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A REVIEW OF COLLABORATION BETWEEN SCHOOLS AND FURTHER EDUCATION COLLEGES IN SCOTLAND: Partner Document to the Interim Report

SECTION 5 ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES, FUNDING ARRANGEMENTS, AND LOCAL COLLABORATIVE ARRANGEMENTS

Role of Education Authorities and Schools

5.1 Education authorities are - and will remain - responsible for the whole package of school age pupils' learning and welfare, including any formal discipline for pupils of school age. We will not seek to amend or extend to further education colleges the statutory responsibilities of education authorities (and schools) for school pupils. Pupils' curriculum needs will therefore remain entirely the responsibility of the education authority and schools.

5.2 Education authorities have a crucial role in ensuring equity and consistency in the level and quality of provision.

5.3 Education authorities are currently a source of funding for collaborative activity, both in terms of the cost of some enrolments, but more commonly in respect of other costs. Education authorities (and schools) should be responsible for arranging and funding the transport for pupils arising from school/college collaboration, and should ensure that all school pupils have safe and free passage to and from college. We are conscious that transport arrangements can be challenging. However, the innovation and pragmatism of existing local arrangements can be developed further by education authorities and schools. We will consider transport issues further during phase II of the review.

5.4 Schools should remain responsible for paying colleges the costs of lunch for school pupils eligible for free school meals who eat lunch in the further education college. Another key financial contribution to collaborative activity (over and above the costs of administration in helping to manage the activity and in their oversight of the arrangements), which education authorities or schools should meet is in respect of the cost of materials associated with particular courses, including overalls and course books etc.

5.5 We have considered whether there is any scope for releasing funds dedicated to school pupils' school education when those pupils undertake college courses. We are not persuaded that there are reciprocal savings. Given that education authorities and schools remain responsible for the whole package of school age pupils' learning and welfare, irrespective of where that pupil is taught at any given time, savings that may notionally exist on paper are unlikely to be realised. We recognise that school/college activity is additional activity to school education. It will therefore be financed separately.

Further Education Colleges

5.6 Further education colleges ³⁷ are autonomous bodies. Such autonomy concords with their academic freedom, one of the main principles upon which colleges (and universities) are founded. In encouraging collaboration with schools we in no way seek to restrict this autonomy.

5.7 Colleges determine the particular courses they wish to offer and the pupils and students they accept on to them (including the withdrawal of such provision). Further education colleges also establish their own local priorities and balance of activity. This will continue.

Scottish Further Education Funding Council

5.8 The Scottish Further Education Funding Council (SFEFC) is responsible for distributing funding to Scotland's further education colleges and for monitoring the quality of college activity. It is currently the principal source of funding for school/college enrolments. We considered whether this responsibility ought to remain with the Funding Council. We looked at whether a purchaser/supplier financial relationship would aid or hinder partnership working. We reflected upon how school pupils (and other students in colleges) would best be served. We also considered what would achieve best value, and we judged it against our four watchwords for the school/college review, which link to our lifelong learning strategy - responsiveness, relevance, quality and coherence.

5.9 Given that collaboration will be developed with a view to the long term, clear and stable funding arrangements are necessary. Funding must also be sustainable.

5.10 We plan to merge SFEFC and the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council. The new merged Council will have a full overview of further and higher education in Scotland. It will have a statutory duty to have regard to skills needs in Scotland.

5.11 We have concluded that maintaining a coherent system of funding for further education colleges would be in the best interests of pupils and adult students, and would bring a level of stability upon which evolutionary growth can be managed effectively. SFEFC (and its successor body) will therefore remain primarily responsible for funding school/college enrolments. That said, we are in the business of removing unnecessary barriers, not creating them. Therefore, having clarified this matter, it would be perverse for us to prevent education authorities from having the option to fund additional enrolments for school pupils in their area if that is their local priority (and the college concerned is able and willing to meet this demand). We will ask SFEFC to facilitate discussions between the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Association of Scottish Colleges to explore the options for the funding of such provision to avoid unnecessary bureaucracy, including whether a national model for this supplementary funding can - or should - be developed.

5.12 The issue of primary funding responsibility was fully aired in the review group's earlier consultation paper. Ministers' views on this matter are settled. We can therefore begin forward planning on the basis of the continuing responsibilities of the Funding Council in relation to school/college collaboration.

