Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 (Consequential Amendments) (England and Wales) Order 2010

My Lords, I am sure that my fellow residents of north-east Wales will be fascinated to read the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Jones, in the local newspaper. To return to the order, I want to clarify that I intend to speak first to the apprenticeships order, which appears first on the Order Paper, although the Minister spoke to it second. It is relatively uncontroversial but, like the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, I want to ask her about the promise that was made when the Bill, now an Act, went through Parliament, that when we moved from the LSC to the alphabet soup of the YPLA, the SFA, the NAS and the CESF—and maybe others that I have forgotten—the change would be cost-neutral and there would not be recruitment of many more staff to carry out their functions. Will the Government assure us today that they are still on track to deliver that at no increased cost? On the local education authorities order, as the Minister said, it is mainly a matter of terminology. On a matter relating to the terminology, though, it is important that children’s services directors have the appropriate expertise in both education and children’s social services. Many local authorities have chosen to have a deputy with expertise in each of those areas, and I wonder how the Government are keeping an eye on that to ensure that local authorities have that expertise at the very top level in the line of management of the children’s services director. I am concerned that those two senior directors or deputy directors should talk to each other and have the opportunity to communicate. We cannot assume that they do, even though they may be in the same local authority building. I am particularly concerned about children in custody in another authority and about children with disabilities who perhaps have been placed in special provision in a different authority but for whom the local authority still has responsibility. It is important that aspects of their care and education are worked on together in a cohesive way by each local authority. There is very little to say otherwise about these orders.