With reviews of FE provision across England getting under way, Nigel Rayner looks at whether any lessons can be learned from the Scottish experience of college reviews.

Hot on the heels of the government’s statement that it wants to see ‘fewer, larger, more resilient and efficient’ providers of FE in England, a number of colleges have already announced plans to join forces.

And there’s little doubt that more will likely follow, either as ‘closer collaborations’ or more formal mergers. In Scotland, FE is coming out the other side of a similar initiative and few would argue that the sector has been transformed. From a funding perspective, the 37 colleges that existed in 2011-12 have been merged into 20 institutions, which are organised into 13 regions.

Having worked closely with some of these institutions during their transition, their experiences demonstrate that change can also bring the opportunity to improve the student experience and ensure a stronger post-16 offering for the future.

An analysis of the 2013 and 2014 college finance records submitted to the Skills Funding Agency and Education Funding Agency suggests that around one-in-four English FE colleges is managing to thrive and grow both their income and surplus, in what some might describe as among the most challenging educational landscapes in recent years.

There are some important lessons English colleges can learn from the experiences of their Scottish counterparts when it comes to achieving a successful merger

This underlines an important point. Regardless of their geographical location, there are some common factors that successful FE institutions share, whether they are stand-alone or have been merged with other providers.

They understand the needs of their local region, ensure they run efficiently and most importantly, engage with students, staff, employers and other stakeholders to attract and retain students.

There are some important lessons English colleges can learn from the experiences of their Scottish counterparts when it comes to achieving a successful merger, some of which are outlined below.

Firstly, ensure transparency. For a partnership to work, staff across all institutions involved need to be kept fully informed each step of the way to help encourage ‘buy-in’ and support for the process. A culture of change can be difficult to embed in any organisation, but good communication is a vital starting point.

Secondly, consider the student at every step. It’s easy to get bogged down in details of how internal processes will work post-merger and risk losing sight of the student. With student experience being critical to successful recruitment and retention — and therefore funding — it’s essential to consider the impact of every change on current and prospective students.

Thirdly, little issues in a smaller organisation will be exacerbated in a larger one, so they need to be tackled. For one Scottish college, there was a real need to address poor student retention. On merging, they introduced electronic registration, which not only saved time, but staff could monitor students’ attendance more closely. This meant they could quickly spot any student who wasn’t turning up regularly and take action.

Don’t just do what you’ve always done, is next. Look at new ways that will help a larger organisation run more efficiently. Some Scottish colleges used their merger as an opportunity to move the whole applications process online, for example. Use the change as a chance to review which processes are eating up many hours of administration time and therefore costs.

And finally, and above all, address learners’ needs. Post-16 education in Scotland has been on a complex journey and some tough decisions have been made along the way. However, it is important to underline that as the story continues to unfold, there are positives. The Audit Scotland report, published earlier this year, found that reforms have had a ‘minimal negative impact’ on students and English colleges should take encouragement from this.

No matter what the future holds, students must remain at the heart of FE and, as always — whatever shape or size they take — the most successful colleges will be the ones that focus unerringly on improving the student experience.

Gerry McDonald outlines the reasons and  process behind his college’s application to open a free school and considers why it was turned down.

The ability of FE to redefine itself is perhaps its defining characteristic. This can, of course, serve us well in challenging times when funding and competitive pressures make it difficult to hold on to treasured notions of an immutable core.

Dame Ruth Silver’s adaptive layer has become a shorthand for describing a sector that often finds definition illusive. And maybe that’s no bad thing. Adaptation requires creative thinking and new approaches and that is where FE excels.

Adaptation is more necessary now than ever before. Not least because the traditional boundaries between the buildings blocks of the education system are in flux. It was not surprising therefore that the governors of Tower Hamlets College, opposite Canary Wharf, that icon of regeneration, decided to take a radical approach to defining our mission and how we should deliver it. The notion that we should pursue a free school application took shape.

Our decision to apply to open a free school wasn’t politically motivated. It was pragmatic

The idea wasn’t formed in a vacuum. In 2014, we applied for, and were granted, direct entry at 14. With strong support from our local authority, we shaped an innovative programme for migrant families, mostly newly arrived in the UK with a child aged 14 or 15 to benefit from an intensive English-focused programme. Our first cohort made rapid progress with 89 per cent achieving grade C in maths, in just one year.

It is worth saying that our decision to apply to open a free school wasn’t politically motivated. It was pragmatic. We are a good college with outstanding business and Esol provision and strong finances. But these attributes would not protect us from new entrants to the crowded London education market or protect our shrinking core.

