Group 10. Work based learning (Amendments 16, 22, 23, 24)

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:27 pm on 21 November 2017.

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Photo of Darren Millar Darren Millar Conservative 6:27, 21 November 2017

Diolch, Llywydd. Can I thank Llyr Gruffydd for his support and just say how disappointed I am with the Government's response? I do appreciate that you can use contractual levers to secure changes in the way that services are delivered, but you have the representative body of work-based learning providers—many of them private sector providers, some third sector providers, others public sector providers—saying, 'We want these duties imposed upon us.' They're actually asking for these things because they want to provide the services that our children and young people need, and in addition to that, many of them already have expertise in delivering support in ways that might be useful for the private sector to learn. So, many of them said: 'We're already supporting people with additional learning needs; we want to see these duties extended to us.' As Llyr Gruffydd has quite rightly pointed out, you've already extended these requirements into the private sector when it comes to early years providers, and I cannot for the life of me see why there should be a different approach when it comes to work-based learning providers. At the end of the day, the taxpayer is paying for these things and there ought to be consistency when it comes to that provision. 

Now, we all know that where contractual agreements are put in place, it's really important to make sure that contracts are enforced and that contracts are written in such a way that people can't pick holes in them and escape the opportunity to be held to account for the delivery against those contracts. The public sector doesn't always have a good record on being able to do that, and we're going to be in a potential position where FEI colleges, if they've got work-based learning, could potentially subcontract that work out to a private sector provider, to a third sector provider, who has no responsibilities under these new arrangements and completely escape the policing system—completely escape the policing system—that you are seeking to introduce. I'm not asking you to work out all of the ways in which we need to make sure that that system works at the moment. I'm simply giving you an opportunity as Welsh Ministers to have Order-making powers so that you can extend the provisions of the Bill in the future. I don't know why you don't take this opportunity to seize them with both hands, and that's why I still want to push these amendments to the vote.