HC Deb 21 November 1991 vol 199 cc529-36

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kirkhope]

10.29 pm
Mr. Humfrey Matins (Croydon, North-West)

I am delighted to have the opportunity to raise on the Adjournment the question of adult education in Croydon, and to see you, Mr. Speaker, in the Chair, because you and I are privileged to represent constituencies in Croydon. It is an area of great variety. It is renowned as a business and commercial centre. In Croydon, a large number of people from different ethnic backgrounds live and work happily side by side. In many ways, it is a thriving area, although it is not without its pockets of deprivation. It is certainly an area where a variety of different needs and different expectations exist.

For many years, we have been fortunate in the excellence of the Croydon borough council, and nowhere is this more true than in its education department. In my time, I have known two outstanding directors of education, Donald Naismith and Paul Benin's; and two very fine chairmen of education, Councillor Derek Loughborough and Councillor Andrew Pelling. Members of the education department and councillors alike have constantly striven to provide a high standard of education for as rich and diverse a society as one can imagine.

Nowhere is this more true than in adult education. In Croydon, the continuing education and training service is a free-standing adult education service, with a history of providing an important access point for those with needs for basic skills It provides English for speakers of other languages, training for employment, accreditation and qualifications, as well as many opportunities for those who wish to follow a variety of general adult education courses. The large programme is planned on a borough-wide basis, and delivered locally in 11 centres. Three of these are full time, day and evening, and are used exclusively by adults: Coombe Cliff, South Norwood—in your constituency, Mr. Speaker—and Smitham.

Last year, there were some 42,000 enrolernents, representing 28,000 individual students. Some 60 per cent. of enrolments are for vocational courses and 40 per cent. are for leisure courses.

I know that you, Mr. Speaker, recently visited the South Norwood centre, and that you were mightily impressed by everything that you saw. I, too. was privileged to visit that centre and the one at Coombe Cliff, in the company of Margaret Davey, the head of continuing education and training service, and of Barbara Holland, who looks after South Norwood.

What we both saw was impressive: adults of all ages atending a wide variety of courses. Keep fit was taking place alongside book-keeping; languages and embroidery were next to jobsearch; cookery and pottery were adjoining computer studies; upholstery was alongside management training and business start-up. The atmosphere was friendly. It was informal and, above all, accessible—evidence, no doubt, of the absence of entry requirements and the availability of fee concessions for those most in need. In the centres, the general public as well as students are made to feel welcome, and the atmosphere is overwhelmingly adult. I can well understand that many older and less confident people feel comfortable and unthreatened in such places.

Such a service is unique in the way in which it works through and with other partners, in both the voluntary and statutory sectors. Voluntary organisations have a key role in the total range of provision for adults and are strongly supported in Croydon. Three examples are the university of the third age, the south London refugee project, and the Croydon action group for the unemployed, where aspects of specialist work are undertaken, with the support of the adult service.

Croydon's free-standing and continuing education and training service is cost-effective, vigorous and efficient. The net cost per student hour is about half what it is in the local colleges. It has a distinctive role in Croydon, quite separate from the large further and higher education college and yet there is still considerable collaboration with many joint projects and attention to progress routes into further education and beyond.

I have a concern—the Government have sought to divide courses at centres into vocational on the one hand and leisure on the other. The implication is that responsibility for running vocational courses will rest with colleges, who will themselves apply to the funding council for money to run such vocational courses. So-called leisure courses will be left with the local authority in the adult education centres.

Mr. Harry Greenway (Ealing, North)

As chairman of the all-party adult education committee, I congratulate my hon. Friend on this most important debate. Does he agree that there is another worry about separating vocational from non-vocational adult education? If one separates them, it may be assumed that vocational courses are more valid than non-vocational, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Mr. Matins

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, because his expertise on this subject is well known, as is his general understanding of the problems involved. I hope to touch on the subject that he mentioned shortly.

In Croydon dividing courses could have a number of damaging effects. Great damage could be caused to the prospects of the adult education centres, where currently vocational and so-called leisure courses exist happily side by side. The centres might have to go cap in hand to the Croydon college and the two sixth-form colleges in the borough asking their governing bodies to apply to the funding council for funds for vocational courses, in the hope that funds would be obtained on behalf of the adult education centres. A large part of their excellent work might disappear.

