Measuring impact fairly in the devolved areas

The mayoral combined authorities are developing impact and performance measures to assess whether the adult education budget is having a positive impact in their area. Setting the right targets and outcome measures, in a fair, simple and cost-effective way, is critical, warns Harminder Matharu

The end of January marks the end of the first six months of devolved delivery of the adult education budget (AEB) and the returns from colleges and providers may indicate whether the new arrangements are resulting in less underspend than has been the case nationally over the past few years. Of course, it’s not just about how much funding has been spent; having fought so hard to get it devolved, the mayoral combined authorities (MCAs) and the Greater London Authority (GLA) will want to assure themselves and stakeholders that local delivery has made a tangible difference to their local communities.

The combined authorities should ensure fairness across all provider groups

The whole point of devolution is that each of the combined authorities will eventually define for themselves their AEB priorities. Increasingly there is talk of assessing the impact on these, rather than looking solely at outputs and outcomes, although the latter will obviously help measure impact. Work is already under way, with the GLA commissioning the Learning and Work Institute to support the development of their impact-assessment proposal with a view to running a pilot.

The Liverpool City Region is piloting outcome-based delivery through their sector-based work academies, while the West Midlands combined authority is testing wider than traditional approaches.

All are also very conscious of finding the best way to measure the impact of AEB on social value, where the learning may not be centred around qualification and outputs.

AELP welcomes this work, and if stakeholders are supportive, we would like to see it used as a template for developments in other areas.

We hope that the devolved areas as a collective group will also keep a wider national picture in mind because providers deliver across multiple areas. Measuring impact is a complex challenge when faced with variances in local labour markets, and AELP has suggested to the nine devolved areas a set of principles to consider.

These start with setting the right targets and outcome measures from the outset, as this is critical for ensuring that adult education reaches the right individuals. The combined authorities should consider and compare approaches in neighbouring areas, along with any national approaches, to identify common aspects to align where there is value in doing so. 

Outcome measures should take into account the learner’s starting point to accurately assess distance travelled, impact on social mobility and real added value. This should be backed up by the measurement of planned progression outcomes to allow for longer term impact assessments. We should recognise that cohorts of learners may require differentiated outcomes supported by clear criteria and rationale for assessing impact.  This involves acknowledging the varying socio-economic factors affecting them.

It will undoubtedly help if there are clear definitions for all performance measures related to assessing the impact of delivery. At the same time, we should minimise the administrative burden and financial costs of data collection. 

Finally, the combined authorities should ensure fairness across all provider groups through a system that allows providers to invest and plan delivery which maintains value for money throughout.

As well as deciding what progression outcomes should be measured, it’s important also to agree on when to measure progression, because a learner may not benefit from it in the short term. Existing data collection systems should be reviewed before new systems are created, which means engaging with other stakeholders and partners that already collect measurement and destination data. For example, we recommend a look at the DWP’s new Data Lab and exploring whether this allows tracking of individuals over a longer period.

Despite the size of the challenge, we must work to keep the processes as simple as possible with cost considerations at the forefront of the emerging proposals.

 

Back A Bid: Campaign to host WorldSkills 2027 in the UK

FE Week is coordinating a campaign for the UK to host WorldSkills in 2027.

The chief executive of WordSkills UK used this paper earlier in January to suggest that their organisation was starting to look at whether we could host a future competition.

We believe this would be an amazing opportunity for our sector and the UK to play host to the global skills community. 

A bid is an opportunity for our sector to truly think big and demonstrate a bold ambition. We can exploit the process of bidding, and hopefully hosting, as a catalyst for change. Adopting an ambition to implement international benchmarking across the sector and thus creating a stronger economic future for more young people.

Winning the bid would also see the UK host ministers and, business and education leaders from across the globe as part of an international skills summit. A platform from which we can demonstrate we are developing the skills needed to attract investment and subsequently jobs for our highly-skilled learners.

