Commentary Part 1: the Learning and Skills Council for England Sections 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5: the LSC.Restructuring the LSC
26.The LSC was established by the Learning and Skills Act 2000 (“the 2000 Act”) as a body corporate. The 2000 Act placed the LSC under a duty to establish a committee of the LSC (to be called a local learning and skills council) for each area of England specified by the Secretary of State. The Act contained provisions about the members and staff of local councils, delegation of local council functions and the preparation of local council plans. The Secretary of State specified 47 such areas of England in relation to which the LSC established 47 local councils.
27.The 2000 Act also placed the LSC under a duty to establish a young people’s learning committee and an adult learning committee.
28.The commitment to restructure the LSC was set out in the March 2006 White Paper ‘Further Education: Raising Skills, Improving Life Chances’.
29.Section 1 reduces the minimum size of the LSC National Council from twelve to ten.
30.Section 2 places the LSC under a duty to establish a committee, to be called a regional learning and skills council, for each area of England specified by the Secretary of State. The section requires a regional council to perform in relation to its area such of the LSC’s duties as the LSC specifies as well as allowing a regional council to exercise in relation to its area such of the LSC’s powers as the LSC specifies. The section also provides for the LSC to be able to specify functions that regional councils must, or may, exercise outside their area.
31.The section gives the Secretary of State the power to make provision about regional councils in regulations. Regulations may make provision about matters including the membership of regional councils, the appointment of the members, chairman and staff of a regional council, the delegation of functions by a regional council, the payment of salaries and allowances of members and chairmen and the regulation by a regional council of its own procedure.
32.Paragraph 15 of Schedule 1 to the Act provides that the first set of regulations made under section 18A(2) of the 2000 Act (inserted by section 2), is subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.
33.Under section 18C of the 2000 Act, inserted by section 2 of the Act, the LSC is required to prepare guidance in relation to each financial year for each regional council, including the objectives which a regional council should achieve in seeking to carry out its functions, and the budget for the regional council in that financial year. The first set of guidance must be prepared as soon as reasonably practicable after section 2 comes into force.
34.Section 3 abolishes the local learning and skill councils and, as a consequence, current statutory provision in relation to them.