The Scottish Government

REVIEW OF SCOTLAND'S COLLEGES

WORKING GROUP: THE DIFFERENCE COLLEGES MAKE

This Document is also available to download as a PDF File

Minutes of Meeting

on Friday 31 March 2006

at Elmwood College

PRESENT

John Burt Angus College, (Chair)

Raaj Bhatti Further & Adult Education Division, (Secretariat)

Col Baird Review of Scotland's Colleges Team

Audrey Robertson Further & Adult Education Division (arrived during item 4)

Colin MacBean Analytical Services Division (arrived during item 3)

Karen Corbett Her majesty's Inspectors of Education (arrived during item 4)

Gordon Craig Scottish Funding Council

Gordon McBride Scottish Funding Council (arrived lunch-time)

Julie Gilstrap Association of Scottish Colleges

Brian Lister Cumbernauld College (left after item 4)

Christina Potter Elmwood College

Adam Gaines Equalities Co-ordinating Group

Mary Senior Scottish Trades Union Congress

Sean Stronach Communities Scotland

APOLOGIES

Linda Hall Further & Adult Education Division

Lilian Anderson National Union of Students Scotland

Lesley Berry Skill Scotland

Jacqui Hepburn Sector Skills Development Agency

Carl Bow Scottish Enterprise

Gordon MacDougall Careers Scotland

Gordon Rodgers Scottish Qualifications Authority

Adam Gaines Equalities Co-ordinating Group

1) Welcome and Introductions

1.1 The Chair thanked Christine and the staff and students of Elmwood College for agreeing to host the meeting.

1.2 Apologies were noted as above.

1.3 The Chair thanked Col for the draft report and confirmed that the intention today was to take this opportunity to discuss it fully within the group, so that Col could produce a final, agreed version of the document. He also invited Col to comment later on the timeline for this work.

2) Minutes of last meetings and action points

2.1 The minutes of the meeting on 1 December 2005 were approved for publication on the ROSCO website.

2.2 Minutes and action points of the meeting on 16 February 2006 were approved with the following observations:

o Action 4: ASC to help liaise with colleges on missing case studies or to look for alternatives.

- Col advised he was still waiting for 3 more case studies, including

one on sustainable development. Gordon C offered to contact Martin

Kirkwood at the Scottish Funding Council, (SFC), to see if he could

provide any useful background information in this respect.

ACTION - Gordon Craig to contact Martin Kirkwood at SFC for

background material concerning college estates.

o Action 5: ASC to check if there is any data available on destinations.

- Julie advised there was no robust data. It was acknowledged that

colleges would have this at a local level but that there was no national collection mechanism. Gordon C suggested we should at least include higher level destinations and suggested that reference should be made to the SFC longitudinal study.

3) Proposed Revised Timescale and Remit of Group

3.1 Col spoke to Paper DCMWG-P11 that had been circulated in advance.

3.2 The final report will be very important in the context of the next Spending Review, SR2007. It should be regarded as a living document. Although it will be used now, we can take advantage of the time between now and SR2007 to refine it further. The Core Group would also like to comment on it and for this group to take those comments on board.

3.3 The Core Group acknowledges this workstream is looking at the "Difference that Colleges Make", but in the context of SR2007, they think the outputs from this group could tie in with the "Long-Term Strategic Futures" Workstream. I.e., in terms of considering what colleges could do over the next 2-3 years, were additional finance available. In doing so, the need for co-ordination with SFC was noted.

3.4 There was some concern that this group should not be making any spending decisions for the sector. Col clarified that the group was not being asked to put forward a bid for SR2007. The Executive is asking all workstreams to gather robust evidence that would help member organisations to put forward their bids for SR2007.

3.5 The potential impact of wider developments concerning European Structural Funds, (ESF), funding and the re-organisation of Scottish Enterprise was acknowledged, and it was suggested that it might be more appropriate to consider these issues then.

3.6 The Chair advised that this new proposal needed to be teased out more and asked Col to produce a paper on this.

ACTION - Col to produce a paper detailing the revised remit of the group in respect of providing an evidence base for SR2007

4) College Efficiency/Competitiveness

4.1 Gordon C spoke to Paper DCMWG-P12 that had been circulated in advance, providing background as to its purpose and the figures that had been used.

4.2 He noted that the consultants had been unable to provide a comparison between Colleges and Higher Education Institutions, (HEIs), but this is something SFC needs to do for their funding review, and it may be useful to reference that future work. The comparison with schools was based on available information.