The next step for government is to announce their support of a feasibility study, which of course will require public money and time. The Secretary of State appears to be supportive, in principle, but he will need some encouragement. That’s where the sector and your stakeholders come in!

Show your support for the UK to host WorldSkills 2027 on social media using #BackABid and by leaving a comment at the end of this post. FE Week will collate these responses and present them to the education secretary, Gavin Williamson at the end of February.

Provider challenging ‘flawed’ AEB tender in the high court

Lawyers are set to go to battle at the high court later this month, in the first ever challenge to a failed adult education budget application, FE Week can reveal.

East Birmingham Community Forum (EBCF) claims it was wrongly denied a fair run at securing a slice of £28 million of funding put out by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) last year.

In documents obtained by FE Week ahead of the January 31 court date, the independent learning provider alleges the procurement was “flawed” and that WMCA admitted in writing that they had made scoring errors.

They also claim the WMCA did not abide by legislative procurement rules.

The information provided by the defendant is unclear and inadequate

A spokesperson for WMCA told FE Week they refute the claims but would be “making no further comment at this time”.

EBCF declined to comment.

If the EBCF challenge is successful, two areas of the area’s AEB provision bid could have to be retendered.

EBCF, which operates across two centres in Birmingham, applied to run a programme aimed at teaching unemployed people new skills, and an “innovative delivery” project by the March 2019 deadline of the WMCA’s tender.

But in May it was told it had failed at the first of two stages for the AEB procurement.

The first stage was split into questions about eligibility, and a general technical evaluation which asked questions about the provider’s achievement rates, learner satisfaction scores, quality assurance, capability and track record and its ability to meet local needs.

For achievement rates, EBCF had to provide its latest data for adult education, which it duly did: 96 per cent for entry-level and level one and 100 per cent for level two in 2017/18.

It sent this off with the rest of the application – only to be told later it had scored just 55 per cent when it needed 60 to progress.

A list of possible scores replicated in the court paperwork gives the only available scores being even numbers between zero and ten; but WMCA scored EBCF three for one question and seven for another question.

Following this, EBCF asked for further evaluation of its application and received a feedback report which said “no achievement rate data was received”. 

When challenged by the provider, WMCA allegedly “acknowledged the feedback report was wrong” and explained it had contained the “unmoderated” feedback of one evaluator.

EBCF claims the authority made “manifest errors” in the scoring of tenders, and believes the report is not the unmoderated comments of one evaluator, but are in fact comments made after the event.

This is because comments made in the feedback for the information EBCF provided about its achievement rates and quality assurance appear to reference emails the provider sent after submitting its application.

In June, EBCF met with WMCA’s head of skills delivery Clare Hatton to discuss its scoring and concerns, where the provider said its entire general technical evaluation should be reviewed. 

A few days later, WMCA sent a letter instead. This stated that it would review only the question on achievement rates, and Hatton had performed a personal review of that question and found it deserved a score of four, not three.

“It is unclear if this review was a formal re-scoring of the claimant’s responses to question one,” the provider has said.

“On any view, the information provided by the defendant is unclear and inadequate,” adding the feedback report and Hatton’s comments have created “a thoroughly confused picture”.

Following the letter, EBCF had their solicitors write to WMCA asking for the make-up of the evaluation panel which reviewed their application, the guidance provided to them, and any evaluation report with recommendations for the authority.

They also asked for an award notice, explaining the reasons why EBCF had not been picked and why the successful tenderer had.

EBCF claims not to have received this notice, which they say means the standstill period on the tender had not come to an end so WMCA cannot enter into contracts for the lots EBCF bid for.

This is due to the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, which says the contracting authority has to send an award notice to every operator which took part in a tender.

Proceedings were initiated on June 12 when WMCA did not provide any of the information asked of them.

According to the EBCF, the lack of an award notice means that if WMCA has entered into contracts for the services the provider bid for, they are in breach of regulations and those contracts “should be declared ineffective”.