5.13 We considered whether SFEFC (and its successor body) should have a statutory duty that encompasses school college collaboration. Given that school/college collaboration is an established feature of the further education landscape, we see no reason to exclude further education delivered to school age pupils from the statutory responsibilities of the new Council. The new Council's duties and powers in respect of further education set out in the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Bill currently before the Scottish Parliament would apply irrespective of the age of the student concerned. Its powers to fund school pupil enrolments in all Scotland's further education colleges will be clear.

Careers Scotland

5.14 Careers Scotland's range of products and services for schools and further education colleges aim to:

• help individuals become more aware of the world of work;
• develop the career planning and decision making skills of individuals;
• help individuals make informed curriculum choices; and
• assist individuals to enter appropriate education, training or work.

5.15 Careers Scotland has partnership agreements with each school and further education college outlining the range of services that Careers Scotland provides, including career guidance support.

5.16 The provision of well-informed information, advice and guidance is crucial to the success of school/college collaborative activity. One of the key messages from the research the Executive recently commissioned into the attitudes of school pupils to further education study was that high quality information before embarking on a college course is extremely important. The need for advice and guidance will undoubtedly grow, particularly (but not exclusively) in helping pupils consider the curriculum options and the end of S2, S4 and S5. We have asked Careers Scotland to prepare a business case for its engagement with school pupils in considering further education college courses as part of their school-based curriculum and in helping them (and the school and college) evaluate such courses. The plan will include how to inform career advisors fully of the range of existing and future opportunities which further education colleges can offer school pupils.

Delivery of School/College Collaboration Locally

5.17 One of the main findings from the research the Executive undertook into existing local delivery arrangements ³⁸ was that there is a need for greater consistency in the management of school/college collaboration. A stronger role in forward planning by education authorities was also identified.

5.18 Local school/college strategies should be developed within the overall framework of community planning to cover all secondary and special schools in each education authority area and appropriate further education colleges. This means that colleges like education authorities should be involved at the strategic as well as operational levels of community planning. Annex B outlines the role of community planning and Community Learning and Development Partnerships. As we explained in paragraph 4.39, Community Planning Partnerships provide the local mechanism for co-ordinating the work of education authorities and further education colleges to ensure that the risks of unnecessary duplication of facilities are minimised.

5.19 Given that education authorities are responsible for the whole package of school age pupils' learning and welfare (which gives them an overview of pupils' educational needs), and community planning is facilitated by local authorities, education authorities should take the lead in preparing local strategies. A partnership approach needs to be taken, however, to meet the challenge of matching needs with the provision of courses by further education colleges (which as we have acknowledged is a matter for the colleges themselves). On-going dialogue will no doubt be required. As a minimum, the local enterprise company, Careers Scotland, Trade Unions, local or national interests of pupils, parents/carers and adult students, and Community Learning and Development Partnerships should also be consulted. Other organisations suggested to us include Social Inclusion Partnerships, chambers of commerce and other employer representative organisations, health and social work departments, disability organisations and voluntary organisations.

5.20 We want to ensure maximum local flexibility. Therefore we recognise that in particular areas, the education authority may decide that it is more appropriate, with its agreement, that a further education college prepare the local strategy. As long as appropriate synergies with other related initiatives are maintained, we consider that this a matter for local decision. Similarly an education authority may wish to develop sub-local strategies or plan jointly with another education authority. Again we leave that matter to be determined locally.

5.21 It is important to ensure that other strategies, such as Determined to Succeed, should be delivered in a complementary, joined-up way. Whether partnership agreements to deliver the Enterprise in Education agenda are adapted to cover school/college collaboration (recognising that such collaboration extends beyond Enterprise in Education, and not all pupils participating in Enterprise in Education activities will do so through further education colleges) or other existing strategies are modified, is, we suggest, a matter for local decision. We require only that local strategies exist in whatever form to support the full spectrum of school/college collaboration.

5.22 Within the framework of the local strategy, Partnership Agreements between relevant schools and further education colleges outlining the detailed arrangements should be developed, as appropriate.

5.23 School/college collaboration should be reflected in the strategic and operational planning of education authorities, schools and further education colleges.

