Time to get serious about developing governor capacity

As the role of college governor grows, the need for more support grows too. Help is already at hand, explains Mark Wright

The role of the governor has become hugely more challenging in the past few years. Colleges are growing in size and complexity, and financial pressures mean there is an increasing need for forensic scrutiny of leadership decisions. Effective governance is crucial to the success and sustainability of colleges, but is the sector at risk of asking too much of what remains by and large a voluntary role?

As the Government sets out what new funding is to be made available, including for capital investment, governors will be required to ensure the appropriate investment of public funds. Given these responsibilities, as well as a time commitment that increasingly resembles that of a part-time job, some may say this gives credence to the argument that governors should be remunerated for their efforts.

In fact, some chairs are already being paid. But while broadening this could help with recruiting and retaining governors, there is also a need to consider professionalising the role more broadly.

An essential part of that effort is to offer development opportunities, tailored to the demands of the job, that enable governors to successfully steer their colleges. The Education and Training Foundation (ETF) has been working with the sector to provide this support with a series of DfE-funded initiatives that form part of a drive to create a sector culture in which governor development is the norm.

In the Spring, we will be launching the Governor Development Programme following an extensive development stage during which many governors and clerks will have road-tested each of the 24 modules.

All colleges will be able to sign up to the programme on an annual basis giving their governors access to modules that include online content, podcasts, and face-to-face delivery. Those who have tested it have valued the range and flexibility of the learning opportunities on offer. Governors are time-pressed people too, and being able to listen to a podcast while getting on with other tasks was particularly appreciated.

Governors are time-pressed people too

The programme will be hosted on the ETF’s Foundation Online Learning website, and governors will be able to develop their own personalised learning plans, working through the most appropriate suite of modules for them in terms of content and level of difficulty – from those new to governance right up to experienced governors who need to ensure they stay up to date.

Professionalisation means a certain amount of ongoing management of governors’ development needs. The work of mapping where governors are on their development journey could become the responsibility of the clerk or governance professionals, working in partnership with the chair and board members themselves to determine the development needs of individuals and of the team.

The programme complements the work that has already been done to boost the capacity of chairs of governors, in particular through the Chairs’ Leadership Programme. According to Simon Perryman, Chair of Governors at Barnsley College, this programme provides “powerful insights on the role of boards in setting strategy, maintaining oversight and managing reputation, as well as a valuable opportunity to work with other chairs on the real issues and challenges of the role”.

And our commitment to professionalising governance doesn’t stop there. Efforts to develop a programme aimed specifically at the development of clerks is already underway in partnership with the DfE.

The ‘College of the Future’ has become a common topic of conversation across the sector, and rightly so. This decade will herald new challenges and also importantly new opportunities but some things are timeless. Effective leadership and governance is one of those things, and developing people – be they our students, our staff or our governors – is another. In the end, amongst a multitude of other things, we now need great governance to navigate our way safely to new horizons.

Preventing college and ITP failures is a matter of relationships

If the sector’s reputation is ever to recover from the damage caused by college and ITP failures, the ESFA needs to be more than just a ‘funding body’, writes Tony Allen

As an ex-deputy director of the SFA, news that Dame Mary Ney’s anticipated report into college finances will highlight serious shortcomings on the part of the organisation has piqued my interest. The report is likely to focus on some of the more technical aspects of college finances.

However, there is one important and easy-to-grasp reason why colleges and independent training providers (ITPs) fail, and I hope Dame Mary will touch on it: the lack of effective contract management and support from the ESFA.

In many respects, Ian Pryce, CEO of Bedford Colleges Group summed it up perfectly when he said “you spot things early when you have strong human relationships”.

From its inception as 47 LSCs in 2001, up until 2015, by which time it had become the SFA, the sector could rely on effective contract management for all providers. Towards the end of this period, colleges were managed by regional teams, and the employers and largest ITPs by a national team. Their role was to get to know the colleges and ITPs, to provide support, protect public investment, and to promote government priorities. Unlike our current reactive way of working, always on the back foot as it responds to problems, the system was proactive in encouraging the ‘right’ behaviour.

