unhelpful competition. There is useful competition in terms of the offer that the colleges provide. Going back to one of the points Sara made at the start, there are a couple of areas where, for instance, West Cheshire offers specialities, things that we do not offer, and equally we have areas, such as aerospace engineering, that they do not offer. It would not be sensible to duplicate things on the other side of the border just because the border happens to be there on a piece of paper.

Q652 Mr Jones: I had aerospace particularly in mind because you have a great number of students from the English side of the border attending courses in your college. Presumably they are in great demand because it is the biggest industry in that part of the world. How do you get information about the courses that you offer out to students in England? Do you wait for them to approach you or do you actively go out and, if you like, peddle your wares?

Mr Jones: I like to think I am fairly up to speed in terms of the electronic age, but compared to younger people I am clearly not, and in this day and age younger people are not naturally looking for a paper prospectus. Yes, they do use them but perhaps their mothers and fathers or employers might want to use them first. When they want to know something, they say, "Let's have a look for the website". That is one aspect of it. Websites do not have boundaries, they just go over boundaries. The other thing is with a company like Airbus and the sector, they cross the border as well. Lots of people say that Airbus is in Chester and we always point out that it is not, it is in Broughton in North East Wales. Because they have a big reach as an organisation people are looking out every year for the employment and apprenticeship opportunities that Airbus offers. If you like, the company itself is driving across the border. I think a wider thing, which is of more interest to my own college, is about how you take that a step further. One of the things we are doing at the moment is providing some training at Manchester Airport, again linked to the aerospace sector, to do with maintaining aircraft and so on. We are developing this through a link with our colleagues at Barry College in South East Wales. Now, you could say, "Why is a college in North East Wales operating out of Manchester Airport"? It is because companies in that area are not getting what they want, so they are coming to colleges like Deeside and saying, "Please, can you, on the back of the good name that we have, offer provision for ourselves?" West Cheshire College also offers different types of courses at Manchester not in competition with ourselves. The issue of funding then crops up, how does a college from Wales operate and is able to deliver in Manchester Airport? That often means that a company will pay us cash, a price, rather than having a publicly funded supplement. Or, on other occasions, the way we find our way through the complexity of funding models is to partner up with a provider, either a college or a private training provider, in that region who is able to access Learning and Skills Council funding in order that through an agreement with them we are able to provide the learning opportunities for those employers. If we did not do that there would be a really important part of the economy in that part of England which would not be supported.

Q653 Albert Owen: This is a question for both taking up the point that Mr Jones just said about funding issues. The Government has issued a consultation paper to abolish the Learning and Skills Council and transfer the funding to local authorities, and you used the word "region". Would transferring to local authorities help or hinder the process and further complicate it in many ways in that you would be dealing with individual local authorities rather than a Skills Council?

Ms Mogel: Obviously they are transferring for the younger learners, 16-19, to local authorities but there is the Young People's Learning Funding Authority - I do not know if I have got the words right - they are the people who will, if you like, make sure that clusters of authorities work together. How it will work, and this is still being worked through as a consultation, I do think it is something that border colleges, both sides of the border, are going to have to look at to make sure that it does not limit the opportunities for young people to learn what they want to learn where they want to learn it. In terms of learning for adults, that will be a regional structure and so it is possible that the North West Region, for example, where we are, might then think about how it can strategically plan taking into account border issues. Because the consultation is about funding post-16 learning in England it is not really raised in the consultation, though I think a lot of the English border colleges have raised it as an issue that needs to be addressed. I do not know whether the Welsh colleges have a view?

Q654 Albert Owen: Specifically on the 16-19 year olds, Mr Jones?

Mr Jones: I am pleased that the border is there at the moment actually with this proposal in place because I think we already have an overly complicated funding model in Wales that we struggle to understand. Bringing in this new two tier arrangement in England, or the proposal at least, and I am not an expert on it because, as I said, we are very much funded through the Welsh model, I do have concerns that it will make it over-complicated and also, perhaps, be a retrograde step in the sense that we would feel, as colleges, I am sure right across the UK, that since incorporation in 1993 there have been great improvements in terms of quality overall produced by colleges, cost-effectiveness and so on, meeting employer needs, and there is lots of evidence for that and to step back to local authority type arrangements perhaps would remove that commercial cutting edge that has been at the heart of much of our success.

Q655 Albert Owen: Do you think that the consultation document should highlight cross- border issues?

Ms Mogel: I understand why it does not, but I think it should have raised them. I would assume that the issue is the same between the English and the Scottish border as well. I think you will find that the consultees are raising it as an issue.

Q656 Albert Owen: It is interesting that you mentioned England and Scotland, but the flow east-west across Wales is greater than Scotland so it is a bigger problem.

Ms Mogel: It is definitely. That has to do as much with transport links as with anything else.

Mr Jones: I think it should be included, it is a factor. Where we need to improve more generally is in the way that we plan even though there are some different priorities, different funding models and so on. Sara and I were talking about it before we came in. I think there are ways in which we can plan better on the ground to make sure that learners and employers do not lose out because we are not thinking about where we can maximise the potential of resources right at day one. That is something which is not just limited to issues across the Wales-English border, I have to say within Wales itself there are already issues across local authorities and so on. There are huge inconsistencies, for instance, in transport and travel arrangements where you can go across the border in Wales and a 16-19 year old has to pay for travel where they would not in another area.

Q657 Albert Owen: I am sure we will come on to those internal issues, but I want to stick on this difference between across the border, and particularly you mentioned, Mr Jones, a little earlier about the funding and support mechanisms that are in place. Do you think the students and potential students are able to get clear information of what is across the border at the moment? I was interested about the web, but is that the main tool that careers officers can check the website or is it far more complicated than that and do the funding issues and the issues you talk about limit the opportunities available to students in Wales to go and study in England?

Mr Jones: I think the point I made about the website is right, that is the way the youngsters themselves will look for information. In terms of careers officers and so on, they are often the first point of call towards the end of a period in school, and I do not know this for definite but I am sure that when careers officers come to schools and colleges with their bag of prospectuses in North East Wales alongside the Deeside College and the Yale College and the Welsh College of Horticulture there is a West Cheshire College prospectus, I am sure it is in the information that they have. I would imagine the approach that they take would be that if a young person is based in Flintshire and they get the feel for the type of course that they want to go on, they probably point them at Eastern College as a starting point. I think that is sensible because if you have got local provision it cuts out transport, transport costs, and I think there is an environmental aspect to that which in the longer term we all need to take on board. Equally, I am sure that if a careers officer or a careers teacher was faced with a young person who was asking for something, and they knew that it was available at West Cheshire College I would expect them to refer them over the border to that college and in reality in that part of Wales and England it does not pose a big problem.

