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REVIEW OF SCOTLANDS COLLEGES
WORKING GROUP: THE DIFFERENCE COLLEGES MAKE
Minutes of Meeting
held at 2pm on 2nd June 2006
at Scottish Executive, Europa Building, Glasgow
Attendees
John Burt (Chair)
Gerald Wilson, ETLLD-FAED (Secretariat)
Tom Craig, ETLLD-FAED
Col Baird, ETLLD-FAED (Review of Scotland's Colleges Team)
Audrey Robertson, ETLLD-FAED
Colin MacBean, ETLLD-ASD
Karen Corbett, HMIE
Brian Lister, Cumbernauld College
Julie Gilstrap, ASC
John Kemp, SFC
Gordon Rodgers, SQA
Mary Senior, STUC
Gordon MacDougall, Careers Scotland
Lillian Anderson, NUS Scotland
Jacqui Hepburn, Sector Skills Development Agency
Katie Hutton, SEn
Adam Gaines, Equalities Co-ordinating Group
Apologies
Carl Bow, SEn
Christina Potter, Elmwood College
Gordon Craig, SFC
Gordon McBride, SFC
John Duffy, SFC
Sean Stronach, Communities Scotland
1. Chair's Introductions and Apologies
- The Chair welcomed the group and noted that this would be the last meeting at which the group would address its original remit. A later agenda item would address a potential next phase of work for the group.
- The Chair welcomed Gerald Wilson to the group. Gerald was replacing Linda Hall as Secretariat for the group now that Linda had moved to another post in FAED.
- As some attendees were new to the group, the Chair requested that members introduce themselves in turn.
- Apologies were recorded as noted above.
2. Note of Meeting of 31st March 2006 Including Update on Action Points
Note of Meeting
- Page 3 - point 4.3 - It was suggested that not all money from Europe would show up in college accounts since colleges sometimes sub-contracted from organisations which had themselves received European money.
- Page 4 - point 5.3 - phrase 'degree provision' not quite right; perhaps 'degree level; wording to be reconsidered.
Update on Action Points
1. Gordon Craig to contact Martin Kirkwood at SFC for background material concerning college estates. John Burt to provide a contribution as well.
Done. Adam Smith, Lauder and Angus Colleges had also provided evidence.
2. Col to produce a paper detailing the revised remit of the group in respect of providing an evidence base for SR2007.
Done. Paper 13 circulated in advance.
3. Gordon Craig to supply additional information and analysis re college income from "other" sources, in the College Efficiency/Competitiveness paper.
Done.
4. Colin MacBean to re-draft Economic Value paper and circulate to members.
Done.
5. SE Statistician who provided the data, Gordon McBride and possibly others to meet and discuss the SAAS code used to generate the information and review the overall accuracy of the data used in the Economic Paper and final report.
Done.
6. Drafting group (Col, Julie, Karen, Gordon Craig and Gordon McBride) to meet again before next core group meeting on 05/05/06, circulating the final revised document to the main group.
Done.
7. Main group to meet again before end of May to consider the final document and its feedback to the Core Group. Linda to trawl for dates and venue to be confirmed.
As this was not possible, the report was circulated to members for comment.
3. Update on the Review
- Col advised that the Core Group had met in May, when it had considered the draft of 'Unlocking Opportunity'.
- The team hoped to have the review concluded by Spring 2007 before the parliamentary elections took place.
- The progress of the other working groups was summarised as follows:
Accountability and Governance Working Group
- The work of this group had progressed slower than first envisaged. However the group was now back on track and ready to commission research..
Staffing, Learners and Learning Environments Group
- There had been good progress on this group. Hopefully the Core Group would receive SLALE's report on learner representation in time for its next meeting.
- The group was also taking forward the Ministerial recommendations relating to professional development for lecturers
Colleges' Long Term Strategic Future Group
- This group was still in its information gathering stage. Two very successful Open Space Events had been held at the beginning of May,. The team was also having Strategic Dialogue meetings with College Principals and other stakeholders. The work for the development of scenarios would begin in earnest in July.
4. Draft Final Report
- The Chair advised that the report had been seen and considered by the Core Group. Their comments, along with comments from this group, had been reflected in the latest draft.
- This was the first report from any of the working groups and it had been well received. The Chair took the opportunity to thank Col for all the hard work that he had done in getting the document ready.
