This was the key message from new CEO Stewart Segal of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers when he addressed providers at the AELP ‘Making a Difference with Employers’ autumn conference today.
Against a backdrop of various government reviews and consultations on skills and employment programmes, Stewart Segal set out a series of short and long-term challenges as the sector responds to the ‘rigour and responsiveness’ agenda that ministers have proposed to satisfy the demands of employers and learners.
In AELP’s view, the short-term challenges are:
• introduction of Raising the Participation Age and change in careers guidance
• introduction of a new SFA funding system and matrix
• introduction of Study Programmes
• introduction of Traineeships
• 24+ Advanced Learning Loans
• Work Programme success rates and links with SFA Provision for the Unemployed programme and
• the new Ofsted Common Inspection Framework.
The medium and longer term challenges are:
• reducing government investment in adult skills – possible extension of loans
• retaining flexibility in contracts
• improving the level playing field for independent providers
• localism agenda
• apprenticeship reform
• qualification reform
• Youth Contract and
• Work Programme 2 and Work Choice.
Despite the length of the lists, Stewart Segal expressed considerable optimism that AELP member providers would live up to their established track-record of responding flexibly and quickly to a changing landscape that emphasised the need for responsiveness. Their ability to engage with employers was a significant factor behind this belief.
Last year AELP members provided training and recruitment services to around 360,000 businesses and this year’s CBI/Pearson skills survey indicated that private training providers were rated highly by 77% of employers for overall responsiveness.
The AELP chief executive, who has previously run a national training provider, explained that providers had to continue to interpret government policies and rules adapting to new initiatives to make them work for employers. Providers had people on the ground working with employers day in day out. Their staff had up to date industry skills to be credible.
Stewart Segal commented:
“Providers are meeting the current challenges from a position of strength. Nevertheless we have to work even more closely with employers. We have to put them at the centre of the programmes and balance their needs with the needs of the learners, while delivering quality services.”
The AELP autumn conference 2013 has four main themes which are very much alive to the reform agenda:
? New approaches for supporting young people
? Integrating employment and skills provision and reforming the Work Programme
? Supporting providers in a changing landscape
? Reforming apprenticeships.
On reforming apprenticeships, the AELP chief executive set out the following proposals to encourage more employers to participate in the programme:
? simplify the funding rates and standardise the qualifications
? make the rates more transparent to employers
? improve employer choice over which apprenticeship frameworks and providers to use
? encourage flexible and innovative delivery
? introduce a variation of the SFA’s Innovation Code for apprenticeships to respond to employer choice
? develop the traineeship programme as one of the entry points to apprenticeship and
? a greater focus on 16 to 19 year olds through better careers guidance, support for making applications for an apprenticeship and the funding and delivery of English and maths.
AELP is delighted that the AELP autumn conference 2013 has a Strategic Partner, Pearson (http://uk.pearson.com/), and a Conference Supporter, NCFE (http://www.ncfe.org.uk/). On behalf of the AELP Board, Stewart Segal thanked the partner organisations for their continued support.
For the agenda and speaker information, visit the AELP autumn conference website at:
https://www.etouches.com/ehome/autumnconference/home/