Key information
Executive summary
• for evidence-based research and associated knowledge dissemination activity to ensure that policy and programmes benefitting children and young people undertaken by the Mayor are evidence based and findings are shared with the sector to influence wider system level activity.
This report is also seeking approval for a budget virement from the ‘education’ budget to fund a further year of the Getting Ahead London school leadership development programme.
Decision
1. Expenditure of £100,000 in 2019/20 on an education and youth research and dissemination programme; and
2. A budget virement of £150,000 from the ‘Education’ to the ‘Getting Ahead London’ budget and expenditure of £70,000 in 2019/20 and £80,000 in 2020/21 to grant fund Challenge Partners to continue to deliver the Getting Ahead London programme in the 2019/20 academic year.
Part 1: Non-confidential facts and advice
- The Education and Youth Team aims to transform the life chances of young Londoners by ensuring a good start for every child, opportunity for all and giving young people a voice.
- Research based evidence[1] shows that early intervention strategies to improve social mobility and social justice should include:
-
- Improved take up of quality early years and childcare provision by disadvantaged families;
- Good educational outcomes for all children and young people;
- Improving routes from school to job market including careers education; and
- Action to improve family incomes through access to better paid, secure work.
- The Education and Youth Team is supporting children and young people through a number of programmes which have already been approved (see 1.4 below). This MD sets out proposals for the following additional activities:
- 2019/20 evidenced based research and knowledge dissemination – to ensure that our programmes are evidence based and that we widely share learnings across key stakeholders including schools and colleges and the wider children and young people’s sector. The main areas of activity will be research and consultation to inform policy to:
- Support schools and colleges to keep children who are at risk of exclusion in school;
- Understand and identify opportunities to pilot activity to improve early identification and ongoing support for children with Special Educational Needs (SEND); and
- Further disseminate and identify relevant pilot activity that can support the school and youth sector to take forward the areas for development identified in our 2018 commissioned report ‘Boys on Track’.
Research and dissemination in these areas will support the work of London’s Violence Reduction Unit by helping us better understand what more can be done to help London’s vulnerable children and young people at an early age.
- Continuation of the Getting Ahead London school leadership development programme for a fourth academic year. Getting Ahead London helps talented senior leaders to become future headteachers or principals of some of the most achieving and also challenging schools in London. It has been designed to build the talent pool of great headteachers to lead London schools, and is proving a successful approach. A number of factors impact on the quality and size of the school leadership pool in the capital: the disproportionate demand for school places in London is placing increasing pressure on the system and over 50% of headteachers in London are fifty and approaching retirement.[2] This programme delivers support to meet the Mayor’s manifesto pledges to ensure that ‘teachers are properly recognised, respected and rewarded’ and to provide support to schools that need it. The diversity of the teachers on the programme has increased year on year. 52% of the 2018/19 participants are from a BAME or non-white background. Female leaders have consistently represented around two-thirds of the group.
- The table below sets out past approvals for activity related to proposals in this MD. These approvals are historical and do not overlap with approvals in this decision document. The table shows related prior activity and section 2 will set out the new activity to be agreed.
Delivery and commissioning of activity will vary across each project as follows:
Research and dissemination consultancy: A mixture of contracts for services and grant funding. To the extent that services are to be commissioned, the relevant procurement guidelines and the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code will be followed with support from TfL Procurement.
Getting Ahead London: Grant further funding to Challenge Partners to deliver the 2019/20 programme.
- Challenge Partners is an educational charity delivering a range of programmes focused on school improvement. It is one of the main regional support legacies of the London Challenge programme. Their main activities are:
- A Network of Excellence - a collaborative network of over 350 schools nationally, organised into regional hubs, through which bespoke programmes that enable all schools to improve are delivered.
- They also run a Challenge the Gap, a school improvement programme that helps achieving better outcomes for disadvantaged pupils, by building leadership capacity at all levels and using evidence-based approaches.