- Col said it was planned to distribute copies of the current draft of the report to attendees at the following week's ASC conference. He noted that the report would be mentioned in Alan Wilson's speech.
- The report would be headed 'Near Final Draft'. Members of the group were also free to circulate the report as they saw fit.
- Various suggestions were made by members for how the report could be further improved.
Page 54 - Someone who does not know the college sector that is reading this report might not understand what the stats mean, the numbers could be mis-interpreted.
Page 30 - The graph need to be explained more clearly as someone looking at it might wonder why the numbers in the graph are going down.
Page 54 - The dashes are in the table as these stats are not available from colleges. There is also a footnote needed here- these are not in-out statistics. Tables with stats missing could leave a gap. Gordon Rodgers could try and get some unpublished numbers from the SQA.
Destination Data- ASC are currently getting this data. 6 Month catch up - don't have good data on this. Longitude study - sample data rather than anything else.
Last sentence on page 78- is there any way that this could be punchier? Col suggests just taking the last paragraph out.
These suggestions were noted with a view to the finalisation of the document after the ASC conference.
- Col advised that the draft would also be circulated to the other working groups so that it could inform their discussions. He wished to thank John and the group for their excellent work to date.
- It was suggested that the report could be launched at an evening event, perhaps followed by an event with the DFM the next day. Some of the students mentioned in the report could attend. It was also proposed that the report be launched as early as possible so that the case studies remained relevant.
- Brian Lister advised that he was writing an article for Broadcast which covered many of the issues raised in the report. This would be published on the SFEU website.
- It was noted that the Times Educational Supplement had already been expressing an interest in the report.
ACTION POINTS
- FAED to consider members suggestions re finalisation of report after ASC conference.
- Any further comments on report to be e-mailed to Col.
5. Proposed Next Phase of Work for the Group
- Members confirmed that they were delighted for John to continue as Chair during the next phase of the group's work.
- Col spoke to Paper 13 which was circulated in advance. He said that the Spending Review in 2007 was the main driver of the Review. With this in mind, what the Core Group now wished this group to look at was the question of the difference colleges COULD make were further funding made available to the sector. It was up to the group to decide whether it should co-opt other people/organisations help it to address this question more effectively..
- The Chair wondered what sort of timeline was being proposed for this task. Col said that he would be looking for the group to complete its work by December 2006. However, earlier submission would be preferable since the Core Group would be getting reports from all of the other working groups around this time.
- After some discussion, it was agreed to hold an open facilitated workshop as soon as convenient in order to identify pressures and opportunities. The summer period could then be used to write up 'think pieces' which the group had commissioned.
- It was agreed that the workshop should take place on the 3rd July, with lunch being provided at 1pm, and the meeting itself starting at 1.30pm. The venue was agreed as Europa Building, Glasgow and the Reviews Team would source an outside facilitator. Linda Mctavish would also be invited to attend.
- The next regular meeting of the group would take place on Friday 15 September at a Scottish Executive building in either Glasgow or Edinburgh. The start time would be 2pm.
- Col advised that the Strategic Futures Group was planning to summarise its conclusions in terms of the remits of each of the other working groups. This work would then feed in to the other group's discussions.
- It was agreed that all the organisations that had been represented at the previous meetings of the group should still be represented during the new phase of work. Some suggestions were made for other organisations (Directors of Education, FutureSkills Scotland, COSLA) that could contribute to this new phase. Members were invited to e-mail any further suggestions to Col.
- John Kemp undertook to provide a summary of the SFC corporate plan to members.
- It was suggested that FM's recent speech in Stirling might also contain some useful pointers.
ACTION POINTS
- FAED to consider outside facilitator for workshop on 03 July. Linda McTavish also to be invited to attend.
- John Kemp to provide members with summary of corporate plan.
- FAED to circulate FM speech to members.
6. Any Other Business
- No items were raised under this heading.
LIST OF ACTION POINTS
- FAED to take on board members suggestions re finalisation of report after ASC conference.
- Any further comments on report to be e-mailed to Col.
- FAED to arrange outside facilitator for workshop on 03 July. Linda McTavish also to be invited to attend.
- John Kemp to provide members with summary of corporate plan.
- FAED to circulate FM speech to members.
Gerald Wilson
ETLLD-FAED
07 June 2006