Uncorrected Evidence 401

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Welsh Affairs Committee

on Tuesday 8 July 2008

Members present

Dr Hywel Francis, in the Chair

Mr David Jones

Alun Michael

Mark Pritchard

Mark Williams

________________

Witnesses: Mr Alan Woods, CEO, Skills for Justice, Mr Richard Jones, Country Manager, Skills for Justice, Ms Sue Hunter, Development and QA Manager, Skills for Justice and Ms Michelle Creed, Director - Wales, Lifelong Learning UK, gave evidence.

Q817 Chairman: Good morning. Bora da. For the record, could you introduce yourselves, please.

Mr Woods: I am Alan Woods, the Chief Executive of Skills for Justice in the Sector Skills Council for the Justice Sector.

Mr Jones: I am Richard Jones, Wales Country Manager, with Skills for Justice.

Ms Hunter: Sue Hunter. I am the Development and Quality Assurance Manager for Skills for Justice.

Ms Creed: Bora da. I am Michelle Creed the Director for Wales, Lifelong Learning UK.

Q818 Chairman: Thank you very much. The acoustics are not brilliant in this room, so do not be afraid to project your voices. Is there a Sector Skills Council for that! Could I begin by asking you a very simple question: are there separate Sector Skills Councils' agreements for each of the four nations for every sector?

Mr Woods: Yes, I believe that to be the case.

Q819 Chairman: Could you tell us how that works out in a practical sense, given that labour markets and sectors do not always match national boundaries?

Mr Jones: Did you mean the Sector Skills Agreements that we have?

Q820 Chairman: Yes.

Mr Jones: Yes. For the vast majority I believe that all Sector Skills Councils now have a Sector Skills Agreement at Level 5. They are a true reflection of the needs of the employers of the sectors because they have had to have been agreed with the employers in the sectors; and also partners, such as for our sector we have agreements with the Welsh Assembly Government, Jobcentre Plus, the Higher Education Funding Council and Careers Wales.

Q821 Chairman: Where do the trade unions fit into that?

Mr Jones: I am sorry, that is the final one I missed out, with Wales TUC.

Q822 Chairman: With that particular point that I raised, the very fact that national boundaries do not in any way necessarily match labour markets, I would imagine that employers would have a very strong view about these matters. How, in a practical sense, does this work?

Ms Creed: The Sector Skills Councils have UK councils or boards as part of their governance structure; so the Sector Skills Agreements that have been negotiated at country level will be drawn back together as part of the Sector Skills Councils' business planning process; and the business plan for the Sector Skills Council will look for those areas where there is commonality across the UK and seek to deal with those on a UK level; but, equally, obviously need to identify where there are things that are different in different countries and deal with those on a country level.

Q823 Chairman: This inquiry is about cross-border issues, how do the Sector Skills Councils then deal with those precise issues of cross-border, particularly at the border? It seems to be quite acute in some areas like Northeast Wales.

Ms Creed: May I respond by giving a specific example from my Sector Skills Council. Obviously we commend the written evidence from the individual Sector Skills Councils to you on all of these points, but an example from the Lifelong Learning sector would be that we have highlighted in each of the four nations of the UK a need for enhancing the information learning technology skills - so the ability of a teacher to deliver learning through technology. The way in which we are seeking to progress that issue is again by drawing representation from each of the four nations together to look at what the solution to that issue will be; to look at how collectively and collaboratively that can be funded to be moved forward; and then to look at what the delivery implications for that would be.

Ms Hunter: If I could just add, the whole basis on which Sector Skills Councils operate is the development of national occupational standards which define the competence and describe competent performance in any given activity and task; and because those are developed for countrywide they input from all the four nations and the practitioners of the four nations. That means any learning development or qualifications can be built on those national occupational standards, which enables the transferability across borders, because you design the qualifications based on the actual job roles and functions carried out by the individuals; I that helps to explain it.

Q824 Mark Pritchard: When developing the policy for your respective SSCs, how much does the four nations approach work within that policy formation?

Mr Jones: From our particular area, social justice, some of it is led centrally because of central policies - for example, dealing with the Ministry of Justice, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Court Service and then dealing with the police, especially when we have got issues that are non-devolved. Obviously justice is not devolved in Wales, however certain parts of the work of the police is a devolved issue. Therefore, the policing issue is generally a Wales issue, whereas some of the other issues are delivered centrally.

Mr Woods: I would also add, the governance arrangements within each individual organisation are set up so that each of the four countries have a voice within the governance arrangements of the individual organisations themselves. It is something within the relicensing of all Sector Skills Councils which Leitch recommends that is going to be a high priority for the United Kingdom Commission on Employment and Skills to take cognisance of, so that the voices of all four nations have equal weight within the process.

Q825 Mark Pritchard: Do you think England takes precedence in that?

Mr Woods: I do not think it takes precedence. There are differences which the Committee is investigating between various issues to do with funding provision where there may be different sets of monies available. I think one of the things for employers, certainly within the private sector, is that the boundaries between nations and regions are not really that meaningful. They work, I think, on the basis of their own economic units and markets. What we have to do as Sector Skills Councils is make sure there is a consistent support delivered where they need it and ensure the qualifications offered in each of the countries are transferable across the UK. Certainly some of the responses for which the Committee has had evidence show that there is a need for a consistency of approach across the UK, because some of the organisations are trans-global organisations in their own right. It is our role in trying to translate what is happening in each of those nations for employers, and we are part of the glue of the system. I would not say that one has any preference over the other. It is our role I think to make sure that the interpretation of all four nations is one which employers understand.

Q826 Mark Pritchard: Given the difference in size between England and Wales, are there any issues of capacity in relation to you delivering what you need to deliver?

Ms Creed: I think the question of capacity is raised frequently, and I think capacity has a direct relation to resources. Sector Skills Councils receive �1.3 million in core resources to deliver their business across all of the constituencies they represent and the UK nations. I think Leitch has adequately highlighted that the level of core funding made available is different from the extent of the core remit. Capacity I think needs to be viewed in the context of the resources that are made available to us. I would not say there is an issue in terms of capacity between England and Wales per se. There is as much a capacity issue between coverage for the Southwest of England, the Southeast of England or the Midlands. We have got a regional dimension to take account of as well as a country dimension. Managing that �1.3 million over a very diverse remit is challenging, I think it would be fair to say.

Q827 Mark Pritchard: Although the potential for possible disparities in different parts of different regions in England does not necessary, if you like, mitigate the impact of the disparity between Wales and England?

Mr Jones: If I could just give an example of that, again, from my sector where we have four conjoined and distinct police forces in Wales. This has given us an opportunity to work together on the skills agenda to bring the four forces together and have the commitment of the four chief constables to work together on any new initiatives with an all-Wales initiative.

Q828 Mark Pritchard: Finally, what policies could you identify in higher education that differ from England to Wales?

Ms Creed: The Committee has already received a response from Higher Education Wales which, as the representative network for our part of our sector, we would obviously commend to you. One of the challenges that Higher Education Wales are focussing on is the difference of what they term the "funding gap" between England and Wales; in that because of the nature of higher education, which obviously sees itself as a global entity but obviously a UK-wide entity as well, aspects of higher education spending are fixed at a UK level; and then the resources that are made available to higher education in Wales put pressure on the institutions in Wales in terms of, say, what Higher Education Wales would refer to as a "funding gap", which certainly the sector would say is in the longer term going to have an impact on the maintenance and quality in Wales versus the levels of quality in England.

Q829 Mark Pritchard: I did say "finally" but given you have taken the time to read previous evidence for which the Committee, through the Chairman, is no doubt grateful, you will have identified that there is a funding gap both in the provision of higher education. Within the same evidence, perhaps supplementary evidence, there is a shortfall as far as research funding is concerned, which no doubt you have identified, and I think you are sort of agreeing today there are certain disparities, if not a shortfall, on that funding for skills and training provision in Wales. The cumulative impact of that, in my view, is not particularly helpful to the people of Wales. What is your view?