- In order to receive the funding, Challenge Partners will be asked to submit a milestone timetable with clear delivery points (including process, numbers, outcomes and evaluation approach) at which funding can be released. Grant payment will only be made if there is clear evidence of the milestones being achieved.
- Grant funding will be used by Challenge Partners to continue to provide operational delivery of the programme, ensuring that high quality current coaches are recruited and trained; that termly plenary events are organised with high profile inspiring speakers; and that the coaching programme in trios and work shadowing days are delivered successfully.
- DD2234 stated that Challenge Partners were looking at other possible funding sources to roll out the programme more widely, and they submitted a bid through the Department for Education’s Teaching and Leadership Innovation Fund. However, only one out of twenty bids in their lot was awarded any funding. As well as the lack of government funding for school leadership development, there are continuing pressures on school budgets, with the national funding formula coming into effect this school year. Two thirds of London schools are receiving only the minimum increase of 0.5% per pupil, which compares with just 35% of schools in this situation across the rest of England.
- Schools spending on teacher training which would include the coaching and mentoring that Getting Ahead London provides, has also dropped for the first time this decade despite a teacher retention and recruitment crisis.
- The current grant agreement dated 7 May 2018 (approved in DD2234) with Challenge Partners does not currently cater for delivering Getting Ahead London in the 2019/20 school year. Internal approval will be obtained to vary the current agreement or enter into a new agreement in line with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code.
[1] For example, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/622214/Time_for_Change_report_-_An_assessement_of_government_policies_on_social_mobility_1997-2017.pdf
[2] /sites/default/files/slideshow_building_the_leadership_pool_2.pdf
- Every child in London should have the best possible chance for happiness and success. All young Londoners should benefit from a good school place, opportunities to thrive in safe and welcoming communities and a chance to have a say and contribute to London’s future. Our overarching aspirations are:
- More children will be ready to thrive at school from the age of 5;
- A good school place for all London’s children;
- All children in the city will be doing better at school, and disadvantaged children will catch up with their peers; and
- More young people will be on track to leave school ready for adult life in a world city.
2019/20 Research and Dissemination programme
- Research and consultation, alongside dissemination of the findings, will continue to provide a rigorous evidence base for development of Mayoral policies and programme delivery.
- The main areas of activity will be research and consultation to inform policy to:
- Support schools and colleges to keep children who are at risk of exclusion in school;
- Understand and identify opportunities to pilot activity to improve early identification and ongoing support for children with Special Educational Needs (SEND); and
- Further disseminate and identify relevant pilot activity that can support the school and youth sector to take forward the areas for development identified in our 2018 commissioned report ‘Boys on Track’.
Some key consultation events are already planned and others are in development:
Planned expenditure will help us bring together relevant London research, better understand the sector’s support needs, and work towards a collaborative multi-agency approach to help resolve these problems.
This may include commissioned or grant funded consultation, research, pilot activity or practical toolkit development to help schools and other agencies to:
Support schools and colleges to keep children who are at risk of exclusion or going missing in school
- The education and youth team is working closely with the Mayor’s Violence Reduction Unit to understand what can be done to help schools and colleges to keep vulnerable children in mainstream schools. The number of young people in London who are being excluded on a permanent and fixed term basis is increasing. The education sector also knows that there are a large number of ‘missing children’ who have not been officially excluded but are not attending school. Further consultation and research needs to be undertaken to understand what early intervention multi-agency action can be taken to reduce the number of children out of school, and to track children leaving or moving around the school education system outside of the standard admissions process. Our research and any pilot activity will be informed by the Government’s Timpson Review on exclusions[1] and Ofsted’s thematic review on knife crime[2] which are expected to be published shortly. We have provisionally allocated £15,000 expenditure from the research and knowledge dissemination budget to this activity.
