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Kevin Brennan MP, Minister for Further Education, Skills, Apprenticeships and Consumer Affairs (jointly with DCSF)
Hilton London Metropole Hotel, London, 17 June 2009
Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here as the new Minister for Further Education and Skills.
I’d like to start by setting out the crucial role FE will play in the new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
This new department puts knowledge at the centre of its work, and right at the heart of the Government’s agenda.
Our purpose is clear: to build up the skills, knowledge and creativity that will drive Britain’s competitiveness directly.
We need to focus on helping people and business to come through the recession stronger than before, better able to compete successfully in the world economy of the future.
FE has a crucial role to play in this vision, in helping people make the most of their talents and their lives, and in building a better Britain.
I am personally passionate about the role education can play in shaping lives (Minister added personal comments here covering upbringing, career and experience as a minister).
I also understand that not everyone gets through the system first time round successfully.
I was pleased on Monday to be able to pop into an Association of Colleges event at the House of Commons when I met a student from Bradford – let’s call her Jane - whose personal story illustrated the impact of FE in helping to turn round people’s lives, and helping people to develop their talent and make our country stronger – economically and socially.
She had experienced an exceptionally difficult early life that had taken her down a route of drug taking and low esteem.
But now in her 30s, she was turning her life around through her local FE college, building a brighter future for herself. Starting with one A Level she’d gone on to take a degree and post-graduate qualification and gained the kind of skills and self-knowledge and esteem she needed to turn her life around.
It is stories like Jane’s that reinforces my belief in education and skills to transform lives and economy.
I’ve seen it in my life, my career, and I know all of you here today working in FE will see this every working day. To put it simply it is why we are all here.
We know that 75% of the UK’s 2020 workforce have already left formal education and are over 25.
Ensuring that they get the support to develop the skills they need to succeed throughout their working lives is essential to equipping Britain to compete and win in a global economy.
That means delivering more work-based training in the UK, expanding apprenticeships and helping those out of work to get new jobs.
Across the country, I know that colleges and other learning providers are already working hard to do this, with around three million adult learners currently benefiting from further education.
And I appreciate how many of you are adapting to the changed economic climate, giving employers and people the learning and training that will be central to the UK’s economic recovery and long-term economic success.
Our new Department brings together into one place the policy levers that can make that success happen.
The new department has been created to provide strong leadership at the heart of Government. Putting the FE sector at the centre of government’s strategy for the upturn.
It builds on the new industrial activism of the Government’s New Industries, New Jobs strategy with a skills activism which strikes the right balance between a demand-led system and the need to be sure we are building skills for the jobs of the future.
But we won’t achieve any of our goals without strong leadership from the FE sector.
FE colleges come in all shapes and sizes. The largest has over 44,000 students; the smallest around 500. You have very different missions and very different ways of pursuing them.
But you all have a universal role at the heart of local communities, providing important opportunities for young people and adults; serving local businesses and participating in, often leading, local partnerships.
We need the sector to be innovative and responsive – adapting provision to meet needs.
In the current climate, this role is increasingly important – the sector is well placed to help individuals and employers weather the recession.
This is why overall investment has increased and has been focused on new priorities, reflecting the downturn.
Take two examples:
I am therefore absolutely committed to a close partnership between us, a constructive way of working that will bring real results.
We have to be realistic, there are problems we will need to overcome.
We know that FE is having to work in a much tougher fiscal environment.
And it’s not the only challenge. The sector needs to do this in a context where we are prioritising demand and seeking greater efficiencies, even as we expect the quality and responsiveness of provision to continue to increase.
Train to Gain is a clear example of this - satisfying all the demand that’s in the system for this successful programme would take more money than we could possibly expect at a time when there are so many urgent calls on the public purse.
We are therefore returning to the practice of asking providers to work within maximum contract values for the rest of this academic year. Geoff Russell’s recent letter (11th June) indicated that the LSC will issue final maximum contract values on 19th June.
On capital – Geoff Russell’s letter of 2nd June set out progress and next steps. And there was a constructive second meeting of the Capital Reference Group on 15th June. This scrutinised the costs incurred by colleges in preparing projects and reviewed the selection process for projects to start in the next Spending Review.
The LSC will announce which colleges will go through to the next stage of prioritisation shortly.
I appreciate that this is taking longer than we would all like – but I hope you accept the need to get this right.
Moving forward, there are a number of opportunities ahead:
I look forward to working closely with the sector as we navigate our way through these issues and as we look to opportunities that are there too.
We are all in the same boat. If we all row at the same rhythm, then we will head in the same direction.
In doing so we will reinforce the enormous economic and social benefits that Further Education in Britain is providing throughout the country.
And we will help to create the education and skills training that we need to come out of this recession ready to compete in the global economy.
When I taught economics, I sometimes tired of people pointing at the education sector, comparing it with careers in business and saying ‘that is where wealth is created’.
Actually what is crucial to building future prosperity is the wealth you create through the knowledge and skills you impart to people everyday.
That’s why I am delighted to have been asked to take on this role, in this new department which recognises the crucial part FE will play in our country’s future prosperity.
