Hansard

Before I make the report, I should declare an interest. Before I was elected, I worked for 16 years at Fife College of Further and Higher Education. I am a member of Unison and the Educational Institute of Scotland.I will report to the committee, as none of the other members who were on the visit is here. We visited the Dundee city partnership and Scottish Enterprise Fife on 5 November. One of the reasons for our visit was to examine integration of volume training and further and higher education. We met representatives from the Dundee city partnership and the FAST-TRAC project in Fife and members of the Scottish Executive opportunities and choices working group.We were impressed by the partnership working in Dundee and Fife. Good practice in partnership working could be picked up from both projects. The FAST-TRAC project has been in existence since 1995 and has seen thousands of people take an integrated approach to both the college and employer model. The issue that came up time and again on the FAST-TRAC project was that Scottish Enterprise has continued to restrict funding for employer-based skillseekers to Scottish vocational qualifications. Some young people were studying for national certificate or higher national certificate qualifications in addition to SVQs, in an integrated manner, to allow funding to be accessed, but young people's choice was still very restricted. Although the people involved in both the FAST-TRAC project and the Dundee city partnership would have liked funding to be extended to the full range of Scottish Qualifications Authority qualifications, that was still being restricted. Among the issues raised was the inappropriateness of funding mechanisms. It came across strongly that funding was driving the training, instead of training and the needs of young people and of the economy driving the funding.Employers in Fife claimed that bureaucracy had recently become much worse for them because of the new Scottish Enterprise requirements, and that they much preferred their previous working relationships with FAST-TRAC. Another criticism that we heard in relation to funding mechanisms was about the milestones—or millstones, as the employers called them. They felt that there was pressure on young people to achieve quickly in order to access the funding, and that that reduced the value of the training and failed to promote sustainable employment. Instead of professionals deciding how training should be provided for young people and at what rate, having regard to the quality of teaching and learning, those millstones and the level of funding available appeared to be the driving force.It emerged that people were keen for a learning entitlement to be established, not least in order to provide a level playing field for all young people. We also heard much about the reduction of the audit burden. Most people said that they would prefer a single audit system and a single funding system. There is a need for increased choice and flexibility. The Scottish Enterprise funding is tied to Scottish vocational qualifications, and employers told us that SVQs were not always the best qualifications for their needs. A variance in standards was highlighted. In Fife, and specifically in the FAST-TRAC model, the young people seem to have as much choice, guidance and counselling as required, and that seems to be high on the agenda. However, from the views of one or two of the young people involved in the Dundee city partnership, it seemed that their competence rather than their understanding had been assessed. We found that individuals had had very different experiences on the vocational training route, and the committee should address that. We noted some good examples of access and credit transfer, and of actual reward for the training that had been undertaken by the young people. That depended very much on individual contacts and on relationships between colleges. It was not, however, the norm. There seemed to be quite a bit of confusion about which non-traditional qualifications the higher education institutions would accept. We felt that the committee would need to address that point as well. Our final session was with the opportunities and choices working group. We were disappointed at the lack of progress made, and would like work to continue. The three of us who went on the visit—Kenny MacAskill, Ken Macintosh and I—all felt that we now needed action. The FAST-TRAC project has been on the go for a number of years, and evaluations and pilot schemes have taken place, although they covered only 53 learners. We felt that it really was time to address the needs of young people. We encouraged the working group to report with haste. Our visit was useful, because it reflected at local level what the national bodies had been telling us. We heard loud and clear from the young people that advice and guidance was very necessary. We felt that that was being provided, particularly in the case of FAST-TRAC, which showed through in the young people's success and in the positive impact that training had had on them. We were interested in the move away from a bums-on-seats philosophy to a more holistic social and economic approach to the training, and we were concerned that while local initiatives were driving good practice forward, central agendas were continuing to thwart flexibility and development.