Understand and identify opportunities to pilot activity to improve early identification and ongoing support for children with Special Educational Needs (SEND)
- A range of research and other actions will be scoped with the aim to improve outcomes for children with SEND, from the early years, through school and in transition to adulthood. Early years practitioners often lack the knowledge and confidence to identify special educational needs. Consultation at our Early Years Conference in March 2019 will help us understand how we can support the sector; one area that has already been highlighted is the impact that good home learning can have on a child’s development. Further research or pilots will be funded through this research and knowledge dissemination budget.
- There are high numbers of young people with special educational needs being excluded into alternative provision such as Pupil Referral Units (PRUs). There are also disproportionately high numbers of children with SEND who are persistently absent from school. We will look to see how we can support parent and school engagement and better use the process of developing and agreeing Education Health and Care Plans. Gathering best practice on how schools and other institutions can support children with SEND and then sharing this across the system will be one area of focus.
- Deliverables will need to align with the Mayor’s response to the London Assembly SEND Report[3] recommendations on his priorities for delivery, as well as the needs of the London school sector that are being identified by GLA consultation in conjunction with the Whole School SEND Consortium[4]. The Consortium brings insight and resources in their delivery of the Department for Education’s ‘Strategic Support to the Workforce in Mainstream and Special Schools Contract 2018-2020’. A planned joint event hosted at City Hall for SEND school and borough leads and other experts will discuss with London schools the changes with respect to SEND in the draft Ofsted framework. The event will also discuss priorities around behaviour and speech and language communication, identification of need, and SEND leadership. Specific GLA research and dissemination activity and expenditure will be further defined following publication of the forthcoming report of the Post-16 SEND Review. The Post-16 SEND review seeks to improve the school to post-16 transition for young people with SEND and older learners with learning difficulties and disabilities (LLDD).
- We have provisionally allocated £20,000 expenditure from the research and knowledge dissemination budget to this activity.
Further disseminate and identify relevant pilot activity that can support the school and youth sector to take forward the areas for development identified in our 2018 commissioned report ‘Boys on Track’.
- In December 2018, we published ‘Boys on Track: improving support for Black Caribbean and Free School Meals Eligible White Boys in London’[5]. This presented ways to improve the educational attainment for two of London’s largest underperforming groups: black Caribbean and white free school meal-eligible boys. The seven areas for action identified in the report are cross-cutting and require consistent focus
- A further phase of development work is now needed. This will map the areas for action against current Mayoral programmes and will provide tools and guidance for schools, governors and teachers to help turn the learnings into whole school strategies and practical classroom approaches. We are planning to focus on area two: ‘working with parents and families, involving them in their children’s education’. We want to maximise the impact of the report findings on current activity in the education sector, identify gaps with stakeholders and disseminate ‘Boys on Track’ areas for focus widely across the London education system.
- This links closely with our work to help children at risk of exclusion and we will work with the London school and education sector, Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), health and other pan-London agencies to specify research and pilot activity. We have provisionally allocated £15,000 expenditure from the research and knowledge dissemination budget to this activity.
- We will develop 'Wild London' London Curriculum resources at key stage 2 that meets demand from primary schools for more classroom resource support. We are planning to launch resources during National Park City week in July 2019. Key stage 3 secondary resources of the London Curriculum will also be updated with a focus on role models from underrepresented groups including female, Black and Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) and disadvantaged background students. This work builds on the Mayor’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) priorities by helping to raise STEM career aspirations through getting young Londoners to feel like scientists and that science is ‘for them’. We will work with a wide range of external partners to encourage more women, girls and BAME people into STEM careers, particularly through the Gender Action Schools Award. Throughout 2019/20, we will be encouraging all education settings in London to sign up to Gender Action and this help deliver a tangible legacy of the Mayor’s #BehindEveryGreatCity campaign. This activity has been assigned £13,000 of the proposed expenditure.