Q658 Albert Owen: Would the different funding mechanisms and regimes be explained to them?

Mr Jones: It would not because it is not something that we would explain to students generally, particularly your 16-19 year old who is, in fact, getting free full-time provision, it is not an issue. It is complicated enough for us as colleges to understand, we do not complicate it by explaining those issues to the learner. It may become more of an issue if you are talking to someone who is perhaps linked to an employer, and I think there are some difficulties there sometimes. Again, it links back to Train to Gain, which Sara mentioned, which we do not have in Wales, we have different initiatives, so potentially you could have an employer having the same provision for his or her workforce but maybe choosing to go one side of the border based on, if you like, the financial deal that a particular college or another provider may offer.

Q659 Albert Owen: Different grants is not an issue?

Mr Jones: No. Most of the time we feel employers and the learners make their decisions on the basis of reputation, quality and what they offer, and how they get it as well and they get it in the workplace, which is increasingly what employers want.

Chairman: Mr Michael wishes to ask a short supplementary.

Q660 Alun Michael: Yes, and it may be that you will need to reply with supplementary evidence perhaps. There is something odd about the evidence from the Association of Colleges in that it only tells us about learners from Wales and the FE colleges in England, it does not tell us the other. We do have some evidence from fforwm, who we will be hearing from, but it seems to have been prepared on a quite different basis, so there is no basis for comparison. Also, you show a trend in turn which is a drop in Wales-domiciled learners studying in colleges in England but no question of what the trend is the other way, if both are dropping or whether there is a difference. Could I ask for some coherent evidence from the Association of Colleges that makes a proper comparison on the same basis?

Ms Mogel: I am sure the Association of Colleges will provide you with further evidence. One of the major issues is the way that we are funded is very different so, therefore, there is not a like-for-like comparison, if you like, in the same way.

Q661 Alun Michael: I do not see how if you are simply giving evidence on the trends in relation to the home location, the domicile of students and the funding, the funding may be the cause of some of those changes but the like-for-like is what is actually happening on the ground.

Ms Mogel: The reason for the drop in numbers is ---

Q662 Alun Michael: With respect, I am not asking about the reason. This was a supplementary question asking about facts. You have given us some facts about one, can we have them both so we can have the proper basis for comparison and the trend also on both sides?

Ms Mogel: That is fine.

Q663 Albert Owen: I want to move on to staff retention and recruitment, particularly from the West Cheshire College side. Do you have any problems in retaining or recruiting staff because of higher salaries being paid across in Wales?

Ms Mogel: I think some English colleges have issues. As West Cheshire College we have a very low turnover of staff so, therefore, a low turnover is relevant to whether they are moving on from us to work in England or Wales or somewhere else. There was an issue at the beginning when the Welsh Assembly supported its colleges in Wales in closing the salary gap between school staff and college staff. People that we lose, we do get people who will move sideways to do the same job but for more money in Wales, so that is an issue. I think our other issue is more complex ---

Q664 Albert Owen: Sorry, move sideways, you mean move to a similar role?

Ms Mogel: A similar role across the border, so that if you teach in my college you will earn less than if you teach in Deeside College for doing the same role just because of the way the salaries are organised.

Q665 Albert Owen: So that is an issue?

Ms Mogel: It is an issue, but for my particular college it is quite a small issue because we have a low turnover, I think it is probably a bigger issue for other colleges.

Q666 Albert Owen: Do you have to have bonuses to keep people there?

Ms Mogel: We do not do that. Whether other colleges do I cannot tell you, but we do not do that. The issue that we have found is because the salary structure is different and if somebody in Wales is applying for a promoted post in England they may discover that actually they are on a much higher salary where they currently are, and therefore the opportunity to progress to promoted posts is limited for them, if they want to maintain their salary, to those colleges in Wales. That is probably the major issue rather than losing staff.

Mr Jones: The thing I would add - which backs up what Sara has just said - is we are increasingly finding for a whole range of different roles at Deeside College that we are appointing from outside Wales.

Q667 Mrs James: You have already mentioned home-to-education transport and I want to take you back to that. To what extent is the provision of funding for home-to-education transport a significant factor when students are choosing which college to go to?

Ms Mogel: We are not funded for home-to-college transport at all, so it is quite a difficult question for me to answer. The way that our students pay for their transport is through the Educational Maintenance Allowance and that has been a benefit to students in our area. I think you will probably have more to say on this issue, David?

Mr Jones: Yes. There are a range of different set-ups across North Wales. For instance, in Flintshire, where Deeside College is based, the local authority still pays the travel costs of full-time 16-19 year olds, those attending schools, sixth forms and indeed the colleges. That is something which is under review at the moment and not just, indeed, in Flintshire but in a few other counties as well. There are other counties in North Wales where they already decided a number of years ago not to provide that funding. While that is an issue for us, I do not feel that it is something which has an impact on cross-border issues.

Q668 Mrs James: You do not think that students will make choices based on whether they get free transport or not, or help with their transport?

Ms Mogel: Not necessarily in our area, but in other areas on the border certainly English colleges have found that and have taken up individual cases where students have wanted to travel from Wales into England but cannot get the funding they would have got if they had stayed in Wales and have lost on those occasions. That has not been an incident in my particular college but it has been for other colleges.

Q669 Mrs James: Given your knowledge and awareness of this issue, if there is a problem are there any changes or any recommendations or things that you think could be done better or ways that maybe would help?

Mr Jones: In relation to transport?

Q670 Mrs James: Yes, please.

