Skills for All

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (14:44): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before directing a question to the Leader of the Government on the subject of Skills for All.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: The minister will be aware that the opposition has been provided with information on detailed parliamentary briefing notes provided to the minister from someone very close to the minister. One of the issues raised in the parliamentary briefing notes is a briefing note referring to Skills for All funded training undertaken by school-enrolled students.

I refer to the detail in that, which was prepared by principal policy officer, training support and development unit, Skills South Australia, Kym Clayton. The previous parliamentary briefing note—the minister will be familiar with parliamentary briefing notes; the ministers are updated as policies change and as decisions impact on the previous briefing notes—provided to the minister to answer questions in this particular area indicated that Skills for All funds for training significantly reduce the costs for students. Certificate II courses are fee free.

In email exchanges between various officers and the minister's office, a question is raised as to whether this will still be the case under the purchase limits policy which has been introduced by the government. The answer that was provided is: yes, it will still be fee free but 'just fewer numbers of students permitted to enrol'. So, the email exchanges indicated that, whilst the minister could still, in her current briefing notes, claim that certificate II courses are fee free, because purchase limits were being introduced, whilst that would still be technically correct, the minister needed to be a bit careful in relation to that—this is the confidential stuff that she is not allowed to read out into parliament—it would just be there were fewer numbers of students who would actually be allowed to enrol. My questions to the minister are:

1. What are the details of the purchase limits policy that had been introduced by the government in this particular area?

2. How many fewer students were permitted to enrol because the government introduced this purchase limit policy?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (14:46): I thank the honourable member for his questions. Indeed, there have been a number of changes in the arrangements for Skills for All since its inception back in 2012. Those changes have been made to ensure that we are able to maintain the training provisions within a budget, given that it is an extremely difficult area to manage. It is not a matter of simply passing over a dollar for a particular training outcome: often the training obligations that are put in place can go for, on average, three years.

You create a pipeline impact, if you like, so your ability to take on new enrolments very much depends on how many enrolments you have in the pipeline, and that varies, because not only do the different qualifications and skill sets have different course lengths but individuals also take various degrees of time for a range of their own personal reasons. Those things we have to manage on a year by year basis and we have done that through things like price banding, capping and those sorts of arrangements. Public funds for training must be directed in ways that complement private investment and best support, obviously, the priorities of business and the state and, ultimately, jobs.

To better target public investment in training the government has introduced price banding. This is offered at different levels of public subsidy for courses based on and assessed around their public value. Public value assessment takes into account issues such as critical industry skills shortages, the needs of disadvantaged learners and the need to have a balance between public and private investment in training.

The public value assessor's course is based on identified economic participation criteria, including the Training and Skills Commission projections of industry demand, employment trends, strategic priorities, etc. Obviously, courses with the highest public value are in the highest band and receive 100 per cent of pre-priced banding, and the public value framework operates in conjunction with other eligibility conditions to help ensure that government investment in training is best utilised.

In terms of the particular training numbers, and in terms of the impact that the various banding initiatives have had, I do not have those figures with me at present, but I am happy to take that on notice and bring that back as soon as I can.