The process of establishing a free school is best described in two stages. The first is setting up your group and forming a company to act as the legal entity for the new school. That was straightforward. The college’s business and community clients and contacts proved a rich source of expertise and we were able to quickly bring together experienced professionals, giving us the breadth of practical support required.

The difficulty then is ensuring the right level of separation from the college. In theory the school is quite separate and operates at arm’s length. In reality, the college is the prime mover and de facto sponsor. The divide could be seen as rather artificial.

More difficult was establishing the need for our proposed school. We were clear about the specialism — business and finance — representing our location and curriculum expertise. The challenge is establishing actual parent need. This involved asking parents of 8 and 9-year-olds to send their child to an as yet unbuilt school when they reach 11. A tough sell indeed. We got there because our strong proposition about linking educational opportunity to jobs in businesses and finance was convincing. Canary Wharf is within Tower Hamlets but has some way to go in recruiting the borough’s residents.

We have made strong progress including placing more than 50 young people into paid year-long internships with a major accounting firm but there is more to do. Parents we spoke to appreciate that and what our new school could offer.

As reported in FE Week last week, our bid didn’t get through. I don’t see a conspiracy against FE here. Feedback was clear and fair and we have been asked to resubmit in October. We need to show how the specialism will be delivered throughout the school and bring a current secondary head teacher on to our board. Fair enough.

Should colleges pursue free schools? That’s hard to answer for the whole sector; so much depends on local demography and need. Our view is that redefining FE’s mission across age ranges and historical sector divides is a necessary evolution at a time of funding challenge.

September 1, 2015, has gone down in FE as the date from which complaints about the sector’s higher education provision were handled in same way that university complaints are. Felicity Mitchell outlines the change, why it has happened and considers whether principals should be worried.

The Higher Education Act 2004 required the appointment of an independent body to run a student complaint Scheme in England and Wales and the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education was designated to operate this Scheme in January 2005.

The Act defined which institutions were required to join the Scheme and, thus, whose students could access the OIA. Students studying for a higher education qualification at an FE college could complain to the OIA, but only where the qualification they were studying for was awarded by a university and only then about something that was the responsibility of that university. So for example, the OIA could consider a complaint about the outcome of an academic appeal which the university considered, but not a service which the college had provided.

It was not always clear whether a student at a college could complain to the OIA or not, and what they could complain about. So, students with a complaint about course content might be bounced back and forth between their college and the university that awarded their qualification, while each argued that the other was responsible.

Equally, it was unfair that students studying at a university were able to complain to an independent body about anything to do with their studies, while students studying for the same award but at a college could only complain about some aspects.

The 2011 White Paper, Students at the Heart of the System, promised to change this, but legislation was not forthcoming.

The opportunity for change came with the Consumer Rights Act 2015 which extended membership of the OIA Scheme to include all providers offering higher education courses designated for student support funding, and all providers with degree-awarding powers.

The changes come into effect in relation to complaints arising after September 1, 2015. This means that most higher education students can now access the OIA Scheme no matter where they choose to study.

Somewhere in England or Wales a student is raising an issue with their college which will escalate to a complaint, and will become the first eligible complaint received by the OIA about an FE college

FE colleges come to the OIA from a position of strength. Many are already familiar with the OIA from complaints by students on courses leading to awards conferred by partner universities. They have extensive experience of dealing with complaints and have tried and tested procedures. Over recent months, staff from many colleges have attended OIA introductory workshops or discussed complaints handling with the OIA.

An excellent resource for colleges is the OIA’s Good Practice Framework for handling Complaints and Academic Appeals [visit feweek.co.uk for live link] which sets out general principles and operational guidance on dealing with issues students raise. This is complemented by guidance the OIA has provided to colleges and universities about how to handle complaints in the context of collaborative provision. There will of course be challenges ahead. During the last 10 years, the profile of complaints received by the OIA has been remarkably stable — around 60 per cent relate to academic outcomes. But we expect that the next few years may throw up complaints that we have not seen before.

The question we are most often asked is whether this change will increase the volume of complaints from higher education students studying in FE colleges. The answer — it is far too early to tell.

We have, for some time, been working with higher education providers to encourage the early resolution of complaints, so that students do not need to bring complaints to the OIA. The FE colleges we have spoken to are already alert to the value of sorting out issues locally. Somewhere in England or Wales a student is raising an issue with their college which will escalate to a complaint, and will become the first eligible complaint received by the OIA about an FE college.

In the months before that happens we will continue to work with colleges to improve our understanding of their students and their processes, and to make sure that we are able to support them as they continue to develop their practice in complaints handling.