Hansard

Indeed. I am grateful to you. Perhaps I should begin by introducing the officials who are with me today. Dr John Rigg is the head of the funding for learners division in the Scottish Executive Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department. Laura Barjonas is head of the ILA policy team in the division.I am pleased to be able to brief the committee on my plans for introducing a new ILA scheme in Scotland. Good progress has been made in developing the scheme and we are on track to meet the partnership commitment to introduce the improved ILA scheme in 2003-04. It is fair to say that the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee expressed strong support for the principles of ILA and I know that members will want to understand how we plan to build on the positive elements of the first scheme while tackling rigorously the flaws that led to its closure.I refer at the outset to the recently published Audit Committee report on the first ILA scheme and the department's response to the report. I certainly welcome the publication of the Audit Committee's report. The process of audit and scrutiny of the first scheme has been a lengthy one. I think that Audit Scotland initiated its review in September 2002 and the Audit Committee's report was published just over a couple of weeks ago. It is crucial that we understand all the lessons that have been learned and, understandably, it has taken time to complete that process. My department will respond formally to the Audit Committee in the next few weeks. I make it clear that it is not my intention today to pre-empt our proper full and final response, which will set out in detail how we are tackling the problems and flaws of ILA 1 and make clear how the Audit Committee's specific recommendations are to be addressed. It will become clear, as I outline my plans for the new scheme, that the Audit Committee's recommendations on what needs to be done to ensure an effective and efficient new ILA scheme chime closely with our own view of the key requirements for the scheme's success.I think that it was April 2002 when Wendy Alexander updated members of the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee on the position after the first ILA scheme closed. Therefore, I crave some indulgence from the committee if I take more time than usual to set out the key features of the proposed successor scheme. Afterwards, I will be happy to answer members' questions. It might help if I give a brief overview of the essential policy and operational elements.I hope that members have received draft copies of the proposed new ILA regulations. I understand that some members received them only earlier today. We have also provided draft operational rules and guidance. Just in the past week or so, there were intensive workshops with groups of providers to road test the draft guidance. The draft that members have was updated and amended in the light of the productive discussions with providers. I hope that it provides a useful context for what I have to say on the policy and the operational plans. Obviously, the regulations for the new scheme will be formally laid before Parliament and the committee will be able to consider them formally at that stage. I can certainly confirm that officials will be more than willing to provide an additional detailed briefing as and when required.In looking at the successor scheme, I do not want us to lose sight of the positive aspects of the original scheme. ILAs were beneficial for a significant number of learners and they stimulated a welcome increase in business for reputable learning providers, who formed the majority of providers who participated in the scheme. It is fair to say that there has been widespread support among learners and providers for the principles of individual learning accounts. There is now a strong demand from learners, providers and intermediaries for a new scheme to be put in place without further delay. I note that the Audit Committee expressed in its report the hope"that an effective and efficient scheme can now be established as swiftly as possible."That is certainly our intention.I want to ensure that members have a clear understanding of our policy aims, and I want to outline the main actions being taken through detailed operational planning to ensure that the scheme delivers on its objectives and that the problems that were encountered in the previous scheme do not recur. I also want to give members a sense of the timetable for introducing ILAs.We have decided to call ILA mark 2 ILA Scotland because it will have a specific Scottish theme. It will directly address Scottish needs and build on the particular strengths of the lifelong learning landscape and infrastructure in Scotland. The evaluation of the first scheme provided a solid and positive basis for developing our policy thinking. We conducted our own internal review of the lessons learned and those lessons, together with the findings of the Audit Committee and external audit and review processes, have provided us with a comprehensive checklist of required policy and operational improvements. To test policy and operational plans, a number of workshops have been held with learning providers and intermediary organisations, and samples have been taken from focus groups of potential ILA learners. Those have been reflected in the model that we are discussing.The policy aims and priorities in relation to learners are that we should retain a fundamentally learner-centred approach, with funding being allocated to an individual through a virtual account for use with the provider of the learner's choice, and that we should encourage individuals to establish a greater sense of personal ownership of their learning. That will be achieved by learners having their own account, which