News and updates
26th February 2010
OLASS Contract Holders by region
The LSC’s original contract for government sponsored education provision carried out in all prisons expired in July 2009. The successful applicants for the new OLASS contracts are as follows:
|
Region |
Number of prisons |
Provider |
|
North East |
8 |
|
|
West Midlands |
10 |
|
|
South West (a) |
3 |
|
|
South West (b) |
10 |
|
|
South East |
25 |
|
|
East of England (a) |
6 |
|
|
East of England (b) |
6 |
|
|
Yorkshire & Humberside |
12 |
|
|
North West |
15 |
|
|
London |
8 |
|
|
East Midlands (a) |
8 |
|
|
East Midlands (b) |
7 |
Summary of providers
| The Manchester College | 70 |
| Milton Keynes College | 13 |
| Strode College | 10 |
| Action 4 Employment | 9 |
| Kensington & Chelsea | 8 |
| Lincoln College | 8 |
| Total | 118 |
8th Febuaruy 2009
Ofsted has two new research reports available on prison education – evaluating learning programmes for prisoners serving sentences of less than one year, and greater than four years respectively. Both reports are somewhat critical, especially the one for long-term prisoners, and both point out that there aren’t any national guidelines for learning and skills programmes that relate to the amount of time offenders spend in prison. There was often uncertainty over about what kind of learning was best suited to those serving different sentence lengths. Although many prisons are responding well to this situation, there is considerable variation. A further issue is the lack of a single, nationwide system for recording learning progress and achievement. There were no prisons involved in the research that had an explicit strategy for learning aimed at those on long sentences. Transfer of records was unhelpful, too. Basic skills issues need to be more of a priority, and the reports offer a number of recommendations, as well.
The Ofsted press release with more details of the findings and recommendations, as well as links to download various versions of each of these reports, is at: http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/News/Press-and-media/2009/January/Lack-of-progression-means-missed-opportunities-for-learners-in-prison .
OLASS
The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) has published a booklet of FAQs for the new OLASS (Offender Learning and Skills Service) prospectus. This arises from nine regional events held in autumn 2007 to consult on the LSC’s proposals to reform and develop the service, where questions were put to a panel of representatives of LSC and other partner organisations. The resulting FAQs booklet is at: http://readingroom.lsc.gov.uk/lsc/National/nat-olassquestionsanswers-may08.doc. There’s also a full list of relevant OLASS documents to be found here: http://olass.lsc.gov.uk/documents/
Added 7 June 2008
CEL-QIA Merger
The responses to the consultation about the new ‘improvement body’ replacing CEL (the Centre for Excellence in Leadership) and QIA (the Quality Improvement Agency) have now been analysed by DIUS (the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills). Amongst the 92 separate replies, there was a broad general welcome for the idea – but also a significant minority who saw the whole concept as unnecessary, and who would prefer funding to be distributed amongst provider organisations themselves.
The analysis considers the 17 questions, with a selection of the comments submitted, and there is a list and tabulation of respondents. The report’s introduction concludes: ‘The new organisation itself will take the lead in considering all other aspects of the consultation response. Over the coming months, it will engage the sector and its stakeholders in an intensive dialogue about what support is needed and how this can best be delivered. This will inform a first corporate plan and the renewed National Improvement Strategy, which it is envisaged will be published by autumn 2008.’ To access the DIUS analysis document for yourself, please click on this hotlink:
http://www.dius.gov.uk/consultations/documents/FEImprovement.doc
Meanwhile, I seem somehow to have completely missed the consultation exercise over the name for the new improvement body. It was indeed advertised on both websites, but the period for consultation has now closed. Nevertheless, I thought you might like to see the range of name options that were offered up for voting. The 6 choices are (exactly as they appeared on the websites):
- ‘Further Education Improvement; dedicated to development’
- ‘Institute for Vocational Education’
- ‘National Skills Development Agency; dedicated to delivery’
- ‘Further Education Development; dedicated to delivery’
- ‘Skills Development Foundation’
- and ‘Skills Foundation’.
The final decision on the name will announced at the first (joint) CEL and QIA summer conference, taking place in Bristol on Tuesday 10 June 2008. My bet is on the very first one… The appointment of the (permanent?) Chief Executive of the new body is expected to take place on 6 June, presumably announced immediately, with the names of its Board members expected to be announced soon after that.
Added 7 June 2008