CMI Response To BIS Consultation
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The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) supports increased autonomy and flexibility in the further education (FE) sector, emphasizing the importance of maintaining standards while expanding access to skills training. They advocate for collaboration between educational institutions and employers, particularly through initiatives like university technical colleges, to better align qualifications with market needs and promote social mobility. Additionally, CMI welcomes proposed reforms, such as the introduction of loans for FE, which aim to enhance career progression and ensure that vocational qualifications are recognized similarly to academic ones.
CMI Response To BIS Consultation
- 1. CMI submission to BIS consultation New Challenges, New Chances. Next steps in implementing the FE reform programme October 2011 Contact: Petra Wilton Philippa Tucker Director, Policy & Research Public Affairs Manager petra.wilton@managers.org.uk philippa.tucker@managers.org.uk Tel: 0207 421 2708 Tel: 0207 421 2723 1
- 2. Executive summary • The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) is strongly supportive of the further education (FE) sector and welcomes Government’s proposals to give it more autonomy and flexibility, and to open up access for a greater number of people • We therefore welcome the widening of FE provision, especially in response to local demand and in collaboration with local and regional employers, but underline the importance of maintaining standards • We are keen for the FE sector to maintain its essential role in facilitating social mobility and providing learners of all ages with the opportunity to gain more skills, particularly employability skills • CMI and other professional bodies have an important role to play in collaborating with the FE sector and employers to ensure qualifications reflect employers’ needs, meet professional standards, provide professional recognition and provide continuing professional development (CPD) for learners • We are in favour of allowing specialist colleges to enter the market, eg. University Technical Colleges (UTCs). CMI is leading a group of professional bodies to work with UTCs to ensure that transferable professional skills are offered alongside technical skills, to help improve business performance as well as to develop learners’ employability skills • We welcome the proposal to introduce a parallel system of loans for FE as for the HE sector. This will allow learners to shape demand for courses, rather than the more supply-led system which currently exists. We also welcome the smoother path from FE to HE which may occur as a result of the introduction of FE loans • We are keen to emphasise the value of national occupational standards (NOS) which underpin the National Qualifications and Credit Framework and common professional standards and thereby ensure quality assurance. The NOS are important to ensure the consistency of qualifications and transferability across different sectors. The NOS are best developed by Sector Skills Councils and the relevant professional bodies in close collaboration with employers and relevant awarding bodies and providers • CMI supports streamlining the approval process for vocational qualifications, although we look forward to hearing more details on this. We are keen to ensure that reducing bureaucracy and complexity in the approval process does not lead to lower qualification standards About CMI The Chartered Management Institute is the only chartered professional body in the UK dedicated to promoting the highest standards of management and leadership excellence. CMI sets the standard that others follow. As a membership organisation, CMI has been providing forward-thinking advice and support to individuals and businesses for more than 50 years, and continues to give managers and leaders, and the organisations they work in, the tools they need to improve their performance and make an impact. As well as equipping individuals with the skills, knowledge and experience to be excellent managers and leaders, CMI’s products and services support the development of management and leadership excellence across both public and private sector organisations. Through in-depth research and policy surveys of its 90,000 individual members CMI maintains its position as the premier authority on key management and leadership issues. CMI has an extensive network of approved centres around the UK, which are authorised to deliver our qualifications. To date there are 680 centres, many of which are FE colleges. We therefore offer our 2
- 3. qualifications to a wide range of FE learners through a flexible system of credit based learning units. We are also able to develop new qualifications in response to the needs of employers, such as the CMI Level 3 in Neighbourhood Management and the CMI Level 4 Certificate in Multi-Agency working. Specific comments We have responded to the issues raised in the consultation document and, where relevant, answered specific questions as set out at the end of the document. Section i - Vision for the FE landscape and shape of the sector We welcome BIS’s policy intentions of increasing delivery of high quality higher level qualifications, including at degree level, within FE colleges. We believe the FE sector has an increasingly important role to play in helping people improve their skills and find work, at a time when specific skills gaps still exist. For example, in December 2008 the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) published its first annual forecast1 on where future jobs will be created and identified management as by far the fastest growing occupation. By 2017, it estimates that the net requirement for new managers will be 2.2m, with 802,000 additional management jobs created. The report concludes that the UK is at serious risk of not being able to meet this demand for management skills, highlighting management as a high priority skills need for immediate action. Added to this is the Government’s ambitious Open Public Service programme, which represents a step change in the way public services are delivered towards a more collaborative and integrated system between the private, public and third sectors. The achievement of these goals for public services such as the NHS, police service, local and central government, and education, are all dependent on good management and leadership skills. Part of the challenge for the FE sector is, as the consultation document rightly acknowledges, “to make itself more responsive to changing social and economic needs, with a more diverse set of high- quality providers who can constantly review their delivery models to ensure they are fit for purpose.” (page 13). An important part of this more flexible, focused FE sector is the creation of a network of University Technical Colleges, which CMI actively supports. We have set out below a brief description of our involvement with UTCs and the JCB Academy, as an example of how a professional body can work closely with other educational bodies and employers to deliver better vocational skills. CMI’s work with UTCs Currently the CMI is leading the working group for Professional Bodies on behalf of the Baker Dearing Educational Trust. We are working closely in partnership with the Trust to develop a platform across UTCs to test out different collaborative models, allowing the professional bodies to provide a shared offer for the “bridge” subjects. “Bridging skills” cover transferable employability skills, soft skills, management and leadership, finance, marketing, customer service, logistics, etc. We believe that they can make a valuable contribution in terms of supporting the development and delivery of bridging skills and also to leverage employer engagement through CMI membership. Many professional bodies are already working with schools at a number of different levels, but the new UTCs provide a unique opportunity to develop a more integrated approach. This approach recognises that it will potentially become problematic for schools if they are targeted by many different bodies all with separate propositions. The members of the Professional Body group include CMI, ACCA, RICS, CIPD, CILT, AAT, RAENG, ICAEW, ICSA. Higher level apprenticeships We also support the policy intention of promoting specific training opportunities via partnerships between employers or specialist providers. We have just completed the framework for a Level 5 1 “Working Futures 2007 – 2017”. UKCES, December 2008 3