they can use to support learning and learning progression over an extended period, and by the retention of the principle that all learners will make a personal contribution to the cost of their learning. In relation to learning providers, a top priority is that there should be high-quality standards throughout the scheme. We do not intend that ILA Scotland should seek to stimulate any significant growth in the overall size of the provider base, but we hope that the reintroduction of an ILA funding stream will encourage quality providers to develop a wider range of short, flexible courses to help to make learning more attractive and more accessible.We want to ensure that we provide better added value. The previous scheme had dead-weight—people who benefited from the support but would have undertaken the learning without it—which was estimated at something like 53 per cent of participants, and we are keen to ensure that we reduce the dead-weight and get better added value from the investment. We will do that by targeting funding at learners on lower incomes, for whom funding is the real barrier to participation in learning, and by focusing funding on skills needs. The scheme will target basic skills in information and communications technology. Funding will be limited, initially at least, to ICT courses leading to qualifications or certification up to and including the equivalent of Scottish credit and qualifications framework level 5, which is Scottish vocational qualification level 2. We want to ensure that ILA learners have a good-quality learning experience and that active use is made of the ILA funding entitlements. That will be tackled principally by learndirect Scotland developing on-going learner contact. We will look to intermediary organisations, such as the Scottish Trades Union Congress, Careers Scotland and voluntary bodies, to play an important role in encouraging uptake in conversion by providing informed and focused advice and guidance to learners.On the scheme's operation, I want to ensure that we take full account of all the lessons that have been learned from the first scheme and that there are robust, clear, accessible and user-friendly mechanisms for learners to apply for and use the ILA funding and robust, clear, accessible and administratively manageable mechanisms for learning providers to use the scheme. I am sure that many of you will appreciate the underlying tensions between aims and objectives that have had to be resolved in the design of the new scheme, and I think that we have struck the right balance between rigorous controls and the necessary ease of use for learners. We want to widen participation in adult learning by increasing interest in uptake. The scheme is an opportunity to introduce new learners to adult learning, to provide an opportunity for those who have not recently participated in learning to do so and to encourage individuals to invest in their own learning and therefore take ownership of it. It is also an opportunity to prioritise the learning needs of certain groups of learners, to encourage more learning progression and, which is important, to support the development of a quality learning-provider base in Scotland.I will discuss the scheme's key features. First, the feedback from an early evaluation of the previous scheme in 2002 indicated that, for learners, the ILA brand name was not particularly tainted by the problems that arose from the misuse of the first scheme. A clear distinction was drawn between the positive aspects of the concept and its weakness in delivery. Therefore, the new scheme has been developed to address specific Scottish circumstances, and we believe that the individual learning account name continues to have solid promotional value. With regard to the target audience—or, more accurately, target audiences—although we intend to maintain a universal approach to learner eligibility, which will be an important element in building up momentum for positive attitudinal change to learning through ILAs and enabling a wide range of people from various backgrounds to benefit, the main thrust is to make a real difference for non-traditional learners with low skills and on low incomes. That potentially includes people on benefit but, although there will be a number of passported benefits that will provide ready access to eligibility, people who are on benefit will in many cases already be able to apply for free learning through fee waivers, for example. We will aim to steer such learners towards the type of funding that suits them best. Our main target group is people who are in work but on lower incomes, who often have lower levels of skills and qualifications, whose disposable income will not readily cover the costs of learning and for whom ILAs can provide a crucial incentive to take the first steps into or back into learning. We will therefore offer priority ILA funding to learners on low incomes. Learners in our priority group will be those who earn less than £15,000 a year, who will be able to claim up to £200 per year in ILA support, which they will be able to use for a course of their choice. The income assessment process will be managed by the Student Awards Agency for Scotland. The process has been designed to be light touch and as accessible as possible, while meeting the necessary standards of learner income verification and auditability.For low-income learners, the types of eligible learning will generally be defined by exclusion, to allow learners in that priority group to choose from a wide menu of learning. For universal learners, eligibility will be much more broadly defined than for the low-income priority group and all individuals who are over 18 and who are ordinarily resident in Scotland will be able to apply to open an ILA account. To ensure