Under the Mayor’s Good Growth by Design, in conjunction with London Councils and other relevant stakeholders, we have undertaken work on children’s independent mobility (approved by MD2147) in line with London Plan social infrastructure requirements revised for early years and schools, children and young people. This earlier work will be built on by commissioning a new brief for child friendly city activity that supports high quality play provision in line with the new London Plan. This is part of the Good Growth by Design and will be led by the GLA’s Regeneration team and co-funded by £15,000 from the Education and Youth team’s research and knowledge dissemination budget.
In 2019/20 further activity will be undertaken to produce the 2019 London Annual Education Report and to evaluate other education and youth programme activity, for example the Early Years Leader programme (approved in MD2361). Seminars and conferences will be held to help disseminate new research and that which has previously been funded through the education and youth research budget. There will be provision made to give us the ability to respond reactively to new and emerging issues in the Mayoralty, London education sector or national government policy. The remainder of the expenditure is allocated for this.
Future years research and knowledge dissemination activity will ensure that our programmes are evidence based and that we widely share learnings and data with the education and youth sectors to make a strong case for investment in what works in improving social mobility. Future activity will be confirmed annually and the relevant approval sought.
Outputs and outcomes
Decision:
Expenditure of up to £100,000 in 2019/20 on research and knowledge dissemination to ensure that our programmes are evidence based, we have a strong case for change and that we widely share learnings.
Getting Ahead London 2019/20 academic year
The Getting Ahead London programme was initially piloted in 2016/17 by PwC working with Challenge Partners to help talented senior leaders to become future headteachers or principals of some of the most rewarding and challenging schools. Following an invitation to bid authorised by DD 2106, Challenge Partners applied and were awarded funding to deliver Getting Ahead London in 2017/18. DD2234 approved to grant fund Challenge Partners to deliver the 2018/19 Getting Ahead London programme.
We are proposing that Challenge Partners is granted funding to deliver the 2019/20 programme. An additional 40 senior leaders, and 20 middle leaders, will be supported towards headship and senior leadership in London schools. Challenge Partners will define the eligibility criteria in consultation with the education sector and the GLA; design the new pilot middle leader element; advertise and recruit participants and coaches; provide a stipend to the coaches; collect a £500 contribution from the senior leader participants’ schools; plan and delivery termly plenary events with inspiring speakers; coordinate and quality assure the trios; coaching, mentoring and work shadowing; and undertake programme level evaluation (this is detailed in sections 2.18-2.25).
The programme’s vision is to establish a world class system for identifying and nurturing future headteachers to ensure London has a strong supply of outstanding school leaders. Published and programme level evaluation has shown it is proving a successful approach[6]. The programme is delivered to a cohort of teachers over an academic year and involves everything from coaching and formal training, to support with job applications and networking events with the business sector.
Comprehensive research[7] to inform the pilot year provided evidence of the growing shortage of headteachers and a wide recognition that more needs to be done to secure the leadership pool for outstanding, future school leaders. The report concluded that the leadership pool in London schools must be pro-actively nurtured to ensure that support and development opportunities are systematically available across the school system to talented teachers, middle and senior leaders.
Increasing numbers of schools, and therefore headteachers, are needed in London to address the growth of the pupil population. City Intelligence Unit figures show demand for secondary places will rise steeply in the first half of the coming decade, peaking at 480,000 places in 2023/24 – this represents an increase of 77,700 over current levels and continues to provide the rationale for headteacher development to lead more schools in London.
At the end of the pilot and second year of Getting Ahead London, 25% of the participant cohort had been promoted to a headship, and between 8 - 10 % went on to secure other intermediate promotions. There were 74 applications of eligible participants in 2018/19, with the strongest 60 selected following their school nominations and appraisal and interviews with senior system leaders at Challenge Partners.
The full, formative evaluation of the pilot year, co-led by Professor Peter Matthews of the UCL Institute of Education, was very positive. The impact of the programme was measurable not only in the proportion of participants that have already progressed to headship but also in the significant positive changes in their knowledge and understanding of what it means to be the head of a London school and their personal attributes, attitudes and values. The programme, therefore, has proved very motivational.
