Public Audit Committee
Scotland's colleges 2020: follow up information
Letter to Convener from Joe Griffin, Director-General for Education and Justice, Scottish Government, 17 January 2022
Dear Convenor,
Thank you for your letter of 6 December 2021 on behalf of the Public Audit Committee. You are seeking further information following my response to your letter of 1 October 2021. I hope the following is of assistance.
The Scottish Funding Council’s (SFC) Review of Tertiary Education and Research in Scotland
You will be aware that the Scottish Government (SG) published its response to the SFC Review on 26 October 2021.
That response noted that there would be a period of capacity building and prioritisation across SG and SFC in order to augment staffing and determine how best to deploy time and funding to deliver and drive the system-wide change as set out in the report.
Since the response was published, SG and SFC have identified six priority projects from the review recommendations to take forward. These priorities are set out at Annex A. Delivery of these priorities falls across SFC and the SG, requiring input from and consultation with a range of other partners and stakeholders. It is for the SFC Board to decide on the specific detail of wider implementation, and associated timelines and oversight. This will be discussed by the SFC Board at their next Board meeting on 4 February. I would be happy to write to the Committee to provide further information after that discussion.
Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan (CESAP)
The Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan (CESAP) was published in December 2020 and sets out the Scottish Government’s plan to maximise the transition to net-zero for Scotland, ensuring that Scotland’s workforce has the skills required to make the transition to net-zero a successful one.
After publication of the CESAP in December 2020, an Implementation Steering Group (ISG) of industry experts and skills partners was established. The ISG and others helped to translate the CESAP themes into five priority areas for an Implementation Plan. The key actions within each priority area are published on the Skills Development Scotland website. The CESAP focusses on the collective action that needs to be undertaken from 2020 through to 2025, with a particular focus on the period to 2023.
The Green Jobs Workforce Academy, one of the headline commitments in CESAP, was launched in August 2021. The Academy included new information on green careers on My World of Work and an online catalogue of green career training opportunities with signposting to funding support. During the first three months of live running (the period for which figures are currently available), 3,365 individuals accessed the Academy’s homepage. During 2021/22 we also allocated funding through the National Transition Training Fund (NTTF) to a number of green skills projects. This included the Green Jobs Training Fund which offered businesses participating in the Scottish Enterprise Green Jobs Fund the opportunity to apply for upskilling/retraining support; and the Skills for a Low Carbon Future project which launched in September with approximately 90 participants and which is being delivered by the Construction Scotland Innovation Centre. CESAP implementation during 2021/22 also included:
Keep Scotland Beautiful’s bespoke climate emergency training for organisations and launch of a new climate topic for the Eco-Schools Scotland programme, with further resources planned.
The publication of the Scottish Apprenticeship Advisory Board’s paper on sustainable skills in apprenticeships.
The Energy Skills Partnership’s launch of nine college centres to train the next generation of renewables professionals.
The opening of Dumfries and Galloway College Green Skills Academy.
Scottish Engineering’s development of a net zero toolkit to support engineering SMEs, delivered via webinars and 1-2-1 support.
In 2022/23, we will continue to work with a range of partners to take forward actions from the CESAP. Immediate priorities include: strengthening the evidence on current and future demand for skills for the transition to net zero; creating a Green Jobs Skills Hub to articulate skills needs to employers; working with stakeholders to develop the first phase of a Skills Guarantee for workers in carbon intensive sectors; and continuing to update and improve the career information and training opportunities available through the Academy.
A detailed delivery programme for 2022/23, including milestones for the delivery of the Skills Hub, Skills Guarantee and next phase of the Academy, will be included as part of the CESAP Implementation Plan and published before end March 2022. The impact of the CESAP will be monitored by the CESAP Implementation Plan Steering Group (which will meet around four times each year and is chaired by Professor Dave Reay) and reported on via the Skills Development Scotland website.
Lifelong Learning
The fundamental changes taking place in our economy and labour market, including the transition to net zero, make continued investment in an agile and responsive skills system essential if Scotland’s people and employers are to thrive. As part of this approach to building an agile and responsive system, access to skills training throughout people’s working lives will be key to both addressing skills shortages and supporting people and sectors that are vulnerable to change.
