(To download a pdf version of this document click here)
REVIEW OF SCOTLAND 'S COLLEGES STEERING GROUP: COLLEGES' STRATEGIC FUTURE Draft Minutes of Meeting on Monday 14 August 2006 , 2pm at Scottish Funding Council, Donaldson House, Edinburgh |
PRESENT
Laurence Howells Scottish Funding Council, (Chair)
Raaj Bhatti Further & Adult Education Division, (Secretariat)
Col Baird Review of Scotland's Colleges Team
Claire Woodward-Nutt Higher Education Futures and Research Team
Stuart King Futureskills Scotland
Matthew Lancashire National Union of Students Scotland
Bill Wardle James Watt College
Iain MacRobert Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education
Grahame Smith Scottish Trades Union Congress
David Caldwell Universities Scotland
IN ATTENDANCE
Malcolm Hutchinson Consultant
1) Welcome and Introductions
1.1 The Chair welcomed members to the meeting and asked everyone to introduce themselves.
2) Minutes of last meetings and action points
2.1 The minutes of the meeting on 29 June 2006 were approved.
2.2 Progress and comments against action points from that meeting were noted as follows:
Description of Action | Update and comment |
1 | Col to commission background note on Demography. | This is being prepared |
2 | Stuart King to circulate again, information from Future Skills Scotland's employer survey | This was done |
3 | Claire to arrange for her and Lawrence to meet colleagues in the Executives Strategy Unit | This was done and resulted in Malcolm Hutchinson being appointed as a consultant to facilitate the process and Ewan Cameron from the Strategy Unit contributing to the Drivers workshop. |
Description of Action | Update and comment |
4 | Col to produce a background note summarising key messages from Futures work undertaken to date | It was subsequently felt best not to overload workshop participants with too much Information. A summary of the trends paper was circulated instead. |
3) Progress since last meeting
3.1 Papers summarising the outcomes from the breakout sessions at the Drivers workshop and analysing the feedback from the workshop participants had been circulated in advance.
3.2 The response to the workshop was generally positive and it was regarded as being a success. However, some participants would have preferred a longer session and Claire confirmed that the next two workshops were full-day events.
4) Next steps
4.1 Malcolm tabled a paper outlining his proposals for the next stages of this work and circulated this to all present (see annex). The paper attempted to clarify the intended purpose of this work, building on the paper Lawrence had tabled at the last meeting. This will determine the scope and scale of the scenarios to be developed
4.2 Malcolm suggested the team aim for 3 or 4 scenarios, with each one being around 3 to 4 pages in length. He stressed the scenarios were a management tool; the key output being the consideration of the implications of the scenarios.
4.3 The group endorsed the approach outlined in the paper.
4.4 The group concluded that the scenarios should be circulated to the other review workstreams to give them an opportunity to test their findings against a range of plausible futures. It was noted that we would need to agree a form of words, emphasising that they are not cast iron statements of how we see the future, but tools for testing future strategy proposals.
ACTION - Col to suggest to the Core Group that scenarios should be provided to other workstreams around mid-October.
4.5 The group discussed the outcome of the Drivers workshop and whether it should recommend to Working Group members two primary drivers as the basis for developing scenarios. The group concluded that the Reviews Team should invite Working Group members to agree to the use of a driver based around 'demand' and one based around 'delivery'. These terms would be explained more fully in the paper going to the Working Group along with the descriptions of the 'extremes' of the range for the drivers. The group recognised that further discussion may be required by the Steering Group if no consensus emerged.
4.6 Malcolm explained that he would be holding a series of about ten interviews with stakeholders to help inform the development of the scenarios.
ACTION - Members to pass suggestions for interviews to Raaj by 18 August.
4.7 Malcolm suggested that it could be helpful for the October workshop to include a wider membership. This might include, for example, some learners, members of other workstreams, members of the Core Group and those participating in one-to-one strategic interviews.
ACTION - Reviews Team to consider further the invitation list for the October workshop.