Whatever the actual structures involved, having people within the SFA who regularly interacted with senior staff at colleges and providers brought many benefits. We had a much better sense of what was going on. We advised and supported, managed risks, and dealt with issues as they were arising. Face-to-face support by individual and group methods headed off many early problems. The nature of the relationship meant that colleges and providers were much more likely to share their concerns and worries than they are now.

It was believed that risk could be managed by a service desk approach

In 2016, as part of DfE-mandated staffing reductions, the SFA decided that ‘supportive’ contract management as we had known it was no longer needed. It was made clear that giving advice and support to colleges, and especially ITPs, was not part of a ‘funding body’s’ role. Frankly, it was believed that the risk could be managed by a service desk approach, and by analysing data in Coventry. Nobody was interested in the positive side of contract management or the benefits that could accrue, such as promoting apprenticeship growth.

As I was leaving the then-SFA, I pointed out to the senior team the implications of what they were doing, but the value of what we had been doing for many years was effectively dismissed.

Yet there is a clear correlation between the lack of supportive contract management and what has happened since. We have seen a number of high-profile college ‘financial’ failures, not to mention the demise of Positive Outcomes, First4Skills, 3AAAs and Learndirect, to name but a few on the ITP front.

Realistically, even if the ESFA, as it is now called, still had teams in place managing colleges and providers as effectively as in the past, they would not have been able to altogether prevent some of the more recent failures. The sad fact is that a determined individual in any organisation can hide the truth from those above.

However, at worse, the ESFA would have had their finger more closely on the pulse, and would have been aware much earlier of the problems that some colleges and large providers were facing. Even that worse-case scenario would have been better than what we have now.

No other part of the public sector allows an organisation with a contract worth millions of pounds a year to effectively be told to ‘get on with it’, and the only meaningful contact with the regulator being when it looks like things are going wrong.  

Whatever other reforms Dame Mary’s report suggests, until we restore proper, consistent and supportive regulatory oversight based on relationships, we will simply continue to see college and ITP failures. Our sector deserves better than to keep seeing its reputation battered in this way.

Apprenticeship take-ups suffer from pro-university data bias

The Government’s continued failure to deliver on its own apprenticeship take-up target is, in part, a symptom of its failure to properly inform school leavers of the realities of higher education, warns Lawrence Barton

The Government is failing to achieve its own targets for the take-up of apprenticeships. Meanwhile, the symbolic target of 50 per cent of people going to university was met at the start of this academic year, 20 years after first being announced by the Blair government. Aside from the contrast in political effort to meet these targets, the bias towards university is reinforced by poor information about the relative value of these alternative pathways. In essence, taxpayers and students alike are being misled.

While the number of apprenticeship starts has increased from 2017/18 to 2018/19, figures remain down on those preceding the introduction of the apprenticeship levy in May 2017. In 2018/19, 19 per cent (75,100) of learners started at a higher level compared to 13 per cent the year before. But despite this growth, the take-up of higher apprenticeships is relatively modest.

If we compare the recent trend for apprenticeship growth to that for higher education a different picture emerges. Barring a dip following the introduction of the Government’s tuition fees reform, over the past ten years 18-year-old entry rates have consistently increased. In 2018, the 18-year-old entry rate stood at a record high of 33 per cent.

Yes, even the fanfare about the 50 per cent target is somewhat misleading. The DfE’s figure counts people set to go to university up to the age of 30, not school leaver entrants as might be expected.Contrasting perceptions of apprenticeships and university degrees are a significant driver behind the disparity in uptake. A large proportion of young people and their parents remain wedded to the idea that university is the key to a successful and prosperous future, unaware of other avenues open to them.

Policymakers often herald the ‘graduate premium’. In 2017 university graduates earned on average £10,000 more than the average non-graduate. But this figure is misleading. It makes no account of the institution attended, the subject studied, the degree classification obtained, or the premium relative to other qualifications. It lumps the earnings of a Cambridge educated particle physicist in with those of somebody with an Honours degree in ‘Drawing’ from Falmouth University.

