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Reports of the Workstreams
We principally discharged our remit through the four Working Groups we established - one workstream for each distinct aspect of our remit.
We endorse all the reports of the Review's Working Groups and commend their recommendations to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning.
The costed funding requirements specifically identified by the Review are at Annex G. (Proposed growth in the current levels of college provision was not quantified by the Review.)
This Review is in our view the beginning of an ongoing process that will allow Scotland's colleges to deliver effective and sustainable outcomes for Scotland in the challenging years ahead. Nothing will be achieved in isolation. However, by acting collectively on our recommendations, and doing so in close partnership with the various Review partners, we believe we will be able to move from the good story of Scotland's colleges which we can tell today toward an excellent story in the coming years.
Difference Colleges Make
The Difference Colleges Make workstream was about articulating better what colleges deliver for Scotland.
The Working Group examined the difference that colleges make to learners, the economy and wider society, including conducting a ground-breaking piece of work that put a monetary value on the economic benefit of Scotland's college sector for the first time. The Group also considered what it is about colleges that make that difference.
This work culminated in the Working Group's report Unlocking Opportunity, published in October 2006. That report helped inform the work of the other Review workstreams as well as the Working Group's own next phase, which examined the bigger difference colleges could make over the next few years.
The Group's second report Delivering a Smarter Scotland presents 12 outcomes for Scotland toward which Scotland's colleges, working with key partners, can make a decisive contribution. These are all areas in which colleges can build upon existing activity and expertise. They are:
- Addressing Scotland's NEET Problem;
- Enhancing Vocational Education for Scotland's School Pupils;
- Improving the Flow of Knowledge Between Colleges and Business;
- Building Scotland's Skills Base;
- Developing Scotland's Care and Health Sector Workforce;
- Addressing Disadvantage in Scotland's Most Deprived Communities;
- Developing and Sustaining Scotland's Remote and Rural Communities;
- Delivering English Language Training for Scotland's Inward Migrants;
- Addressing Low Levels of Adult Literacy and Numeracy in Scotland;
- Nourishing Scotland's Culture of Enterprise and Entrepreneurship;
- Developing Community Hubs Across Scotland; and
- Promoting Volunteering Activities in Scotland.
In addition, the following financial pressures were identified by the Working Group that unless relieved could inhibit the future ability of colleges to make as much of a difference as they do now:
- Financial Sustainability;
- Reductions in European Funding;
- Increased Pension Costs; and
- Continued Investment in Estates.
The outcomes identified in the paper reflect the range of what can be achieved by a sector as diverse as our colleges. Clearly these outcomes may require additional future funding. However we would like to emphasise that, by developing as they have, Scotland's colleges have built the partnerships that would enable them to confidently approach such a wide ranging agenda.
Staffing, Learners and Learning Environments
As the Working Group's report Inspiring Achievement outlines, there are really three key elements to successful learning:
- the people who learn, i.e. the learners;
- the people who teach, and support learning and teaching, i.e. the staff; and
- the places where learning occurs, i.e. the learning environments.
The Staffing, Learners and Learning Environments Working Group therefore looked at all of these elements (both individually and collectively).
If we accept that Scotland's colleges have a key role in delivering objectives of national importance, then we must regard college staff as a national asset. Like any other national asset, college staff must be respected, protected and developed appropriately. This requires all staff having adequate opportunities to reflect on their practice, upgrade their skills and gain appropriate qualifications for their professional development. The Working Group makes a range of recommendations designed to achieve this through a partnership between unions, colleges and other key stakeholders including the Scottish Executive. These include:
- all full-time staff in colleges should fulfil, as a minimum expectation, six days of Continuous Professional Development ( CPD) a year, and that colleges should determine and implement appropriate proportionate expectations for part-time, fixed-term and temporary staff; and
- implementation of the recommendations on teacher training for new lecturers be phased over three years, with an estimated average annual cost of approx. £5.2m.3
Many of the recommendations seek specifically to address the challenge of an increasingly diverse mix of students in Scotland's colleges. In particular, the Working Group recommends that colleges must continue to work hard to hear the varied voices of learners and to explore new ways of supporting the representation of learners.
Investment in college estates over recent years has begun to transform perceptions of the college sector, as well as the learning and teaching it delivers. New purpose-built facilities have a fundamental beneficial impact on learners, staff and business interactions with colleges. This, in turn, has helped drive the sector's self-belief and ambition. All over Scotland new buildings are helping to reposition colleges at the centre of development and regeneration initiatives. As a result, the role of the college campus within our communities, towns and cities is being greatly enhanced.
The job of upgrading our college estates is only partially complete with significant further investment necessary to roll out the benefits of improved learning environments across the country. It is important, as we look ahead to such new estates developments, that we draw on what has already worked well within the sector while also seeking out fresh opportunities for collaboration with both public and private sector organisations to produce much more than new college buildings which exist in isolation. Well-designed estates can have far-reaching benefits for whole communities, through the shared use of amenities, such as libraries and leisure centres. The Working Group recommends that capital investment is needed to support maintenance of old estates, new build and refurbishment, and to sustain new estates and refurbished campuses.
