Education and Employment Departments (Hansard, 8 November 1995)

§ Mr. Robin Squire

The Department for Education has aimed to raise general standards of educational attainment, to enable individuals to realise their full potential, to equip pupils and students for the responsibilities of adult life, to enhance the nation's international competitiveness and to enhance choice and diversity for parents and students.

Standards have been raised in schools. The national curriculum has been developed and revised. Regular assessment for seven and 14-year-olds has been introduced, and in 1994 many 11-year-olds were tested as part of a voluntary national pilot. The parents charter was published in 1991—updated in 1994—setting out the rights and responsibilities of parents in relation to their child's education. The Education (Schools) Act 1992 paved the way for performance tables, which have subsequently been published. A code of practice on the education of children with special educational needs came into effect in 1994. The Office for Standards in Education, Ofsted, was established in 1991 to carry out independent inspections of schools. Where a school is found at inspection to be failing to provide acceptable education, it becomes subject to special measures and is required to submit an action plan to the Secretary of State. In May 1995 the Secretary of State launched the improving schools programme which contains a wide range of measures designed to help raise standards of teaching and learning in all schools.

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Choice and diversity have been enhanced. The number of grant-maintained schools have increased from 10 in January 1990 to more than 1,000 in 1995. The number of city technology colleges has increased from three to 15. The technology and colleges and language programme, launched in 1993, builds on CTC experience by helping existing maintained secondary schools to specialise in science, technology and mathematics or in modern foreign languages. We now have 101 technology colleges and six languages approved offering a new choice for parents across much of the country. The assisted places scheme continues to give the parents of academically able children the opportunity to send them to good independent secondary schools. In July 1995, the Secretary of State announced the new nursery voucher scheme for four-year-olds. The parents of every four-year-old will receive a voucher which they can exchange for three terms of good-quality nursery education in the state, private or voluntary sectors.

Participation in full and part-time education at age 16 has increased from 73 per cent. in 1990–91 to 79 per cent. in 1994–95, and at age 17 from 59 per cent. to 68 per cent. The percentage of 15-year-olds obtaining five or more GCSEs at grade C or better has increased from 34.5 per cent. in 1989–90 to 43.3 per cent. in 1993–94, while the percentage of young people obtaining two or more passes at GCE A/AS level has increased from 20.2 per cent. to 27.9 per cent.

In further education, participation of 16-year-olds in full-time education in schools and FE colleges has increased by about 12 per cent. since 1990. The Further and Higher Education Act 1992 released FE institutions from local authority control, giving them greater freedom to conduct their own affairs. Following the 1994 White Paper "Competitiveness: Helping Business to Win", links between FE institutions and local training and enterprise councils have been strengthened.

In higher education, participation rates have greatly increased, and the rates projected in the 1991 White Paper "Higher Education: A New Framework" have already virtually been met. To help maintain standards, the Higher Education Quality Council was established in 1993 and has continued with its programme of audits of HE institutions' quality assurance processes.

The Employment Department has aimed to support economic growth by promoting a competitive, efficient and flexible labour market.

Flexibility in the labour market has facilitated recovery from the recession. Unemployment has fallen by over 700,000 since December 1992 and stands at two percentage points below the average for the European Union. Employment and training measures to help unemployed people have been maintained at high levels despite the fall in unemployment. The effectiveness of measures has been continually monitored and new measures developed on a pilot basis, followed by evaluation and extension where they have proved successful.

The Employment Service was established as an agency in 1990. Over 1,000 jobcentres are clearly focused on their key objectives of getting people into work and paying them benefits accurately and promptly while they look for work. This year, ES has been set its highest ever target of placing 1.9 million unemployed people into jobs.

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The Jobseekers Act 1995 provides for the introduction of the jobseeker's allowance. The main aims of the JSA are to improve the operation of the labour market by helping people in their search for work, to secure better value for money for the taxpayer and to improve the service to unemployed people themselves.

During the period since 1990, the Department continued with a step-by-step reform of industrial relations legislation. In 1994–95 the number of strikes was the lowest since records began in 1891.

The Department has continued to promote equality of opportunity in the labour market.

The Department has presented and promoted the United Kingdom's approach to labour market issues within the European Union and helped to increase the emphasis in EU social policy on improving competitiveness, reducing the cost of employment and increasing labour market flexibility.

Both Departments have supported the development of national targets for education and training, and have taken part fully in the Government's competitiveness and deregulation initiatives.

The Employment Department has introduced a series of reforms and measures to boost outputs from the training system. Since 1990, it has established 74 training and enterprise councils in England. The system of national vocational qualifications has been further developed to the point of 86 per cent. coverage of the working population. The Department has promoted and supported the investors in people standard. Nearly 20,000 employers are now committed to investors in people. In 1990, the Department introduced youth training as a replacement for the youth training scheme. It has successfully operated the YT guarantee. In 1991, it introduced youth credits, now available nationally. In 1993, training for work was introduced as a replacement for employment training and employment action. Modern and accelerated modern apprenticeships have been made nationally available. Incentives have been introduced for individuals to improve their skills through a range of measures including career development loans and tax relief for vocational training. The Department has provided help for small businesses to develop the skills of their work force through measures such as small firms training loans, 1994, and skills for small businesses, 1995.

Following the formation of the Department for Education and Employment in July 1995, a draft aim, objectives and values for the new Department have been published and rapid progress has been made towards integrating structures and policies.

Further details of the work of the Department for Education and the Employment Department are available in their annual departmental reports.