Ms Hunter: If I could just pick up on that before Richard answers. There are a couple of specific areas where for the learners there are issues about the differences between England and Wales in higher education: one is the funding of foundation of degrees; and the other is the actual student fees which vary quite considerably between England and Wales. Those are issues for the learners which, given the fact that the infrastructure funding is not deemed sufficient in Wales, the impact of that means many more students and learners may move to England to higher education, and therefore the fees difference will impact on them as well.

Q830 Alun Michael: I just wanted to pursue one issue really. It is difficult sometimes for those outside the system to get under the skin of what you do, which is probably a challenge for you as well as a problem for us. I would just like to know how in the future, just as you do with interdisciplinary issues - to give one example, the whole question of how people analyse crime and disorder in their area; the development of crime and disorder audits and things like that require methodology and techniques - how do you deal with that sort of issue, given that a lot of the people who need to be engaged with that will be outside the direct ambit of the Criminal Justice System?

Ms Hunter: I think again this is where national occupational standards come in; because the standards define all the functions and activities that have to be carried out across the justice sector. In any partnership arrangements we encourage the sector to use the national occupational standards, even with the partners who are coming in from the outside. There are a lot of generic national occupational standards which are used by all the Sector Skills Councils, but if there are ones that are specifically about activities - for instance, analysing intelligence data and so on - those are there, and we would encourage the partner organisations who are working with our sector to use the relevant standards as well.

Q831 Alun Michael: Could I try another example, and that is youth offending teams where, again, there is a spread of different professions and educational backgrounds that come together, and again where there are cross-border as well as cross-disciplinary issues in places like Northeast Wales and parts of South Wales?

Ms Hunter: Again, I would refer you to the same answer. The national occupational standards encompass the whole of the activities in the justice sector. For instance, when a police officer moves into a youth offending team, which happens quite frequently, the police officer will already have demonstrated their competence against the national occupational standards for their police role; but when they move into the youth offending team there will be a number of additional national occupational standards that reflect the additional work and the change in role as they move into the youth offending team.

Q832 Alun Michael: Would seeking those additional skills be triggered automatically by such a move?

Ms Hunter: In most cases, yes.

Q833 Alun Michael: The third example I give is police community support officers, where obviously you have got a new set of challenges, some of which relate to policing and some of which relate much more to my old profession of community work?

Ms Hunter: Exactly the same. A whole suite of national occupational standards that identify the activities that a community support officer carries out. It includes some standards that have come in from other Sector Skills Councils to show the activities that have been taken over.

Q834 Alun Michael: Chairman, I have found the answers reassuring but I think, because it is helpful if you work down to practical examples, it perhaps would be useful to have some supplementary evidence against those three examples of how that works in practice.

Ms Hunter: Yes, we can do that.

Q835 Mr Jones: I would like to return, if I may, to funding gaps in further and higher education which I know is an issue that concerns you, and it is also an issue on which we have already had evidence. For example, HEFCW have indicated the funding gap in Wales in higher education was running at something in the region of �61 million. What would you say are the consequences for employers of these disparities in the funding regimes from outside of the English/Welsh border?

Ms Creed: The funding gap will cover such issues as the development of the premises of a learning environment, which obviously is a critical part of the student's learning experience. It will impact upon the resources that the learning institution is able to buy - the new technologies, the electronic SMART Boards, sufficient access to e-learning to wider access access etc., and inevitably it will have an impact on the amount of funding that can be invested into the staff development of the individuals working in those institutions. As you are hearing from both FORUM(?), on an FE basis, and from Higher Education Wales, for HE, England is increasing their investment in these areas, whilst Wales funding has either remained capped or has declined in real terms. It is difficult at this particular juncture to say what the impact would be; but I guess if you were to logically follow through, the questions one needs to look at will be: how will the staff delivering learning, particularly as we move to more vocationally-based programmes, who have a dual professionalism of both teaching skills but also their underpinning technical skills, how will they keep both sets of skills sufficiently up-to-date to be able to effectively deliver the new vocational agenda that we are seeking to push hard right across the UK? In terms of learning environment, not only will perhaps employers and learners look at where they are going to learn to understand whether it is somewhere they want to go to learn, staff undoubtedly (particularly near the borders) will be making a judgement about: do I want to go and work in a state-of-the-art college that is 20 miles down the road that way, where they have had a substantial investment programme in the premises, or do I want to go and work 20 miles in this direction where perhaps they have not? One would image that if the banding gap were to continue to sustain that we would see the issues on a series of different levels.

Q836 Mr Jones: Could I concentrate, please, on employers per se. Given nowadays (and we have had evidence already in the course of this inquiry) that students are increasingly opting to study closer to home, so therefore your pool of students in due course is probably going to be from the area in which they want to be employed, what effect will this have upon employers? I am thinking in particular of Northeast Wales where the border is almost invisible for practical purposes, but there are a lot of major employers. What can you see the impact upon employers in particularly that part of Wales as being?

Ms Creed: I think in the scenario you are highlighting, employers are customers of the colleges. What employers anywhere are keen to do is buy high quality learning that is fit for purpose, and that will mean the university or the college needs to be able to invest sufficient monies in ensuring that its course content remains valid and up-to-date; but it also needs to ensure that its staff are up-to-date. If there is reduced investment over a long period of time I think those two issues will become more of a challenge for the institution and that will therefore then have an impact on the quality of the product that the employer has access to.

Q837 Mr Jones: Where will the employer look to in order to obtain that product?

Ms Hunter: I think the issue as Michelle said is about quality and fit for purpose, and employers will go where the quality and fit for purpose training is being delivered. The other issue that has been highlighted by EU skills, Energy and Utility Skills and the Automotive Sector Skills Council(?), is the issue that where the funding for the learners going onto the programmes is different then the employers either will opt for the country where the funding is higher, or they will back-off from taking up things like apprenticeship frameworks because the combination of two different sets of bureaucracy and two different lots of funding and two different lots of audit will make it too bureaucratic for them and they will back-off altogether. That could have a long-term impact on skills development.

Q838 Mr Jones: Are you noticing at this stage any change in attitude of employers as to where they are seeking their employees from, or is too early days yet?

Ms Hunter: I do not think we are as a Sector Skills Council, but I think some of our colleagues probably are.

Mr Woods: Perhaps Mr Jones answered some of your questions. There is evidence supplied by colleagues in Lantra, which is the environment, where they talk about specialist HE provision for example in veterinary services where there is no provision.

Q839 Mr Jones: We may come back to that later on in the course of this session. Would you say that employers need more parity in qualifications and training on either side of the border?

Ms Hunter: Absolutely. I think one of the things that has come out from several of the Sector Skills Councils is there are some specific examples in materials sent through to you but the differences between the Welsh Baccalaureate and the 14-19 diplomas in England and EU skills is a particular example. I think it was EU skills about start-dates. Although there were similarities between those qualifications, one will start in 2009 and one will start in 2010. So there is a difficulty there for employers, and the differences between the Young Apprenticeship Scheme and the Workplace Learning Pathways in the two countries. Where they are national employers, where they cover the four countries, there is a confusion and they do not understand why it is a different qualification or a different funding route in the two countries. I think that is a particular issue for them.

Q840 Mr Jones: Do you see any signs of the administrations in England and Wales moving towards trying to achieve that parity; or has there been no such movement as yet?

Ms Hunter: I think there is a lot of working together and talking together about the different qualifications; but I do see the two governments diverging in many ways.

