National Audit Office diagrams showing the gross over-complexity of the English learning and skills system

Source: Reskilling for recovery - 16/1/2009, page 94

Reskilling for recovery - 16/1/2009 [1.88 MB PDF] is a recent report of the House of Commons Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, which examines "how responses to the agenda set out in the Leitch Report would affect the broader structures of further education (FE), higher education (HE) and lifelong learning".

It contains an Appendix, supplied by the National Audit Office with, on pages 94 to 97, four "function maps" showing the functions and relationships on November 2008 of the key organisation in England with a hand in the provision of education and training. Simple the system certainly is not - "The charts in particular speak for themselves showing how complicated the system has become" -  and, if the Committee's recommendations are acted on, we can expect complexity and reducing it to feature in a future National Audit Office review of the training system.  On this subject, Frank Coffield's diagrams [130 kB PDF] from his "The Impact of Policy on Learning and Inclusion in the New Learning and Skills Sector" are worth reviewing. If anything they show the situation to be even worse than the National Audit Office diagrams indicate.

December 2006 Fortnightly Mailing piece about the Leitch Review of Skills.