|
|
powers to provide for
a youth support service in Wales, by giving directions
to local authorities in Wales requiring them to
provide/secure the provision of youth support services
and to participate in the provision of youth support
services. These powers have been drafted in a way
which allows us to respond to youth needs and aspirations
in a broad and flexible manner including taking
account of securing their active engagement as citizens.
|
|
|
powers relating to the
National Curriculum. These include enabling the
National Assembly to add to the basic curriculum
of maintained schools in Wales so as to include
additional matters such as personal and social education
and work related education. There are also powers
to relax the very lengthy procedural requirements
to be followed when the Assembly amends the National
Curriculum. |
|
|
powers enabling the Local
Education Authorities (LEAs)/governing bodies to
make regional provision for pupils with special
educational needs, including establishing regional
schools and very wide powers enabling the NAW to
direct LEAs’ and governing bodies if necessary; |
|
|
provision for the establishment
of a separate Special Educational Needs Tribunal
for Wales; |
|
|
new, simpler, powers
enabling the National Assembly for Wales to require
schools to publish information, including value-added
indicators; |
|
|
power by regulations
for NAW to require LEAs and governing bodies of
maintained schools to enter into partnership agreements
as to how the authority and governing body are to
discharge their respective functions in relation
to the school as regards matters specified in the
Regulations and such other matters as the authority
and governing body may agree; |
|
|
provision enabling NAW,
by regulations, to require secondary schools and
their feeder primaries to draw up plans to facilitate
the transition from primary school to secondary
school; |
|
|
a power enabling the
National Council for Education and Training for
Wales to give financial assistance to links between
employers and providers or receivers of education
and training; |
|
|
powers in respect of
inspection of post 16 education and training in
Wales which enable the inspection of all such provision
by a single inspectorate; |
|
|
a power enabling the
National Council for Education and Training for
Wales to give financial assistance to links between
employers and providers or receivers of education
and training; |
|
|
powers in respect of inspection of post 16 education
and training in Wales which enable the inspection
of all such provision by a single inspectorate.
|
|
|
to abolish statutory tests at NC Key
Stage I; |
|
|
to extend the requirement to provide
careers education to cover the FE sector; |
|
|
introduction of the Assembly Learning
Grant Scheme; |
|
|
to give effect to the decision that
schools will no longer be required to publish "league
table" information; |
|
|
to provide bursaries for persons undertaking
training to teach in an FE college; |
|
|
to enable the National Council for
Education and Training for Wales to make provision
for the range of adult training covered by the Work
Based Learning for Adults programme; |
|
|
to enable the Careers Wales companies
to deliver an all-age careers information, advice
and guidance service ; |
|
|
to enable the National Council for
Education and Training for Wales to make provision
for the range of adult training covered by the Work
Based Learning for Adults programme; |
|
|
to enable the Careers Wales companies to deliver
an all-age careers information, advice and guidance
service (Employment and Training Act 1973 sections
2 and 8-10).
|
Can you give examples of policy aspirations
where either the breadth or depth of the Assembly’s
powers have been a constraint
|
| It is in the nature of any tier of
government that sometimes you cannot immediately
act independently. The various Wales-only powers
set out above themselves were the result of policy
aspirations for which we then needed to seek primary
legislation in partnership with Westminster. Sometimes
it is a question of finding different approaches
to take forward an agenda, sometimes of influencing
Whitehall departments and sometimes aspirations
are genuinely unattainable. The examples below cover
this range in full. |
| A notable example of an area where
the Education and Lifelong Learning committee of
the Assembly expressed disappointment at the limits
on the powers of the Assembly was the way in which
it was not possible for the National Assembly for
Wales to make separate provision from England for
the criterion to be met for teachers to qualify
for "threshold" performance pay as all
the functions in respect of teachers’ statutory
pay and conditions were vested in the Secretary
of State. |
| I also wished to encourage LEAs to
provide for low incidence special educational needs
on a regional basis, but it was doubtful whether
this was feasible under the existing statutory framework
and the Assembly had no powers prior to the 2002
Education Act to require LEAs to plan or, where
necessary, to bring forward proposals for regional
provision or for the establishment of regional schools. |
| The powers provided in the Learning
and Skills Act 2000 for the establishment of the
National Council for Education and Training for
Wales essentially replicated those for the Learning
and Skills Councils in England and were not designed
to facilitate the nature and range of transfers
of functions, staff, assets and liabilities and
on-going business from predecessor to successor
organisations that were required in Wales. A combination
of legal devices has had to be employed to give
effect to the transfers in Wales. |
| The powers used to set up the Assembly
Learning Grant Scheme were cumbersome not least
because the Assembly has no direct powers for student
support. The Assembly had no direct powers to pay
grants, so we had to use a combination of LEA powers
to pay bursaries and Assembly powers to support
LEA expenditure in the interests of education in
Wales. This might be regarded as unsatisfactory
–though since it meant that the scheme would
fail without the active support of all LEAs it can
also be regarded as an example of successful partnership.