The diversity of the teacher cohort group has increased year on year from the pilot to the third year. Over half (52%) of 2018/19 participants are from a BAME or non-White background (compared to 40% in 2017/18 and 30% in 2016/17). Female leaders have consistently represented around two-thirds of the group in each year.
Funding Challenge Partners to deliver a further year of Getting Ahead London will address the continuing concerns of a shortage of headteachers due to higher levels of retirement and school demand with rising pupil numbers. The quality of school leadership is an essential factor in driving good outcomes for pupils.
Challenge Partners plan to adapt the delivery model in 2019/20 to include a pilot to support middle leaders who are aspiring to senior leadership. It was always part of the Getting Ahead London model conception developed with the GLA to move the focus of support upstream to ensure sufficient talent pipeline through all leadership levels to becoming a headteacher or principal. This approach has been fully supported by the Getting Ahead London Expert Advisory Group.
Evidence from GLA and National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) joint research (‘Teacher Supply, Retention and Mobility in London’, May 2018[8]) shows that London’s primary and secondary middle leaders are leaving the profession at a higher rate than elsewhere. London’s newly qualified teachers are also accelerated into middle leadership earlier than they are elsewhere in the country (except for the West Midlands). Interviewees as part of the research reported that some teachers might feel that they have been progressed too early and feel pressure that could lead them to leave the profession or move elsewhere.
These trends are concerning for London’s future pipeline of senior leaders. Supporting middle leaders will help create a clear progression route by giving them the skill set and ensuring they do not burn out as research has indicated can be the downslide to quicker progression routes in London’s schools.
Challenge Partners propose that Getting Ahead London 2019/20 will support one cohort of 40 acting, deputy, assistant and associate headteacher participants. Participants will receive coaching, training and support to help secure their next promotion or headship. Additionally, a second cohort of 20 middle leaders, for example heads of year, will be provided with support to move towards more senior leadership positions. The new teacher cohort will be recruited to the programme by June 2019 and take part from September 2019.
A proportion of the current year’s team of twenty coaches, who are headteachers or executive heads of good or outstanding schools and mostly with National Leader in Education status, will be retained for 2019/20. Further planning will take place for the most effective middle leader coaching provision. All coaches will receive training to equip them to provide high-quality and consistent support.
Challenge Partners will continue to require the school or participant in the core senior leader part of the programme to contribute £500 towards the coaching and mentoring support they will receive. This will enable more development of a Getting Ahead London alumni network, which will be a very valuable group of school heads and leaders to engage with on areas such as school exclusions.
Challenge Partners will adapt the existing Getting Ahead London model to support middle leaders as well as senior leaders. For example, they will retain key elements including school-based shadow experience and the programme-wide, cross-sectoral and alumni networking. Necessary adaptations would likely be making coaching groups more local and covering topics like emotional intelligence, resilience and dealing with difficult conversations.
The programme in 2019/20 will have four core objectives:
Outputs and outcomes
Decision:
A budget virement of £150,000 from the ‘Education’ to the ‘Getting Ahead London’ budget and
expenditure of £70,000 in 2019/20 and £80,000 in 2020/21 to grant fund Challenge Partners to deliver the Getting Ahead London programme in the 2019/20 academic year.
Under s149 of the Equality Act 2010 (the Equality Act), as a public authority the Mayor must have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation, and any conduct that is prohibited by or under the Equality Act; and to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.
London’s over two million children and young people aged 0-19 face an unequal start in life and this sector of the population is increasing. Overall London schools and pupils outperform other regions, but London still needs to do more to close the gap and raise attainment for the most disadvantaged pupils.