Mr Jones: I do think we need to have consistency. That lack of consistency is confusing and unfair as well. I can see the point you are making in terms of are people making decisions based on maybe transport being free to Deeside College, but I do not think that is an issue because the vast majority of our transport comes in from Wales to Deeside College, so it is not as if we are bussing lots of people in from across the border. When times are tough in terms of funding, it is very easy to say, "Let us stop transport, let us stop paying travel", but I think that is very short-sighted and lacking some strategy. In terms of the wider issues that need to be dealt with to do with perhaps falling rolls and similar demographic issues there should be a greater focus on reconfiguration in terms of colleges, schools and others. There could potentially be an answer that would allow us to deliver better and more cost-effective education by actually spending more money on travel and transport and giving people easier access, albeit providing that transport to deliver to a far more coherently developed and designed network of providers.

Q671 Alun Michael: Can I just ask whether your catchment area is served by an effective Wheels to Work scheme given the cost-effectiveness that they have been shown to give? Is the border invisible in any such scheme on either side?

Mr Jones: I am sorry, I did not get the first part of your question.

Q672 Alun Michael: Is your catchment area served by an effective Wheels to Work scheme?

Mr Jones: By "Wheels to Work" what specifically are you referring to?

Q673 Alun Michael: I am gobsmacked that you do not know.

Mr Jones: That is not a term that is used.

Q674 Alun Michael: It is a common term used right across the country. It was found to be particularly effective in relation to students from rural areas with regard to provision of a motorbike and that sort of thing. There is about five months' payback.

Mr Jones: I do apologise if I should know. I would be lying if I said that I have heard of it when I have not. There are a range of different issues, but that is not one of them.

Q675 Mr Jones: Ms Mogel, we have heard from Mr Jones about the links that his college has with local businesses, what links does West Cheshire College have with local businesses in both England and Wales with regard to planning the content of courses offered?

Ms Mogel: Because of our specialism in vocational education, that has become a very large part of our provision. I think I said before nearly half of our learners actually learn in the workplace now, they do not learn on the college campus. We have been recognised for the excellence that we do. We are the preferred supplier for some big companies that work nationally and internationally, so you would expect us, therefore, to provide, and we do provide, their training wherever they happen to be. We do quite a lot of work with employers, some through partially subsidised provision, such as apprenticeships for example, some through fully subsidised, such as the Train to Gain, and quite a lot on a commercial basis, which is what David talked about. Yes, there are companies that are Welsh-based companies that do training with us for our specialism.

Q676 Mr Jones: We have heard already that you are unable to offer initiatives like Train to Gain to businesses in Wales. To what extent does that compromise the college's provision for local businesses and students?

Ms Mogel: I think what it does is it gives an advantage to those employers who are based in England rather than compromise those in Wales, so it is a disadvantage.

Q677 Mr Jones: Could you explain that a bit more?

Ms Mogel: If you are an English employer and we go in and have a look at your needs in order to improve your productivity, your up-skilling needs, we can offer you a range of provision, so we will put together a bespoke package but some of that bespoke package will be subsidised, either fully or partially subsidised, and that will help you pay to buy the whole package. Obviously if we go to a Welsh employer we can offer you the apprenticeship provision because that is allowed under the rules, but we cannot offer you any of the other subsidised provision, therefore, for exactly the same package you are being asked to pay for more yourself and that can limit what a Welsh employer might want to take up as a package.

Q678 Mr Jones: Is it your experience that that is acting as a disincentive to Welsh businesses?

Ms Mogel: Exactly, it is acting as a disincentive.

Q679 Albert Owen: What representations do you have as a college with the regional bodies representing employers, the CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses, et cetera?

Ms Mogel: We are involved particularly with the Chambers of Commerce. Of course, in our area the Chambers of Commerce straddle the border just as so many things do.

Q680 Albert Owen: So what are they doing to address this problem you have just identified to my colleague?

Ms Mogel: I am not sure that they are doing anything in particular. The Chamber of Commerce in our area is definitely aware of it and has been talking to the LSC about it, but I do not personally know of anything that the CBI are doing about it.

Q681 Albert Owen: You are raising these issues with your Chambers of Commerce, et cetera, but are you raising it with the Welsh equivalents? I know you said that it straddles the border, so are you in contact with the other employer bodies, the regional bodies?

Ms Mogel: The main regional body that we are involved in, both colleges are involved in, is the Mersey-Dee Alliance and it certainly has been raised in that forum on several occasions.

Q682 Albert Owen: Tell us a little bit about that.

Ms Mogel: The Mersey-Dee Alliance, because there is such a base of employment that straddles the border, was set up in order to support the development of the attraction of employers, recruitment of staff, up-skilling of staff, and both colleges are involved in that. That is a model. It is still fairly early stages for that, it has got an awful lot of potential and is a model that both colleges would see as best practice.

Q683 Albert Owen: Some of my colleagues from that area, the Deeside area, refer to the Deeside hub as one of the most exciting, fastest growing areas in the whole of the United Kingdom.

Ms Mogel: Yes.

Q684 Albert Owen: You have just highlighted that there are issues with the border that prevent movement of students and links with business. If a student wanted specialist skilled courses, are there disincentives because of the border? That is what I am trying to get at in a number of my questions.

Ms Mogel: It depends on who that student is, which is not really a good way of delivering a skills agenda. If the student is an individual who approaches my college because we can offer them a particular skill that maybe Deeside College cannot offer them then usually there is a way around it. If they are an employer who has a cohort of students then there is not, and that is the real issue. It is about making sure that the border does not become a barrier to both employers achieving their business aims and individuals achieving their own personal aims.

Q685 Albert Owen: You are representing the two bodies here today, do you think it is a barrier at this moment in time?

Ms Mogel: I think it is probably a barrier for employers at this point in time. The watershed agreement that we have for young people works well and is not bureaucratic. If we could overcome this idea from both sides of the border that we are able to recruit in the way that we could before ---

Q686 Albert Owen: You particularly mentioned Airbus, the largest manufacturer in the region, in the United Kingdom perhaps, which is so important to that area and these barriers should be looked at as a priority. Would you agree with that?

Ms Mogel: Absolutely. We are talking about a line on a map and that is all it is. As somebody who lives in Wales and works in England I have yet to have my passport checked as I travel to work.

Q687 Albert Owen: We will check it if you are going to watch football in Manchester! Mr Jones, can I ask for your opinion on whether it is a barrier?