5.24 A key issue for local dialogue is to facilitate the effective delivery of collaborative activity. We therefore suggest that local strategies consider how best to co-ordinate school and further education college timetables. Another key matter for local decision-making is to identify clearly the respective responsibilities of each of the partners, and to establish a timetable for the management of collaborative activity. We suggest that education authorities and further education colleges embark, as an early item of business, on a review of all local school/college collaborative activity to ensure that it matches our new framework for the 3-18 curriculum for school pupils.

Funding Arrangements

5.25 The two main sources of further education college funding are core funding and fee income.

5.26 All bar two of Scotland's further education colleges ³⁹ receive core funding from SFEFC calculated according to the 'Activity Measurement Method'. Student activity is expressed in terms of student units of measurement (SUMs). A SUM equates to a notional 40 hours of student study time, and relates directly to a one credit Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) unit. It is 'weighted' according to the resource needs of particular subjects to produce a weighted SUM (WSUM). Given that there are additional costs associated with operating what are often small further education colleges in remote and island areas in Scotland, a 'remoteness element' is also paid ⁴⁰. Additionally there is a premium paid for students domiciled within the 20% most deprived postcode areas in Scotland in order to support social inclusion.

5.27 As a matter of policy, the household income of pupils studying at a further education college as part of their school-based curriculum is not assessed by the college. It is a fundamental tenet of state school education that it is delivered free. We are in no doubt that it is wholly inappropriate for a school pupil's family income to be assessed for courses they undertake in college as part of their school-based curriculum. This, however, leaves colleges with a funding gap at present - they (rightly) do not receive fees from a pupil's family, nor do they in practice receive fee-waiver grant (because the family's income has not been assessed as eligible for such support). It was not a matter of policy that such income should be denied to further education colleges. The situation is entirely anomalous. The rules governing fee-waiver will therefore be revised to ensure that all enrolments of school pupils that form part of their school-based curriculum attract automatic fee-waiver. Decisions on the timing of this change cannot be divorced from decisions on resource allocation. We are not therefore able to take them at this time. A decision on timing will be taken before the completion of the review.

5.28 One of the reasons why SFEFC (and it successor body) should remain principally responsible for funding school/college enrolments is because we want such activity to align with existing funding mechanisms for further education. We do, however, recognise that there is a need to ensure that the funding mechanism is tailored to aim towards equity of access of provision for school pupils across Scotland, and that further education colleges' distinctive ethos and autonomy are maintained. Therefore we will ask the Funding Council to chair a Working Group that also includes the Association of Scottish Colleges, the Executive and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to develop a funding model. We suggest at this stage that the model should have the following features:

• decisions on the type and scale of provision should be taken locally on the basis of the partnership agreements agreed between further education colleges and schools/education authorities;
• further education colleges receive grant-in-aid by claiming weighted SUMs and automatic fee-waivers against the volume of funding delivered to school pupils;
• education authorities have the flexibility to supplement provision for school pupils if that is their priority; and
• the Funding Council monitor the level of school pupil activity at a national level.

5.29 Other options for the funding model might include:

• whether the Funding Council or the Executive should identify a national volume of activity and associated fees for school/college collaboration;
• whether the Funding Council or the Executive should identify a national increase in volume of activity and associated fees for school/college collaboration;
• if there were any such volumes whether the Funding Council should apportion to each education authority area a notional volume of activity ⁴¹ based on the number of pupils in the area (recognising current levels of activity initially);
• if there were any such volumes whether the Funding Council should apportion them to further education colleges; and
• whether a migration strategy is necessary to move in an evolutionary way from the current pattern of enrolment to one that is more equitable across all of Scotland's education authority areas.

5.30 The Association of Scottish Colleges and several further education colleges have suggested that there are additional costs that colleges bear in their collaborative work with school age pupils. While we do not wish to see colleges at a financial disadvantage by undertaking collaborative activity, we see no justification for introducing a financial incentive for such activity. We have asked SFEFC to consider the matter of additional costs in detail during phase II of the review. We have also asked the Funding Council to consider whether different models of collaborative activity, such as lecturers teaching in schools, have an impact on the costs of delivery that requires them to be weighted differently.

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