Q841 Mr Jones: So it is actually getting worse?

Ms Hunter: Potentially, but I do not think we have yet seen the impact of some of that potential. There are slight differences between the credit and qualifications frameworks as well. Whilst the difference between the English framework and the Welsh framework is not as marked as the differences between the English and Scottish frameworks, Sector Skills Councils and employers have to make sense of the three different qualification and credit frameworks. Not only that, but those also have to be articulated to the European qualifications and credit framework. For employers and, I think, probably learners too there is a huge area for confusion here. What does that mean? Why is there a different one over there? We struggle sometimes in Sector Skills Councils to understand the differences, so what employers and learners have to struggle with is even greater.

Ms Creed: Can I just supplement that as well. I think Sue has clearly outlined where we currently are. I think one of the lights on the horizon for us that we must take account of is a major qualification reform programme, which is called the UK Vocational Qualification Reform Programme, which is going to be looking at, ironically, not including Scotland but England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and looking to bring together a common accord as far as the credit and qualification systems are concerned. One of the drivers behind the re-license role of Sector Skills Councils will be working within that new framework to try and bring parity, esteem and a clearer understanding of how qualifications in different nations will actually articulate together.

Q842 Mr Jones: So effectively trying to return to where we were ten years ago?

Ms Creed: I am afraid my memory does not stretch that far back.

Q843 Mark Williams: Carrying on, on what you said about the confusion of employers and employees, have you picked up that that is particularly marked on the border where companies have got employees from both sides of the border?

Ms Hunter: Yes, I think there was an example in the pack you had previously from one of the other Sector Skills Councils - I think it was the financial services one - where they have got funding for Welsh students coming over the border into Gloucester College. The students needed to come to Gloucester to do the particular programmes, but the issue for the employers and the college was identifying the funding. So they have to get permission to bring the funding with them; whereas for the students based in England coming to the Gloucester College it is almost automatic.

Q844 Mark Williams: How challenging is it getting that funding to follow the student?

Ms Hunter: From our understanding, from what the Financial Services Sector Skills Council has said, it is "difficult and lengthy".

Q845 Mark Williams: Is that an impediment for students to carry on?

Ms Hunter: That is what they are saying. Not only is the process difficult and lengthy but sometimes permission is refused to bring the funding with them.

Q846 Alun Michael: Is the fact that "Train to Gain" is available in England but is not available in Wales a significant issue as far as you are concerned?

Mr Jones: It is indeed, especially if we take for example the HM Prison Service. We have three prisons in Wales, and the Prison Service is entitled to Train to Gain, but obviously Train to Gain does not come into Wales, so there are marked difficulties there.

Q847 Alun Michael: So the Prison Service as a non-devolved service is eligible?

Mr Jones: It is indeed.

Q848 Alun Michael: But a prison that is located in Wales is not?

Mr Jones: Yes. I believe that monies will follow over but it is not a natural follow-through. If we want to deliver any local training using local colleges, or local universities, they could not access that Train to Gain money.

Q849 Alun Michael: Because the finances are specific to the college rather than to the location of the employment activities?

Mr Jones: Yes, because the Train to Gain money would be kept in England and it would not necessarily follow into Wales.

Q850 Alun Michael: There is also an issue that has been raised in relation to the European Social Fund. If you have got specifically funded programmes, as I understand it, it cannot be delivered across the border in Wales by colleges based in England, which therefore makes it more difficult for colleges who want to support a deprived community which is essentially a part of their catchment but is over the border. Is that an issue as far as you are concerned?

Ms Hunter: It depends on the European Social Fund project that they have got the funding through, and what the remit and scope of the project bid was. If it specifically identified some activity in England and working with partners in England then that would be true, yes.

Q851 Alun Michael: So if a bid were to identify a need to work across the border then that would be fine; but if that point was not appreciated at the bid point that could lead to practical difficulties later?

Ms Hunter: I believe that is the case, yes.

Mr Jones: It could also affect where the college is actually based; so you may have the college that is ideally placed to deliver that training, but because the college is outside the bid area it would be ineligible to deliver it.

Q852 Alun Michael: One part of the equation, which again has already been touched on, is the question of how the voice of business is heard in the areas of further and higher education. My understanding and my experience is that that is particularly difficult in Wales where perhaps there are not the resources of headquarters-based companies to make a contribution to those sorts of discussions. So what are the best structures in the cross-border context for making sure that those voices are heard?

Mr Jones: I have to say in our sector, the justice sector, we are very fortunate in that we do have 100% engagement with all of our employers at the senior level, and also very good engagement with those departments in HEIs who deal with the justice sector. I do not think other sectors are as fortunate.

Q853 Alun Michael: Perhaps the more commercial sectors.

Ms Creed: I think it is very much a sector by sector based question. It will depend on, as you say, some sectors will have everything from very large employers to very small employers; and every sector will have an employer engagement strategy that will look at how both the voice of the small and large employer will be accessed. The way in which Lifelong Learning UK works as an organisation is that we engage employers through the plethora of networks that already face our sector. We are not interested in re-inventing the wheel; we are not interested in getting employers to come to us if we can go to them, so we are going to where they would naturally congregate already. As well as the general collection of the voice through Fforwm there are also the events that we would run in Wales where, for example, we consult on the national occupational standards, to which we have already alluded; and we would use electronic online support to also access different employers to get views on different topics and matters. I think there is a plethora of ways that we can do that, but I think the message has to be very definitely in collaboration and in partnership because I am sure the Committee will have already heard that engagement with employers is a challenge for many partners throughout the system, and what employers do not want are 101 people arriving on the doorstep at the same time - we have to be efficient in the way in which we approach them.

Q854 Alun Michael: Does that mean that some activities, some commercial activities in particular, that efficiency requires a relationship with the employers at a national UK level rather than a more national and regional level?

Ms Creed: That again would come back to the sector. So, for example, I previously worked for the Financial Services Sector, and obviously organisations that are global or pan-UK, like Lloyds TSB, for example, there would have needed to have been a relationship through the pool there; but also working with the area offices and networks at a country level.

Q855 Mark Williams: I think we touched on this a bit earlier but on what basis would you choose an English further education college to work with over a Welsh one and vice versa - again getting into the realms of the government funding system in each country.

Ms Hunter: The first consideration for most employers, particularly in our sector, is whether the college or the higher education institution can offer a quality fit for purpose programme, regardless where it is. We have a number of examples in our sector of police forces, probation services using higher education institutions that are quite some considerable distance from where they are based because they are the right institution to offer that provision. But for some Sector Skills Councils the employers will have a much greater interest in what the funding issues are; so for our sector they traditionally have not been able to access a lot of public funding for educational training in colleges and HEIs anyway. But for some sectors that will be a real issue and it goes back to what we were saying previously about the infrastructure investment and the funding regimes.

Q856 Mark Williams: We had some evidence from the Summit Skills Council that again talked about the difference between Train to Gain, which is perceived to be well marketed, simple to access and has engaged employers, whereas the workforce development fund (which is available in Wales) is poorly advertised, communicated and "not worth the hassle".

Ms Hunter: And quite complicated as well.

Mr Jones: Depending on which route you choose some of the training may be 100% funded, there will be a contribution; but we do believe that an announcement is going to be made by the Assembly next week on the way forward with the Sector Development Fund.

Q857 Mark Williams: We talked about - again, your phrase - about the divergent policy between the two countries. How difficult is it to broker partnerships between Wales and England? Is it more difficult to broker partnerships across the border than within England or Wales?

Mr Jones: Again, just talking for our sector, we have seen it as an opportunity, especially some of the work that the South Wales Police have been doing, for example, they have developed what is known as an advance appointment scheme. So if you are a student who chooses to undertake the BA in police studies at Glamorgan whilst you are studying you can become a special constable at weekends, and you can serve as a special constable in your holidays. And there is one student from Wiltshire who is attending Glamorgan on the same course and Wiltshire Constabulary have taken him on to their advanced appointment scheme to run parallel to show the difference that is being made.

