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YPLA Statutory Guidance: Funding Arrangements for 16-19 Education and Training

YPLA Statutory Guidance: Funding Arrangements for 16-19 Education and Training

The ‘Statutory Guidance: Funding Arrangements for 16-19 Education and Training’ which the Apprenticeship, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 (ASCL Act 2009) requires the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA) to issue to local authorities to advise them of their duties in commissioning 16-19 education and training provision.  It replaces the National Commissioning Framework, and applies only to provision for the 2011/12 academic year. 

The Guidance sets out the key roles and responsibilities of those engaged in making provision for young people; the main elements and timelines for determining provision, responsibilities for quality and the evaluation of performance, including intervention; the responsibility for the health and safety of young people, and a complaints process.

The Guidance should be read alongside the approved 16-19 education and training priorities for Greater Manchester; the setting up of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority; and the arrangements put in place between the YPLA and the SRG, including a single approach to commissioning provision for learners with learning difficulties and disabilities (LLDD), the role of the SRG in monitoring performance of schools, colleges and providers in delivering the SRG’s objectives.

The role of Local authorities

Under the Guidance local authorities

• Have a duty to secure sufficient suitable education and training opportunities to meet the reasonable needs of all young people in their area (para 10), i.e. those who are

-          over compulsory school leaving age, but under 19

-          Subject to a learning difficulty assessment (to age 25)

-          Subject to youth detention

• Have a wider leadership role for education up to age 19 (para 11)
• May shape provision through a strategic overview of provision and needs, including identifying gaps, enabling new provision and developing the market (papa 11).
• Should develop partnerships with providers, YPLA and NAS to carry out this duty, which may agree to reshape provision in an area by re-allocating numbers from one provider to another (para 13).
• Fund maintained schools with sixth forms and post-16 learners with special education needs (on receipt of funding from YPLA) (para 14). This is done via Bury Council within Greater Manchester.

In para 24 the Guidance helpfully sets out what local authorities may do to carry out their duty of championing the needs of young people in securing education and training, i.e.,:

• Secure local provision which meets the needs of young people and employers
• Influencing and shaping the provision on offer and helping to develop and improve the education and training market
• Promoting any necessary structural change in the local education and training system
• Supporting the improvement of the quality of the education and training of young people aged 16-19
• Supporting employer needs, economic growth and community development

In paragraph 30 the Guidance lists the circumstances where lagged learner numbers may not be appropriate in ensuring that funding follows the learner.  Local authorities and their partners will identify these circumstances.  They include infrastructure changes; re distribution of provision where it falls below national minimum standards, or where partners agree to meet learner needs differently; new provision to support young people who are NEET; and provision to support employer needs.  In some cases local authorities may encourage the market to fill these gaps, in other cases all concerned may agree to move places between schools, colleges and other providers.  Where additional funding is required the YPLA’s agreement is needed.

The YPLA will support local authorities in their key statutory duties, and will support local authorities collectively where they chose to work together, as in Greater Manchester (para 12).  In particular the YPLA will provide data and analyses of supply and demand.