Taxpayers and students alike are being misled

A 2014 independent analysis by the Million Jobs campaign investigated these nuances between graduate and apprenticeship earnings. It estimated that over a third of all graduates (39 per cent) enjoyed lifetime earnings below those of the average higher apprentice. While nearly half (46 per cent) of those from post-1992 universities earned less than higher apprentices.

The study found these differences become amplified when subject studied is examined. For some ‘new’ university courses, such as media studies, as many as three-quarters of graduates earned less than the average higher apprentice.

The study is not conclusive. It relies on various estimates and patches together data sets from different sources to produce its estimates. Nevertheless, it raises significant questions that remain unanswered. The Government and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have taken steps to improve the granular detail in terms of graduate outcomes, but shortcomings make it difficult to determine trends from year to year and to compare these to those of apprentices.

There is also yet to be movement on the publication of loan repayment rates by institution attended. Surely, both the prospective student and the taxpayer are owed a duty as to the likely outcome of their investment?

While attitudes towards apprenticeships are changing, there remains much work to be done. The lack of a coherent, detailed evidence-based case with which to go head-to-head with universities is hampering the industry’s ability to challenge misconceptions that remain prevalent in the minds of many school-leavers, parents and teachers. It is only when these misconceptions are addressed that we will begin to see the uptake of higher-level apprenticeships at the rate that is required for them to make a meaningful contribution to our economy.

This call to action comes at an opportune moment. The Prime Minister’s Chief Adviser, Dominic Cummings, has recently outlined his own ambitions for a more informed, data-driven approach to Government decision making. Accurate and transparent information about the relative outcomes of further and higher education is an excellent place to start.

Suspended principal to leave earlier than planned

A college principal who was suspended following government intervention has brought forward her retirement date.

Stella Mbubaegbu announced today that she will officially leave Highbury College at the end of April 2020, instead of July 2020.

The college said she has decided to leave early to “enable the college to accelerate the search for her successor, and to put in place new leadership”.

The FE Commissioner’s team was sent into Highbury by Department for Education minister Lord Agnew in October after FE Week revealed the principal claimed £150,000 expenses in four years.

The spending included numerous first class flights, five-star hotels, travel in luxury cars, a £350 bill – including a £45 lobster and nearly £100 on cocktails – at a Michelin star restaurant, and a £434 pair of designer headphones.

Mbubaegbu was suspended in November.

Highbury said today that following separate whistleblowing allegations suggesting wrongdoing by the principal, over a year ago a “thorough and independent” investigation was commissioned.

The investigation concluded that Mbubaegbu “had, throughout acted in accordance with extant college policies and procedures, and with the approval of the college chair at the time”.

In December, Penny Wycherley took over as interim principal and Martin Doel became interim chair of Highbury.

In announcing her decision to retire, Mbubaegbu said: “I am enormously proud of all that we have achieved together at the college, and in particular the success of our students and staff.

“You have inspired, challenged and motivated me to do better and I wish every one of you continued future success.

“I have now decided that I will leave on 30 April 2020, in order that the college can accelerate its plans to recruit an appropriate successor to my role.

“Until then I will work remotely to facilitate an effective handover to the new leadership.”

The college said Doel “thanked Stella on behalf of the college board for her many years of dedicated service to the college in which much was achieved that will have a lasting effect upon the lives of countless students and the communities that the college serves”.

Since the FE Commissioner’s intervention, Highbury has been moved into “supervised college status” and a notice to improve was published yesterday.

Mbubaegbu was awarded a CBE in the 2008 New Year honours for services to further education.

Williamson pledges to work ‘hand in glove’ with sector to argue for more funding

Education secretary Gavin Williamson has pledged to work “hand in glove” with the sector to argue for further investment in 16 to 19 education.

But he stated he was unable to make any firm commitments on future funding in the address to the Sixth Form Colleges Association winter conference this morning.