4.8 The group endorsed the suggestion that Laurence Howells of the Scottish Funding Council, Iain Ovens of Dundee College and Jacqui Hepburn of the Sector Skills Development Agency be invited to join Malcolm and some officials in the Scottish Executive in a scenario development group.
4.9 Finally, Col advised that the conference to launch "Unlocking Opportunity", the report from the "Difference Colleges Make" workstream, will be held at the Hilton Grosvenor Hotel, Glasgow on 3 October 2006. It is hoped that Deputy First Minister or Deputy Minister for Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning will attend.
4.10 There being no further business to discuss, the meeting was brought to a close.
SUMMARY OF ACTION POINTS:
1) Col to suggest to next Core Group meeting that draft scenarios might be provided to other workstreams around mid October. 2) Members to pass suggestions for interviews to Raaj by 18 August. 3) Reviews Team to consider further the invitation list for the October workshop. |
Reviews Team
August 2006
Annex
Notes to support Steering Group meeting 14th August 2006
Two aspects require discussion and agreement at Steering Group to progress the scenario / futures work
1. Sign off on what the scenarios are to be used for and therefore the depth, scope and scale of the three to four scenarios.
2. An outline timeline for work on the project.
The scenarios and their use
Further discussion is required to establish the actual use of the scenarios we are about to develop. The scale and budget for the project should be borne in mind.
Two possible uses within the present budget and timescale are:
- to share awareness and stimulate thinking across the core stakeholders of the colleges sector within the tertiary education system of a small range of plausible futures and therefore possible strategic business contexts within which colleges will have to plan and deliver. To write up for the report the implications from these scenarios for further strategic thinking and planning.
- to test the outputs and thinking from the other three workstreams of the review against the scenarios developed in this workstream.
A future use of the scenarios might also be the 'robustness' testing of future plans and strategies (one of the more 'traditional' uses of scenarios) arising from the review itself. This however would require further work and would, by definition, have to take place after the conclusion of this stage of ROSCO.
An outline of the work ahead
To ensure compliance with the timeframe of this and the other workstreams' completion it is suggested that the following outline is followed. A more detailed work plan will be developed after today's meeting.
Drivers workshop (concluded 27/7/06)
This workshop has given sufficient background feedback from which the following is proposed;
1. A summary of the core drivers established will be prepared with a short (one or two sentence) narrative describing each and the full feedback from the workshop being sent to every participant. An electronic voting system to be quickly established to facilitate the selection of the top two drivers from which the scenario framework can be developed. This by w/c 5th September.
2. A small, six to seven member, scenario development group established consisting of the project consultant, three from the Executive teams and three from the working group (two names possibly already established). Agreement by 22nd August 2006.
3. Select from core stakeholders and possible 'others' a group of potentially eight to ten interviewees for 1:1 semi-structured interviews to add to existing feedback material (e.g. principals' discussions) for scenario development. Agree dates for interviews weeks commencing 12th and 19th September 2006.
4. Conduct appropriate secondary / desk based research searches and material collation to inform scenarios from now to end September 2006. Principally from within Executive resources and contacts (ASD's). This should include any short think piece papers already in commissioning process.
5. Week commencing 19th September, finalise skeleton scenario frameworks, probably no more than one page bullet point / headlines for each scenario agreed by small scenario development team. Issue these and think piece papers in advance of next planned large workshop.
6. Conduct working group one day workshop on 28th September to develop and deepen each of the scenario storylines.
7. Finalise desk research on scenario inputs and finalise drafting and agreement of the three to four scenarios for issue to stakeholders for familiarisation and discussion at Implications workshop.
8. Prepare and run one-day Implications workshop for working group on 24th October using scenarios.
Possible trigger questions:
- What should we stop doing now in light of the scenarios?
- What should we be doing more of?
- What should we start doing that we've not started or even thought about yet?
9. During November write up the feedback from all workshops and scenario development in time for submission to other ROSCO formal groups and to finalise papers by mid December in time for final submission of workstream outputs and outcomes for February 2007 deadline.
Malcolm Hutchinson
14th August 2006