Q858 Mark Williams: How common are those partnerships in other Sector Skills areas?

Ms Hunter: I think there are some examples but I think they are few and far between.

Mr Woods: For me the evidence that comes out is that as we are supposed to be articulating the voice of employers, employers are going to go to wherever there are business driven high level skills on offer, and it is those relationships that we are having to broker. I do not think, as I said in my comments, that necessarily that is seen as an England or Wales issue - they are going to where they see the best value that is added to their business from the skills being offered by that HE institution. The difficulty that we have is translating the need from the employer to those HE institutions because sometimes the language and the focus is different. One might characterise it stereotype it as being academic and one being about vocational. It is about us as Sector Skills Councils trying to broker those partnerships between the HE institutions and employers to speak a common language that they can then deliver something which the employer wants, and that is part of our work and it is also part of the new remit of the Commission for Employment and Skills - they will be looking at the relationship in higher education to businesses.

Q859 Mark Williams: Do you detect a change in attitude in those higher education institutions? Obviously you have pointed to the success stories, but more generally.

Mr Woods: I think there is a greater recognition that universities to some extent or higher education institutions are going to have to go back somewhat to their roots in providing business added value qualifications, and if the attainment that we wish which is articulated through REACH about world class skills then that is the only way in which that is going to happen, and to have it divorced from the reality of business productivity and performance I think is a false one.

Q860 Mark Williams: The frustration is where we have - your words "divergent funding" issues.

Mr Woods: I think that does not help when businesses are trying to understand the difference between a Welsh Baccalaureate and an English diploma, even for the same subject where they then start at different times; or that there is Train to Gain funding which is available in England but not available in Wales. Those things are difficult for us to articulate.

Q861 Mark Williams: On a personal level, going back to those individual companies specifically on the border, it must be immensely frustrating.

Ms Hunter: It is immensely frustrating and I suppose the bottom line for business, if there were two equally competitive offers either side of the border in terms of what is being offered, and the quality and content is right, then my guess is that the business would opt for whichever one was the most cost effective at that point. So there will be an imbalance.

Q862 Mr Jones: Mr Woods, you will be glad to hear that we are going on to specialist training now! You mentioned briefly that, for example, there are no higher education institutions in Wales delivering higher education institutions in Wales delivering veterinary science courses, and presumably that is only one example. Are learners from Wales who want to attend specialist training courses usually able to access them? If not, what sort of factors are an impediment to them obtaining such access?

Mr Woods: From the evidence that has been supplied to the Committee there are issues where they have access to training; there are good examples as well as the example which you quoted from Lantra, saying that there is no provision. There is the evidence from colleagues which talks about the airbus project, which is with the Manufacturing Sector Skills Sector. I think what again is happening is that because we are based upon a sectoral basis employers are looking for relationships with providers of learning that can deliver their needs, and you can pick out examples where it is working well and you can pick out examples where it is working less well, and that is evidenced throughout the report. To try and say that on a global basis is that good and bad in the context of Wales, I think that is difficult to do. We, for example, within the justice sector that we have good relationships; there are other colleagues, obviously with things like veterinary science that say there is not a good relationship because that offer is not just there.

Q863 Mr Jones: Can we look at it more globally rather than in respect of your sector? For example, you have mentioned veterinary science and would have thought that tuition fees would be some sort of disincentive to students who wish to study veterinary sciences having to come from Wales; is that what you are finding?

Ms Hunter: I think there is some evidence of that but there is another issue in that the colleges and the universities will not put on a programme that they cannot guarantee a break-even number of students. So if your pool of students is quite limited and out of that pool of students only one or two want to do a particular programme it is not worth the university actually offering that programme.

Q864 Mr Jones: To pause briefly there, that could actually impact upon students from England in that particular case, who would also be unable to access that particular training course?

Ms Hunter: Yes, it depends on the particular programme and the university and what the catchment area is and whether they can actually get the sufficient number of individuals on to the programme - whether it is at a college or a university.

Q865 Mr Jones: How would you say that cross-border access to specialist training could be improved? Is it just down to finance or are there other factors?

Ms Hunter: I think the Sector Skills Councils have a role to play in this in identifying and working with, as most of us do, with the higher education institutions and defining for them what learning is required in which areas of the country because some needs will be much more localised than others, particularly for some of the other Sector Skills Councils. So I think we have a role to play in identifying and brokering the development of programmes.

Q866 Mr Jones: Can you give some examples of the way in which you are actually fulfilling that role?

Mr Woods: Colleagues from Asset Skills have identified that there are needs, for example, in surveying and planning and they are addressing that by working with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors for accredited courses in surveying and planning at the University of Glamorgan. So there are, I think, examples within the documents that the Committee has received, which are again trying to articulate the employers' needs. Where they identify that there is a skills gap, which we will have published in our Sector Skills Agreements, it is then us trying to work with the providers of learning to actually offer those courses where there are gaps, which then means that there is a progression from somebody taking that learning into the world of work.

Q867 Mr Jones: But is there necessarily a gap because the course is available but it just happens to be on the other side of the border. To what extent can you assist learners in accessing training on the other side of the border? It is all very well to create a new course within Wales but what if the student is in North Wales and wants to access the course in England?

Ms Creed: We have a policy lobby voice as well as a voice that faces the supply side, so where these issues surface and where the employers say that this is becoming an issue for them, and obviously that becomes an employer issue as opposed to an individual learner issue perhaps, we are able to capture that and feed that back in to the policy consultation processes that we go through. Just to give you a specific example of where an SSC has overcome that issue, if I can refer you to the Skills Set's submission, Skills Set are the Sector Skills Council for the creative media industries and they specifically stated, if I can quote: "We have noted instances where specialist training was not available through the FE and HE sector in Wales or indeed its neighbouring English regions. For example, a new entrance programme for the post-production industries that we successfully ran in Wales called First Post was delivered in Wales by the collaboration of a Welsh Company, Barcud Derwen, and a London based training facilitator, Soho Editors, the collaboration provided an opportunity to develop the capacity for specialist post-production training in Wales." That is an example there where Skills Set has actively helped develop the capacity of the system in Wales to be able to provide that specialist training.

Q868 Mr Jones: Given your remit though I guess that you would tend not to intervene until it was becoming a problem that looked as if it was going to impact upon employers; is that right?

Ms Creed: We are set up to be employer-led businesses.

Q869 Mark Williams: To Lifelong Learning, you have expressed concern about the increasing divergence of the qualification requirement for further education teachers in Wales and England, I think following the new regulation that came into effect last year. What is the nature of the problem and how big a problem is it?

Ms Creed: Thank you for the opportunity. We are still at very early stages with this agenda because, obviously as you have identified, it only came into play in September 2007. In essence what has happened is the training of teachers for the post compulsory system, so further education, community learning and development, work-based learning, within that FE system used to be joined by statutory instrument for both England and Wales, and were both the same sets of qualifications and the same sets of underpinning standards. In 2005 the Equipping our Teachers for the Future agenda moved the England position to a new level and England pursued the development of their own standards and their own qualifications, driven by the needs that were highlighted within the Ofsted Reports and the FE system. We have as a result of those changes within England, because obviously education and skills is a devolved matter, we have been working with Wales, working with the support of the Assembly Government to review the standards for teachers in Wales, and we have submitted recommendations to the Assembly on what the new teacher qualification framework for Wales should be. There are some differences between the standards and qualifications that employers have said they would like to see because of the different agenda between 14 to 19, for example; and obviously Wales is a bilingual country and has complexities there in terms of bilingual learning delivery. Where the issues require further support at the moment, obviously we are working with the HR managers' network through Fforwm and the principles network through Fforwm to help them look at the implications of cross-boarder labour market mobility. We do not perceive there to be barriers for individuals moving across the system but we do in the short term perceive a need to support employers' understanding what of the new England qualifications they can accept and what the implications are for students that are trained in Wales in terms of moving into the England system. It may well be as a result of the differences that have emerged between England and Wales that there are some additional induction requirements that are required into devolved education systems in both countries, but I would say that that is in hand.

