MD1607 Education and Youth Programme 2015-2017

1.1 The Mayor’s Education and Youth Delivery Plan sets out how the Mayor will deliver on the three strategic objectives on education and a fourth on youth resilience. Good progress is being made on delivery across all the strands of activity.

1.2 The Mayor’s Education and Youth Delivery Plan contains a number of programmes to deliver the recommendations of the Mayor’s Education Inquiry (2012) and wider youth activity. This paper sets out proposals for budget adjustments between activities to ensure delivery across all the programme outcomes plus sustainment and legacy activity. The overall impact will be to reduce expenditure on the Academy programme and Youth ESF and re-direct funding to achieve delivery across other areas of the education and youth delivery plan. Programmes which will receive additional funding are:

• Gold Club, annual conference, annual education report
• Research and development
• London Ambitions
• School place / leadership support
• Childcare and early years
• Project Oracle

1.3 There are a number of other education and youth programmes that will be delivered over this period that are not affected by the budget adjustments outlined here. These include Stepping Stones (MD1547), the Youth Innovation Fund (MD1537), London Schools Excellence Fund (LSEF MD1132) and the LSEF Legacy Fund (MD1538), the London Curriculum (MD1499), and the peer outreach team (AD336).

1.4 The table below sets out previous approvals for projects that are affected by this MD:

1.5 Delivery and commissioning of activity will vary across each strand of activity. Activity will be commissioned following procurement guidelines.

1.6 The overall impact of the re-profiling is set out below:

2.1 The strategic objectives of the Mayor’s Education and Youth Delivery Plan are set out below with the expected outcomes from this funding programme.

Promoting excellent teaching in all London schools
o Gold Club, conference, annual report
o Research and development including the support for alternative provision/PRUs

Preparing young Londoners for life and work in a global city
o London Ambitions

Helping to ensure a good school place for every London child
o School place / leadership support
o Childcare and early years

Fostering engagement and building resilience among London’s young people
o Project Oracle

2.2 Promoting excellent teaching in all London schools: Gold Club, annual education report and annual conference

Together these three activities set the scene for the Mayor’s engagement with London schools. The conference and annual report are important mechanisms of communication firstly to set the scene, including areas for improvement, through the education report and secondly focus on key areas for improvement and/or hot topics for debate at the conference.

The annual report provides a current picture of London’s education system, updating key statistics and highlighting trends across the city. It describes how London is improving but also the challenges it faces. The annual report provides the on-going context for the Mayor’s Education Programme.

The annual Mayor’s Education Conference is a key opportunity to engage with London schools.

The London Schools Gold Club award recognises schools which are doing exceptionally well for all pupils including the most disadvantaged pupils. These schools are then supported to share their good practice with other schools through a programme of events for teachers and school leaders. The current Gold Club school to school programme is contracted to the end of the financial year March 2015. However, the academic year runs through to July 2016 and the programme needs to be maintained into the summer term to deliver sessions with all the schools. Scoping work is underway to review the current Gold Club criteria and develop options for the 2016 award scheme and delivery.

£105,000 in 2016-17 will deliver the 2016 annual conference and education report and fund a Gold Club programme for the 2016/17 academic year.

The following research and development is proposed: scaling good practice in London Alternative Provision/PRUs, sharing best practice production of a suite of materials for dissemination of learning related to the Mayor’s Education and Youth Programme including printed material for the Mayor’s annual education conference. Mime Consulting have been appointed to produce the 2015 Annual Education Report and Thirteen have been appointed to produce the ‘Our Learning Landscape’ 2015 conference material. Both appointments were made following an invitation to quote process. Delivery of a series of round tables and consultations regarding education and youth related matters, together with associated reports.

£44,000 in 2015-16 and £50,000 in 2016-17.

2.3 Preparing young Londoners for life and work in a global city: London Ambitions

London’s business sector recognises it has a significant role to play in addressing the gap between schools and employers. The London Ambitions website project will facilitate collaboration across the sectors. The objective is to simplify the engagement between the education and business sectors to ensure London’s young people are better prepared for the world of work. The London Ambitions website will create an online hub to host careers education programmes and materials, and to facilitate access to work experience, internship and apprenticeship opportunities provided by London’s businesses. The creation of the website has been approved via DD1366. The next phase of the programme is to establish communications and marketing to increase registrations of schools and business as well as face to face engagement and support to ensure that high quality engagement leading to longer term relationships between schools and business is achieved.

