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Chapter 1: Introduction
The Review of Scotland's Colleges ( RoSCO) was launched by the then Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning on 10 June 2005. Four main workstreams were established to take forward the Review and these were overseen by a Core Group chaired by Mark Batho, the head of the Scottish Executive's Lifelong Learning Group. The four working groups that the Reviews Team established were:
1. The Difference Colleges Make
2. Colleges' Strategic Futures
3. Accountability and Governance
4. Staffing, Learners and Learning Environments ( SLALE)
The timescale of the Review was determined by the desire to feed recommendations into the next Scottish Executive Spending Review. For this reason, the working groups were asked to produce their final reports, containing their key recommendations, by the end of January 2007. This is the report of the Staffing, Learners and Learning Environments working group, also known as SLALE.
The working groups consisted of a range of members representing what the Core Group considered to be the main stakeholder interests within that particular field. Secretariat support was provided by members of the Scottish Executive's Further and Adult Education Division, while the Chairmanship was spread across the key stakeholder bodies/interests in the sector. In the case of SLALE, the Chairmanship was shared between the Scottish Trades Union Congress ( STUC) and the National Union of Students ( NUS) Scotland. The full membership of SLALE is described at Annex A of this report.
As the title suggests, the SLALE group had a very broad remit to consider. It was therefore decided early on to establish a SLALE Sub-group on the Professional Development of Staff ( Annex B sets out the full remit of both groups). This group, which mainly consisted of members of the main working group, typically met on the same day as SLALE and considered all of the aspects of the group's remit which fell under the 'Staffing' heading. This included the Ministerially-agreed recommendations arising from the Scottish Executive's 2004 consultation on 'The Need for a Professional Body for Staff in Scotland's Colleges'. The findings of the Sub-group were ultimately brought back to the main working group for inclusion in this final report.
The main group met 15 times between 24 August '05 and 30 January '07 while the Sub-group met eight times between 12 January '06 and 14 December '06. In addition, there were a number of special meetings convened to look at particular issues, such as the need for additional research or the shape of the final report. Frequently, meetings of SLALE began with a presentation, either from a member of the group or from someone involved in relevant work within the sector. This was helpful both in terms of setting the context for meetings and of making members aware of recent developments that might impact on their discussions. All of the papers, minutes and presentations from SLALE and its Sub-group are available to download from the RoSCO website 1.
In conclusion, we commend our report on Staffing, Learners and Learning Environments for Scotland's colleges to the Core Group for the Review of Scotland's Colleges, to Scottish Ministers, and to the college sector itself. We would also like to take this opportunity to offer our sincere thanks to the many people and organisations who have assisted us in our labours.
The members of SLALE
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