Community Learning Trust Cumbria National Briefing Event June 2013
Building pride in Cumbria
Cumbria Adult Education: about us SFA Funding • Community Learning £1.5 million • Skills Funding £1.1 million • Learner Fee Income £0.5 million Delivery Model • Mix of Direct Delivery (40%) and Sub-contracted Delivery (60%) • Sub-contractors = FE Colleges, Voluntary Sector, Independent Providers Building pride in Cumbria
Community Learning Trust Cumbria Formal partnership model governed by terms of reference and memorandum of understanding with Adult Education as lead body Carlisle College Askham Bryan Appleby Heritage Centre Shap CDC Fellside CDC Penrith Learning
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Cumbria CVS Cumbria ACT Learning Advocates Unionlearn WEA
Building pride in Cumbria
Why the Eden district of Cumbria? • 2,156 km² • 52,000 people • 37,000 live in rural areas • Low wage – High self employment – Ageing population • Big Society Vanguard Area Pilot
Building pride in Cumbria
What we set out to achieve • • • •
• •
Increase in learner participation Widening of learner participation Community Learning offer developed and designed through consultation with community networks Engagement and commissioning of new providers and partners Development of new learning opportunities in remote rural communities Funding model that maximises the use of the public subsidy (Pound Plus)
Building pride in Cumbria
So what did we achieve? •
Enrolments up by 12% by end of March 2013 compared to March 2012
•
Fee income up by 20% over the same period
•
Widening participation learners = 15% of total – same percentage as last year, but absolute numbers up
Building pride in Cumbria
Community Consultation Process •
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Commissioned Cumbria ACT (‘Community of Place’) and Cumbria CVS (‘Community of Interest’) to undertake consultation with both organisations and individuals about community learning 95 interviews completed including broad range of organisations e.g. village hall committees, parish councils, community exchanges, community planning partnerships, reading rooms, social enterprises
Building pride in Cumbria
Community Consultation Outcomes • • • • •
•
No appetite for accreditation Shorter learning episodes The more informal, the better As accessible as possible using community venues Learning that will support the development of community planning Feedback on lack of responsiveness of learning providers (perception is reality)
Building pride in Cumbria
The Butcher’s Arms
Building pride in Cumbria
The Butcher’s Arms Case Study • • • • •
Community owned pub opened in 2011 Request to run introduction to IT courses in pub lounge Community Learning Trust provides laptops Courses run over Winter period Reported outcomes include: Increased use of Internet for business, community and personal reasons • Next project – Internet courses for local history project
Building pride in Cumbria
Pound Plus Strategies • Fee income rises (5% year on year increases) • Greater use of full cost recovery – both income generation and moving on club like provision • Partnership contributions e.g. free premises • Calculating volunteer input • Use of cross subsidisation to maximise access to subsidy by most disadvantaged learners
Building pride in Cumbria
‘The beauty of cross subsidisation’ (The 8th wonder of the world) District
Subsidy per Fee income learner per learner
Type
Allerdale
£109
£59
Semi-rural disadvantage
Barrow
£181
£70
Urban disadvantage
Carlisle
£78
£65
Urban mixed
Copeland
£120
£52
Semi-urban disadvantage
Eden
£103
£75
Remote rural
South Lakes
£65
£80
Rural affluent
Building pride in Cumbria
Main benefits of pilot phase • Harnessing influence of third sector infrastructure bodies to multiply impact of community learning • Extending reach into communities through use of community networks • Community consultation both confirming and challenging models of delivering community learning • Testing out different income raising strategies
Building pride in Cumbria
Lessons learnt • Not all partners will engage equally • Area wide consultation is time consuming and costly • Some feedback from communities is difficult to translate into operational reality • There is still a gap between informal learning as the public want it and providers feel able to deliver it e.g. the demands of the current inspection framework
Building pride in Cumbria