|
| The Welsh Assembly Government is
seeking to ensure a cohesive and integrated approach
to the provision of all post-16 education and training,
and – through funding incentives – to
bring about a greater degree of collaboration and
co-operation within the Higher Education (HE) sector.
The establishment of the National Council (ELWa-
NC) brought together the planning and provision
of Further Education (FE) and training. However,
there is no similar planning function for the Higher
Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW ) and
primary legislation would be needed to give one
to the Council. At the same time, to facilitate
the cohesive approach to post-16 education and training,
the Assembly would also wish to broaden and strengthen
the powers of the National Council and HEFCW to
exercise functions jointly, and to enable the staff
of one Council to undertake work for the other.
The Assembly was not able to include in the Education
Bill last year a provision to enable joint employment
of staff by the NCETW and HEFCW because of the restricted
ambit of the Bill. |
|
The Assembly was not able to secure a provision
which would have enabled it to put in place regulations
to limit junior class sizes along the lines of
the provision in the Schools Standards and Framework
Act 1998 which applies to infant class sizes.
The policy aspiration remains and I am using partnership
and funding mechanisms to take our agenda forward.
|
To what extent have you been able to promote
those policy aspirations by influencing Whitehall
|
| Influence is always difficult to
judge. There have certainly been occasions when
there has been a reluctance to give Wales too much
by way of discretionary or enabling powers especially
where they were in areas where the Department for
Education and Skills were not seeking like flexibility
e.g. junior class sizes. There was also understandable
concern that we should be able to justify why Wales
needed different treatment. In practice, there has
been little absolute constraint upon our aspirations
to date. Some suggestions we have made have been
accepted for wider application as a recognition
of the merits of the case – such as the power
for the General Teaching Councils in England and
Wales to attach conditions to suspensions. |
| In relation to Assembly Learning
Grants, we were not able to persuade the Department
for Education and Skills (DfES) to include a tailored
power in the 2002 Education Act, although they did
indicate that they would have been prepared to make
regulations for Wales using the Secretary of State’s
non-devolved powers. In the event, as I describe
above, we were able to achieve the Welsh Assembly
Government’s objective by using a combination
of National Assembly and Local Education Authority
powers. We were not able to secure agreement to
a widening of the ambit of the Education Bill to
include any matters which related to higher education
but we were however able to secure agreement to
the inclusion of a number of provisions for Wales-only
exercise, as I described at the outset. In addition
to that, we were able to persuade DfES to separate
the National Curriculum into a National Curriculum
for Wales and a National Curriculum for England. |
|
We were also able to influence Whitehall policy,
resulting in some provisions where the policy
was driven by the Assembly. The best example is
the new provisions in the 2002 Act enabling schools
to be federated under single governing body. Instructions
to Parliamentary Counsel had been prepared by
Assembly lawyers. Discussions between policy makers
convinced DfES that there was merit in having
such provisions. When England decided to come
on board, revised instructions were prepared by
the Assembly lawyer and the DfES lawyer acting
jointly reflecting the jointly agreed policy.