Mr Jones: It is a barrier, it is a minor barrier. Without being complacent in any way, the Mersey-Dee Alliance region is served by good colleges, including our own and other providers who have very much got a focus on meeting employer needs, they are well-engaged with employers, employer groups, Sector Skills Councils and the CBI, and that is what makes a difference and is a key part of the strength of the area. There are lots of areas for improvement and it is about the confusion sometimes about initiatives. Train to Gain is an English-based initiative and, whilst we do not have that in Wales, if there is an employer who might be doing some training with West Cheshire College their ability to benefit from the whole package is limited. There are similar alternatives running in Wales as well. They are not under the banner of Train to Gain but there are effectively other initiatives trying to do the same sort of things recognising sometimes that you need to do more development of an organisation before you start to do training and recognising that sometimes that training needs to be more bespoke. I think that is the issue, it is about the confusion sometimes about the messages which go through to companies. Clearly if you are running an organisation, particularly a small or medium-sized business, you are trying to get on with trying to keep the company stable, the last thing you want is confusing information on training schemes.

Q688 Albert Owen: One final question I have is does the further education sector in England have adequate provision of work-based training for students with learning difficulties and disabilities?

Ms Mogel: For work-based training, I think that is the hardest end. I think the foundation learning team that is being introduced in England is going to have a very positive mark on what we do for students with learning difficulties and disabilities because it is much more designed around them being work ready and employable than I think the previous provision was. I think what is coming in is going to be of benefit. I am not sure whether you are also asking me a question about whether the border is an issue?

Q689 Albert Owen: The whole inquiry we are doing is about the border issue, provision either side of the border is what we are looking at and whether the border is a barrier in many ways to students.

Ms Mogel: I think the real issue for students with disabilities is often a transport issue rather than a provision issue. Certainly my college has not had any provision issues, but it could be an issue if colleges are not being supported in terms of transporting students across the border because often students with a disability are much more reliant on public transport.

Chairman: Those are all the questions we wish to ask you this morning. Thank you very much, it has been a very helpful session to us. We look forward to receiving supplementary evidence in due course.

Memorandum submitted by fforwm

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Dr John Graystone, Chief Executive, fforwm, and Mr John Stephenson, Principal, Coleg Powys, gave evidence.

Q690 Chairman: Welcome to the Welsh Affairs Committee. For the record, could you introduce yourselves, please.

Mr Stephenson: Good morning. I am John Stephenson, I am the Principal from Coleg Powys. The college obviously serves 2,000 square miles of Powys and has probably the longest border with England and we are probably the least crossed in terms of population flow.

Dr Graystone: John Graystone, Chief Executive of fforwm, which is the equivalent body in Wales to the Association of Colleges.

Q691 Chairman: Mr Stephenson, could I begin by asking you a question, could you briefly explain some of the reasons why the English-domiciled students choose to attend your college?

Mr Stephenson: Yes, indeed, Chairman. I would probably want to categorise them in two different ways. First of all, if we look primarily at full-time 16-18 year olds, those who are leaving school, we have actually very few who cross the border and those who do so generally live very close to that very winding border between Powys and Shropshire. One or two schools, like Bishop's Castle School for example, are just the other side of that. When I analyse our numbers for this year, there are probably about ten or 12 students only that come from the English side of the border within that particular category. There is a far bigger outflow the other way to Shrewsbury, Hereford and those larger areas which have not only FE colleges but also substantial sixth form colleges as well which attract a lot of students from that border region, for obvious reason because it serves that border region. The other category of students is the adult students perhaps attending vocational courses or very often community courses who do not necessarily recognise the border as any form of barrier whatsoever, so they will be attending potentially courses that we are delivering on an outreach basis to some of the border towns like Knighton and Presteigne, and so on, and quite clearly the converse is true, people will go the other way for precisely those same reasons. So across the piece we have a relatively small flow of students from England and indeed there is a small category, again, of students who I do not even necessarily know whether they are from Wales or England because the postcode sectors, which is what we use to do the analysis, actually have the border running through them. People can have a particular postcode and depending on whether they are one side of the road or the other will depend on whether they are in England or Wales.

Q692 Chairman: I see that you have a campus at Ystradgynlais. How long have you had that campus?

Mr Stephenson: We purchased the site in Ystradgynlais about five years ago now. It is only a small community campus. It does not offer full-time provision but it has been very useful. Ystradgynlais, as you are probably aware, is the community's first area and we have been able to work with the community in a number of places in that area in order to develop that type of provision.

Q693 Chairman: This may be a rather perverse question but I know the area very well. In terms of borders, is it more of a real border than the southern end, your relationships with Neath Port Talbot College, is there intense competition for students in that area?

Mr Stephenson: I do not think intense competition would be a fair way of putting it. When we opened Ystradgynlais we talked very closely with Neath Port Talbot College to make sure that their outreach provision and ours were as complementary as was possible. You have raised an interesting point, which is that sometimes those border areas between Powys and other parts of Wales can be just as significant, if not more so, not least because of the convergence are and the competitiveness area and the additional funding that is available to employers and so on in those areas, much more significant on many occasions than the border between Powys and England.

Q694 Mrs James: I wanted to look at the difference in the numbers between students who are domiciled in England who come into Wales to do courses and those in Wales who cross the border into England. Do you think that the number of English-domiciled students presents any particular challenges or benefits for the further education sector in Wales?

Dr Graystone: I think it does provide benefits. What I hope, as was said in the earlier session, is that the border should not become a barrier and there is a lot of scope where we can work much more closely, and people do benefit by having an experience outside their own country. I would certainly see it as something positive for both sides.

Mr Stephenson: I think I would agree with that. As a college, we claim to serve the community and the fact that there is a border dividing various parts of the community should not be a barrier to people crossing that in one way or another and people will benefit either side of that. At the same time, perhaps one of the interesting flows that I did not mention earlier is that there are a significant number of people, small but significant number of people, who do cross into Wales to study because they want to do Welsh language courses and even though they live in England they want to do Welsh language courses.

Q695 Mrs James: Are there any particular challenges? You have talked about the benefits but are there any challenges that you feel you might want to comment on?

Mr Stephenson: As I say, one of the key challenges is the fact that there are large further education institutions not too far away over the border in places like Hereford, Shrewsbury and Oswestry that can provide a significant range of provision and to whom a few students coming from the Powys area simply adds to their numbers . It is not a whole cohort by any means, they are not providing for a whole cohort. Hereford College of Technology, for example, has got a £30 million capital build this year and, as we look at the numbers over the last two or three years, more of them are flowing in that direction so they clearly perceive the benefits in that sense.

