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At 24 Lee Probert is the youngest ever Director of the Learning and Skills Council. Here he talks about what he wants to achieve in his new post

Q1 Could you tell us a little about your role and the single equality scheme?

As national lead for the scheme, I am responsible for ensuring that the final document is both relevant in the context of the LSC’s priorities, and meaningful in the context of equality.  This means that it both drives change to improve access to learning and learning outcomes for those groups of people who are disadvantaged in society, and also enables the LSC to achieve its targets.

Q2 What benefits does a joined up approach to equality and diversity across the education system bring?

I think the most important benefits of this sort of approach are coherence, consistency and clarity.  The agenda is foggy at the moment from a strategic point of view, with competing priorities and a hierarchy in the equalities arena.  The development of a single strategy for responding to the various legislative requirements helps to alleviate this and provide coherence and clarity.  For the LSC, consistency is important in this agenda, and people wishing to access learning should expect to be dealt with, and have their needs met in a consistent way.  Consistency should not however be confused with sameness, particularly not when we are concerned about the individual and their needs and ‘a one size fits all’ approach would not meet their needs.

Q3 The role of the FE system in allowing individuals access to opportunity and hence a driver for a more equal society creates a greater pressure on FE to be accessible and relevant to the most disadvantaged in our society. What do you think are the major challenges you face in your new role in this respect?

Some of the major challenges have been outlined above - the area of consistency of management based upon need is a significant challenge, as it actually results in people being treated differently.  One of the other major challenges for us is not to try and respond to the challenges in this agenda in isolation from the rest of the education system.  We know a lot about young people when they are at school and in many cases have worked hard to support them; we must be smarter at replicating that support when they move into FE.  Equally, we work hard in FE to meet people’s individual needs and must have a shared approach with HE to continue this support.  That is of course all fine, assuming that people move neatly through those components of the education system.  However, I think in getting that right, it frees up a lot of time for professionals across the education sector to engage with those people who have followed a different education pattern.  This may be for any number of reasons, and it should be that the way in which we manage, encourages active participation of all people in society and indeed affords them access to the labour market as a result.

Q4 You have talked about the impact of policy and assessment of outcomes. The impact of welfare policy affects individuals access to learning and hence opportunity, will you be looking at working more closely with colleagues across the public sector to ensure that the wider impacts of policy are assessed and reported?

Working together across Whitehall is something that we know is absolutely critical to the success of engaging those people who traditionally do not access learning.  An example of this is working with the Department for Education and Skills, the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions to develop a more strategic and coordinated approach to provision for learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities.  This coordinated approach will ensure that the elements of education, care and access to the labour market are all part of the package a learner can expect access to.  This joined up approach is equally important when we start to think about statutory impact assessment and where decisions about practice are actually made.  The LSC works hard with the DfES in this area and recently the Commission for Racial Equality praised the work that was undertaken on the FE White Paper ‘Raising Skills, Improving Life Chances’.  This collaboration really allowed practice to inform policy and provided a shared understanding of the way in which policy impacts upon those accessing learning.

Q5 What would you like to achieve for hard to reach groups whilst in the post?

I think if I were to think of one single thing that I would like to achieve for groups who are underrepresented in learning, who traditionally do not access learning opportunities, it would be a recognition of the fact that we should all understand our respective roles in addressing this issue.  Within that, I would see that we worked together, were consistent in our approaches and clear about what is realistic for us to achieve and indeed what it is realistic for the public purse to fund.  I think in getting these things right, we have a clear vision of the ways in which we need to work.