There is a strong link between so-called vocational and so-called leisure courses. The person, for example, who is nervous or diffident or who has, or might have, unhappy memories of school, may initially have the courage to join a pottery or dancing class. Having plucked up the courage, he or she will find perhaps in the next room a course in Spanish or computer studies. He or she may well progress from one to the other. Surely that is to the general good.

The Bengali lady who enrolled in an English cookery class, so that she could provide English food for some of her son's chums at school, is likely next to take a GCSE in English and help prepare herself for a job that may be just around the corner. The hesitant middle-aged gentleman who was brave enough to join a keep fit class later found himself confident enough to join the neighbouring management training and business start-up class, and grew in confidence and ability to the extent that he opened up a new business. Such is the inextricable link and the social cohesion brought about by a variety of classes under the same roof.

My concern is that the criteria for college eligible for funding, through the new funding council, will exclude a clearly successful service and a supportive authority such as that found in Croydon. The result could surely be a damaging split between the different types of courses, with responsibility for the eligible areas potentially fragmented between the further education college, sixth form colleges and the remainder. The so-called leisure and recreation programmes would be the responsibility of the local authority and might become too small to be financially, organisationally or educationally viable.

If they went, what a loss it would be. Is there not a strong argument for the free-standing services such as Croydon's continuing education and training service to be able to bid direct to the funding council rather than through the new sector colleges?

Another concern relates to premises. The three buildings in Croydon which are exclusively dedicated to the education of adults are intensively used as an important access point for people following general non-vocational, basic skills, accredited and work training programmes. They are used to capacity—daily, at weekends and holidays—and they are a valuable resource used by the voluntary sector. If the new sector colleges were able to apply for the use of those premises it could jeopardise the adult ethos and character of the provision and would subsequently deny many adults their first step back into education.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I was inspired by all I saw at the adult education centres in Croydon. I dare say that you too, Mr. Speaker, were inspired by all you saw, and of course you have visited them all over the years and have great experience of this subject.

For that reason, I am desperately concerned for their long-term well being, and I know that that sentiment is shared by you, Mr. Speaker, and by many thousands in Croydon, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Sir. W. Clark) who I am delighted to see in his place for this debate—I welcome his support—and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Moore).

I cannot end this short debate without paying tribute to the Government, who have without doubt recognised that adult education is vital—that adults are an important client group who have education and training needs well worthy of Government interest and support. That is well recognised by the Government, to whom much credit is due.

10.40 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Alan Howarth)

I am grateful, as is the House, to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Malins) for providing us with this opportunity to consider education for adults in Croydon.

The House always appreciates the close interest which you, Mr. Speaker, take in Adjournment debates initiated by hon. Members on the Back Benches, but you will have an even greater personal interest than usual in this debate. Croydon is indeed a borough fortunate in its parliamentary representation. We also have present my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Sir W. Clark), so there is powerful representation in the House tonight in the interests of adult education in Croydon.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West for two reasons. First, I am pleased that by means of this debate, we are able to look closely at one particular education service for adults. Secondly, I am glad to have the opportunity of relating the framework of our Further and Higher Education Bill, which has today been debated in another place, to the education for adults as it take place on the ground. The importance that we attach to the further education of adults will be clearly demonstrated through this debate.

My hon. Friend has vividly described the features of the Croydon education and training service, which is one of the largest services for adults in the London area. It has an impressive enrolment count and a strong place in the local community. It establishes this place through a dispersed service which is accessible to the community at large, using a mix of dedicated facilities and the premises of schools and colleges.

My hon. Friend demonstrated his close knowledge of the service in Croydon and made clear his commitment, and that of his hon. and right hon. Friends who represent Croydon constituencies, to the provision of a diverse and consistently high-quality service.

Much of the provision in Croydon falls within those areas of priority which the Government have identified in the legislation—that is, courses leading to qualifications, basic skills courses, courses in English as a second language and access courses. The community is served in the widest sense through an open access policy which welcomes adults at whatever educational stage they have reached. It is also served by the good links which the service has established with the local training and enterprise council and with industry. I welcome the partnership it has established with voluntary organisations.