Q696 Mrs James: Given your own particular college, Coleg Powys, are there any changes that you would like to see made which would increase your ability to recruit and tailor courses for English-domiciled students?

Mr Stephenson: As a relatively small college we do not have any major areas of specialism, unlike the two colleagues I heard speaking at this desk earlier today. We perceive our role very much to provide a broad range of vocational courses specifically. Again, we do not do GCSE or A levels, the schools do that in our area. We are having to look very carefully in Powys at how collectively both the college and the schools can make that range of provision locally in order to avoid pupils having to travel to those English colleges in order to access the full range and depth of provision that is envisaged under the new 14-19 arrangements and so on.

Dr Graystone: Firstly, in Wales colleges do work very closely in partnership. There are 25 FE colleges and FE institutions, you can meet all the principals in one room and we meet regularly and discuss a wide range of issues, but we never principals who are along the border. Meeting Sara today has been a pleasure but we do not meet formally. You could argue that one possibility might be from time to time it might be useful to establish relationships with colleges along the border, maybe to discuss their provision and so on. Also there is the issue of the different funding methodologies, which I know David Jones has explained and they are very complex. I do not think there is any solution to the difference unless you abolish devolution, which would be very sensitive. We have also raised the issue of staff pay. I have spoken to principals in Wales and asked, because we now have pay parity with school teachers are they now recruiting more lecturers coming in from England the answer is not very many, it seems to be very marginal. There is a psychological barrier between England and Wales in that probably many English lecturers would not wish to apply for jobs in Wales because it is now becoming very different. There is an issue there in terms of cross-border flow of staff. Lastly, and this has been alluded to, there is a huge disparity in capital programmes either side of the border. In England there is a very strong commitment to have world class facilities in further education. I think something like £750 million or so is being spent in the current year. If in Wales we had a similar type of funding we would be getting about £50 million or £60 million a year, but we are getting about £20 million. The Webb Report alluded very strongly to the capital funding gap. Over time that could have an impact because learners may start looking for campuses which are very well equipped and we may find it difficult to compete at that level. That would be a longer term issue.

Q697 Mr Jones: Dr Graystone, would you say that overall there is an adequate range of specialist courses offered by Welsh FE institutions?

Dr Graystone: Yes. I think we give a very wide provision of courses which meet the needs of the vast majority of learners. There will be occasions, and I think the AoC in their evidence have drawn attention to nautical studies in Blackpool, in Fylde College, when there will be some things where that would involve a substantial amount of investment and it would not make sense for colleges in Wales to try and duplicate what was happening in that college. My answer to the question is they do provide a very wide range but there may be some small areas of specialism which require substantial investments which it would not make sense for colleges to invest in if that provision is being made available in England.

Q698 Mr Jones: I was particularly interested in the mention of the Blackpool and Fylde College, but that is a highly specialist course.

Dr Graystone: Yes.

Q699 Mr Jones: I was having difficulty when I read the note from the AoC in understanding the way that the funding regime worked for the Welsh students who go there, and in fact there are a large number of Welsh students, 53% of the total number enrolled in that who are from Wales. The AoC memo did not make it particularly clear as to how it was funded. Are you able to help us with that?

Mr Stephenson: I have not got a clue personally, I am afraid.

Dr Graystone: I would assume that the Learning and Skills Council would fund that provision. We can certainly come back when we find out for you.

Q700 Mr Jones: In fact, according to the AoC memo only three of these are funded by the Learning and Skills Council, the majority are studying at full cost.

Dr Graystone: I have just had a note passed to me saying the fees are paid by the employers.

Q701 Mr Jones: I see. We have touched briefly already in this session on foundation degrees and, of course, the position is that English FE institutions are able to validate their own foundation degrees but Welsh FE institutions are not. Does this impact in any way on students' choice of college now, or do you anticipate it will in the future?

Dr Graystone: At the moment the answer is no because I know in England the first college which is seeking to have its own foundation degrees validated is now going through the process and that is a college in Durham. It will start having an impact over a period of time because I should imagine that more and more English colleges would want to start having foundation degrees validated. I think that would help raise the profile of those colleges and it would be something which we could not compete with on the borders. We are very much hoping that the Welsh Assembly Government will be making a decision on foundation degrees and would seek to give the powers to colleges in Wales who fulfil a certain criterion and have a critical mass. My answer at the moment is it is not having an impact but in the long-term, if colleges in Wales did not have those powers, it could start having an impact in the next few years.

Q702 Mr Jones: So is it a matter of regret that when the legislation went through, I think it was last year, Wales was excluded?

Dr Graystone: Yes. We lobbied on that issue and we regretted that decision. It is now a devolved matter and we are hoping the Welsh Assembly Government will take up that decision.

Q703 Alun Michael: Just on the issue of confusion over the policy on foundation degrees at the moment. As I understand it, there was clarity that colleges in Wales would not be able to award those degrees but there have then been statements made suggesting that perhaps that will be different. Is there not a need for some certainty in order to promote at least effective partnerships between FE colleges and universities in this area?

Dr Graystone: We understand that the First Minister will be making a statement shortly which will clarify the position on foundation agrees. We are hoping that the First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, will give the colleges those powers. Certainly we would strongly emphasise that whether or not we have those powers, and we hope we will, it should not undermine partnerships with higher education institutions. We work very closely with higher education institutions and we suspect that most foundation degrees will continue to be operated in partnership. We believe there are some areas of specialism which colleges have which universities do not have, or may not be interested in having, and those are the areas where we feel we can make that contribution.

Q704 Alun Michael: Would all FE colleges in Wales have the capacity to do so?

Dr Graystone: No. I suspect at the end you will probably find a handful, two or three, and that would be it, and most colleges would not have the capacity and would not expect to do it. I understand that for New College, Durham, which I think is the first college to apply in England, it will take at least six years before they get final accreditation, so it is a long process.

Q705 Alun Michael: The root of my question is would not giving those powers to colleges in Wales possibly undermine what seems to be quite a fruitful path towards co-operation, as you have indicated yourself?

Dr Graystone: We argue no and we have met with Higher Education Wales to reassure them of that fact. If you look at the picture in Wales in terms of foundation degrees, we are behind England in terms of numbers if you look at it on a pro rata basis. Whereas in England there seems to have been a very strong drive towards increasing the numbers of foundation degrees, we have not had that strong push in Wales. By colleges having the power, it might help lever up the numbers.

