European and External Relations Committee EU Structural Funds. Submission from West of Scotland Colleges Partnership

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1 Background European and External Relations Committee EU Structural Funds Submission from West of Scotland Colleges Partnership Graeme Hyslop has been Chair of the West of Scotland Colleges Partnership (WoSCoP) since December He is a member of the Programme Monitoring Committee (PMC) for the Lowland & Upland Scotland (LUPS) ESF Programme and served as a member of the PMC for the Objective 2 West Programme; he was also the sector representative on the PMC for the Objective 3 ESF Programme. WoSCoP is an association of 13 colleges of further and higher education serving communities in west central Scotland that are home to at least a third of the Scottish population. WoSCoP provides expertise and intelligent support to help its members identify and exploit European programmes that enhance or extend the impact of their provision and offer more and better learning opportunities. The realisation of this often involves member colleges collaborating and cooperating with other national and European partners employers, local authorities, universities, schools, Community Planning Partnerships, Skills Development Scotland, STUC, housing associations and the voluntary sector to foster the effective and efficient delivery of coordinated or integrated projects and programmes that sustain economic and community development, wealth creation and skills development. The European Social Fund College Sector Performance from 2007 Under the current Structural Fund Programmes for the LUPS area, the College sector has been awarded of more than 60m worth of from the European Social Fund (ESF), representing 26% of the Programme s total resources. In the early rounds of the Programme, colleges applied for as individual institutions on a competitive basis through a challenge process. During this period, the sector was approved to deliver 30% of the activity for the provision of training for unemployed and disadvantaged groups and significant proportions of activity to support the upskilling of those in employment. The Programme also had targets for capacity building to ensure that training and employment agencies improved and expanded their services to widen access for disadvantaged groups. Of the 12m assigned to support such initiatives, colleges secured 30% of the and contributed an even greater proportion of the Programme outcomes. In 2009, the Scottish Government assigned 8.4m of to the Scottish Funding Council to support the provision of additional full-time training places for those affected by the economic downturn. This was, in turn, used as match for a sector wide ESF project. WoSCoP provided support to the Scottish Funding Council to deliver the first project in Scotland using the European Commission s financial simplifications. This project used a unit cost approach and, with ESF of 6.8m boosting the

2 available to a total of 15.2m. The project delivered 73,948 additional WSUMs of training; provided an additional 1.8m of student support funds and 66,500 of additional childcare. Table 1, below, summarises College from ESF since 2007: % ESF Priority 1 Progressing Into Employment ESF Priority 1 College through Community Planning Partnerships ESF Priority 2 Progressing Through Employment ESF Priority 3 Improving Access to Lifelong Learning ESF Priority 5 Strategic Pipeline Model 18,637,793 Individual and collective college projects supporting most disadvantaged, unemployed groups 20,353,606 Working with CPP partners to deliver training needed within local areas. 8,307,601 Individual and collective college projects supporting the upskilling of existing workers 3,590,048 Capacity development of sector to include wider range of learners 9,281,264 New strategic approach from % of total P1 17% of P2 30% of P3 14% of P5 TOTAL SECTOR ESF 60,170,312 Table 1 ESF from the LUPS Programme awarded to the College sector since 2007 Lessons Learned, Good Practice Identified Based on the knowledge and experience that it and its member colleges have acquired over the period since 2007, WoSCoP would highlight the following points as illustrations of key lessons learned and emerging effective practice: The rationale for ESF is that it is a programme focused on supporting and promoting improvements in training and employment opportunities. The college sector delivers a significant proportion of ESF s outputs in the LUPS area; proportionately more than the that is assigned to the sector.

