The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales has expressed reservations over proposals by the Welsh Assembly Government for developing the skills of the workforce.
Responding to a WAG consultation, ICAEW in Wales said it did not support proposals to reserve a proportion of the funding distributed through Further Education colleges for the purpose of supporting qualifications linked to sector priorities.
The Delivering Skills That Work for Wales: Investing in Skills (Sector Priorities Funding, Fees Policy and Financial Support for Learners) consultation sought views on the proposals for a post-16 fees policy, the creation of Sector Priorities Funding and the future of Individual Learner Accounts (Wales).
But ICAEW Wales director David Lermon said: “We believe the proposals represent an unacceptable watering down of the ideas mooted in Skills that Work for Wales. They were themselves far weaker than the changes to the funding of Further Education based learning which were made in Sir Adrian Webb’s Review of Further Education, “Promise and Performance”.
“Both the Webb Review and Skills that Work for Wales suggested that funding would be top-sliced from individual FE budgets and used to fund tailored training packages put forward by employers organisations, albeit ones which would be delivered through the FE network. The consultation proposes ring-fencing funding within individual Further Education Institute budgets for training towards a narrower range of qualifications to be defined by Sector Skills Councils. We do not believe this will provide any sort of lever to make FEIs more responsive to the actual needs of employers within their localities.”
David Lermon added: “We strongly urge the Assembly Government to revisit the current proposal, with a view, at the least, to reverting to the proposals within Skills that Work for Wales, and preferably, to an approach which is much more clearly led by actual demand from employers. Perhaps there should be a requirement for businesses to undergo an independent training diagnostic of the sort offered through the Workforce Development Programme in order to access such financial support.”
In its consultation, WAG wanted to know whether there was support for the proposed package to the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) designed to target resources where they would have greatest impact and support progression into higher level learning?
ICAEW said: “We believe that, across the business of Government, the Welsh Assembly Government needs to be much more robust in only funding interventions which are proven to be effective and which do not contain high levels of deadweight. Although we are not best placed to comment on this particular issue, if it is true that, as the consultation document claims, “research indicates that where lower rates of support are removed there is little impact on participation rates”, then we would support the proposed package of reforms.
“In general terms, we are in favour of reducing bureaucracy and simplifying wherever possible Government financial administration. We would therefore favour bringing the EMA system and the HE student finance system into alignment wherever possible.”