Q870 Mark Williams: What is the timetable for this? You have discussions but when do you expect some action from the Assembly Government?

Ms Creed: The Assembly have already the new professional standards for teachers and trainers in Wales and the qualifications framework recommendations is currently with them for review and we expect a response shortly.

Q871 Mark Williams: How big an issue was that? You said not a huge number of individuals, but how big an issue has this been in terms of cross-border movement of teachers to date?

Ms Creed: Because of the regulated nature of teacher qualifications, where the immediate impact has been felt has been within, for example, the University of Newport, who previously had a franchise for teacher training provision that stretched across England and Wales because obviously they were working on the basis of the same standards. As a result of the regulatory changes Newport has relinquished elements of its franchise in England and is concentrating on the bulk of its provision, which always has been in Wales. So that is an immediate impact. Obviously there have been some tensions in this transition. As a result of this the role that LL UK has played is that we have established a four nations strategic summit where we bring the senior civil servants from departments for education and skills together, to look at what the implications are for learning delivery, and I would say that in terms of standards for teachers the UK has never had a UK-wide approach before. But we have now brokered agreement across the four governments and we were in Belfast last week actually commencing a project that is going to look at the standards for teacher training across the whole of the UK for the first time, bring it together as a set of national occupational standards for learning delivery and in due course that overarching set of national occupational standards will inform the needs of the four governments, which in an evolving sense will make understanding of the similarities and differences between the qualifications easier for employers and learners to understand.

Q872 Mark Williams: Not least because Sir Adrian Webb has talked about the need to have ongoing vocational professional development, which obviously is going to lend itself very much to what you said. This is not written in a tablet of stone now, is it, it is going to be reviewed in the future as well.

Ms Creed: Within England the commitment to continuing professional development and a licence to practise for teachers in the FE system has been established as part of the equipping our teachers for the future agenda. Decisions on licence to practice and commitment to CPD have not yet been taken in Wales, and it is certainly something that employers in the sector are firmly behind, and it is something that we have covered in our sector skills agreement process; so we are on the case.

Q873 Chairman: I was intrigued and interested in that particular example. Important as it is it is a very highly localised part of the whole debate. It occurs to me that there are very fundamental questions that you have raised today about funding, about qualifications and about policy, and I was interested to hear that this four nation approach is being developed in relation to further education teachers. Where is the actual public debate in terms of Lifelong Learning, in terms of your work, in terms of skills taking place now? There are quite serious developments in terms of funding obligations and policy occurring in Wales and in England, but you are talking about senior civil servants. Is there a body in Wales that actually now raises the question how do we come together and discuss these changes? Is there a sense of introspection or are you actually suffering in silence, or are you actually looking outwards and asking the question? For example, the body that I was associated years ago, which is now called NIACE Dysgu Cymru, a body that usually in days gone by ten years ago would have been the public forum where learners, employers, trade unions, local authorities all came together to discuss and help to develop policy.

Ms Creed: An important part of Lifelong Learning UK's governance structure in Wales is our Wales Country Panel. Our Wales Country Panel draws representation from the employers within our footprint, so each of our further education, higher education work-based learning, libraries, archives and information services and community learning and development, which would include, for example, community development, youth work, community-based adult learning, on that Country Panel the director for NIACE Dysgu Cymru is a member, as is John Graystone, who is the Chief Executive of Fforwm, as is the Higher Education Wales Committee, as is the Wales TUC, so on and so forth, through the well-established names and organisations in the Lifelong Learning sector. We meet with that Panel three times a year and we ---

Q874 Chairman: Could you stop a moment? I did not make myself clear. Is that an introspective body or does it actually take account of what is happening across the UK and globally as well?

Ms Creed: Yes, we do. Certainly as a body we are the sum of our component parts, so NIACE would still have its UK links; it would also have its forums about which you are talking where its networks can come together and offer input on a policy matter, for example. And what we have a function of doing as well as directly accessing our employers and as well as looking to developments in Europe we are able to draw on the combined intellectual capital that those key organisations and groups bring together. So it is quite a complicated network but we are pulling together the component parts of the sector.

Q875 Chairman: I think there ought to be more public knowledge of what you are doing.

Mr Woods: Can I just comment upon that question that you asked my colleague Michelle? The Alliance of Sector Skills Councils also has a role in that process of working across the 25 sectors to enable that debate. Although we are employer led with the employers' voice is the one that we are hearing in terms of trying to understand what employers want through the various skills systems throughout the United Kingdom, that debate is managed across those 25 Sector Skills Councils. The challenge, of course, as you say, is then to bring that out into the wider arena as an independent voice and I think that is something that the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils will be looking to do.

Chairman: Thank you very much all of you for your very challenging evidence this morning; it has been extremely helpful to us in our inquiry on cross-border issues.

Witness: Professor Ian Diamond, Chief Executive, Economic and Social Research Council and Chair of RCUK Executive Group, gave evidence.

Q876 Chairman: Good morning and welcome to the Welsh Affairs Committee. For the record, could you introduce yourself, please?

Professor Diamond: I am Ian Diamond and I am Chief Executive of the Economic and Social Research Council.

Q877 Alun Michael: On a point of order, Mr Chairman, I believe it is correct to say that Professor Diamond is also Chair of the Research Council UK as distinct from an organisation called ECUK that appears in our papers. I make this point in pursuit of the banishment of acronyms and initials from the work of this Committee, despite the alphabet that we have had to be provided with an explanation of in this particular session.

Professor Diamond: I am also Chair of the Executive Group of Research Councils UK, which is all Research Councils working together.

Q878 Chairman: You are aware that this inquiry focuses very sharply on higher education and higher education research and in earlier evidence it has been identified that there is quite a serious funding gap or a lower proportion of research funding coming into the higher education sector in Wales. How do you explain that?

Professor Diamond: There is variability between the seven Research Councils, I have to say that. Put very simply, all Research Council funding is allocated on the basis of excellence, which is allocated on the basis of a peer review process, which is accepted by all higher education institutions across the UK; we are UK bodies and simply have open competition to which all the Welsh institutions, as well institutions throughout the UK, can bid.

Q879 Chairman: But by size Wales appears to underperforming compared with, say, Scotland. Is that purely historical or is it historical plus what perhaps some people would say - and I am not necessarily saying it - a lack of aspiration or a lack of ambition?

Professor Diamond: I cannot speak for aspirations or ambition; I am very conscious that the Welsh institutions are often contacting my Council to ask for advice on funding, so my own personal observation is that there is evidence of aspiration. I would have to say that competitively the Welsh institutions have in the past not been doing as well as those in some other parts of the UK. There are exceptions and I have to say it is really difficult to use the word "institution" because if you take, for example, an institution like Bangor, in my own Council, which as a whole has a relatively low percentage of funding, there are within Bangor real pockets of international excellence, particularly in psychology and linguistics, which mean that we have jointly with the Welsh Assembly recently funded a major centre on bilingualism there. So I think it is very difficult to say institutions because within institutions in Wales, which may not as an institution gain great funding, there are absolutely pockets of supreme international excellence.

Q880 Chairman: But how do you account for that stark contrast between Scotland and Wales? Is it purely historical?

