January 2010

Consultations are about to get underway which could give governors throughout the learning and skills sector far greater say over how they conduct their affairs and handle the strategic leadership of their institutions.
The consultation programme led by the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) in partnership with the Association of Colleges (AoC) has the backing of the government, which says it will endorse recommended changes emerging from consultations provided they are backed by the majority of governors.
The first phase – nationwide consultations over the next three months – follows a major review of learning and skills sector governance in England. Commissioned by LSIS and the AoC, it covered the whole system from further education and sixth form colleges to work-based learning and adult and community learning providers run by local authorities and charities.
The review, carried out in the spring and summer of 2009, shows that while leaders in further education recognise the need to remain accountable to government, they would perform far more effectively if they had greater flexibility and an agreed code of conduct instead of prescriptive regulations.
The report, A Review of Governance and Strategic Leadership in English Further Education, shows how the constant demand for compliance and accountability from government and agencies such as the Learning and Skills Council, has left many providers, particularly colleges, feeling uncertain, over cautious and risk averse. Frustrations felt by governors have been exacerbated by recent capital funding and Train to Gain issues.
Looking in detail at the implications of the proposed move towards shared regulation and the introduction of the machinery of government changes in 2010, the report calls for greater clarity around these and other changes. Failure to address this is likely to lead to ‘a lowering of morale’, particularly among college governors, with consequent implications for recruitment, retention and succession planning.
However, the report also gives the strongest steer to date on how governance could be made more self-directing. Allan Schofield, researcher, editor and co-author of the report, says the current instruments and articles of governance were created to ensure a robust and consistent framework when colleges were incorporated in 1993.
‘Since then, colleges have – for the most part – undertaken their regulatory roles diligently – indeed, the membership changes permitted in 2008 were made in recognition of this growing maturity,’ he says. In work-based and adult learning too, there is a need for reforms to reflect changing times.
The review was headed by a 24-strong steering committee of leaders representing every interest group in the learning and skills sector . Susie Knight, head of governance at LSIS, says: ‘They opened up the whole debate in a very positive way. If I had initial fears that this would be politically difficult, they proved groundless. All the people on the steering group were amazingly supportive and worked really well together, bringing energy, enthusiasm and engagement.’
The review put forward 15 key recommendations including the creation of a code of governance, revised instruments and articles based on the ‘essential core’ (the rest becoming guidance), discretion over remuneration for governors, clearer descriptions of the role of clerk and chair and a range of measures to improve governor development, training and support and the collection and sharing of data on effective membership.
There are specific recommendations for each sub-sector on issues such as local and national accountability and strategic leadership. The review suggests one way forward could be to use a ‘risk-based’ approach, giving greater freedoms to colleges and other providers that show effective governance and leadership.
Nevertheless, the real work is just beginning and final recommendations to government for change would emerge through the wide-spread dissemination of the report and detailed consultation with governors, says Susie Knight. ‘It will be a process of slowly emerging ideas over time, not a once-and-for-all big change but incremental.’
Reaching a consensus may not be easy, says the report. ‘There is no common understanding of effective governance and strategic leadership.’ Instead, there are assumptions arising from many factors. These include the diversity of the system, the different primary purposes of institutions, the history of further education with multiple and changing influences, varying ideas of what constitutes effective governance and all the different forms of accountability to funders, stakeholder groups and regulators.
Also, there is not one single model of governance but three, the report shows. The first, indicative of private providers in work-based learning, is the ‘business’ model – maximising performance and success. The second, to which FE colleges largely correlate, is one of compliance and accountability to multiple agencies such as LSC and Ofsted (with performance criteria often expressed as targets). The third, which characterises local authority education and social services, is governance for representation and democracy.
The three models overlap – ‘circles’ in a Venn diagram forming a complex array of governance arrangements. Sue Lovell, a consultant who advises LSIS on governance issues and member of the steering group, says ‘Look a little deeper and even within each sub sector we find a very diverse range of purposes that makes it difficult to generalise. We seek the Holy Grail of governance, something we can all agree on, but it is probably not to be found in one solution. The grail will be in the acceptance and agreement of a range of approaches.’
Jo Matthew, research project manager and co-author of the report, says ‘There is a clear need for colleges to broaden the focus beyond the compliance model if they are to put more emphasis on localism and ‘place-shaping’ as the government wishes. ‘This calls for colleges to communicate more proactively with their local communities. Governance goes beyond the organisation and relates to the whole community, serving a wider purpose.’
Here again, respondents to the review said the reforms lacked clarity. ‘Information on innovative practice in the area of local engagement and ‘place-shaping’, and the implications for providers, should be collected and disseminated.’
There were strong feelings among governors that they are being placed in a position of exposure to unreasonable risk, and the report agrees. ‘Many college corporations have particular concerns about a perceived threat to their incorporated status arising from greater local authority involvement, and if inappropriately implemented this could have very negative consequences.’
Ron Hill, clerk to Calderdale and Doncaster colleges, carried out a critique of the research and says governors should not be too hung-up on machinery of government. ‘It may be an issue now but go back a few years and it was not. It is just the latest example of how, in an over-regulated FE sector, we are constantly having to try to find space for governance,’ he says. Governance was constantly marginalised by central agencies but now there was a real chance to take greater control.
The urgency here is again spelled out in the review which says: ‘Almost without exception, governors, clerks and chairs responding to this study felt that current funding and regulatory arrangements – particularly of the LSC – were antithetical to effective institutional governance.’
For Brian Godbold, AoC governance development manager, this was a good starting point for change. ‘It’s about putting the ball back in the court of governors to potentially try and shape where they want to go.’ The AoC has 18 regional consultation events from January to March, engaging with all relevant organisations and making sure the voice of the governor is central. ‘If shared regulation is to succeed then this governance venture is the best way of achieving it, ’ he says.