WMCA announced that nine providers were successful in their bid for the skills for the unemployed tender and 10 were for the innovative delivery tender.

If their case is successful, EBCF is also asking for their application to be “properly evaluated”, information on how the tenders were evaluated, damages and costs.

Ofsted watch: ‘Outstanding’ week for sixth form college

A sixth form college was lauded as ‘outstanding’ in a mixed week for FE, which saw one private provider plummet to ‘inadequate’ while another dropped two grades to ‘requires improvement’.

Godalming College was given the top rating by Ofsted in its first inspection since converting to a 16 to 19 academy in January 2018.

The Surrey-based college has around 1,900 students, who “thrive in the atmosphere of industrious learning,” with a large majority studying A-level courses.

Inspectors found they “make strong and sustained progress with their learning and achieve excellent examination grades”.

Staff were praised for supporting students who fall behind or need extra help “very effectively” and for revisiting topics, providing “clear” feedback and distributing “useful” careers advice.

In contrast, independent learning provider Icon Vocational Training Limited dropped from a grade one to a grade three.

It works with about 118 employers within the leisure and sport industry and currently has 309 apprentices.

While Ofsted said many apprentices benefit from frequent feedback and gain promotion due to their participation in the programme, some do not develop significant new knowledge for their vocational areas rapidly enough because “leaders and managers do not plan and sequence the curriculum to take into account the previous experiences of apprentices”.

Engagement with smaller employers was deemed “not as successful” as it is with the large employers.

Recent improvement actions to address these issues are “only just beginning to have a positive impact,” according to inspectors.

Another private provider to receive a grade three this week was Seymour Davies Limited.

It has 68 apprentices across care, business administration and carpentry as well as 108 adults working in the care sector who are enrolled on short-duration qualifications in care.

The inspectorate said carpentry apprentices, taught by a subcontractor, become “highly skilled very quickly”.

However, it was reported that too few taught by the prime provider “receive high-quality off-the-job training or prompt feedback on the quality of their work” and “most have not completed their qualifications in the time planned”.

Tutors have “significant industrial experience” which helps apprentices to link theoretical concepts to the real-life situations that they face at work, but careers guidance was also criticised.

Chesterfield College, a general FE college, received a second grade three in two years.

At the time of the inspection, it had 2,000 learners aged 16 to 18, 900 adult learners and 1,500 apprentices across three main sites in Chesterfield and three satellite apprenticeship centres in Derby, Manchester and Nottingham.

Ofsted found learners “do not always receive high-quality training” and those with high needs “do not receive personalised training”.

The report said “leaders have not improved the quality of education for young people rapidly enough”.

Elsewhere, the education watchdog found North Lincolnshire Council, an adult and community learning provider, was making ‘reasonable progress’ in its first re-inspection monitoring visit following a full inspection in June 2019 – which found it to be ‘inadequate’.

In addition, Derwen College, an ‘outstanding’ independent specialist college, received a monitoring visit after safeguarding “concerns” were brought to Ofsted’s attention.

It provides education and support for learners with special educational needs and disabilities.

The college was found to be making ‘reasonable progress’ in ensuring that effective arrangements are in place to safeguard learners, frequently reviewing them and making improvements as a result.

As reported earlier in the week, Progress to Excellence Ltd was declared ‘inadequate’ and is immediately exiting the training market, leaving more than 2,500 apprentices and adult learners in the lurch.

Meanwhile, Ofsted reported that apprentices “thoroughly enjoy their learning” and are “highly motivated to do well” at private provider Bright Direction Training Limited.

Similar praise was offered to fellow provider Louise Setton, where apprentices “benefit from a high level of support and technical training”.

Both firm’s received grade twos in their first full inspections.

Hull Business Training Centre Limited was also rated ‘good’ – maintaining the grade it has retained since 2005.