From memory, the provisions to add to the basic
curriculum was one of our policies which DfES
adopted. We wanted it for PSE and WRE but they
had no such need. They took the same powers for
England but we had to settle for a compromise
of not having powers to do anything in respect
of existing basic curriculum (sex education and
RE). The LEA functions: qualifications provisions
– section 190 in the Education Act 2002 –
was a Wales initiative to put the status of the
Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC) beyond
all doubt but which DfES adopted as an E&W
provision with DfTE in the lead on briefing.
|
Have you been able to influence policy on
non-devolved matters by influencing Whitehall.
|
| As I have said at the outset, there
are few major areas where existing powers are not
devolved. We have kept in as close touch as we can
on these including giving evidence to the STRB.
There are successes - for example, we worked closely
with the DfES in developing the transition from
National Training Organisations to Sector Skills
Councils (the powers used, section 2 of the 1973
Employment and Training Act are exercisable concurrently
by the UK Government and the Assembly). DfES agreed
to our operational requirements for the new Councils
(for example that they provide research information
for Wales) and to fund their core activities in
Wales. We have also worked very closely with Jobcentre
Plus (and the Employment Service which preceded
it) to steer labour market interventions towards
addressing economic inactivity rather than just
those who were registered unemployed. The role of
the Wales New Deal Task Force has been instrumental
in achieving this. In other areas we have been less
successful, for example in engaging with DTI on
policies for promoting work-life balance. |
|
However an allied issue is the extent to which
we are driven to follow policies imposed by primary
legislation that we might otherwise not have chosen
to develop. In putting their policies and legislative
proposals before Parliament, DfES were reluctant
to acknowledge the possibility that substantially
different policies might apply in Wales and to
present the legislation accordingly as something
which could be used differently in England and
Wales. However, to the extent that commencement
of each of the Education Act provisions is for
the Assembly to determine and to the extent that
the provisions enable different arrangements to
be provided for in secondary legislation made
by the Assembly, the Act does effectively give
the Assembly scope to pursue its own course in
Wales. For example in the Education Act 2002,
section 13, powers of the Secretary of State to
form companies. This is England only but we were
only able to stay out of this provision because
the Government of Wales Act would allow the Assembly
to do what section 13 permits for England. Against
that we were successful in not applying section
70 proposals for additional secondary schools
which are England only in the Act. Other areas
where we did not ourselves feel the need to seek
powers or where we felt existing powers were sufficient
(for example to facilitate innovation, to set
minimum schools budget, co-ordination of admission
arrangements, schools causing concern ) are nevertheless
on the statute book for Wales.
|
Are there areas of policy where responsibilities
are divided between the Assembly and Whitehall
in ways which (a) have a. worked well or (b) presented
practical problems
|
| Lawyers in the Education team in
the Assembly have developed a very close working
relationship with their counterparts in DfES. In
most cases where there may be potential problems,
these can be overcome by the Assembly official/lawyers
working closely with their DfES opposite numbers
to work out practical solutions. The interface between
some non-devolved provisions in the Education Act
2002 with devolved provisions has caused some problems
where DfES wished to bring the non-devolved provisions
into force in advance of the date on which the Assembly
had planned to bring into force the associated devolved
provision, but we think the problems will be resolvable
by the creative use of transitional provisions under
which we may modify provisions in the Act. |
| Some practical problems have arisen
in the context of teachers’ pay and conditions
where a lack of clarity on the appraisal criteria
for the award of pay awards (a non devolved area)
gave us difficulties as the costs of such awards
falls, in Wales, to the Assembly. |
| There can also be practical problems
where the relevant function is devolved. This is
particularly a problem in relation to the regulation
of teachers where there are cross-border issues,
for example Teacher Induction Regulations. In practice
we have always been able to find practical solutions
by working closely with DfES. However, it has yet
to be tested whether DfES will feel compelled to
follow our lead in policy areas where we are ahead
in order to maintain cross border consistency e.g.
induction and early years professional development.
|
| Relationships with other Whitehall
Departments are less well developed - for example
in relation to the Home Office functions in respect
of the Youth Justice board. It is novel for Wales
to want to change arrangements here but our Extending
Entitlement agenda for young people has led us in
different paths to England and that has not been
straightforward to achieve. |
| I shall not attempt to draw conclusions
from this but I hope that it has been a helpful
– if summarised – view across my portfolio.
|