· 4.3 It was noted that the figure of 12% quoted for the proportion of college income from "other" sources included European funding, but that not all money from Europe would show up in college accounts since colleges are sometimes sub-contracted from organisations which had themselves received European money.

4.4 A view was expressed that some level of comparison between Colleges and HEIs should have been possible, if we take a Higher National Certificate, (HNC) and Higher National Diploma, (HND) as being equivalent respectively, to the first and second years on a university degree.

4.5 There was some doubt as to the accuracy of the formula used in paragraph 17 of the paper to calculate a total cost per student. Using the Elmwood Golf training centre as an example, Christina illustrated that the figures quoted did not reflect all the income that Colleges received nor the expenditure thereof, e.g. the golf course generates income and costs money to maintain. None of those transactions relate specifically to students.

4.6 The difficulties in trying alternative approaches to the formula were acknowledged. Instead, the group agreed a more meaningful approach would be to make a comparison on the basis of value for money indicators e.g. qualifications gained since leaving school, progression on to Higher Education and destinations thereafter, over a period of time. Within reason, could also look at Weighted Student Units of Measurement, (WSUMs) per Full-Time Education, (FTE) staff. It could also prove useful to have a sector comparison with other parts of the UK, although members acknowledged such a study was undertaken in 2001.

4.7 The paper should emphasise that college estates are not necessarily represented by just one campus; there could be a number of learning sites within the community.

4.8 As per point 3.5 above, the potential impact of future changes to ESF funding and Scottish Enterprise should also be acknowledged.

4.9 Overall, it was agreed that Schools, Colleges and HEIs are very different and have different delivery methods. Any sort of reliable comparison between them is very difficult and should be treated with care.

4.9 Col confirmed he would prefer to use the proposed new analysis based on success indicators, WSUMS to FTE staff and wider UK comparison in the final report.

ACTION - Gordon Craig to supply additional information and analysis noted above.

Brian had to leave early and was invited to comment on the Economic Value Paper. He welcomed the paper and wondered if it was possible to make a similar comparison with the Higher Education sector. Colin M explained why this was not practical.

At this point, Christina gave a presentation on a knowledge transfer project in China, whereby Elmwood College had established a number of important links with institutions over there, concerning delivery of certificated courses for the golf industry.

The group then also had an opportunity to meet staff and some international students over lunch, after which the meeting resumed.

5) Economic Value of Colleges

5.1 Colin M spoke to the draft that had been circulated to members electronically and outlined the approach he had taken, resulting in 2 separate values in terms of the net benefit generated by Colleges.

5.2 He also outlined some of the problems encountered and assumptions that had to be made e.g. in determining the qualifications of students on entry to FE.

5.3 The group expressed some concern that the analysis might have excluded large groups of students e.g. day release, new deal, and those on access courses. Also, the focus on courses which lead to an increase in recognised qualification level meant that other categories of student were also excluded, for example if there was no degree level in their area of study, e.g., plumbing, hair-dressing etc. So, the problem occurs where courses do not result in "upskilling", (relatively small problem) and where they don't record a completed award, (more significant problem).The group agreed the paper should explain these issues in more detail.

ACTION - Colin MacBean to amend Economic Value paper and circulate to members.

6) Draft Final Report

6.1 Col spoke to the draft report that had already been circulated to members. A general discussion ensued and a number of observations were made.

6.2 Overall, the group welcomed the inclusion of the case studies and comments from HMIe, although there was a view that there might be too many case studies in the Report. It was also confirmed that those case studies which had been edited for this document, would be published in full, on the RoSco website.

6.3 There was some concern that the document did not read like an evidence based report. Statements made needed to be backed up with the underlying data. But it was also agreed that in the interests of readability, we should avoid putting in too much of the baseline Report. Furthermore, it would be perfectly reasonable to expect recipients to read both reports. So, it was agreed that references could be made to the underlying data, where appropriate.

6.4 Gordon Craig again offered to provide more material in relation to estates and John also agreed to provide a contribution from the college viewpoint.

ACTION - Gordon Craig to contact Martin Kirkwood at SFC for background material concerning college estates. John Burt to provide a contribution as well.

6.5 Finally, the group agreed that the last paragraph should be reversed to end on a more positive note.

6.6 Col invited members to provide further comments via e-mail if they so wished. He could now work on producing the Executive Summary. Taking this forward, the following actions were also agreed:

ACTIONS:

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,

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.

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.

7) AOCB

7.1 The Chair again thanked Christina for her hospitality. There being no further business to discuss, the meeting was brought to a close.

Summary of Action points/->

SUMMARY OF ACTION POINTS:

Raaj K Bhatti

FAED Skills team

7 April 2006