Work Based Learning: latest news & comment
Work Based Learning – the SRA downs tools (but should we do the same?)
The last three months has been an interesting (and at times bemusing) period for those of us involved on the Work Based Learning project. The SRA went into a bunker over the summer, closed itself off from meaningful communication with the outside world, and emerged with a new strategy for taking Work Based Learning forward.
So what is this new strategy?
The new strategy, I can reveal, is to do nothing on WBL (other than feed through to the LETR the findings from the various strands of the WBL pilot) until the LETR presents its report in December 2012...
Given the broad remit of the LETR, some may say “I told you so” - but whilst downing tools is an obvious option, it is not necessarily the right one and neither was it inevitable: it represents a volte face from the strategy in place in June when I explained (in my update at the time) how the SRA appeared committed to pushing on with its work on WBL (specifically the job of reviewing and redrafting the WBL ‘Outcomes’) notwithstanding the spectre of the LETR.
This commitment was rooted in two central ideas. Firstly, whilst not everything was rosy in the WBL garden, in its core objective of delivering a more quality assured system of solicitor qualification, it had been proven to be a fundamentally sound model (and in any event a better framework than the one described as ‘difficult to withstand scrutiny’ by the Middlesex University Report).
The second idea, and the one the SRA has now very clearly departed from, is that further work on WBL was both appropriate and necessary to better inform and influence the LETR.
The SRA has therefore turned through a full 180 degrees on this in the last few months.
Does this spell the end of the affair with WBL?
This is difficult to tell. The SRA appears to be taking a breather rather than positively kicking WBL into the long grass. The change in strategy coincides with the departure to pastures new of Di Lawson (previously SRA Director of Education & Training) and of Tim Pearce (who had until the summer been responsible for WBL on both a strategic and day-to-day basis) to the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates project. Those who took over from Di and Tim were new to the SRA (never mind the WBL project) and I sense that the LETR has perhaps provided them with a lifeline they have gratefully grabbed hold of, giving them an opportunity to create some breathing space whilst they get to grips with the various regulatory hot potatoes on the SRA’s plate.
Having said this, my recent communication with the SRA about WBL has revealed a level of ambivalence I have not seen before, with the SRA using only the most non-committal language to describe WBL’s current and future status. For example, I have recently been told that “the long term strategy for WBL is being directed by the Education and Training Committee in the context of the SRA’s Outcome Focussed Regulation approach”, a studiously meaningless formulation designed not to nail any SRA colours to the mast. Before July, my conversations with the SRA were premised on a working assumption of implementation, with aspirational implementation dates consistently albeit informally cited from as early as September 2012. Since July, no such dates or assumptions for WBL have been evident at the SRA.
Moreover, in a ‘Briefing Paper’ to the LETR Research Team, the joint regulators (but given the context one suspects the SRA in particular) have curiously and noticeably gone out of their way to question the assumption that Outcomes-Focused Regulation means that a move to a more 'competence-based framework' (such as WBL) is inevitable and “cautions against taking this assumption as a given”. Various ‘problems’ with the reliability and effectiveness of such frameworks are then identified in the academic literature and the Research Group is asked to consider these problems in its ‘literature review’ (see Briefing Paper on “Competence” submitted for the LETR Consultation Steering Panel meeting on 01/07/2011).
So could this all go away?
Those tempted to disengage from WBL (and it is at times very tempting!) in the hope that we will somehow be able to cling to the current regulatory system should take a moment to reflect on how likely this really is.
The question, I believe, is not whether the current training and qualification framework will change, but what that change will look like.
The SRA let the genie out of the bottle when it launched WBL, the key objective of which is not to resolve issues around diversity and access to the profession but rather (as stated on its website) to “develop an approach to ensuring the competence of qualifying solicitors that is quality assured, consistent and reliable” (the implication of course being that the current system is inconsistent, unreliable and lacking quality assurance).
This working assumption was both validated and then amplified by the Middlesex University Report, which described the current training contract model as “a system which has no objective assessment criteria, has a high variance in standards and has no requirement for objective evidence of skills and competences” and as such one that will find it increasingly difficult to withstand scrutiny.
At the risk of sounding overly cynical, it also seems highly unlikely that the LETR Research Team will use the opportunity presented by the most wide-ranging and open-ended review of legal education and training in forty years to recommend continuation of the status quo…
If not WBL, then what on earth could the new framework be??
If despite the current ambivalence around WBL we face the inevitability of regulatory change, this raises two questions: first, could an alternative (and more radical) model emerge to take the place of WBL? Second, is it a ‘Good Thing’ to leave a Research Team of academics with their hands firmly on the steering wheel?
Whether through its own free will or because of the restrictions it now feels bound by in relation to the LETR, the SRA appears to have moved from a position of proactive leadership in this area to one of passive responsiveness and the profession finds itself with a similar choice to make: will it also sit and wait between now and December 2012 or will it seek to positively influence the LETR over the coming months?