“I will be very interested in terms of working with this whole sector as to how we can put the best arguments forward to make sure that investing in 16 to 19 education delivers enormous benefits,” Williamson told delegates.

“Not just for the young people, but also for the Treasury, and I will certainly be working hand in glove with the Sixth Form Colleges Association about how we can make those arguments best.”

The SFCA has been lobbying for the funding rate to be increased to £4,760 per student through their Raise the Rate campaign, which has been running since 2018.

In August, chancellor Sajid Javid announced a £400 million cash injection for 16 to 19 students – however this only raised the rate to £4,188.

The chancellor’s boost included a further 10 per cent in funding for “crucial” subjects like engineering and IT.

Williamson said during his speech today that the “key thing I felt” at the time of this funding boost was to “get cash coming into the 16 to 19 sector as rapidly as possible”.

This “upbeat and positive” speech was received “warmly” by delegates, said SFCA chief executive Bill Watkin.

“As a former sixth form college student, and a real believer in the value of sixth form educate, delegates were left with the clear impression that he will continue to be a powerful advocate for the sector,” he added.

The speech by Williamson, who attended Scarborough Sixth Form College, was made in the run-up to a spending review this year.

London college pulls out of T-levels plans 19 months before launch

A financially troubled college subject to FE Commissioner intervention has decided to withdraw from delivering T-levels, the Department for Education has revealed.

Richmond-upon-Thames College had been selected to deliver all the routes being rolled out as part of the second wave of T-levels in September 2021: digital, construction, education and childcare, and health and science.

Yet today it was announced the college had decided to pull out of the new qualifications to “prioritise the development” of its campus.

This £80 million programme includes a dedicated sixth form centre, a theatre, 3D prototyping laboratory and training restaurant.

A spokesperson said the college is “strongly committed to T-levels” and it will look at introducing the new post-16 technical qualifications “at a later stage rather than in 2021”.

The announcement comes on the same day that the Education and Skills Funding Agency published a notice to improve for Richmond, owing to “declining financial health” and a forecast of a “significant” financial deficit for 2018/19.

It also said there was “weaknesses in leadership and management”.

As previously revealed by FE Week, Richmond’s former principal Robin Ghurbhurun left in July for “personal reasons”, around the same time of a visit from the FE Commissioner amid financial concerns. He has since been replaced by Diane Dimond, a chartered accountant, in the interim.

East Sussex College Group also received a notice to improve today, but the DfE confirmed it will remain as one of the September 2020 T-level providers.

Richmond-upon-Thames isn’t the first provider to have stepped back from T-level delivery.

In October, education secretary Gavin Williamson’s old college, Scarborough Sixth Form, pulled out of offering construction and digital pathways from 2020 because of a lack of opportunities for the T-levels’ mandatory 315-hour work placements locally, and a shortage of good-quality teachers.

Two schools previously ditched plans to take part in the 2020 wave.

A DfE spokesperson said they had always anticipated there would be “a certain amount of fluctuation” in the list of T-level providers, but they have “an excellent group of high-quality providers ready to offer the first three T-levels from this September and from 2021 onwards”.

The department took a phased approach to the introduction of the flagship qualifications “so they can grow in a managed way”, the spokesperson added.

“This approach means that young people, parents and employers can be confident that the courses on offer will be high-quality, will provide the skills students need to progress, and will provide industry with the workforce it needs for the future.”

T-levels in digital, construction and education and childcare sectors are due to be delivered from this September as part of a three-stage approach.

Seven further T-levels in financial, maintenance, installation and repair, design and development, management and administration and human resources will be taught from 2022.

And applications were opened last week for providers to take on wave three of T-levels, to be delivered from 2023, which will include courses in agriculture, environment and animal care, catering and hospitality, creative and media, and hair and beauty.

More than 100 providers have been lined up to teach the two-year courses, which will be equivalent to three A-levels and combine classroom learning with the industry placement.

New culture of ‘openness and trust’ paves way for KCC merger

An embattled London college has announced it will officially merge next month, after the FE Commissioner found a new culture of “openness, transparency and trust”.