Q706 Alun Michael: Can I ask whether that is lack of push from the FE colleges or a problem with the universities?

Dr Graystone: No, colleges are very committed. In fact, if the Committee wishes, we could send you lists of examples of foundation degrees offered by colleges. We are very keen to work on that and take forward those responsibilities.

Q707 Alun Michael: But you would see it primarily through a partnership approach?

Dr Graystone: Definitely. Wales partnership is the key thing between colleges and universities, between colleges and school sixth forms. We are keen to work in partnership and we do not want to undermine those partnerships. Having those powers we would not be seeking to compete against universities.

Q708 Alun Michael: So you see it as some sort of reserve power really?

Dr Graystone: Obviously there are opportunities that universities cannot offer themselves where we have that specialism. If you look at New College, Durham, they have got some specialisms which local universities do not have and so they can move forward on that basis.

Mr Stephenson: Can I perhaps comment as one of those colleges that probably would not be seeking foundation degree status because we do not believe that we have got the capacity in terms of our size and so on. We have very constructive relationships with four universities in Wales to make HE provision in the County of Powys. We value and welcome that partnership with those HEIs and the support that they provide us because without that we would not be able to make that delivery available to people locally. Having said that, those colleges in Wales that do have particular specialisms, and I will not cite particular ones but there are clearly about four that ---

Q709 Alun Michael: It might be useful to have some illustrations, perhaps outside this meeting.

Mr Stephenson: It is probably fairly obvious as you look at the size and the specialisms of those particular institutions. They would certainly benefit from that particular status. As a college that probably is not seeking it myself then I do not see why those colleges in Wales that have got the size and the capacity and so on should be disadvantaged compared with their English colleagues.

Q710 Mrs James: You have already mentioned funding in passing and we turn to funding now. In fforwm's written submission you note that funding on post-16 education per head of population in Wales is less than that of England. Are there any implications for cross-border provision that affect it particularly in that area?

Dr Graystone: Obviously this is not just fforwm saying it, it is an independent study. Clearly it means that we cannot offer perhaps the best facilities and the best provision that we might do if we had equivalent funding from England. Certainly at the moment, as fforwm and colleges collectively, we are involved in rather detailed negotiations with the Welsh Assembly Government over our funding for next year. We have had a very, very tight funding settlement which will widen the gap. It is at the margins and I have to say that we do not do ourselves any favours because at the moment colleges in Wales have got a superb quality record. One of the advantages we have got as an Association when we are lobbying the Welsh Assembly Government for funding is that we are doing extremely well. Our inspection reports over the last three or four years have been superb. We are now being described by the senior Civil Service as being "the quality sector". We would still welcome that additional funding because it could mean that we could provide some more benefits for our learners.

Mr Stephenson: There are two or three issues related to funding. There is some evidence that overall the funding levels are lower for Wales than in England. Not only that, certainly my college and many other colleges are also capped as well in the sense that if we were able to deliver all the educational training that people were demanding from us we could have a higher settlement, so the budget is capped by a cash sum. That is one of the issues. The second issue is obviously more of the funding is actually hypothecated against the pay initiative which has come in over the last two or three years. Of course, we all want our staff to be rewarded in the same way as staff within schools, but it does mean that more of the funding that is available is devoted to those purposes and less of it is then flexible to be used for other purposes. The third issue, if I may, and John has already mentioned this, is the disparity in capital funding is very, very marked now and that is impeding a lot of colleges in being able to undertake the development that we require to really deliver to the highest level in the 21^st Century.

Q711 Mrs James: So what are the priority areas for any additional capital investment?

Mr Stephenson: Learning resources in terms of new building in many areas to actually make sure the environment is equivalent to that which it is in many other institutions now. Learners, whether they are 16-18 year olds or adults, want to be able to have environments that relate to them as well as good social space within it and so on. Learning resources and electronic networking and all those sorts of things require a significant amount of investment and maintenance. Once you make the initial investment it seems to be a never-ending process of keeping them up-to-date and functioning effectively. If we were strategically across Wales to look at some of the areas of specialism, and I am not proposing shipbuilding in Powys to compete with Blackpool and Fylde, but if there were one or two areas of specialism that we ought to be looking at across Wales then capital funding would be needed to drive that in whatever strategic locations were selected.

Q712 Albert Owen: Just before I move on to the regulation and funding bodies in England and Wales, on the issue of the lack of capital investment in Wales, and you have given some general examples, is there a worry in the border areas that England will have these state-of-the-art facilities and students will want to move to the best environments in the future? Has it reached that point or are you putting a marker down that we have got less funding now and it could be a problem in the future, or is it a problem now and you envisage it will get worse in the future?

Mr Stephenson: I believe it is a problem now. There are more students going across the border from our area. I have to bear in mind that in our area it is a relatively low absolute number in overall Wales terms, but there are more students crossing that border now than there were last year and I think there will be more again as a result when some of this capital investment comes through. The major significance of that is not that my organisation is disadvantaged, "Oh gosh, I'm losing compared with those", it is the fact that those people who are not on the border areas who need my organisation to provide their further education and so on, will be significantly disadvantaged as a result of that. Those who are close to the border will be able to access those high level facilities and that is fair enough, but those who are not ---

Q713 Albert Owen: Sorry to cut across you. Dr Graystone, why do you think there is this funding gap?

Dr Graystone: That is a very good question. For example, Webb alluded to £200 million as what was required to bring colleges in Wales up to an acceptable standard. It is obviously the policy of the Welsh Assembly Government, and it may be their priorities in terms of funding and a whole range of factors, but as an Association we need to keep pushing and reminding the Welsh Assembly Government. They are now setting up a strategic capital investment board which will be looking at capital investment in the round and we, as FE, will be putting forward our case. There is quite a lot of evidence that if you invest heavily in capital it does actually increase enrolment and also raises achievement. Although we have not got any hard evidence, certainly the evidence we have seen shows that it could have a long-term impact. It is obviously a policy and decision on where funding should go in Wales.

Q714 Albert Owen: Do you think one of those policies is top-up fees? Is money going away from capital investment into foreign students so that they pay less?