“WBL - what next?” survey
With this in mind, I am interested in gathering opinion on WBL, the LETR and the way forward to December 2012 from those of you at the 'front line' of trainee training and solicitor qualification and would ask you to complete our short online survey (just 5 multiple choice questions).
LETR updates - watch this space
Given the potential significance of the LETR in relation to WBL but also CPD and other areas of legal education and training, I will keep you posted about notable developments with my email updates and via our LETR analysis web page.
To speak to Paulo Karat on any Work Based Learning or LETR query or to subscribe to our email update service and keep fully up to speed with developments, please Contact Us.
Previous updates
June 2011: Work Based Learning - which way now after the Middlesex Report?
The long-awaited Evaluation Report on the WBL Pilot finally saw the light of day at beginning of June 2011: the SRA published on its website both the full report by Middlesex University (all 191 pages of it) and an Executive Summary but the SRA's public position remains studiously non-committal as to what exactly happens now, and when.
In a previous update, I explained that the SRA, in anticipation of what it knew would be the broadly positive findings of the Middlesex Report, had already formed a Task & Finish Group (a mixture of representatives from the SRA, law schools and the profession) to re-draft the WBL Outcomes. This Group has been briefed, will shortly hold its first meeting and is due to complete its work by the end of September this year.
Discussions with my contacts at the SRA over the last week suggest that, whilst it remains circumspect in its public announcements, the SRA appears focused on resolving the outstanding issues so that WBL can proceed through to implementation. But implementation when, and in what form?
Key issues, and moving forward
The answer appears still to lean towards an opt-in from 2012 leading to full implementation in 2014. The key issues that need to be resolved, whilst significant, appear at this stage to be soluble within this time frame.
In broad terms, these issues are:
- Reviewing and reworking the WBL Outcomes, both in number and in drafting, to make sure they cover the necessary skills and are framed in language sufficiently clear and objective to form the basis of a reliable and consistent assessment as to competence for all candidates.
- Producing an assessment framework around the WBL Outcomes including 'performance indicators' and guidance notes to help clarify what competence means and what is required to be evidenced at assessment.
- Identifying which skills might be suitable to be attained and assessed in ways outside the current 'work based' limitation (for reasons I explain below, this is in practical terms perhaps the most significant and - for many law firms the most positive - recommendation in the entire report).
- How best to consult with the profession before implementation.
- To what extent any further testing of the revised WBL framework will be needed before implementation.
- Whether WBL will be made available as a route to qualification for paralegals outside the training contract (be it on the same timetable the SRA has in mind for rolling WBL into the training contract, or perhaps on a different timetable altogether).
Observations
The Task & Finish Group is due to finish its work on points 1 and 2 by the end of September this year. It is likely that the autumn will then be used as a period of consultation with the profession on the results of the Group's work.
As intimated above, point 3 is for law firms perhaps the most noteworthy at this stage. In its first iteration, Work Based Learning and its Outcomes were framed very specifically and exclusively around experience gained 'on the job' in practice. This included advocacy, interviewing, client contact and professional conduct. For many firms, this would have posed a potentially insuperable problem because their trainees would simply not have had access to work that engaged these front line skills. It seems now almost certain that the SRA, encouraged by recommendations in this direction in the Middlesex Report, will permit certain skills to be acquired and assessed in alternative ways. The best example here is advocacy - the new WBL framework may well permit competence in advocacy to be attained through a reconfigured version of the current PSC module, but with much more attention and onus placed on assessment.
Based on my conversations with the SRA, its preferred mode of 'further testing' prior to implementation would be to get firms to adopt the WBL framework voluntarily before rolling out any compulsory implementation i.e. an initial opt-in model. On this model, firms would be able to road test and feed back on the new framework and iron out problems before WBL comes in 'for real'.
Whether this will encompass the paralegal route to qualification as a solicitor very much remains to be seen - it is possible that this route may be subject to a further review stage to incorporate Nottingham Law School's experience from its continuing work with its cohort of part-time paralegal candidates.
Summary
It is likely that things will now go quiet until late autumn this year to allow time for the Task & Finish Group to finish its work and the SRA to reflect on this and its next steps.
I would expect the SRA to then consult on a revised WBL framework that remains essentially the same and based on a candidate's 'work portfolio', but with a greater degree of flexibility afforded by the use of alternative training and assessment for specific and otherwise potentially problematic skills.
This new framework would then be tested from 2012, with firms encouraged to participate on an opt-in basis, leading up to compulsory implementation from 2014.
I will keep you up to date with developments.
To speak to Paulo Karat on any Work Based Learning query or to subscribe to our WBL email update service and keep fully up to speed with developments, please Contact Us.