Professor Diamond: I cannot say that it is purely historical; I would have to say that there are some bigger universities in Scotland, in my observation. I would also have to say - and you talk about the history - I think going forward there will be some very good news stories. For example, my own Council has partnered with the Welsh Assembly Government, with WORD and with HEFCW on a number of initiatives just recently and there have been some significant successes. For example, if I may, the recent centres of excellence in public health research, which were competitive right across the UK, Cardiff was highly successful in gaining one of those, and that was a competition through the UK Clinical Research Collaboration. In addition my own Council joined with HEFCW has just funded the Welsh Institution of Social and Economic Research, and that is joint between Cardiff and Swansea. These are significant pieces of funding which have not yet started but which are for the next three to four to five years, and I personally believe will see us start to raise that funding profile.

Q881 Chairman: You give individual examples, almost piecemeal examples, pragmatic examples in a sense of collaboration. Are there other remedies more root and branch, more radical? For example, back in the early 1990s, 15 years ago now, Sir John Meurig Thomas had this major role in the University of Wales where he was basically proposing one university, one Research University. Would we need to go back to that model or are there other models that need to be looked at?

Professor Diamond: I think it is very disciplinary based. In my view there has to be a real desire to have the very best facilities for the very best scholars to be able to pursue their research, and I believe personally - and speaking, I stress, personally - there is an enormous need and model for collaboration across institutions so that the very best researchers do not need to have the very best equipment, for example, in their own institution, but they can work together across institutions to establish that. That does not say that you need one research institution; it does say that you need collaboration and partnership, which goes across institutions, and may indeed cross institutions outside of Wales into the rest of the United Kingdom, or indeed internationally so that the very best scholars feel that they can pursue their research in entirely the best way within Wales.

Q882 Mark Williams: That last answer is very much borne out with the partnerships being built between Aberystwyth University and Bangor, of course. You mention your pockets of excellence and of course in the Ceredigion constituency is of course the former IGAR, and pioneering work being undertaken there. In the various debates that have been pursued over the past two or three years of the funding of the then IGAR an alternative model was suggested whereby at least part of the funding for an institution like that would be by a formula which would give a set proportion to Wales rather than the existing bidding process. I emphasise from my constituency that the pursuit of excellence has always been there but there has been that perception that the Chairman alluded to, that the research base within Wales has failed somewhat short of other countries in the United Kingdom. What are your thoughts on a formula based system to govern these matters in Wales?

Professor Diamond: My personal view is that one needs to have aspirations to be able to compete at the very best and that formula based funding may not, if you like, really raise that aspiration because it enables one to think that the money is there. Having said that, I think one needs a very clear strategy about how you not only raise aspirations but raise, if you like, the game in applications to ensure that you are competing at the very highest level. I cannot speak in depth to IGAR but I could see why one might want to invest funds over a period of time to ensure that the best facilities and best scholars were there so that one had success in funding. So it does seem to me that it is an area that is important for research over the next few years; it is not an area which is going to be, in my view, slowing down its research needs. Indeed, it is also an area in which Wales as a nation would benefit from the knowledge transfer which comes from research in an institution like that.

Q883 Mark Williams: Do you think there is a case for how you achieve this, but including the number of Welsh based representatives on the Research Councils' governing bodies to make the case for Wales in organisations like yourself?

Professor Diamond: I think that is a very good question. I think it is important to recognise the distinction between Research Councils' governing bodies, which is a relatively small group of people and the funding boards because if you were to look at my own council since the late Hayden Lewis(?) stepped down from our council we have not had a representative from Wales, although we always are concerned to have representatives from the different devolved countries of the United Kingdom and I can assure you that at the moment Professor Jeffery and Professor Alexander, who are Scottish representatives, take every opportunity to take a devolved view and to make sure that we do so on council. At the same time my own council, which if you look there at zero representatives currently on council has a higher than you might expect number of representatives on the four funding boards, we always look at that position. So I think it is something that we are concerned about and would want to ensure that we are always clear that we must take into account the devolved angle on any decision on council and we always look at the distribution of colleagues on the actual funding board. Having said that, there is a two-way street and one of the things I always say to colleagues in universities, not only in Wales, is that you must encourage your very best people to put their names forward for those funding boards. These are the people who take into account the peer reviews and take the decisions and so for the credibility of the process these have to be the absolute best scholars; they tend to be the absolute best scholars who give of their time, and in order to be able to appoint them people have to apply, so I think it is very important that we do get that stream.

Q884 Mark Williams: Is there a bit of reluctance from people from Welsh institutions to apply?

Professor Diamond: I would have to say that there has been a reluctance of people from a number of institutions across the UK, and I have found it a very important part of my role over the last four to five years to encourage people to apply, and I have observed that when I have encouraged people to apply we have started to see a much greater flow in, and yet it is something that we must continue to do. Because it is something that takes a considerable amount of time to do properly and there has to be support from within the institution that people are not being pulled too thin because this is something which is, I believe, a contribution not only to the community of scholars as a whole to help make the decision but your institution gets a lot from it as well, because if you are sitting on the board which is making the decisions about funding you learn pretty quickly about the very best ways of writing a proposal and of getting funding and you are able then to transfer that back and to mentor junior scholars. So I think it is something that is really important, that we really work hard to make sure that the best colleagues are applying and then the Research Councils will be able to appoint them to the boards.

Q885 Mr Jones: Professor Diamond, to what extent are Welsh universities participating in the broader innovation and knowledge transfer initiatives in the Research Councils, such as the one that it is conducting in collaboration with the Technology Strategy Board?

Professor Diamond: The Technology Strategy Board I think is a wholly good innovation and we as Research Councils meet very regularly with Ian Gray, the Chief Executive of the Technology Strategy Board and with his colleagues to ensure that we are working with them. They are taking a very broad view of the economy, which I think is wholly good and that will have a very good opportunity for Wales. They are in the early phases, let us be frank, of the work that they are doing and I am very clear in my mind that there is a lot of interest from the Welsh institutions that are taking part in knowledge transfer partnerships and some of the other major initiatives that they will take. I think it is too early as yet to judge on the success because this is an organisation that in its current incarnation has only been going for a relatively small amount of time. What I can tell you, Mr Jones, that the engagement is there and that my view is that the Welsh institutions are very keen to engage. I would also have to say that my observation is that a number of the Welsh institutions have really taken the whole knowledge transfer agenda very, very seriously and are doing so throughout the institution because I think it is important that leadership is given from the highest level, and that this is a very good thing for academics to spend their time on.

Q886 Mr Jones: Is there any concern, perhaps, that the Technology Strategy Board may be driven by policy formulated in London?

Professor Diamond: That is not clear to me. My observation - I stress my personal observation - is that the Technology Strategy Board is doing everything it can to engage with industry and with policy makers throughout the UK and to engage right across the different sectors of the economy, and that I think is a wholly good thing. I would stress that these are early days and we need to continue to monitor and to encourage.

Q887 Alun Michael: Could we look at the proportion of the Research Councils UK's funding for their own research institutes that is allocated to research establishments in Wales? I think we are talking about the fields of biotechnology, medical research and natural environment. What proportion actually goes to Wales?

Professor Diamond: I do not have that number right in front of me. I would be happy to provide that subsequently; it would be very easy to do that. Currently there are institutes within Wales from each of those organisations but I would have to say also very clearly that all the institutes of those councils, wherever they are situated, have a UK brief, so that the laboratory for molecular biology, for example, situated in Cambridge would have a brief to be a UK body, and I know would look right across into Wales as well. I do not think personally in the main that there would be an immense point about where the institutes historically have been situated. Having said that, the British Geological Survey does actually provide a Welsh service in the way that it is working on the geology of Wales, and I think that that is important. I think the key thing is that we ensure that there is the right degree of engagement with the Welsh authorities to ensure that the really important results that are coming out are being driven into policy and opportunities within Wales.