In this context, the Scottish Government has committed through the Covid Recovery Strategy, published in October 2021, to building a simpler and stronger lifelong learning offer. This work will be undertaken in two phases. The first, which is already underway, is focused on building the evidence base for change by learning from our existing adult upskilling and retraining interventions, including those that were introduced to respond to the pandemic, and developing our understanding of the scale and nature of the need for adult skills support in Scotland.
An independent evaluation of the Flexible Workforce Development Fund (FWDF) has been commissioned and we are currently assessing bids for an evaluation of our Individual Training Accounts (ITAs) programme. Both evaluations will report by summer 2022. At the same time, we will be reporting on the outcomes and learning from the National Transition Training Fund (NTTF) which was introduced during the pandemic to respond to the immediate impacts on the labour market. NTTF is due to conclude in July 2022, but we want to take the learning from the Fund into our future plans. A report on Year 1 of the NTTF is due to be published in February 2022. Finally, we are scoping research to assess the extent of the need for upskilling and reskilling and the audiences most in need of our support.
The second phase of this work will commence in autumn 2022 and build from this evidence base to design and introduce an optimised adult upskilling and reskilling investment offer. The intention is that this will be better targeted to provide high quality advice and training to those who need it the most, including those in poverty or at risk of moving into poverty. In designing that offer, we will work with business organisations and employers, and with the tertiary education sector on proposals in the SFC Review for more shorter, industry-focused courses, ensuring that there is provision in the system to accommodate learner and employer needs. Timescales for this work will be set out once the first phase of evidence gathering is complete.
The work to review and enhance our adult skills offer links with work underway to ensure employability services actively address deep rooted, social and economic inequalities in the labour market, supporting fair and inclusive recovery and acting as a lever in delivering a reduction in the number of individuals and families experiencing poverty.
Our approach to employability must reduce labour market inequalities in general, whilst offering a mechanism to provide targeted action as and when required. No One Left Behind, our approach to employability delivery, offers a long-term, scalable and flexible place-based model of delivery where the Scottish Government and local government work with partners from across the public, third and private sectors to deliver person-centred solutions. Our approach to local governance and commissioning will better join up local employability support provision with other services, driving a no wrong door approach for service users. We will set out further details on access to employment support services in the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan which will outline a range of policy measures that will support the achievement of Ministers’ interim and final child poverty targets. The Plan will be published by the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government in March 2022.
Sector Industrial Relations
The Scottish Government is fully committed to the principles of fair work.
The £400 one-off payment to which you refer in your correspondence is in recognition of the additional workload and responsibility placed with teachers and lecturers in 2020/21 to ensure learners received their national qualifications, based on their professional judgement of demonstrated attainment – an unprecedented and significant role for teachers and lecturers.
It was intended solely for this purpose and is not a reflection of the value the Scottish Government places on cohorts of staff within the education system.
The Scottish Government’s established position is that it is for the college unions and the employers to negotiate pay and terms and conditions voluntarily, via the National Joint Negotiating Committee (NJNC) collective bargaining process, in the spirit of collaboration and co-operation, rather than through statutory means.
The National Recognition Procedures Agreement provides the collective contractual arrangement which defines the remit, scope, operating arrangements and proposed authority for the NJNC.
The Scottish Government has no locus over pay and terms and conditions in the college sector. Therefore, the voluntary nature of the collective bargaining process represents an agreed arrangement for both employers and staff in the negotiation of pay and conditions.
However, we appreciate that the current collective bargaining mechanism has been in operation for a number of years and that is why in 2021 we commissioned Strathesk Resolutions to conduct a review of the process, in collaboration with both employers and trade unions, to ensure it remains fit for purpose.
We expect to receive the final recommendations of this review in Spring 2022. We will carefully consider its findings and work with both employers and the representative trade unions to create the conditions for a productive ongoing dialogue in the sector.
We also continue to work with the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), who work closely with the sector, to ensure any actions taken by colleges, at both local and national level, are compliant with the Scottish Public Finance Manual, the SFC Financial Memorandum and are in line with fair work principles.
I hope this response is helpful.
Yours sincerely,
Joe Griffin
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