The remaining independent learning providers inspected by Ofsted this week received positive reports following monitoring visits.

Primary Goal Ltd was found to be making ‘significant progress’ in one area and ‘reasonable progress’ in the other two assessed themes.

Both Cambridge Professional Academy Limited and Parenta Training Limited received ‘reasonable progress’ across the board.

Employer provider Kingswood Learning and Leisure Group also made ‘reasonable progress’ in a second monitoring visit, after receiving three ‘insufficient progress’ grades in September.

But British Airways PLC was given one ‘insufficient progress’ rating out of three in its first monitoring visit (read the full story here).

 

Independent Learning Providers Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
Bright Direction Training Limited 12/12/2019 21/01/2020 2 M
Cambridge Professional Academy Limited 12/12/2019 20/01/2020 M N/A
Hull Business Training Centre Limited 12/12/2019 21/01/2020 2 2
Icon Vocational Training Limited 13/12/2019 24/01/2020 3 1
Louise Setton 12/12/2019 21/01/2020 2 M
Parenta Training Limited 17/12/2019 21/01/2020 M M 
Primary Goal Ltd 12/12/2019 20/01/2020 M N/A
Progress to Excellence Ltd 16/12/2019 22/01/2020 4 2
Seymour Davies Ltd 29/11/2019 20/01/2020 3 M

 

Sixth Form Colleges (inc 16-19 academies) Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
Godalming College 06/12/2019 21/01/2020 1 N/A

 

Adult and Community Learning Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
North Lincolnshire Council 10/01/2020 24/01/2020 M 4

 

Employer providers Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
British Airways PLC 18/12/2019 19/01/2020 M N/A
Kingswood Learning and Leisure Group 11/12/2019 22/01/2020 M M

 

Specialist colleges Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
Derwen College 08/01/2020 22/01/2020 M 1

 

General FE colleges Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
Chesterfield College 28/11/2019 24/01/2020 3 3

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 304

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving.

Clare Russell, Principal, Runshaw College

Start date: August 2020

Previous job: Deputy principal, Runshaw College

Interesting fact: She bought her first house aged 19, with savings from
her £1.50 an hour job in a chip shop.

Matthew Percival, Director of people and skills policy, Confederation of British Industry

Start date: October 2019

Previous job: Head of employment policy, Confederation of British Industry

Interesting fact: He chairs Chislehurst & West Kent Cricket Club, the only club whose ground is protected for cricket by an Act of Parliament.

Michelle Brabner, Principal, Southport College

Start date: April 2020

Previous job: Deputy principal, Runshaw College

Interesting fact: As part of her Master’s degree, she bred thousands
of lobsters to release into the wild.

DfE granted screening firm access to 28m learner records

The founder of a firm at the centre of a major education data breach involving betting companies was subject to a previous government investigation.

Questions have now been asked as to why the firm, which offers screening checks, was allowed access to a database with the records of 28 million young people, meant only for vetted education training providers.

Unions have slammed the Department for Education’s due diligence processes, with one calling for an “urgent investigation looking at the criteria the DfE uses to grant access to the data”.

“DfE has failed these young people by not performing the relevant due diligence”

According to a DfE list, more than 12,000 organisations have successfully applied to have access to the Learning Records Service (LRS).

Earlier this week, an inquiry was launched by the ESFA after the Sunday Times reported that the LRS had been accessed by data intelligence firm GB Group – whose clients include 32Red and Betfair among other gambling companies.

The data contains names, ages and addresses of young people aged 14 and over in schools and colleges across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Privacy rules state that young people’s personal information should only be accessed through the LRS by organisations “specifically linked to your education and training”.

The DfE suspended access to the system this week in order to carry out the “necessary checks to ensure data security”. It reopened on Thursday.

According to the department, the “education training provider” which “wrongly provided access” to the LRS was Trustopia, a firm co-founded by Ronan Smith in August 2018.