Kensington and Chelsea College will join with Morley College on 3 February.

The resolution follows a governing body meeting last night, and the outcome of Richard Atkins’ final monitoring visit at KCC, which took place on 30 October 2019.

“Yesterday’s decision was a landmark in the continuing upturn in fortunes for the college”

KCC has been subject to close oversight since late 2017 after serious concerns were raised in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire by the local community regarding a proposed merger with Ealing Hammersmith and West London College. This merger was later blocked by the FE Commissioner.

Campaigners were particularly concerned about the loss of KCC’s Wornington Road site, which was controversially sold for £25.3 million to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in 2016.

The college has since undergone changes in leadership and secured £32.3 million from the government to help buy back the campus that serves the Grenfell community, and move ahead with a merger with Morley College.

The FE Commissioner’s latest report on KCC states that there has been a “notable and tangible improvement to the atmosphere and culture across the college”, and its operations are “well led giving a sense of calm in the build up to merger”.

Staff, whilst “understandably anxious” about the merger, talked of a “culture of openness, transparency, accessibility and trust in relation to the board and the senior leadership team”.

They also commented that having an agreed future for the college, together with a commitment to financial support, was “instrumental in providing staff and students with a sense of optimism about the future.

“Planning for the merger is progressing well despite significant complexities and challenges that have mainly been overcome.”

Whilst recognising that the college is making “good progress”, Atkins’ team noted there is “still much to do”.

KCC is “financially inadequate” after recording a deficit of just under £6 million in 2018/19. It is expecting to reduce this to a £2.8 million deficit by the end of 2019/20. The college has no borrowings and still has cash in the bank, the FE Commissioner said.

His team added that governors and senior managers have taken action to significantly reduce its cost base this year.

Whilst this still leaves a large deficit, it “does slow down the erosion of cash through operations and does not include any actions that are contrary to the Morley College London merger proposal”.

“I have been humbled by the passion and determination of campaigner”

KCC received its fifth consecutive grade three report from Ofsted last year.

Ian Valvona, who joined as chair of KCC in 2018, said yesterday’s board decision was a “landmark in the continuing upturn in fortunes for the college and the communities it serves in the aftermath of the Grenfell tragedy”.

Andy Cole, the college’s principal who also joined in 2018, added: “I am immensely proud of my staff who have remained committed to improving the opportunities and outcomes of our learners in the face of the most challenging of circumstances, and it is heartening to see this reflected in the FE Commissioner’s report.

“Throughout the past two years I have been humbled by the passion and determination of campaigners who have fought so hard to preserve the best of the college’s rich history for the benefit of future generations and wish to place on record my respect for their work both before and subsequent to the tragic events of the 14th June 2017.”

A spokesperson for Morley College said their governing body is now preparing “for its meeting on 20 January when we give final consideration to the resolution to merge”.

A spokesperson for the Save Wornington Campaign group said they will do “everything in our power to ensure that this college stays open for our community”.

“Morley College are showing genuine commitment to the project and we welcome that,” she added. “We will hold them to account and ensure that they are honouring North Kensington and the Grenfell legacy.”

 

Five colleges handed DfE warnings over finances

Five colleges have been hit with a notice to improve by the government this afternoon, after they were all assessed to have poor financial health and leadership.

They are for: Kensington and Chelsea College, Richmond upon Thames College, East Sussex College Group, Gateshead College and Highbury College.

Two others, Havering College of Further and Higher Education and Easton and Otley College, have had their notices to improve closed.

Colleges subject to notices to improve are typically put into FE Commissioner intervention and must run most spending decisions past the government.

Richmond upon Thames’ was issued following an FE Commissioner diagnostic assessment in August 2019 which recommended that “the college is put into formal intervention and that a member of ESFA staff should attend all future board meetings”.

In particular, the report highlighted the declining financial health of the college and a forecast of significant financial deficit for 18/19, inadequate financial management, control and reporting, as well as “weaknesses in leadership and management”.

