BEST VALUE REVIEW - PROJECT BRIEF

Service Review Title: Educational Training Agency

Review Team Leader: Terry O'Mahony Date: May 2001

Departmental Lead Officer for Best Value: Nigel Hill

1. Goal

1.1. To audit the ETA's service against the requirements of the Best Value criteria to ensure that schools obtain the quality of service they require at competitive costs.

1.2. To use the data gained to inform the future shape of the service that will be needed to support the implementation of the national strategy for professional development and training

2. Objectives

2.1. To identify areas where improvement in the service can be made or costs can be reduced. Initial evaluation suggests that most improvement may come from information gained by targeting those schools who do not currently subscribe and/or those that take up little of our course programme.

2.2. To gain information on the external customers' views of the ETA's service and the degree to which it meets their needs

2.3. To determine the effectiveness of the ETA as an organisation in recruiting, developing and managing its staff to achieve its business objectives

2.4. To benchmark its service provision against other LEA providers

2.5. To benchmark its service provision against external providers

2.6. To gain information that will influence future planning to ensure schools get best value for the training offered them within the DfES Code of Practice for training providers

3. Approach

3.1. Service Review team members

Nigel Barrel (Headteacher); Neil Jones ( PBRS); Val Newington (ETA staff) Cllr Kendal; Cllr Brown; Another councillor to be determined; Su Marsland (HTS); Lynne Murphy (Educational Consultant) Hilary Francis (HIAS). A representative of the DfES will be invited to join the group

3.2. Challenge

Since the purpose of the School Improvement Branch is to "promote and sustain continuous improvement in the standards achieved by Hampshire pupils and students and in the quality of their education", the first question for the ETA as a part of that Branch is:-

· Do schools need the service we are delivering to sustain their continuous improvement?

The second is:-

· Are we delivering a service that actually does support school improvement?

The last question is:-

· Could the schools get a more cost-effective service from outside the County Council?

The Agency has faced the challenge of competition from training providers ever since its inception. As a service with no corporate funding, it has always had to survive in the open market place. It has done so because it has always had customer satisfaction and cost-effectiveness as its twin goals. The wider challenge as to whether this service should/could be better provided from outside the County Council is problematic, as it is highly dependent on, and linked with, the advisory and inspection functions of HIAS. Outsourcing is possible if these functions are outsourced.

The challenge to the service on these questions will be provided by the scrutiny of the service and the results of this project, by the Service Review Team and by the County Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Group.

3.3. Compare

To obtain the data we want for the review, we need to ask:-

· what is schools' experience of the current service?

· what is the schools' experience with other provision?

· against whom should we benchmark?

3.3.1. Neighbouring LEAs - a limited questionnaire to be circulated to 'like' LEAs to establish some benchmarks for a comparability exercise. (Most LEAs do not have a separate training brokerage service, so comparisons with 'like' LEAs has limited value.)

3.3.2. Commercial providers - a survey of current offerings and costs

3.4. Consult

The questions that need to be addressed are:-

· How do we ensure service standards meet or exceed schools' expectations

· What sort of service do our providers need?

· What sort of service will both schools and providers need in the future?

In the light of the launch of the government's new training and professional development initiatives contained in its strategy paper "Learning and Teaching" (March 2001), it is the answers to this last question which are most likely to indicate where improvements/changes to the current service may reside.

Consultation with both internal and external customers will take a number of forms:-

3.4.1. County CPD Steering group -representatives of schools and internal providers

3.4.2. Staff questionnaire

3.4.3. Management questionnaire

3.4.4. Semi-structured interviews with a range of headteachers to establish degree of satisfaction of the ETA's service and to explore the schools' use of alternative provision

3.4.5. Semi-structured interviews with leaders of county training teams to establish the perception of the ETA's brokerage and administration service amongst its internal training providers

3.4.6. Questionnaire to private educational consultants to establish the quality of service to external providers

3.5. Compete

Competition is not a straightforward issue for the ETA, as it is untypical in being a brokerage service and not a direct provider. This will change in the near future when it ceases its independent existence and becomes the training administration arm of the HIAS Business Unit. Then direct comparison of that whole HIAS inspection, advice and training service becomes possible with both other LEAs and with private educational consultancies, where such services are normally combined in a single organisation.

As a broker, the ETA already operates a mixture of training provision through:-

_ the use of external trainers and consultants to deliver identified courses

_ reciprocal agreements with neighbouring LEAs (e.g., Wiltshire, Poole)

_ collaboration with external networks and partnerships -

_ the Educational Management South East (EMSE) partnership -a consortium of LEAs and Institutes of Higher Education (IHEs) in the southeast of England - jointly tendering for national training contracts (e.g., the contract for the training for the National Professional Qualification for Headship [NPQH]); joint ventures with Quality Assurance Associates [QAA] (the national training programme for Performance Management Consultants [PMC])

_ the local IHEs (namely, Southampton University, Reading University and King Alfred's College) - joint ventures in delivering accredited courses

3.5.1. The main question for the county council is not about whether to use alternative providers but more:-

· what balance between internal/external providers is appropriate?

Information to help answer this question will be included in the interviews with headteachers.

3.5.2. The DfEE has recently (2001) published a national Continuing Professional Development strategy, which is based on: (a) the need for schools to increase their capacity to deliver more of their own training and (b) the responsibility for teacher's to manage their own personal professional growth. It emphasises the greater use of local expertise and ICT supported self-study. Significant advances in training technology though innovative web-based learning networks, such as that used for the NPQH have now been developed. As a service the ETA will need to respond to the proposed changes in funding training opportunities, the new mix of professional development provision and providers, and the training needs of the new career structure of the profession

In order to maintain the ETA's competitiveness in providing a service which meets the schools' needs and which remains cost-effective in this rapidly changing climate, we will commission an analysis of future business requirements to inform our mid-term (2002-2005) service strategy.

3.6. Communicate

Current communication channels with schools are:-

3.6.1. County CPD Steering group -representatives of schools and internal providers who advise on the content and scrutinise the provision of, the annual training programme

3.6.2. Half-termly Bulletin - this contains information on course programme updates; national and local news items, training issues and initiatives.

3.6.3. Web-based course programme available at http//:www.hants.gov.uk/eta which contains pages on the ETA organisation, services and staff, and a listing of the full training programme

3.6.4. use of electronic Directory Of Training (DOT) system on Hantsnet. Schools can;

· browse through the full course programme

· find availability of course places

· book all ETA courses on-line

· complete all course related financial transactions electronically

· have an individual school data-base of course bookings, committed and actual expenditure

Data on the perceived quality and quantity of our communication with schools will be assessed through the interviews with headteachers.

4. Scope

The scope of the project is limited to the area of business of the ETA as identified above.

5. Constraints

It is not possible to get meaningful feedback from all of Hampshire's schools via a questionnaire and so we have chosen to use a strategy of semi-structured interviews with a mix of targeted and randomly selected schools. The number of staff days able to be devoted to the project is limited by the need to continue to deliver the service to the schools.

6. Dependencies

Part of the difficulty in conducting a Best Value Review of the ETA is the fact that the product of the service to the school community is a training programme provided by personnel outside of the ETA. The programme is predominantly delivered by other units of the Education Department - primarily HIAS (54%), the Education Personnel Service, Educational Psychology Service, Education Financial Services and the newly-formed Education ICT Support Service.

7. Resource requirements

Headteacher survey: £10,000

Providers surveys £2,500

Benchmarking exercise £1,500

Staff surveys £900

ETA staff time £5,000

Business research analysis (from IT Services) £15,000

Total £34,900