Who we are

The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) is a non-departmental public body which began work in 2001, taking over the roles of the former Further Education Funding Council and Training and Enterprise Councils.

The LSC is responsible for planning and funding high quality further education and training for everyone in England other than those in universities. We have a national office in Coventry and a number of regional offices overseeing the work of local partnership teams throughout the country. Our annual budget for 2008-09 was around £11.5 billion.

But’s that all about to change….

From 2010, the further education landscape will change considerably, with
two new bodies established to drive an extensive agenda for planning and funding high quality education and training.

These are the outcomes of the Machinery of Government consultation Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver, which ended in June 2008 and paved the way for a very different configuration of the post-16 landscape.

Under these changes the LSC will cease to exist and will be replaced by the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA) and the Skills Funding Agency.

The YPLA will be a new national non-departmental public body tasked with supporting local authorities in their new responsibilities for commissioning and funding 14–19 provision. The YPLA will be accountable to the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).

The Skills Funding Agency – an agency of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) – will be responsible for funding all learning for people over 18 except Higher Education. It will ensure that public money is routed swiftly, efficiently and securely to Further Education colleges and learning providers in line with the purchasing decisions of customers through demand-led funding mechanisms. 

The Skills Funding Agency will place a much greater focus on customers: both potential or current learners and employers. It will deliver a number of specialist customer facing services including the Adult Advancement and Careers Service, the National Employer Service and the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS).

On 12 November 2009 the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act has received Royal Assent, which means that the Bill now becomes an Act of Parliament. This important milestone means that both the Young People’s Learning Agency and the Skills Funding Agency will now come into being from April 2010.

An exciting time to join…

The LSC’s Information Management team is currently transitioning to a new business unit, shared by the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA) and the Skills Funding Agency (SFA), and located within the SFA.

Staff employed by the LSC’s IM function will automatically transfer to the Skills Funding Agency from 1 April 2010, so this means there is no need to be concerned about the changes. Like the majority of our existing team, anyone joining the new shared service will be based in the same office, with the same terms and conditions of employment, post April.

For more information on the Learning and Skills Council, the new organisations or the Apprenticeships, Skills Children and Learning Act please refer to the following websites:

www.lsc.gov.uk
www.bis.gov.uk
www.dcsf.gov.uk
www.parliament.uk

Our new shared service

The new shared Information Management function has a team of around 160 management, technology, information, and project management specialists.

Our portfolio of services includes front-line application services, core data services, back office and infrastructure services, and the design and delivery of cross-sector, IT-enabled business change, in support of an overarching information systems and services strategy.

Our key customers are the Skills Funding Agency and the Young People’s Learning Agency although many of our services are used more widely by learning providers, Government departments and agencies. Our Information Management services include:

• Operational Services: Providing the IT infrastructure, telecoms and business applications support

• Programmes: Development and project management for implementing major systems programmes. The Programmes team has a proven track record in the delivery of major IM enabled business change programmes. We are increasingly delivering solutions to the entire sector as commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Children, Schools and Families

• Chief Information Officer (CIO) Services: A range of information management support services which define how we manage, share and govern information, systems and technology

We also provide a number of sector wide services, these include:

• Managing Information Across Partners (MIAP): a service to provide information systems infrastructure services to enable the sharing of learning provider and learner information for the whole of the education sector . For more information on MIAP click here (link to More on MIAP)

• The Data Service: A data collection and management information service for the further education sector. For more information about the Data Service click here (link to More on Data Service section)

• The information authority: An independent organisation which sets and regulates data collection, transformation and reporting standards for the further education and training sector

More on:
Managing Information Across Partners
The Data Service