Those are considerable strengths. Our policy on the further education of adults will pose no threat to them. Indeed, it will enable the Croydon education and training service, along with all others, to preserve the characteristics of their provision, including their community role, and to build on their strengths.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his recognition of our firm commitment to the further education of adults. As he will know, our reforms for further education as a whole are designed to provide enhanced opportunities for both young people and adults and to provide a further stimulus to increased participation. We have provided for the transfer of further education and sixth form colleges to a new sector, which will be funded directly by new further education funding councils in England and Wales. We believe that the new funding regime will give colleges an even greater incentive to recruit additional students and to expand participation accordingly. For students—young people and adults alike—it will mean more opportunities to gain new skills, obtain qualifications and develop fully the roles that they need to fulfil themselves at work and as citizens.

Our proposals, as set out in the White Paper "Education and Training for the 21st Century", have been generally welcomed. But my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science and I were aware of some uncertainty about the place of adults within the new policy framework and the arrangements that would apply to them. We clarified a number of points before the legislation was introduced. The Bill addresses other concerns in a way that serves to underline our firm commitment to all kinds of further education for adults.

Few of the provisions of the Bill belong uniquely to the 16–19 age group, but some have a very special application to the provision of further education for adults. I shall describe those provisions and how they will work for the adult sector at large, including the Croydon education and training service.

The Bill provides a clear duty for the provision of all kinds of further education for adults. The whole scope of the present duty set out in the Education Act 1944 as amended is retained. We intend that, in future, it should be divided between the funding councils and LEAs. Within their respective duties, the councils and LEAs will each be required to take account of students with special educational needs.

The funding councils' duty will embrace courses leading to academic and vocational qualifications; access to higher education courses; courses that provide access to qualification-bearing courses and higher education courses; basic skills courses; courses in English for speakers of other languages and, in Wales, courses leading to proficiency in Welsh. Those are the Government's priorities. They will be secured by the funding councils working through the colleges within the new sector. They cover courses which the Government believe should be secured at national level because of their national significance.

The second strand of the duty to provide further education for adults falls to the local education authorities. Their duty covers all kinds of further education for adults that do not come within the scope of the funding councils' duty. By contrast with the duty placed upon the councils, the LEAs' duty can be characterised as being generally of a more local nature and best catered for locally. It is a duty that goes very wide. It covers the provision of courses that meet the leisure interests of adults, but also many other important interests.

Courses coming within the remit of the LEAs' duty can help people progress to more advanced courses—my hon. Friend made that important point—help them in their jobs and prepare them for various roles, such as good parenthood, or for responsible functions within the wider community. They can make a significant contribution to the general health and well-being of individuals and local communities.

The whole scope of the duty to secure provision for adults as it will be divided between the funding councils and LEAs will continue to be supported from public funds. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science made clear on 24 September that, in calculating the transfer of funds from local authorities to the funding councils in recognition of their new responsibilities, the resources attributable to those courses for which the LEAs will continue to be responsible will be left within local authorities' standard spending assessments. That means that there will be no question of our reforms causing fees to rise. LEAs will continue to be able, as now, to respond flexibly to local demand and to the needs and circumstances of their local communities, taking account of the ability of students to pay fees.

My hon. Friends the Members for Croydon, North-West and for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) have referred to a vocational/non-vocational divide within our proposals. I hope I can reassure my hon. Friends that the framework of duties within the Bill does not create such a divide. The provision for which the funding councils will be responsible goes well beyond the purely vocational. Similarly, the duty upon LEAs can lead to provision which serves ends useful to the individual within his work, such as foreign language classes. The arguments which have been advanced that our proposals create a distinction between two types of provision is not borne out either in terms of the legislation or in practical terms.

It is important to underline the role of access and progression within the proposed framework. My hon. Friend has mentioned the strong link between provision which falls respectively to the duties of funding councils and LEAs. We attach great importance to widening access as is evident from the Bill. Certain kinds of access have been given priority and fall to the duty of the funding councils, but progression routes from LEA sector provision to more formal qualification-bearing courses are also important.

The division of duties between the councils and LEA will not stand in the way of adults wishing to progress from informal study to courses leading to qualifications. Adults now study on all kinds of courses in a variety of institutions—further education colleges and adult education centres and colleges. They will continue to be able to enrol on courses in their local institutions, as they do at present, and to progress to more advanced provision. That might be within the same institution or elsewhere, depending upon the pattern of provision locally. Therefore, adults in Croydon will continue to be able to take full advantage of the access and progression routes provided by the Croydon education and training service.