The department said the company had access to the LRS because they registered with a UK Provider Reference Number (UKPRN) on the UK Register of Learning Providers (UKRLP) as an apprenticeship provider.

Trustopia is not on the government’s approved register of apprenticeship providers and can therefore not deliver apprenticeships in any capacity.

Its “nature of business”, according to Companies house, is “other information technology service activities”.

Smith declined to comment on the breach when approached by FE Week, but did confirm Trustopia is not a training provider, nor has it ever been.

It is understood that the firm has worked with education providers in the past.

A previous investigation by FE Week exposed how any company can gain a UKPRN within 24 hours, simply by providing their limited company number.

And a UKRLP spokesperson said at the time: “It is up to stakeholders who use the UKPRNs to ensure that they carry out the necessary due diligence appropriate to their scope when engaging with providers.”

READ MORE: How easy is it to become a registered training provider?

Once a company has a UKPRN, it then needs to fill in a three-page application form to access the LRS.

The service is designed to help training providers verify their potential student’s previous educational achievements and their eligibility for additional funding.

The DfE would not say why Trustopia was given access to the LRS, or what it used the service for.

A spokesperson would say only that “a full investigation is under way and we will share any further information with you in due course.”

Prior to co-founding Trustopia, Smith ran a private provider called Edudo, which was investigated by the ESFA in 2017. The agency subsequently terminated the firm’s contracts, which were used to deliver courses funded through advanced learner loans.

Smith then transferred Edudo’s assets to a new company called Learning Republic and went bust. Hundreds of learners were subsequently left thousands of pounds in debt with no qualifications to show for it.

An FE Week investigation last year found that some of these learners, most of whom were Polish construction workers, had claimed they never started the course with Edudo – or even realised they had signed up for one.

Smith declared as bankrupt in November 2019.

Juliana Mohamad Noor, the vice president for further education at the National Union of Students, said her union is “shocked that this level of personal data of students was readily available without adequate checks on who can access it”.

The DfE has “failed these young people by not performing the relevant due diligence assessment of Trustopia and its owner,” she added.

“We are calling for a full and thorough investigation of this case to ensure that no more harm is done to the students involved.”

“We are calling for a full and thorough investigation of this case”

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU, said: “Parents will be rightly concerned about this data breach.

“There needs to be an urgent investigation looking at the criteria the DfE uses to grant access to the data and the identities of organisations which already have access.

“Given the hugely sensitive nature of this data it is also vital that there are rigorous checks on any organisations which are granted access.”

According to the Sunday Times report, GB Group used the LRS for age and identity verification services for its clients.

The DfE this week referred the breach to data regulators the Information Commissioner’s Office. An ICO spokesperson confirmed it has “received a report” from the DfE and “will be making enquiries”.

A DfE spokesperson said Trustopia “broke their agreement with us” with regards to the LRS.

“This was completely unacceptable and we have immediately stopped the firm’s access and ended our agreement with them. We will be taking the strongest possible action,” they added.

A GB Group spokesperson said: “We can confirm that we use the Learning Records Service dataset via a third party. We take claims of this nature very seriously and, depending on the results of our review, we will take appropriate action.”

Trustopia did not respond to requests for comment.

Parents demand ‘inadequate’ Sheffield film school be reopened

Parents are lobbying the government to restart funding for an arts and media provider that trained mostly high-needs learners.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency terminated its contracts with Sheffield Independent Film and Television (SHIFT) last year, after it was rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted.

A report by the education watchdog, published in February 2019, said inspectors found the quality of provision for 51 learners on 16 to 19 study programmes, a third of whom had special educational needs, had “declined and was now inadequate” since an earlier grade two report.

The proportion of its learners who go on to further study, apprenticeships or employment was “low” and Ofsted warned that learners make “slow progress” in achieving qualifications and developing skills.

