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Learning and Skills Development Agency Conference
24 April 2007

Delivering Public Value

Thank you for the invitation to speak at your conference. One of my challenges is to tell key players about the Education and Skills Authority – how we see our role and how we will set about our business. The theme of this conference – Delivering Public Value – is at the very heart of what ESA is all about and this conference is a great opportunity for me to share some thinking with you as practitioners in education and training and, more importantly, to hear your thoughts.

The creation of ESA is a significant element in the Review of Public Administration which is itself part of a major reform programme in education. This reform programme includes new arrangements for post-primary education, the introduction of a revised curriculum, major infrastructural investment and the right sizing of the education estate in line with Government Policy (after Bain).

To put it in simple terms, this reform programme is about:

As a new, single organisation, ESA will have the operational responsibility for ensuring the effective delivery of these reforms. Government sets the policy agenda. ESA will ensure that it is delivered.

Some would argue that the RPA is all about structural change. However, this whole change programme is about much more than structures. Structures are simply a means to an end. Rather, this is a real opportunity to improve outcomes for children and young people. This is about improving the way education is delivered; achieving better education outcomes for all our young people; and delivering increased benefits to our society and economy in Northern Ireland .

I want now to focus on 3 key roles which ESA will have and to set out how these will deliver Public Value:

The Department of Education has made it very clear that it expects the principal objective of ESA to be to support the Raising of Standards

Achieving improved outcomes for all pupils through strong, successful schools, colleges, training organisations and youth services.

Everything we do in ESA will be geared toward this purpose. And when I talk about educational standards, I mean in their broadest sense.

Don’t get me wrong, exam performance is very important. Qualifications provide the passport to jobs for young people and are an important accreditation of their learning. However, our challenge is to improve the entire educational experience for children and young people – it must include supporting those areas of personal development like sports, arts and culture. It is about recognising and supporting those areas which are critical to developing young people as fully functioning members of society. In our community there is at times confusion over what constitutes a ‘good’ school or a ‘good’ education. This is a very obvious area for more effective engagement with the wider community. I am fascinated by the fact that, in some cases, the perception of a school held by the general public can, on occasion, be very different from the views held by the professionals, or even suggested by the data.

And how do we deliver this? One key way is through the Entitlement Framework and the Extended Schools Strategy and we need to ensure that every child has access to the full range of opportunities available.

And this leads us onto ESA’s 2 nd key role - Strategic Planning

We need strong, successful, viable schools with excellent links to Further Education. ESA will be responsible for the Strategic Planning of the Education Estate, along the lines set out in Sir George Bain’s Report and accepted as policy by government.

A key element of this will be the implementation of Area Planning. We know that successful schools must be viable and sustainable. We require them to offer a wide range of provision, and not just in academic subjects. So there is a need for an element of critical mass. But we also know that successful schools and colleges cannot operate in isolation – isolation from other schools, or isolation from their local communities.

Area Plans will seek to ensure all opportunities are taken for schools of different types to cooperate and collaborate more effectively with each other and with Further Education Colleges. Collaboration and sharing will enhance the range of facilities and subjects available to schools and young people, but importantly, and in line with A Shared Future, this will also enable children and communities to learn together and help promote greater understanding and tolerance.

Our aim should be to create ‘learning communities’ and we start from a position of relative strength – there are many excellent examples of collaboration between schools, and between schools and colleges across Northern Ireland .

The Vocational Enhancement Programme and the School Collaboration Programme are key development strands of the support for the delivery of the Entitlement Framework, which is expected to come into effect from September 2009.

It is very encouraging that from modest beginnings, both VEP, and the School Collaboration Programme, have grown to include all the FE Colleges and the majority of schools (over 80%) working in some form of collaborative arrangements. Much has been achieved. However, we still have some distance to travel to ensure that all young people have access to the range of courses that best meets their needs.

Ongoing planning for the delivery of the Entitlement Framework will require close collaborative working, not only among schools and between schools and FE Colleges but also between ESA , DE and DEL , LSDA and our other education partners. As we know, this poses certain challenges. However, I am confident that we can work continue to work effectively to achieve positive outcomes for all our young people.

This is another area where we will have to engage with the wider community.

in the first instance to inform the debate. There will be a significant impact in some local communities as we implement the policy around sustainable schools – but the fact is that these are based on essentially educational criteria – what benefit is there to the child who will be one of four new students in a Post-Primary school in September?

and secondly as we develop our area plans to ensure that they reflect appropriately the needs and aspirations of the local community.

The 3 rd key role for ESA is ensuring more efficient delivery of services

In designing the new organisation we want ESA to be a quality organisation, benchmarked against the highest standards and focused on customer needs. How do we do that? Well, it is about looking at how key services are currently delivered, their strengths and weaknesses, where there are inconsistencies and how they can be delivered better.

It is also about engaging with our customers to identify their concerns and needs. I recently held a series of focus groups with school Principals and this provided us with useful information about high level issues. We will want to repeat that process as we delve further into planning service delivery.

And it is also about it is about looking at how new technology can be used to deliver services more efficiently and fit for an education system in the 21 st century.

Remember, a clear objective of ESA is to streamline and improve back office and support services, which are vital to the successful running of the organisation and to help to shift the balance of resources in favour of front line education provision and support.

Closing remarks

So where are we now in this grand design? At present, I am focusing on designing the structure of the new organisation and I have had a number of discussions with key stakeholders across the education sector. We will want to continue with this process of engagement as we move forward with this massive change programme, particularly as we look at organisational design and service delivery models.

This is a great opportunity for us to bring about improvements in all areas of school life - from the bus our young people travel in to school or college, to the classroom they sit in; from the food they eat, to that which is most fundamentally important - the teaching they receive.

I want to create an ESA which is customer focused, highly professional and provides an excellent service at all levels.

This is about doing things right; and doing the right things. In keeping with the Public Value concept, it is about providing a service which meets our customer needs and is supported by customers and their communities.