Q888 Alun Michael: We are not seeking to be defensive or parochial about this, but to understand how the system works so that additional information would be helpful. Part of the Research Council support for research includes the provision of facilities that are available to researchers UK-wide and you have just referred to a good example of that. Can you provide some examples of projects which have involved collaboration between researchers in Wales and England which have been of particular significance?

Professor Diamond: The one which I really hope has a huge impact - I have referred recently to the centres for health in public excellence and that is a partnership between Cardiff and Bristol, really taking the opportunities to use the skills in social medicine in Bristol, the skills in epidemiology and clinical trials in Cardiff and bringing them together with Welsh data in particular, which I think has a real potential over the next few years to have impact on the health of the population of Wales. I might also say that that is also part of a network of centres of health which includes the northeast, Northern Ireland and there is one on physical activity in Cambridge and one of smoking in Nottingham, which will also be linking together and then working right into the health of people of Wales. There is a lot of engagement of Welsh researchers with the electronic health initiative at the moment, which is UK-wide and colleagues working across those boundaries absolutely freely and openly. The rural economy and land use programme, which I believe has been a real example of multidisciplinary activity, where there were social scientists working with biologists, working with environmental scientists and a number of those projects involved colleagues in Wales and in England, and really therefore getting the benefits of that collaboration. I think one of the things we have to work on in the future, if I may say so, is ensuring that there are also no barriers to participation between Welsh scholars and those in other countries, so that we make it and it is a real challenge for the Research Councils - my own council now has a number of bilateral agreements with Research Councils around the world - so that we make it as easy for a colleague in Cardiff, Swansea, Aberystwyth or Bangor, to name but four, to work in a colleague in Mannheim, as it is to work with a colleague in another Welsh institution or indeed in Bristol or Oxford or another English institution.

Q889 Alun Michael: I think what you have said is very welcome and outward looking. It is perhaps worth suggesting that there is a need for a better profile of that wide cooperation. We tend very largely to be focused purely on things that are English or Welsh rather than on the benefits of ---

Professor Diamond: I could not agree more. The whole higher education story and indeed the whole benefits, both on the economic development and quality of life of the people of this country - and indeed beyond this country - is a very good one that we have been rather secretive in telling, and I think we have started to improve on that, and I think Cardiff, for one, is a place that has become much better in its outlook focus. But I do believe that there is a real need to celebrate and explain some of the benefits that have happened and to use that as a way to generate and to encourage the next generation.

Q890 Alun Michael: Taking that point, obviously the starting point for research is the questions that need to be asked.

Professor Diamond: Too right.

Q891 Alun Michael: How do you integrate UK research questions or questions that are coming out of the research community or from public bodies at a UK level with the research and policy priorities of devolved administrations?

Professor Diamond: I think in a number of areas. The way that this has happened is by the devolved administrations being part of the overall base of any conversation that goes forward with regard to directed research. Here may I take a second to say that there are two ways that we refund research? One is in what we call response mode research, where we in the research councils sit and wait for the great ideas to come from the scientists in any area that they wish in any field that they wish. The second area is directed research, where we take a view on where there is likely to be a gap or a need and we may do so with partners, for example WORD or the Welsh Assembly Government, or NIACE and those kinds of bodies are represented on all of the committees which are UK. I, for example, chair the Electronic Health Records Board for the Office of Strategic Coordination of Health Research and Professor Ronan Lyons from Swansea sits on that, as does John Williams, and so there is the opportunity to get the Welsh angle built into that. It is through that and through those kinds of partnerships that we are able to identify areas which are important and where there may be some - to use your word, Dr Francis - pragmatic but at the same time strategic need to work forward. So that, for example, with the Welsh Assembly Government where there was a feel of a need to look at the economic impact of higher education institutions on a particular area then the Welsh Assembly Government, together with the SRC, together with the Scottish Government were able to put together a piece of research which will be reported either later this year or the beginning of next year, which looks at that and which is able to take a comparative perspective between Scotland and Wales.

Q892 Alun Michael: I suppose the reason for some of these questions is the media-driven questioning about whether there is a fair share to Wales and a concern I suppose that would arise from the fact that the Research Councils have a relationship to government ministers and that others might be left out. Would I be right in saying that your view is that that is not what is happening and that there is a much more integrated situation as far as the work of the Research Councils are concerned that perhaps a superficial glance might suggest?

Professor Diamond: I think that would be a fair point. My own council has a concordat with the Welsh Assembly Government which is not just a friendly meeting; it is something that goes on throughout the year at officer level. We have a serious meeting once a year to review progress and to set strategy for the next year. Other councils have memoranda of understanding and regular meetings. And on many of the strategic decision-making bodies the Welsh Assembly Government or its constituent parts are represented. So I do feel that there is a very good story to tell. I am not saying that we should be complacent - please do not think that I am - and I think it is terribly important that (a) we continue to be reminded of the need to consider all these angles; and (b) that we work together with Wales and Welsh institutions to raise the game thereon. But I do think that there is a considerable amount of good work going on.

Q893 Mark Williams: Turning to postgraduate training, how effective do you feel that the UK-wide coordination of the provision for postgraduate qualifications is in particular with regard to the needs of the public sector - and I am thinking in terms of things like education and clinical psychology? Is there a mismatch between what has been provided, what has been funded and the needs of the public sector more generally?

Professor Diamond: It is a very good question. I think one needs to be able to decide exactly what it is you are trying to generate research for in the next generation. If we take one of the examples you have just raised, which is education, bringing on the next generation of educational researchers is an extremely urgent agenda because academics in institutions across the UK in education are, as a group, aging somewhat more rapidly than almost any other subject. Therefore, to bring on that next generation there are a number of challenges that we have to undertake. Firstly, many of those people who will come to do research in our education institutions to be researchers will do this as a second career, having firstly, for example, taught in a school. We need to make it easy for them to transfer from one career into another and to become very good researchers in so doing, and my own council is working to ensure that. But also much of the great educational research comes from people who are not formally trained as educationalists. So that, for example - and you have given the example of clinical psychology - educational psychology is often trained psychologists who become researchers in educational psychology or educational sociology or indeed economics. So that we need to ensure that we are bringing on new generations of psychologist, economists and socialists whose interest is to undertake their research in education. These are real challenges that we are facing and addressing at the moment. I am not saying that in that area of education - and a similar area is management - that we are there yet, but certainly within the Economic and Social Research Council there are critical areas on which the training and development board is working on and which we have as a priority for the next few years.

Q894 Mark Williams: How explicit can you be in your directions? You mentioned in terms of directing what you see in the previous answer in terms of the specific area of research, so how proactive can you be in directing the shortfalls in particular area of postgraduate qualifications?

Professor Diamond: It is absolutely critical that we do that. If I might just speak to my own council, but this is indicative of others, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council I can give an example of as well. We look at the demography; annually the Research Councils as a whole provide a report to the Research Base Funders Forum on the health of the research base which looks at the demography of the academic base in the UK by discipline and also sub-disciplines. So that for example while it may look like research in biology is in a healthy state we are short of people who work on whole animal physiology, particularly with regard to big animals, which has huge impacts, for example, in a rural area with dairy farming, and enabling therefore that we generate a new base there is important. But it is not just demography. For example, there has been a decline in quantitative skills and so we are very keen to raise the capacity for quantitative social science and one of the reasons that HEFCW and the SRC has funded the Welsh Institute for Social and Economic Research has been to have a real initiative to raise capacity in quantitative skills in the social sciences. So we are very cognisant that we have a dual role in research training and that is firstly to provide an overall base in the research students; but secondly to be very clear on areas which need special attention - either areas which are going to be new in the future, areas where there are demographic declines in the academic base which we wish to address, or areas which for some other reason have dropped off, and for those we allocate specific funding to do that. Could I also just say that we are also very clear in our mind that we need to engage better with policy makers at the beginning of the academic career and that is why we have had student-ships funded jointly with the Welsh Assembly Government, where the people are jointly supervised in an academic institution and by a civil servant with research expertise, and that gets people who are able therefore to do research and to know how to apply that into policy; and we are also within my own council introducing a scheme which enables research students to spend time, an internship in government, and that is also true of other councils, for example the Natural Environment Research Council.