Dr Graystone: I think we would be a little bit reluctant to say. That may be the case but there are other priorities in Wales as well. We have had decisions on health and so on which---

Q715 Albert Owen: The reason I raise that with your organisation is the fact that we are coming into another round of top-up fees in 2009 and I am interested to know whether you have an opinion that further education has been losing out in Wales because some cash has been diverted away from capital investment that you have raised in your paper to other areas, particularly top-up fees.

Dr Graystone: We recognise that money has got to come from somewhere and it could well be that that money might have been invested in capital and FE, but equally it may have been invested in other areas. All I can say is we are going to keep pushing the Welsh Assembly Government on that matter and when they go into the next round of top-up fees we will be in there bargaining. As we are now funded centrally from the Welsh Assembly Government it does mean that FE, in a sense, has to compete for resources with the Health Service, with transport, with housing, and it makes it more difficult. When we had a funding body at least the funding body was fighting our corner, but we now have to do that ourselves. Whether we would get more capital funding if top-up fees changed, I do not think it is quite as easy as that.

Q716 Albert Owen: I accept that. You mentioned one funding body and across the border now the Skills and Learning Council is going to be devolving its funding of 16-19 year olds to local authorities and you have called for greater co-operation with those individual authorities. Do you think there is a lack of co-operation now with the regions or are you saying you have got to get ahead of the game and start talking to those local authorities?

Dr Graystone: At the moment, and this was perhaps behind our evidence, I think we used the words "free trade" in one of the quotations from a principal, it goes on and people work together but there is no systematic planning, and I do not think we would want that either. In England they are going to have 16-18 funding devolved to local authorities and that is going to create more of a challenge because there will be a range of different local authorities around along the border, all of whom may have different views and different approaches, and it may make our position more complex. In your questioning to the previous speakers, those matters have not yet been resolved on the English side, but looking from the Welsh side we are quite pleased to be in Wales in respect of that policy because we think it is going to make it much more complex in the longer term.

Q717 Alun Michael: To what extent is the provision of home-to-education transport a significant factor in students' choice of college and, indeed, their ability to attend?

Mr Stephenson: I do not believe it is a significant factor in our area any more than the issue of transport to college even within Wales. Many of my learners come 45 minutes to an hour's journey each-way in any case. We are fortunate in that we have one of those local authorities I heard David Jones refer to earlier that still provides post-16 transport under its discretionary powers, although I do know that they are looking very hard at whether they are able to continue to do that in the future. Students who do come across the border, the relatively few that I spoke about earlier on a full-time basis, have to make their own way. I checked up on their transport arrangements the other day. They make their own way into Powys and then they are able to access a subsidised seat on a Powys bus that brings them into college, so they have got quite a complex arrangement to make, but in terms of time and convenience it may be not significantly greater than accessing the college in any case. I do not believe for that particular cohort that it makes a significant difference in their choice. I do actually think a lot of learners in Powys will choose to continue to go to their local school and study A levels rather than potentially travel 45 minutes to an hour to access a vocational provision, and that is an issue.

Q718 Alun Michael: You referred to some complexity for students going in one direction, but do you think there is anything that needs to be changed in order to get greater clarity about the rules for cross-border provision or home-to-education transport?

Mr Stephenson: I do think the fact that each local authority, both in England and Wales, has a discretionary power that they can exercise in different ways does lead to a patchwork of provision and a patchwork of opportunities that are quite difficult for somebody to follow through. I also think the fact that each authority has to produce that scheme for September as late as 31 May in-year is a major problem because if they were to make those changes on 31 May many students attending colleges would have already made their decisions previously, so the timing of that decision is probably inappropriate.

Q719 Alun Michael: In view of the response I had to an earlier supplementary, and I will explain in the question, a number of years ago Wheels to Work projects were shown to be very effective in having something like a five month payback for investment in things like providing a motorcycle to a youngster to get them on the way to work, which might be through a college course in the first instance. Are you aware directly of that sort of approach being used in your area and, if so, is the border invisible for such schemes?

Mr Stephenson: Am I aware of the provision? Yes, I am. Certain communities do have an effective Wheels to Work scheme. Llanidloes, for example, has a relatively effective Wheels to Work scheme that gives young people access to transport, not only to come to college but obviously to work, by definition. Frankly, I am not aware of anybody the other side of the border who has access to a similar scheme who uses that to access college. I am aware of the schemes and we have students who make use of them, and I certainly have not done any research, but I do not believe there are any students accessing that on the other side of the border.

Alun Michael: That is interesting because I think Shropshire was referred to as one of the more successful early experiments. Thank you very much.

Q720 Mr Jones: We touched on this in the last evidence session, but perhaps you could tell the Committee in what ways does the FE sector in Wales engage with businesses in both Wales and England with regard to the planning of courses?

Dr Graystone: Just in terms of in Wales, obviously we do not have access to Train to Gain so you do have different funding systems. There are two types of funding primarily. There is either employer funded training or funding which is given by the Welsh Assembly Government, which in colleges totals about £23 million a year out of a total budget of about £280 million, so that gives you an idea of the percentage. Clearly that is a capped amount, a finite amount of money, and if you go above it you do not get any more funding. On the other side you have got the training which is paid for by the employer, what we call full cost, and you have heard in Deeside and other colleges there will be some training delivered for employers which is fully funded by those employers. The difficulty with the work-based learning allocations to colleges, which are publicly funded, is they are capped, so there is no encouragement for you to increase the numbers of trainees if you are not going to get draw down funding for that and that makes it difficult and gives you less incentive to go cross-border if you know you are not going to get funding for those loans, whereas if it is fully funded by the employer then there is an incentive. For colleges, in the Webb Report and the Skills Strategy for Wales the employer engagement is a key priority. Certainly we are waiting for the Welsh Assembly Government's response now to the Skills and Employment Strategy and we know they will see colleges as being very much at the heart of the skills development. Perhaps I am straying slightly away from things here, but at the moment there is a priority for 16-19 in terms of funding, not for adults, not 19-plus, but that is where the skills requirements are going to be over the next 20 or so years, so we do hope that the Welsh Assembly Government in its wisdom will move towards incentivising colleges to work much more closely with employers to increase the number of adults receiving training in the long-term.

Q721 Mr Jones: Does the unavailability of Train to Gain amount to a handicap to Welsh FE institutions?