Today’s notice added that the FE Commissioner and the ESFA acknowledge the “chair and the governing body’s swift actions to address the situation”.

As previously revealed by FE Week, Richmond’s former principal Robin Ghurbhurun left in July for “personal reasons”, around the same time of a visit from the FE Commissioner amid financial concerns. He has since been replaced by Diane Dimond, a chartered accountant, in the interim.

Highbury’s was issued following an FE Commissioner diagnostic assessment monitoring visit that took place on 4 October 2019.

Richard Atkins’ team was sent into the college after FE Week revealed the principal, who has since been suspended, claimed expenses of £150,000 over four years, following a year-long freedom of information battle.

Highbury’s notice to improve said the FE Commissioner recognises that the college has “made good progress in delivering many of the recommendations there remains significant concern around the college’s leadership and governance, therefore Highbury College has been escalated to formal intervention”.

Gateshead College, rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, has received its financial notice to improve after it launched an investigation into a shock £6 million deficit. Judith Doyle, who was the highest paid principal in England last year, has since retired with immediate effect.

Today’s report said the improvement notice is being issued because Gateshead “has been assessed as experiencing serious cash flow pressures”. The college is now in formal intervention.

East Sussex College Group’s notice to improve only states that it has been assessed as having “inadequate financial health by the ESFA”, and it is now in formal intervention.

Kensington & Chelsea College’s notice follows an FE Commissioner visit in October 2019, the outcome of which signed off on merger plans with Morley College.

Today’s report said the ESFA is now placing KCC in “supervised college status”, due to the “well understood exceptional position and circumstances of the college”. Its deficit for 2018/19 hit just under £6 million.

Saltash to lose campus as Cornwall College desperate to save millions

A large college group in the south west is to sell-off a 35-year-old campus in order to balance the books.

Cornwall College Group, which last year secured a £30 million government bailout to drive forward a “fresh start” business plan, will close its site in Saltash in July.

A total of 74 jobs are at risk, and around 500 students will be affected – although the majority will complete their courses by the end of this academic year.

Cornwall College took on the Saltash site in August 2001, when it merged with St Austell College.

The campus includes a higher education centre, construction skills training centre, commercial hair and beauty salons and a “state-of-the-art” training kitchen that only opened permanently in 2018.

A spokesperson said they “regret” the closure, and blamed the decision on “reduced funding for post-16 learners in colleges which has shrunk by 30 per cent over the last ten years”.

They added that the recent increase in funding for learners aged 16 to 18 – rising 4.7 per cent from £4,000 to £4,188 in 2020/21 – does not “go far enough in covering even inflationary costs; it brings funding up to 2010 rates”.

“In this uncertain financial climate difficult decisions are needed.”

Cornwall College Group has 11 different campuses in total. The spokesperson confirmed that “all other sites will remain open”.

The college is working with affected learners, who will be offered “progression opportunities” at either Cornwall College St Austell, Duchy Stoke Climsland “or another provider”, such as City College Plymouth which is just seven miles away from Saltash.

The college will also consult with staff on possible job losses, and “redeployment and retraining will be offered where possible”.

The group has had a rocky recent history. It was told it was not financially “viable or resilient” and had “weak solvency” in its post-16 area review report from 2017, but that it should remain a standalone college.

It received £4.5 million emergency funding in 2016-17 and £3.5 million in 2017-18 to keep running.

A follow-up review of further education in Cornwall was launched in late 2018 at the request of Cornwall Council, which put pressure on the group to work more closely with its rival, Truro & Penwith College, and that a merger may be in learners’ best interests.

The merger didn’t come to fruition, but Cornwall launched a “fresh start” last year after landing a £30 million handout from the Education and Skills Funding Agency.

When the FE Commissioner reported on post-16 provision in Cornwall in March 2019, he noted that one of the “main concerns” for the ESFA was around the “viability of maintaining” its various sites.

Elaine McMahon, the college group’s interim chief executive at the time, then said that “elements of the group’s estate would be restructured”.

John Evans took the reins from McMahon in September 2019.