Q895 Mark Williams: What about early engagement with employers as well in terms of the overall career development of researchers? How engaged are employers in this process?

Professor Diamond: I think that is something that again different councils have worked in different ways. So the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has a huge engagement with employers where people are often jointly supervised in major industry and in the university. I think it is something that we really have to work through in the future and that is why we have been investing in transferable skills within all the councils and engaging with the major employers, so that all the skills you really need. And one of the things that is coming across, for example, is the need for teamwork skills, and I think in the future we will be working on our postgraduate training guidelines to build in more employer needs into the transferable skills that people get as well as their research skills.

Q896 Mark Williams: Are those relationships formalised through a formal relationship with the Sector Skills Councils or are they still pretty ad hoc?

Professor Diamond: I would have to say that I think they are still pretty ad hoc with the Sector Skills Councils, although the research careers and diversity groups within the Research Councils UK certainly works across those bases. We have formal meetings with some of the major employers, but I think it would be fair to say that much of what goes on is rather ad hoc.

Q897 Alun Michael: Turning to science policy, the Welsh Assembly Government has published a science policy under the heading of A Science Policy for Wales. What do you think of this?

Professor Diamond: I thought it was interesting. I thought it raised aspirations and raised some points which I would hope to see now moving forward into an agenda for action.

Q898 Alun Michael: As far as the Research Councils are concerned, are you able to take account of different priorities such as the ones articulated in that policy document when considering research bids from Welsh Higher Education Institutions?

Professor Diamond: I think what we are able to say very clearly is that we encourage excellence, so I do not think anyone would want to say that it is a priority there so therefore it is not subject to the same standards of excellence as if it were not a priority. Having said that, we are very keen to work with the devolved admissions more broadly and the Welsh in this case in particular, to say, "These are the key areas you have identified as areas you wish to take forward, areas that you see Wales focusing on, areas that you see as important, now what can we all do to work together to ensure that the capacity is there, to ensure that the opportunities exist and to ensure that the applications that are coming in have the best opportunity of being of the excellence that is required?"

Q899 Alun Michael: So if I understand you correctly you are suggesting that where there are the aspirations that you refer to in this document they would stimulate a discussion amongst the scientific and research community about ways of pursuing them rather than being a straight line response?

Professor Diamond: Yes. You could not say, "We have an aspiration here, therefore we will put the money in," but the question is how do we, for example, link those aspirations to focus in a particular area with the funding base?

Q900 Alun Michael: So part of the question might be, "How serious are you in those aspirations?"

Professor Diamond: Yes.

Q901 Alun Michael: On that point I wonder if you would comment on the papers that we have had submitted to us by Sir John Cadogan, who I believe was Director General of the Research Councils UK, who has been ---

Professor Diamond: Sir John was in the 1990s.

Q902 Alun Michael: Some time ago, yes; but he has made comments that have been quite scathing about the rejection by the Welsh Assembly Government of the suggestion that there should be a Chief Scientific Adviser to the Assembly. Would not that sort of post be necessary to enable the Assembly to engage in the sort of wider dialogue that you have just referred to as being the sensible follow-on from a policy statement?

Professor Diamond: I take a very strong - I stress - personal view that there is a great advantage to there being a Chief Scientific Adviser. I think Scotland has shown that. There is a Chief Social Researcher in Wales and I think she is excellent, but I think she also provides an excellent link between the policy imperatives in social research in Wales and the Research Councils and we have very, very good relationships and extremely good links with her.

Q903 Chairman: Could I end with the question which was triggered by Alun Michael's questions, but also in your differentiation between a response mode and a directive mode? This idea that Research Councils could be more interventionalist in creating greater collaboration, it occurred to me that in Mr Michael's own constituency perhaps one of the great research institutions of the 20^th century, the Pneumoconiosis Research Unit funded by the Medical Research Council at Llandough Hospital was a case in point where you had people like Professor Archie Cochrane pioneering epidemiology and Julian Tudor Hart pioneering community medicine, Dr Vernon Timbrell pioneering dust diseases. That unit there was a world centre for 20 years but a wrong decision was taken in the 1950s not to integrate it into higher education and to collaborate more fully with the university. It came into being by accident with a Health Minister, Aneurin Bevan, a very proactive union, the Miners Union, and a desire to do something about a very serious problem in pneumoconiosis. Could we not see a situation where a real science policy of the Welsh Assembly Government could be real if you actually had a much closer and interventionist collaboration between the Research Councils and the Welsh Assembly Government, and to have actually, as Sir John Cadogan proposes, a Science Minister, albeit the First Minister is the Science Minister. We have a Culture Minister but we do not have a Science Minister.

Professor Diamond: I could not speak to the need for a Science Minister. Having said that, I think that there is a real benefit for serious conversations between the Research Council and the Welsh Assembly Government - and that is precisely what we have with the Chief Social Researcher from my own council - about the critical issues for Wales. You mentioned Julian Tudor Hart, who is still, even at the age he is now, providing advice to some of the ways in which we are taking forward the electronic patient records agenda, which although it is a UK agenda Wales is leading much of the rest of the UK on, and on which I think there are real benefits for the UK to have. I am absolutely clear in my mind that we need to have the kinds of strategic discussions that you are talking about and we need to make sure that they are integrated into policy within the Welsh Assembly Government.

Q904 Chairman: The reason we have this inquiry is because this matter has not devolved and what we are trying to address is this need for a synergy between a Welsh Assembly Government which is not responsible for research, which has aspirations in the science arena, and the non-devolving areas of research such as yourselves.

Professor Diamond: The real commitment that I have given you - and I hope I have given you some examples of the way that has happened over the last two to three years - is that the kind of discussions that are needed we are willing to have and indeed are having and there are a number of opportunities that have come up as a result of those strategic decisions, either with the government or with HEFCW or with WORD, which have enabled there to be strategic investments in Wales in areas which are important to Wales, and we need to make sure that there are no barriers to those happening in the future. That is why in answer to one of the earlier questions I said that I would expect the preparations to go up because have made some significant investments in recent months that the funding has not really started to flow in yet.

Q905 Chairman: I began this session by asking a question about posing the question of the difference between Scotland and Wales. Could I request that you provide a memorandum which gives us a route map or an explanation of the qualitative difference between the way in which Scotland responds to you and Wales responds to you? How does actually the Scottish Executive and the HEFCW equivalent in Scotland relate to you and its respective bodies; and how do the Welsh bodies relate? Is there a significance difference?

Professor Diamond: You have asked for a subsequent memorandum and I will give you that. Had you asked me just to respond I would have responded that I suspect there is no significant difference; that there is a real commitment for us to engage at exactly the same level. I can speak for ESRC, of course, and for ESRC we have very, very good relationships with the Scottish Government; we have very, very good relationships with the Welsh Assembly Government and I would find it very difficult to expect that a very close examination of our processes would see any great difference whatsoever.

Q906 Chairman: It would be helpful if you could map it out.

Professor Diamond: I will map it out and make sure that you have a very clear document on which to base your deliberations.

Chairman: Thank you very much for your evidence this morning and this afternoon.