A small but “vital” college in Cumbria has been told to rebuild its reputation by the FE Commissioner following an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted verdict as it battles with declining student numbers.
Furness College’s “future sustainability and long-term resilience” is currently being tested through a structure and prospects appraisal (SPA), which includes exploring whether to stay as a standalone college or merge with another.
The FE Commissioner Shelagh Legrave intervened at the college after Ofsted dealt its lowest possible grade in October 2024 due to a raft of leadership and governance failures.
Legrave’s report, completed in December but only published by the Department for Education today, detailed how a new senior management team was appointed in 2023-24 but was “comparatively inexperienced” and “many” have “little experience outside of Furness College”.
A new chair, Gary Lovatt, joined the college in October 2024 after Ofsted’s judgment and while Legrave said he is an “experienced non-executive board member”, Lovatt has “limited FE experience”.
Her report said the board “must ensure there is sufficient capacity in board membership to place teaching, learning and assessment at the core of college business”.
This is “likely” to include the appointment of new governors “and/or the appointment of a co-opted governor(s) as a short/medium term intervention”.
An independent external board review (EBR) is also needed, which should “focus on how the governing body supports and holds the college senior management team to account”.
‘Focus on improving staff morale’
Furness College, which took on Barrow-in-Furness Sixth Form College in 2016 through a merger, teaches almost 2,000 students.
Legrave’s report said the “geographically isolated college” plays a “vital role in respect of its local communities” and nationally. But it also highlighted Ofsted’s criticism that the college is making a “limited contribution” to skills needs.
Barrow is ranked as the 31st most deprived out of 317 lower tier local authorities and is where the BAE Systems Maritime Submarines shipyard builds the UK’s nuclear submarines.
Furness College is financially healthy, but overall learner numbers are declining – a trend which is set to worsen due to a falling demographic of young people in the area.
Achievement and retention are also in a three-year decline and work to improve low attendance is “not yet having the impact needed”, Legrave’s report said.
It added that the “generally positive outturn forecasting” for the college’s key performance indicators (KPIs) is a “reflection of leaders’ ambition and commitment to rapid reversal of decline”, but achievement of these will “necessitate relentless and rapid action”.
As part of her recommendations, Legrave said the college must ensure its reputation across both internal and external key stakeholders improves, by implementing a “comprehensive and impactful communications strategy, and that the college grows its student cohorts”.
The communications effort must involve a “very focused approach on improving staff morale but also ensuring support mechanisms are in place (CPD strategy) to enable staff to deliver high quality education and skills training; underpinned by clear lines of accountability”.
‘Progress has been made in some areas’
The report also said the strategic importance of BAE systems means that the college should consider the recruitment of a specialist contracts manager, to “both ensure the college maximises the opportunities of the Barrow Transformation Fund and the partnership opportunities with BAE systems, but also to mitigate management distraction and to ensure the current management team are fully focused on improving the college’s Ofsted grade”.
In a joint statement, Furness College principal Nicola Cove and chair Gary Lovatt said: “We remain very disappointed with the Ofsted inspectors’ findings. We do however welcome the FE Commissioner’s office recently published intervention report following their visit in December 2024, and their ongoing support as our college goes through its improvement journey.
“It is encouraging to see that at that time the report was written, it was noted that progress has been made in some areas since the Ofsted Inspection, such as continuous professional development of leaders, managers and staff and an improved use of data to enable challenge and decision making. Five months on from that visit, I am pleased to say that all of the six recommendations are already well underway.”
The college’s leaders said that the SPA “has commenced” and is being overseen by the FE Commissioner’s office and board of governors.
“As said previously, we are focussed forward and want to give our ongoing reassurance to our students, parents, employers and stakeholders that everyone across college is committed to delivering all of these improvements,” the statement added.
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