We know that children from some groups and communities still do much worse than their peers. Children from Black communities tend to have lower attainment levels at GCSE than their peers and are more likely to be excluded. Boys continue to do less well than girls and children with special education needs (SENs) do less well than those with no identified needs at school. Children with SENs are also much more likely to be permanently excluded than their peers (GLA, London Annual Education Report, 2017). MOPAC’s data on knife crime demonstrates that BAME young people are over-represented as both victims and perpetrators and are overwhelmingly male with many and complex vulnerabilities.
In relation to gender and disability on school exclusions, Department for Education (DfE) data shows that boys are excluded more often than girls (in London the ratio is 3:1); one third of excluded pupils in London have SEND; and pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) have a higher rate of exclusion that those not on FSM. In London, black pupils have an exclusion rate of 15% (which is 10% for other and 8% for white groups).
The research and dissemination and Getting Ahead London programmes will address the equality duty in relation to protected characteristics of ethnicity, gender and faith by:
• Follow up work on the areas for action set out in the Boys on Track report (cf Black Caribbean and white FSM-eligible boys’ under-attainment) , focused on the role of parents and families and relationship with school exclusions and youth crime involvement. There is scope to work with faith communities as well as ensure activity supports all school types including faith schools.
• Research and dissemination activities, working with school and education partners, to improve outcomes for children who are from socio-economically disadvantaged families, by disseminating research findings and promoting cross-agency collaboration to equip schools and teaches with strategies to tackle disadvantage and any associated vulnerabilities.
• The 2019/20 year of Getting Ahead London will continue to look to ensure participants reflect the wider population and address under representation of women and BAME groups as senior leaders and headteachers in London schools (see 2.16; women comprised between 65% and 73% of the cohorts in each year of the programme to date).
• Getting Ahead London is part of a continuum of support to London schools to recruit, retain and progress the best educational workforce that is also as diverse as the communities they serve and can be role models (cf Boys on Track research) (see 2.16 for good progress made in 2018/19 with over half of participants from a non-White background); and will be aligned with the Mayor’s Teach London campaign work that includes attracting more BAME background Londoners to become teachers .
We will work with a wide range of external partners to encourage more women, girls and BAME people into STEM careers, particularly through the Gender Action Schools Award. Throughout 2019-20, we will be encouraging all education settings in London to sign up to Gender Action and this help deliver a tangible legacy of the Mayor’s #BehindEveryGreatCity campaign.
Key risks
There is a significant risk of losing momentum in the delivery of the Getting Ahead London programme. In order to retain the expertise of experienced headteachers in the coaching roles and to develop the pilot middle leader support model, the 2019/20 programme needs to be confirmed by the start April 2019.
In addition, the processes needed to recruit a new cohort require sufficient time to properly market and then evaluate suitability following application. For the programme to run for the new school year and begin in September 2019, work needs to start on advertising and seeking applications during April 2019 and be completed in June 2019 (see section 7).
Challenge Partners will be required to submit their delivery plan for consideration and milestone payments will be agreed prior to the grant funding agreement being signed.
Consultation with stakeholders will be required during late spring and summer 2019 in order to develop collaboration and consensus on valued added activity in relation to exclusions and SEND. Accordingly, commissioned research and development of practical toolkits or equivalent resources may not be finalised and into delivery until autumn/winter 2019. Tight procurement and programme management will be put in place in mitigation.
Links to Mayoral strategies and priorities
The proposed research and dissemination and Getting Ahead London activities will contribute directly to the Mayor’s manifesto pledges to “ensure that both teachers and school support staff alike are properly recognised, respected and rewarded”, “work with councils to challenge coasting or poor-performing schools of all types” and “support those schools that need it”.
It will support the Mayor’s Economic Development Strategy, which cites a need to “break down gender stereotypes and address other inequalities; and lobby for sufficient funding to continue to improve outcomes for all pupils…” ; and the aims of the Mayor’s Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, for “every child in London to have the opportunity to attend a good or outstanding local school” and Mayoral programmes to “focus on low-achieving students” .