that we target skills needs and maximise added value, the universal offer will, at least initially, be focused on ICT courses at the basic skills level that lead to qualifications or certification. Universal learners will be able to claim up to £100 per year.The personal contribution element of the first scheme received considerable support because it encouraged greater ownership of the learning, and the recent consultation was also positive on the issue. A key change in the new scheme is that we will have a flat-rate minimum personal contribution for learners that will be set at £10 per learning episode. That contrasts with a general minimum contribution of £25 under the previous scheme. I believe that the measure will make the ILA offer more attractive and will make ILA Scotland funding more readily understandable for learners than the percentage discount model that applied under the previous scheme.In order to focus on low-income, non-traditional learners, intermediary bodies will have a role in helping to encourage participation. We envisage the STUC, Careers Scotland, local authorities, the voluntary sector and Jobcentre Plus all being much more actively and systematically involved with ILAs than they were before.A phased approach will be taken to implementation. When we consulted learners, providers and intermediaries in the summer of last year, we received a strong message of concern about introducing both the low-income and universal elements of the scheme at the same time, as that might risk losing the impact of the scheme for the target group because of the likelihood that provider efforts and budget resources would be more focused on universal learners. For that reason, we will launch the scheme for low-income learners only and roll out ILA funding to universal learners from April next year.Finally, with regard to the operational framework, the delivery partner arrangements will be different from those in the previous scheme. The scheme will be delivered jointly by the Student Awards Agency for Scotland, replacing Capita, which was the ILA service provider under ILA 1, and by the Scottish university for industry, which is known to the public as learndirect Scotland. SUFI will have responsibility for marketing and promotion and on-going communications with learners, learning providers and intermediaries, including the provision of scheme information and guidance. SUFI's other key focus will be on quality: it will be responsible for learning-provider and course registration, quality assurance and compliance monitoring of providers. SAAS will have responsibility for processing learners' applications for membership, including the income assessment process for low-income learners, and for overall learner-account management. SAAS will also manage the booking of learning by learning providers and be responsible for making payments to learners.We have been working intensively for some months with ILA project teams in both SAAS and SUFI to design and develop a fully integrated range of services for learners and learning providers. We will build on the existing strengths and experience of the two organisations. As I said, it is imperative that we have good-quality learning providers and courses. The department will address that issue thoroughly in its response to the Audit Committee. We think that features of the new scheme will assure quality, such as the stringent learning-provider registration process through SUFI; the formal contracts between learning providers and the delivery partners that cover the provider's legal obligations; a clear, single complaints process; on-going learner contacts through SUFI to monitor learner satisfaction; and a rigorous and risk-weighted compliance monitoring process, including site visits to providers. A key component will be the provision of clear and timely rules and guidance. Members will notice from the draft text that has been provided that the guidance for learning providers is well developed. Learner guidance will be similarly clear and comprehensive.I want to highlight key milestones in the process before the scheme goes ahead. As has been made clear on a number of occasions, we will go ahead only when I am satisfied that the necessary improvements have been taken into account and are in place. Therefore, the timetable includes an extended period for testing prior to launch. We are planning a gateway review process for ILA Scotland. A team of experts from outside my department has undertaken regular reviews of the project's progress and a final gateway review will take place shortly before the scheme launch, which will involve a rigorous and comprehensive assessment of the scheme's overall readiness for service.Finally, on the timetable, we hope to lay the new regulations in the near future, perhaps early next month. Learning-provider engagement, with a series of workshops, is scheduled for the latter part of March. During late spring, we will liaise with intermediary bodies and we plan to launch the scheme for learners in early July. It is a challenging timetable, but I have made it clear that it will be subject to necessary testing and review at milestones.I am grateful to the committee for bearing with me on this important series of points about the operation and the objectives of the new ILA scheme in terms of quality assurance. The scheme is important to the support of lifelong learning and to the stimulation of skills and work-force development. The previous scheme was an innovative policy initiative. ILA Scotland remains highly innovative in terms of what it is trying to achieve and how it is trying to achieve it. We will monitor, review and adjust as necessary but, at the moment, I will be happy to take questions from members of the committee on the draft documents before them.