The Working Group's recommendations are set out in full at Annex D.
Accountability and Governance
A review of governance and accountability in the college sector was initiated in 2002. When the review was complete in 2003, a further review was promised for two years later to consider the impact of the measures proposed. Two years on, RoSCo provided an opportunity to build on the earlier review within the context of a much wider look at the sector.
When isolated problems arise in individual colleges there is perhaps too much of a temptation to generalise about arrangements in the college sector as a whole. Things will inevitably go wrong in a college at some point - this is true of all institutions. That is not in itself a sign of governance failure. However, we need to be confident that when things do go wrong, they will be put right. We can't wait for a crisis to test whether adequate arrangements are in place. The stakes are too high for learners, college staff and the communities and economies colleges serve. We therefore had to satisfy ourselves that the standard of college governance is commensurate with the high levels of public funds invested in the sector.
College boards must balance working effectively with their college management teams with the need to maintain a strong challenge function. The role of the board, and in particular the chair, in dealing with risk and crisis has been highlighted in a small number of high profile cases in recent years. Such cases are very much the exception. Nevertheless, it is important that, in all cases, boards of management consist of individuals with the skills and motivation required to perform their duties effectively. They must also have sufficient opportunities to draw on the successful experience of others in the sector.
While Scotland's colleges largely operate free from central control, they are far from unaccountable. Indeed, it would be wrong to see them as anything other than beholden to the interests of Scotland's communities and economy. This is reflected in the findings of the Working Group, which clearly demonstrates the importance of clear and strong lines of accountability.
During the course of the Review, the issue of Ministerial powers of intervention came into sharp focus as the Charities Bill was enacted. Ministers in 2006 took the view that, in order to protect the charitable status of colleges, they should relinquish their powers of intervention. Given the success of colleges as autonomous bodies, they felt that this change was unlikely to make any real difference to colleges except in the most extreme cases. However, they advised that the matter would be kept under review. Review partners are agreed that there should be no substantial further change to the powers of statutory or non-statutory intervention in the affairs of colleges.
As part of its work, the Working Group commissioned independent research. The researchers, DTZ Consulting & Research, described and evaluated practice within colleges in the areas identified in the Good Governance Standard for Public Services. They found that " in general, the standard of accountability and governance in Scotland's colleges is good. However, practice has ranged from 'average' to the 'very good' and indeed 'exemplary' in some cases".
The Working Group generally endorsed DTZ's recommendations. In its report Supporting Successful, Accountable Governance, the Working Group makes a number of recommendations designed to enhance the capacity of board members, including improved induction and training, particularly in areas such as financial management and risk assessment; improved succession planning; and that chairs should review the training needs of members. Greater support to staff and student boards members is also specifically identified.
Other recommendations include:
- boards having in place arrangements for evaluating their own performance, including that of individual members, committees and the chair;
- the dissemination of guidance on 'good practice' on matters such as induction and training, risk management, board member engagement, recruitment and succession planning;
- the enhancement of information presented to boards;
- that board members should not be remunerated;
- that boards should continue to appoint their own members; and
- looking at the way the Scottish Funding Council oversees and intervenes with colleges.
The Working Group's recommendations are set out in full in Annex E.
Colleges' Strategic Future
Colleges have evolved as the demands on them have evolved. And those demands will continue to evolve. While we cannot, with any certainty, predict the future for Scotland and its colleges, it is possible to look ahead and draw some sensible conclusions about the sort of attributes that will be important in ensuring we pursue strategies in the short and medium term that will achieve sustainability and effectiveness in the long term.
On the back of extensive discussions involving principals and chairs of colleges and other key stakeholders, the Working Group developed four plausible, realistic and challenging scenarios for how the world may look in 15 years and considered the strategic implications for the college sector. The scenarios were not intended to predict the future, but to provide different strategic contexts within which the colleges might have to respond. This enabled the Group to consider how we can ensure that Scotland's colleges are well placed to meet the challenges they may face in 2021.
In its report Developing Capability: How Our Colleges Can Respond to Future Challenges, the Working Group makes a number of recommendations in five key areas for strategic action which emerged from consideration of the scenarios:
- positioning and role;
- leadership;
- collaboration and partnership;
- responsiveness to learners and employers; and
- modernising learning and teaching.
The Working Group's recommendations include:
- Scotland's colleges, the Scottish Executive and Scottish Funding Council should aspire to make colleges vocational education and training providers of choice for learners and employers;
- Colleges should be regarded as key strategic partners in their communities alongside other local stakeholders; and
- The Scottish Executive should initiate early work to: clarify the positioning and key roles of colleges and other stakeholders with an interest in the tertiary sector; develop regulatory and funding regimes to support this; and strengthen adaptive leadership capacity.
The Group's recommendations are at a deliberately strategic level and are not as detailed as those in the other RoSCo workstreams. Many of the recommendations may have wider relevance beyond the college sector, but the identified issues are critically important to the future capacity of our colleges to meet future challenges and opportunities and deliver success for Scotland.
The Working Group's recommendations are set out in full in Annex F.
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