The Mayor has launched the Violence Reduction Unit for London and key activities includes the Young Londoners Fund (YLF) to help and support children and young people to fulfil their potential. It is a major Mayor priority to help those at risk of getting caught up in crime and ensure that those young people who are most disadvantaged and/or disengaged or excluded from school understand how to access support provided by the YLF. The proposed research and dissemination will have a strong focus on equipping London teachers and school leaders and other practitioners to be better supported through activity complementary to the YLF within school and community settings.
Impact assessments and consultations
Consultation took place through the Getting Ahead London Expert Advisory Group, whose members fully concurred with the system need for continuing senior leader development and the middle leader support pilot proposition through a further year of the programme.
Continuing consultation and collaboration on the research and dissemination programme will take place through a series of spring and early summer 2019 roundtables and events. This will build on recent discussions with key London agencies and other stakeholders, including through many reference and steering group meetings on knife crime and by the Violence Reduction Unit in 2018/19, the Boys on Track Roundtable (10 December 2018), the London Education Officers Group (2 November 2018) and with the borough Heads of School Improvement Group (12 October 2018).
Mayoral approval is sought for additional expenditure of up to £100,000 in 2019-20 on an education and youth research and dissemination programme.
Approval is also requested for the budget transfer of £150,000 split over two financial years from the Education budget to deliver the Getting Ahead London Programme.
The 2019-20 costs of £170,000 and 2020-21 costs of £80,000 will be funded from the Education and Youth Team’s budget. Future years’ budgets are indicative and still subject to the GLA’s annual budget setting process.
Section 30 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (‘GLA Act’) allows the Mayor, acting on behalf of the Authority and after appropriate consultation, to do anything which the Mayor considers will further the promotion of economic and social development in Greater London. Education (early years and beyond) and initiatives relating to progression from school to the work force are relevant to economic and social development.
The Mayor is restricted by section 31(3) from incurring expenditure in providing any educational or social services that could be provided by a London Borough or public body. However, the Mayor is not prevented from incurring expenditure in co-operating with, facilitating or co-ordinating the activities of a London Borough Council or other public body. The initiatives described in this Mayoral Decision document do not constitute the provision of an education or social service by the GLA but instead have as their aim strengthening the delivery of such services. The role of the GLA is a co-operative, facilitative and co-ordinating one and is, therefore, permitted under the GLA Act.
In formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought officers have set out above how they have complied with the GLA’s related statutory duties to:
(a) Pay due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people;
(b) Consider how the proposals will promote the improvement of health of persons, health inequalities between persons and to contribute towards the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom; and
(c) Consult with appropriate bodies.
In taking the decisions requested of him, the Mayor must have due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty; namely the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010, and to advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic (race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment) and persons who do not share it and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it (section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the Mayor should have particular regard to section 3 (above) of this report.
Any procurement required and authorised should be undertaken in accordance with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code and in consultation with Transport for London’s procurement team, who will determine the procurement strategy.
Officers must ensure that appropriate contract documentation is put in place and executed by the successful bidder(s) and the GLA before the commencement of services.
Officers have indicated above that the GLA intends to award grant funding to third parties to deliver programmes/activities that align with the objectives and outcomes detailed above. Officers must ensure any funding is distributed fairly, transparently, in accordance with the GLA’s equalities and in manner which affords value for money in accordance with the Contracts and Funding Code.
Officers must also ensure that an appropriate funding agreement is put in place between and executed by the GLA and the recipient(s) before any commitment to fund is made.
Officers have indicated at paragraph 1.5.2 that the GLA is proposing to provide further funding to Challenge Partners to deliver the Getting Ahead London programme in 2019/20. Officers must ensure that (i) the existing funding agreement is extended and varied in accordance with the terms of the agreement and appropriate contract variation documentation is put in place and executed by the GLA and Challenge Partners; or (ii) a new funding agreement is put in place between and executed by the GLA and Challenge Partners, before any commitment to fund is made.
Signed decision document
MD2442 Education and Youth Programme 2019-21 update