3 The new Structural Funds Programmes for for the LUPS area will be worth approximately 550m. Of this combined ESF and ERDF total, the European Commission requires that at least 52% of the resources are assigned to support ESF activities. The impact of this is that the for ERDF will be almost halved but the available to support ESF activities will be 93% of that which is available in the current programme. If we can improve efficiency, particularly in administration that means that Scotland should be able to deliver at least the same number of opportunities in the new Programme. As the Scottish Government s statutory provider of vocational education and training, it is reasonable to anticipate that the College sector will continue to be a major participant in the new Programmes, particularly in light of the cuts faced by the sector and the priority placed on targeting youth unemployment. The Scottish Government s ambitions for Putting Learners at the Centre and the Guarantee for All will require a significant contribution of ESF resources to ensure that the scale and scope of its ambitions are met. The adoption of the EU s financial simplifications for the SFC project has provided the first working example in Scotland of unit pricing. This has secured a drastic reduction in the administrative burden and its outcomesbased approach builds in added value at the application stage and delivers best value for money. Unit pricing offered a simple and straightforward means to support the delivery of additional full-time training places: it should be rolled out across all providers where such a model can be applied in order to extend its associated and accrued benefits. There are some operational contexts in which a unit pricing approach is not recommended. These include situations in which colleges are expected to deliver training to the most disadvantaged groups and to meet the needs of their local Community Planning Partnerships. Unit pricing requires that courses are financially viable: one implication of this is that in cases in which the number of students (or achievement rates) falls below a certain (break even) level, a college has no option but to terminate the course, forthwith. This has caused difficulties under the ESF Priority 5 projects, where colleges are unable to commit to meeting some of the CPP requirements because the training required would not be financially viable. A solution to the financial viability issue is to allow colleges to use a system of lump sum payments in which a minimum price is determined by a college which would represent the minimum amount of that would be paid: clearly, the minimum level would reflect the threshold for financial viability. Lump sum payments would be particularly advantageous for the voluntary sector. It would be prudent for the ESFD to be working on the development of relevant models that could be used in the new programmes and for it to field test them in the current programme.

4 The move to a strategic pipeline approach has been positive. It is appropriate for ESF to be assigned to geographical areas on the basis of need and for this to be directed towards the Regional Priority actions. However, for this model to work properly, more work is needed to ensure that: o administration costs are capped at a maximum of 5%; o CPPs develop a single model that is consistently applied across Scotland; o the use and benefit of unit pricing and lump sum payments is maximised; o College and SDS activity is shaped by the CPPs and combines unit pricing and lump sum payments as dictated by area need; and o a proportion of CPP activity is ring fenced for delivery by the voluntary sector. The use of Strategic Delivery Bodies (SDBs) was also positive but the model needs to be improved to allow a greater level of flexibility. It is feasible for this approach to be expanded to create an SDB covering college and SDS activities. The European Regional Development Fund College Sector Performance Under the previous programmes, from , WoSCoP colleges secured more than 43m of capital to support the complete transformation of the sector s infrastructure. Identified as a priority area of support, ERDF has contributed to new college facilities for Clydebank College, South Lanarkshire College, North Glasgow College, John Wheatley College and Cumbernauld College. The Programme did not allow to be assigned to support the development of new training facilities. Instead, was directed towards Research & Innovation; Enterprise Growth, Urban Development and Rural Development. As a result, only seven college projects have been funded, with a total value to the sector of 5.4m. These include: Coatbridge College, which secured 1.2m towards the refurbishment of their college estate; Dundee College, which secured 0.8m for the development of a Renewables Training Facility; and to support the development of Knowledge Transfer activities in colleges. Lessons Learned, Good Practice Identified: The use of SDBs and Financial Instruments in ERDF has been extremely successful and should be expanded. Given the paucity of ERDF resources that will be available in the new programmes it would be wise to ensure that the that will be available is not used to support activities that could be addressed by other EU funds: for example, Business Support activities could be funded under the new EU

5 COSME programme and infrastructure developments may be better served by the Territorial co-operation programmes. In conclusion, WoSCoP acknowledges that the global financial crisis, and actions taken by the UK Government to respond to this, present significant threats to the Scottish Government s aspirations and ambitions. We believe that these difficult times present an opportunity for Scotland to adopt a more imaginative and intelligent approach to accessing and impacting in European Programmes. The European Commission has proposed a new model of working that would require regional groupings of delivery agencies, responding to National, Regional and local priorities through an intelligent mix of appropriate ERDF, ESF, EAFRD, EFF. Scotland already has some very good examples of some elements of this approach but it will take considerable effort to communicate this approach to all delivery agencies, ensure that everyone recognises the benefits of such an approach and establish working groups now to develop the appropriate systems and models. A G Hyslop OBE Chair, West of Scotland Colleges Partnership