- 4. Apprenticeship in Management, which will open up access to skills development to a wider range of learners than could traditionally access the higher education sector. Need for effective leadership and management of colleges We welcome the acknowledgement that good leadership and management is essential to deliver a high-quality, effective and efficient HE sector. We look forward to seeing further details regarding this proposal and in particular the role that professional standards and accreditation will play in recognising effective leadership and management across the FE sector. Section ii - Introducing level 3/4 loans and sharing responsibility for investing in skills We welcome the proposal to introduce a parallel system of loans for FE as for the HE sector. This will allow learners to shape demand for courses, rather than the more supply-led system which currently exists. We also welcome the aim of creating a smoother path from FE to HE which may occur as a result of the introduction of FE loans, allowing learners to progress to HE qualifications whilst maintaining the same loan arrangements. It is important to note that management is often a secondary discipline that employees will study on a part-time basis, at an equivalent level to their initial specialist subject area, having been promoted into a position where they take on new management responsibilities. It is an established route of career progression for individuals to take a management qualification after their academic qualifications, and in many cases employers are already providing support in terms of granting time off for study leave, rather than by direct funding. We are therefore concerned that the loans system for those aged 24 and older may deter this group from taking management qualifications due to the cost. We are also in favour of making it easier for awarding bodies to develop and gain approval for new and innovative qualifications which respond to the demands of employers and learners alike. We have worked closely with several sectors, including the police service, to develop specific qualifications which satisfy their specific needs, such as a qualification in Neighbourhood Management and one in Multi-Agency Working. We continue to respond to employer needs by working closely with employers, our approved centres and other professional bodies to ensure that our qualifications remain relevant to industry. We would point out that the qualification development process is dependent on the regulator approving the new qualifications, so any Government policy of encouraging new qualifications to be offered would have to include consideration of the Ofqual approval process. Section v – teaching, learning and qualifications (NOS) An important aspect of CMI’s work is to raise the status of vocational education and training. We therefore very much welcome the Government’s commitment to achieving this aim, and look forward to working with BIS and other government partners to ensure that vocational qualifications and training gain the same level of recognition and value as academic ones, and that vocational qualifications are easily understood and accepted by employers. Partnerships and professional bodies An important role that professional bodies play is in delivering skills improvement in partnership with the education sector, employers, Sector Skills Councils and trade bodies such as the CBI and TUC. In working with all these partners we are able to provide our members with valuable learning resources such as continuing professional development (CPD) programmes; online learning; professional recognition of learning and skills (e.g. Chartered Manager) and clear career progression pathways across the FE and the HE sector. National Occupational Standards (NOS) We would highlight that National Occupational Standards provide a valuable system for providing common standards across many different sectors, and allow employers to recognise the respective value of qualifications offered by different awarding bodies. Qualifications which are developed from the NOS are based on consistent standards and are therefore transferable across different providers 4
- 5. and sectors. Through our employer members, we ensure that our qualifications satisfy employer needs. We are also able to gauge the needs of learners through our 90,000 members, many of whom are student members. We therefore believe that responsibility for developing National Occupational Standards should rest with the leading professional bodies for each occupation, rather than with technical NOS experts who do not necessarily have direct contact with employers and learners. The importance of management and leadership alongside STEM subjects We understand the need to focus on the provision of STEM qualifications and welcome Government’s plans to create national subject experts. We would add that technical skills on their own are not sufficient – engineers, scientists and mathematicians also need good leadership and management skills in order to apply their technical skills to an organisational setting. We would therefore propose that Government prioritises management and leadership skills to the same degree that it has STEM subjects, and ensures that management and leadership skills are embedded within technical skills development. Section viii – delivering higher education and skills Again, we welcome the stated aim of making the HE sector more responsive to students’ choice, providing a better teaching and learning experience and therefore promoting social mobility. It is important for the system to deliver a transferable credit and qualifications system across FE and HE, and we welcome the Government’s goal of achieving this. Management is a profession which contributes significantly to social mobility as it has few barriers to entry. We therefore welcome the aim of opening up the HE market to greater competition, as long as quality does not suffer. We are also in favour of the proposal that institutions which charge full time fees of £7,500 or less should be allowed to bid direct for 20,000 funded places in 2012/13. It is essential, however, that good careers advice is given to learners to ensure that they pick the most appropriate course for them, and that these 20,000 funded places are not wasted on courses which will do little to support economic growth. Finally, CMI has a wide-ranging online learning offer, which we have developed to be delivered as part of distance-learning packages, to suit the needs and time-constraints of the learner. These innovative resources can be adapted to particular sectors’ or employers’ needs, and can also be personalised by the learner according to his or her development needs. In this way we help to ensure that management and leadership development is fully flexible, innovative and sensitive to market demands. CMI October 2011 5