The report came shortly after the watchdog’s chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, spoke out about the “mismatch” between the numbers of students taking low-level arts and media courses and their “future employment in the industry”. She reiterated this concern just this week.

However, a parent petition says the watchdog is “ill-equipped and inadequately trained to judge specialist provision working with students who have complex needs”.

They have said the provision on offer at SHIFT was “specialist and unique”, as well as “learner-focused using gentle teaching techniques which engages the students”.

Ofsted defended itself by stating that all of its inspectors complete an extensive training programme before undertaking inspection work and inspectors with particular expertise in areas like SEND are recruited too.

“We are confident we made accurate judgements about the provision delivered by Sheffield Independent Film and Television Limited,” a spokesperson added.

SHIFT director Kathy Loizou said parents were “absolutely distraught” that the provider had to close. They believed their  children would not have gotten through education without their training.

A lot of the young people’s needs were connected with anxiety, meaning they would have found it “difficult” to go to a learning environment like an FE college, Loizou said. She added that although colleges do “great work under very extreme funding circumstances,” they are often too big for some young people.

“We provided a safe and effective place for learners with complex needs to re-engage. We felt we were especially good at that.”

The petitioners, who are calling for the immediate reinstatement of SHIFT’s funding by the ESFA and for Sheffield City Council to take action to influence the ESFA, said there is no other provision like what SHIFT did in the area.

“Young people in north England are put at a disadvantage in relation to their peers in the south,” they say, compared to providers in the south like Dv8 Training (Brighton).

Dv8, which also caters for high needs learners and offers arts and media courses, received a grade four in November 2018; yet has been allowed to continue its provision, albeit while subject to two monitoring visits in May and September.

Asked to explain this discrepancy, the Department for Education said that while it is normal to terminate contracts for independent providers which receive a grade four, if there is evidence learners’ interests would be best served by maintaining the contract, they will do so under strict conditions with rigorous monitoring.

The spokesperson did say factors such as whether there are other providers in the local area to support learners are taken into account.

“Protecting the interests of learners is always our main priority, and Ofsted’s published assessments of the inadequate quality of provision is always taken seriously,” they said.

Dv8 did not respond to requests for comment about why it was allowed to keep its contract. Sheffield City Council declined to comment on the petition.

The petition had 49 signatures at the time of going to press. It can be viewed by visiting https://bit.ly/2uqrl7p

Back our bid to host WorldSkills 2027

Show your support for the bid at FEWeek.co.uk/BackABid and on social media using #BackABid.

This is the decade when we can ignite a passion for skills in the UK. But it will require a bold ambition and all corners of the UK to come together.

Last summer we crashed out of the top 10 medal table at WorldSkills in Russia, behind France, Germany and Austria. Team UK in previous years have sat comfortably in the top 10.  We are the 6th largest economy on the globe, but just managed to hit position 12 at WorldSkills 2019. It was rather disappointing. Whilst we had some world class performances from the team, it wasn’t enough.

WorldSkills UK have had a tough decade, like many, with continuous uncertainty around funding and subsequent budget cuts.

As a sector we should unite behind reinvesting in WorldSkills UK and a bold vision for their next decade. The government, in recent years, have banged the drum for their support of upskilling the nation and reinvesting in the skills system. What we need now is a common ambition that we can all unite around.

FE Week is today launching our ‘Back A Bid’ campaign for the UK to host WorldSkills in 2027.

The chief executive of WordSkills UK used this paper earlier in January to suggest that their organisation was starting to look at whether we could host a future competition.

It would be an amazing opportunity for our sector and the UK to play host to the global skills community. 

A bid is an opportunity for our sector to truly think big and demonstrate a bold ambition. We can exploit the process of bidding, and hopefully hosting, as a catalyst for change. Adopting an ambition to implement international benchmarking across the sector and thus creating a stronger economic future for more young people.

