10:30 am
Jim Knight: To follow on from that last point, I refer the Committee to paragraphs 48 and 49 of the explanatory notes, which explain how the frameworks will work. The Bill sets out the frameworks and, in describing how they will operate, paragraph 48 says:
“These clauses set out the procedures for the issue of apprenticeship frameworks, which will be developed by employers, Standard Setting Bodies and Sector Skills Councils according to the specification of apprenticeship standards in England and Wales.”
Paragraph 49 says:
“Subsection (2)provides that there is to be only one person authorised to issue frameworks for a particular apprenticeship sector. The intention is that, in England, frameworks will be issued by Sector Skills Councils working in partnership with Standard Setting Bodies.”
We could not be any clearer about the pivotal role that sector skills councils will play in England without unnecessarily fettering them with legislation. I do not think that they would welcome it hugely if we started to legislate about how they should be.
I will make two other points. On there being lines of reporting to two Secretaries of State, that is simply a function of the 16-to-19 apprenticeships and the adult apprenticeships. The slight majority of the NAS budget will come from the DCSF. It is right that the chief executive of the NAS should report to the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families in exchange for that money.
Finally, the reason why it is right for the NAS to be nested inside the Skills Funding Agency is that they are both employer-facing bodies. It is critical that they develop relationships with employers across that function. They must be able to broker apprenticeship places with employers at national, regional and local levels. They must also respond to the skills needs of employers.
It is entirely coherent to me that there should be an employer-focused body in the form of the SFA, working under DIUS, that responds to skills needs and the demands of adult learners, with that discrete adult focus, and an apprenticeship body that straddles the two Departments.