My hon. Friend raised two particular concerns. The first was about the funding relationship between the Croydon education and training service and colleges in the new further education sector in respect of the provision made by the service which falls to the duty of the funding council. We want to see all resources available for adults used properly—whether they are in further education colleges or in adult education colleges and centres run by LEAs. It follows therefore that we will expect further education colleges in the new sector to support provision which falls within the funding councils remit where this is made in adult education colleges and centres.

We have considered carefully how our legislation will help to achieve that end. We propose that the governing body of an institution outside the funding council sector will be able to make to an institution within that sector a request that it should apply to the council for support on the external institutions behalf. The funding council sector institution will forward the application to the funding council if facilities for the kind of courses in question are not adequate in the locality. If the further education college does not forward the application, its decision will be subject to review by the Secretary of State on the grounds of unreasonableness or failure to perform a duty.

The councils have a duty to secure facilities which are in such places, of such character and so equipped as to meet reasonable need. In addition, the regional advisory committees will have an important role in advising the funding council for England on significant local issues. Their role will be to see that local people are properly served. I hope that I can reassure my hon. Friends and you, Mr. Speaker, on that point.

Those are substantial safeguards. They mean that the Croydon education and training service will continue to be able to make provision which falls to the duty of the funding council and to receive council funding via the local further education college or colleges for the purpose. I note that the Croydon service has good collaborative links with Croydon further education college. These links, together with the safeguards within the legislation, will provide a firm basis for continuing collaboration in the interests of adult students.

My hon. Friend asks whether the Croydon education and training service might be able to bid directly to the funding council. We think that our Bill has taken account of concerns of adult education colleges and services, such as Croydon, about funding for the range of provision they make. However, we recognise that some institutions may be interested in exploring the possibility of incorporation within the new further education sector by reason of the balance of provision they make. That is not ruled out.

The Government had to set criteria in the Bill for the automatic transfer of further education colleges to the new sector, but the White Paper made it clear that the funding councils could propose that other institutions which fell outside the criteria might be included in the new arrangements. The Bill provides for this. Institutions which want to take forward the possibility of incorporation should make application to the funding councils. We propose to ask the funding councils to deal with such applications as one of their first tasks.

Sir William Clark (Croydon, South)

I fully support what my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Malins) has said, and I am delighted that the Minister supports funding. There is a problem about adult education in Croydon, but many other constituencies must suffer from the same problem. Does the Minister think it extraordinary that no Opposition Members are present for this important debate?

Mr. Howarth

My right hon. Friend makes a pertinent point. Some Opposition complaints about our policies have been factitious. Thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West, we have an opportunity to debate an immensely important issue about which there is great interest in the country. It is extraordinary that the Opposition Benches are empty and that neither Labour Members nor Liberal Democrats have bothered to attend the debate. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for drawing the matter to our attention.

It is important that each institution considers very carefully whether such an application for incorporation would be appropriate in its case. LEAs have important duties to fulfil through these institutions and will continue to receive public funds in support of these duties. Under the Bill, they will also be able to give recognition to the status of their institutions by establishing governing bodies and by delegating functions to them. The best place for some institutions may indeed be within the funding council sector, but for others it may be within the local education authority.

The second concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West is about the future of those premises of the Croydon service which are dedicated to the further education of adults. Let me put his mind at rest. A further education college can apply for an order to gain the use of local education authority premises after April 1993 only in tightly defined circumstances. First, the premises in question must have been used for further education purposes and have been, or be about to be, taken out of use for that purpose. Secondly, the further education college must have been unable to secure use of the premises by agreement with the local education authority. Our intention is to secure that facilities used for further education continue to remain available to the local community for further education purposes, where the college governors consider it important in order to carry out their responsibilities. This provision poses no threat to the Croydon service's premises.

We have had a useful debate. The aim of our policy is to develop a better education system which will provide a wide range of important opportunities for adults in the interests of meeting the needs of the nation and of individual citizens. The Government are deeply committed to adult education. I am confident that our Bill will achieve its aims and that it will serve well the Croydon education and training service and the citizens of Croydon.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Eleven o'clock.