Winning the bid would also see the UK host ministers and, business and education leaders from across the globe as part of an international skills summit. A platform from which we can demonstrate we are developing the skills needed to attract investment and subsequently jobs for our highly-skilled learners.

The cost of hosting the competition would be around £100 million. Funding could be sourced from three areas, one third coming from government, one third from sponsorship and the remainder coming from delegate packages and competition fees. Not an eye watering sum of money when you consider the short and longer term impact hosting could have.

The next step for government is to announce their support of a feasibility study, which of course will require public money and time. The Secretary of State appears to be supportive, in principle, but he will need some encouragement. That’s where the sector and your stakeholders come in!

The UK last hosted the competition in 2011, a major legacy from 2011 was the annual WorldSkills UK Live at Birmingham’s NEC.

It’s early doors, but now is your opportunity to help shape what 2027’s legacy could be. The sector needs to demonstrate there is a healthy appetite working together on a bid and leaping back up the international medal table.

Show your support for the bid at FEWeek.co.uk/BackABid and on social media using #BackABid.

A fifth of colleges go more than 12 months without publishing minutes

One in five colleges have not published board minutes in over a year, an FE Week investigation has found.

The news will come as a shock to FE Commissioner Richard Atkins who recently criticised Hull College for being less than transparent by not making its minutes available to staff and stakeholders for the same period of time.

The leaked report said the practice “needs to change” (see below).

And Lord Agnew, the minister responsible for college oversight, said at an event in May that good governance was “something of a personal crusade”.

Although there is no fixed rule on whether colleges must publish their board minutes online – or how frequently – “accountability” is considered a requirement by the Department for Education.

A spokesperson for the DfE said they “expect colleges – like all education institutions – to be open and transparent about their operations”, including “publishing minutes in a timely manner”.

Guidance from the Association of Colleges (AoC) states: “In the spirit of open governance and accountability, approved minutes should be published on the college website”.

FE Week’s analysis was based on an audit of more than 250 general FE and sixth form college websites.

The analysis also showed that 14 colleges appear to not have any openly accessible corporation or governing minutes on their websites.

Some, including South Devon College and Warrington and Vale Royal College, advertise that they can be obtained on request. Others, like Portmouth College’s website, state that permission needs to be granted to access their minutes. 

Some websites, including those of New College Stamford and Fircroft College of Adult Education, stated minutes were published online, but no links could be found by FE Week, while others appeared to have no specific references at all.

The AoC’s 2015 report on ‘Creating Excellence in College Governance’ confirmed that, under the 2008 “instrument”, governing bodies must meet at least once each term.

In 2019, as part of its ‘Governors’ Council Code of Good Governance for English Colleges’, the association added: “The board should conduct its affairs as openly and transparently as possible.

“…With the continuing trend for greater transparency and ‘student/customer’ protection, we cannot stress enough the importance of being proactive in providing this assurance if we are to avoid future legislative or regulatory creep.”

College corporations can decide whether to include this requirement in their own rules, but some providers are not abiding by these either.

NCG’s instrument of government states it “shall ensure that a copy of the draft or signed minutes of every meeting of the corporation… shall be placed on the institution’s website, and shall, despite any rules the corporation may make regarding the archiving of such material, remain on its website for a minimum period of 12 months”.

However, it is one of 25 colleges that have not updated their board minutes since 2018.

In addition, all of the archived minutes on NCG’s website are currently without working links.

The most recently available board minutes for four colleges were from 2017.

After being asked why this was so in the case of Chichester College Group, a spokesperson told FE Week: “It is our policy to publish the minutes of our governing body meetings on our group website.

“Unfortunately, the minutes have not been appearing on the site. As soon as this was identified, we were able to rectify this error.”

Many of the published sets of minutes across the colleges were also incomplete.

For example, York College, which has published regular governing body minutes since March 2012 up to July 2019 was missing the minutes from its March 2018 meeting until contacted by FE Week.

A spokesperson for York College described it as an omission which has now been corrected.