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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 308 ..

MR STEFANIAK - the answer to Ms Tucker's question is:

1. The review of the CIT is aimed at introducing a distinction between the roles of purchaser of vocational education and training services, and the provision of those services. Under the National Strategy for Vocational Education and Training one of the six key priority areas is user choice, the open training market and competitive tendering The first part of the review is a consultancy which is close to completion which has drawn on the views of the industry, students and staff at a local level as well as interstate experience. The consultant was selected largely because of previous experience in this area. Also the steering committee includes the Institute Director, who has a good understanding of the situation in other States. Specific reviews of other States have not been sought primarily because this is the only jurisdiction which has a monopoly provider which operates totally within a single jurisdiction. Therefore the review is concentrating on developing a model suited to the unique situation in the ACT, which will allow room for development and modification over time.

2. The process for identifying the contestable and non-contestable elements of the Institute stems from the identification of the purchaser and provider functions. The purchaser functions will not be contestable. The extent to which provider functions will be contestable is still under review. Factors to be taken into account will include the needs of students and business and industry; the maintenance of viable public sector provision of vocational educational training; the capacity of the private market to provide courses of the necessary quality; and the cost of vocational education and training provision and appropriate benchmarking. The national reforms of the vocational education and training sector may also impact on the operations that are contestable.

The process of Legislative Assembly scrutiny is still to be finalised, but the expectation is that the all government activities will go to the Estimates Committee as is the case at present.

3. The process for identifying Community Service Obligations is the same as for all government activities, in that the Institute will have to make a case to the Treasurer, and if successful then the funding is provided through the Budget in the normal way.

4. No.

5. The implementation of a purchaser/provider separation will not attract any additional costs. It will realign activities more accurately between provider operations which will remain in the Institute and purchaser activities which will transfer to the Department of Education and Training.

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