Key objectives of the programme are to:

o Simplify the process of engagement between schools, colleges and employers of different sizes to improve young people’s access to the opportunities provided by London’s businesses.
o Increase the range of opportunities for young people and school leaders to learn directly from employers.
o Help London’s schools and colleges understand London’s current and future skills needs
o Provide a mechanism for sharing knowledge on what works – both showcased on the London Ambitions site but also pulled in from other sources e.g. Team London Pathways to Employment.
o Add value to existing offers

£34,000 additional funding is required in 2015-16 to undertake further outreach to business and schools to promote the site. In 2016-17 £100,000 is required to further develop the site content, promote and market to schools and businesses. We will be establishing a Careers Cluster network in 2016-17 to complement the Skills Funding Agency and ESF funded Careers Clusters, and ensure that their learning is shared across the capital.

2.4 Helping to ensure a good school place for every London child: Schools places planning and building
the leadership pool in London schools

Work is currently being piloted to test a more collaborative approach to schools places planning at a secondary level in London through:

o Joint London Council and GLA agreed lines for submissions to government,
o London Councils pulling together information from the boroughs on planned, confirmed schools,
o Intelligence Unit mapping projected demand and identifying hot spots and
o Development of a pan London plan for additional secondary schools and joint work between boroughs and free schools on physical delivery and admissions

The Intelligence Unit have recently published a report (November 2015) which sets out clearly the population projections and the impact for secondary school places. There is now consensus that urgent activity is needed to establish a pan-London co-ordinated programme to provide land/buildings for new schools with a focus on the hotspot areas with the largest increase in demand. An independent “broker” is needed to engage the various stakeholders and build a collaborative approach with support from all partners (this initial funding would be part of the Research and Development budget).

We will facilitate high level strategic conversations and support an on-going pan-London steering group with partners to deliver the necessary new schools.

GLA commissioned research on the leadership pool in London schools, funded through the London Schools Excellence Fund, which identifies gaps in the current provision of development and support, increasing demand for school leaders (due to rising school and pupil numbers), increasing difficulty in recruitment and desire for a more systematic, pro-active London wide approach.

The research developed a proposal for a more strategic approach (including clear roles, engagement across the wider system, branding and a culture whereby key players at all levels are encouraged to be more pro-active). The GLA propose to deliver an initial pilot whereby 50 teachers are allocated a broker/ adviser to advise and guide them to develop a personalised development programme including:
o Mentoring/coaching;
o Networking and
o Access to existing training and development programmes

Based on this initial pilot we would work with stakeholders to conduct a feasibility study/business case for wider framework and development work for a pilot talent management programme.

£40,000 in 2015-16 and £85,000 in 2016-17 (across school places and leadership activity).

We wish to develop a parallel process for childcare and early years as for schools places to support planning activity on demand and need for early years provision alongside a focus on quality of provision. Substantial scoping work has already been undertaken. However, the complexity of funding and the types of providers means that developing alternative approaches requires bespoke solutions.

£30,000 in 2015-16 and £60,000 in 2016-17.

2.5 Fostering engagement and building resilience among London’s young people: Project Oracle

Project Oracle is funded by the Mayor, the Mayor’s Office for Police and Crime (MOPAC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to help improve the chances for children and young people in the capital by promoting quality evidence of what works. Project Oracle provides supporting services to improve the delivery of youth programmes and informing the funding process. At the heart of their model is the alignment of project evaluations with their Standards of Evidence.

Over a three year agreement the GLA has provided Project Oracle with £375,000 out of their total £875,000 grant (consisting of MOPAC and ESRC funding). As a project with the aim to raise standards of evaluation and break down barriers between the academic research establishment and hands on delivery and commissioning they have been hugely successful. Project Oracle has encouraged youth organisations to work with academic and evaluation experts to prove their impact. This is undertaken in a number of ways including training for providers, PhD student researchers working with projects, meta evaluation literature reviews and training for commissioners as well as work to bring funders and providers together. Real progress has been made to engage a wide range of youth providers into evaluation activity and this is beginning to have an impact across the capital. In the long term, this will strengthen the way in which we support young people and help them lead fulfilling lives. Project Oracle is currently undergoing an evaluation by the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations; their report will be available in March 2016.

Over the last three years (to September 2015) Project Oracle has: validated 157 projects, trained 306 providers, facilitated 39 research placements, delivered 10 knowledge sharing events and trained 39 Evidence Champions.

£125,000 in 2016-17. We would be looking to fund Project Oracle to a similar level going forward dependent on match funding from ESRC and MOPAC.