Dr Graystone: Speaking to colleagues in England, probably not, there seems to be a range of views on that. No principal has ever raised it with me saying, "If only we can have Train to Gain in Wales". I do not know if you feel it has been an issue for you, John?

Mr Stephenson: No. Again, I am sorry I am giving evidence from the specific perspective of a very rural area in Powys. We engage quite strongly with employers but specifically in relation to those things that are legislative driven, so on courses in first aid, health and safety, hygiene, et cetera, we are able to engage with them and provide a significant range of full cost courses on that basis. Those employers who need more specialist provision very rarely do they have sufficient commonality of interest for us to be able to make that provision. In places like Telford, for example, where there is a strong manufacturing base and so on, they will probably access provision there. They cannot use the Train to Gain monies, obviously, in order to do it but it makes more sense for them to do that. I believe fforwm is going to submit to you a supplementary piece of written evidence that was produced for Sir Adrian Webb's Report which talks about employer engagement.

Dr Graystone: Yes.

Mr Stephenson: And cites five colleges, including Powys and Deeside, and David Jones was here earlier this morning, and indicates the whole range of provision that is made. Colleges actually work very closely together sometimes to make provision. For example, leadership and management training has been a consortium of colleges delivering an Assembly contract across the piece. For IT training for the Welsh Ambulance Trust, again a consortium of colleges north and south has been delivering that sort of provision. There are certain things we are able to do in Wales possibly more effectively than in England but, at the same time, there are other initiatives on the other side of the border.

Dr Graystone: It is interesting that Webb, which had about 130 or so recommendations, does not ever mention cross-border services at all. In terms of employer engagement, the one thing he has pushed very strongly, and we are waiting for the Welsh Assembly Government's response, is this idea of top-slicing £40 million from college budgets, from post-19 budgets, which are primarily to be used for training and working with employers. The idea will be that over a three year period employers will determine their needs and buy-back provision from those colleges. After three years it would then be open to the private sector and so on. There are quite a few developments in Wales which are very different from the Train to Gain initiative in England.

Q722 Mr Jones: It is odd that there was no mention of cross-border issues in that report because there are a relatively large number of FE institutions that are operating in a cross-border environment dealing with employers who recruit from both sides of the border working in labour markets that frequently straddle the so-called border. How do FE institutions best operate in an environment such as that because clearly, if you like, you are in the same market but you are competing with institutions on the other side of the border who are operating under different funding regimes?

Mr Stephenson: It is obviously a mixed bag. Many employers will work with a provider that they have built a relationship of some trust and confidence with and under those circumstances a border becomes of less significance. Again, within the Powys context I currently chair the Powys Regeneration Partnership and one of my vice-chairs is actually the Chief Executive of the Mid-Wales Manufacturing Group, so there is a very close working relationship there and, indeed, the voluntary, public and private sectors all come together in that regeneration partnership to talk about what forms of provision, not only skills-based provision but what sort of infrastructure provision, will help regenerate the Powys economy in a number of ways. There are opportunities for employers and colleges to work together effectively and we use those where we can, but that is not to say there will not be a need for some of those employers to access that more specialist training as well.

Q723 Mr Jones: Do you ever feel at a disadvantage in terms of seeing business, if you like, from employers across the other side of the border who may be based on the other side of the border but are actually operating on both sides?

Mr Stephenson: Do I feel I am disadvantaged in that respect? Probably not. Many employers in the Powys area, in the Newtown area, in the Welshpool area, have got people coming from England to work within those particular companies rather than the other way round. They migrate across the border to work there and they live in England.

Q724 Mr Jones: So your experience in terms of employers from across the border is maybe less than it would be, say, in north east Wales.

Mr Stephenson: Absolutely.

Q725 Mr Jones: Where obviously with a larger population more closely concentrated the border, if anything, is irrelevant.

Mr Stephenson: Yes. I heard one of the previous witnesses say she lived in Wales and worked in England. In our area it is often the other way around.

Q726 Alun Michael: Just to go back to the question of figures about people crossing the border. With the earlier witnesses I made the comment that there is one set of figures that is given by fforwm which talks about the numbers of learners crossing from England to Wales and the Association of Colleges gave us figures going the other way and it is difficult to reconcile the two and also to understand what is happening in terms of trends. It is probably a rather more detailed question than you can deal with in evidence, but it would helpful to have your take and what statistics you have available of movement in both directions and trends. In addition, perhaps an explanation of the distinction which probably is absolutely clear to you but not to somebody new coming to this, such as learners stating an English postcode and learners stating their domicile as English. Clearly I understand that particularly in places like Montgomeryshire there are some issues about that. I am surprised that the figures cannot be refined rather more than appears to be the case in the figures you have provided.

Mr Stephenson: The figures for people going out of Wales, clearly I have some which have been provided to me by various sources but the source of that information would generally be Careers Wales, I would suggest, who ought to be tracking the destinations of each school leaver and so on. I rely on them to provide me with information like that. If you want that information at a Committee level it may well be that Careers Wales would be the source of that. I have certainly seen the AoC evidence and it does not mention sixth form colleges and they are significant players in the cross-border traffic of post-16 learning.

Q727 Alun Michael: Perhaps we can have further comments from fforwm on that and also ask for the information from Careers Wales.

Dr Graystone: I would say one of the issues we raised was the issue of data. It took us a very long time to get hold of our figures. We need to go back and scrutinise some of these. I think one or two colleges have been quite surprised to see those numbers against them. We will do that.

Alun Michael: Thank you.

Q728 Chairman: Could I ask one final question about adult residential colleges, Coleg Harlech and Ruskin. In the context of Powys, we were struck by the statistics that we saw that very large numbers of people from Powys go to Ruskin College. Do you provide any residential facilities yourselves? Would you be surprised by the exceptionally high numbers going from Powys to Ruskin?

Mr Stephenson: I certainly was not aware of those figures at all and I think I would want to look much more behind them as to what they were and why they were doing that. Certainly some years ago we used to have a close relationship, and we still have a close relationship with Coleg Harlech and there were more learners progressing from our provision and accessing residential courses in Coleg Harlech. We do not make residential provision, we do not have that provision ourselves.

Chairman: Thank you very much for your evidence today, it has been extremely helpful. We look forward to receiving the additional information that you will send to us. Thank you.