2.6 The table below sets out the outputs and outcomes for the strands of activity within the programme.

3.1 The Mayor’s Annual Education Report sets out the performance and progress of London pupils and considers this across a range of variables including race, gender, special educational needs and disadvantage. The report informs strategic priorities for the GLA in relation to education and sets out our priorities for partners and other stakeholders. The 2015 report will be published on www.london.gov and a summary will be printed and made available at the education conference in November 2015. The 2014 education data shows that overall London primary and secondary education provision is performing well and that disadvantaged pupils are generally achieving better outcomes than disadvantaged pupils elsewhere in England. Some cohorts of pupils are under attaining compared to their London peers principally some groups of black pupils and white boys.

3.2 The 2013 and 2014 annual education reports have been used to identify strategic priorities for the GLA and referred to by partners in decision making. The 2015 report will review published data and review London’s progress in ensuring all London pupils make good educational progress. The priorities identified in the education annual report will be used to shape education priorities for the GLA.

3.3 The programme of work put forward in the Mayor’s Education and Youth Delivery Plan aims to improve outcomes for all young people and includes some targeted areas of activity to address disadvantage including the Gold Club and early years. The Project Oracle programme supports providers of services to ensure a focus on impact and evidence.

Across the proposed projects and funding streams the re-profiling is contained within existing budgets of the Education and Youth Team. The proposed activities are low risk. The programme areas where budget reductions are proposed have adequate funding to deliver agreed outputs

Over the course of the current programme a number of evaluations and consultations have been undertaken to shape the delivery programme including:

• Evaluation of feedback from conference attendees
• Gold Club process evaluation on teachers satisfaction with opportunities to share practice
• Project Oracle evaluations
• 2015 Schools Survey (seeking London schools views on school improvement)
• 2015 Schools Leadership Research

Consultation activity has taken place with London Councils, Association of London Directors of Children’s Service and Regional Schools Commissioners in terms of shaping the activities. Additional consultation events will take place to develop specific areas of activity working with relevant networks such as the London Alternative Provision/PRU Network and with Local Authority early years commissioners.

5.1 Approval is being sought for the reallocation and re-profiling of the Education and Youth Programme budget of £2.007m over the 3 years 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18 (as set out in paragraph 1.5) and for a transfer of £34k from the C&I Minor programme Budget for the Global Cities programme.

5.2 Apart from the £34k for Global Cities, there will be no additional GLA net cash contribution to this project.

5.3 Any changes to this proposal, including budgetary implications will be subject to the Authority’s decision-making process. If this proposal is approved it will be addressed in the 2016/17 budget-setting process.

5.4 The Education and Youth Projects Team within the Communities & Intelligence Directorate will be responsible for managing these projects and ensuring that all activities and associated expenditure complies with the Authority’s Financial Regulations, Contracts & Funding Code and Expenses & Benefits Framework.

6.1 Under section 30(1) of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (the GLA Act), the GLA has power to do anything which it considers will further any of its principal purposes; its principal purposes are defined in section 30 (2) as the purposes of promoting, in Greater London, economic development and wealth creation, social development, and the improvement of the environment.

6.2 Sections 1 – 5 of this report indicate that:

6.2.1 the decisions requested of the mayor fall within the Authority’s statutory powers to do such things considered to further or which are facilitative of, conducive or incidental to the promotion of the economic development and wealth creation, social development in Greater London; and

6.2.2 in formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought officers have complied with the Authority’s related statutory duties to:

• pay due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people;

• consider how the proposals will promote the improvement of health of persons, health inequalities between persons and to contribute towards the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom; and

• consult with appropriate bodies.

6.3 Any services or supplies required must be procured by Transport for London Procurement who will determine the detail of the procurement strategy to be adopted in accordance with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code. Officers must ensure that appropriate contract documentation is put in place and executed by the successful bidder(s) and the GLA before the commencement of any services or supplies.

6.4 The report above indicates that there may be grant funding made available where appropriate and officers must ensure that the funding is distributed fairly, transparently, in accordance with the GLA’s equalities and in a manner which affords value for money in accordance with the Contracts and Funding Code.

Officers must ensure that an appropriate funding agreement is put in place between and executed by the GLA and recipient before any commitment to fund is made.

6.5 Under section 31(3) of the GLA Act, the GLA is precluded from providing, by virtue of its general power to further its principal purposes, any education services where the provision in question may be made by any public body. However, in addition to a specific exclusion for sponsoring Academies, this is subject to a permission under section 31(6) for the GLA to incur expenditure in co-operating with, or facilitating or co-ordinating the activities of, public bodies, None of the proposed programmes referred to in this document, as described, constitutes the provision of education services. Further, the activities appear to amount to co-operating with, or facilitating or co-ordinating the activities of, public bodies. Accordingly section 31(3) does not prevent support for the proposed programmes in the Education Programme Delivery Plan.

Appendix 1 Proposed reuse of resources

Appendix 1: The proposed reuse of resources is as follows: