The challenges facing further education college governors in England

Hill, Ron; James, Chris; Forrest, Colin

doi:10.1177/0892020616637232

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…To close this aspect of the review, the corporate governance literature pertaining to English Further Education Colleges is now discussed. Several studies have found that non-executive board members of colleges realise that ensuring the financial sustainability of these non-profit (Sala, 2003) institutions is a key governance task (Hill et al, 2016;Masunga;. However, Gleeson (et al, 2011;and Shain, 1999) highlight that a focus upon the control of finance is not always considered to be good governance practice and that boards should give greater attention to the core business of teaching than to financial control.…”

Section: The Intersection Of Corporate Governance and Management Accomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The organisation studied was an English Further Education ('FE') college. FE is an important sector in England, turning over more than £8 billion per annum and training approximately three million people each year (Hill et al, 2016). FE has a vocational focus and is located between statutory schooling and higher education.…”

Section: The Case Study Sector and Organisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As such, this article presents and discusses a board level research project that was conducted at a large English FE college (Hill et al , 2016; Masunga, 2013). An interventionist approach is used (Suomala et al , 2014; Sunding and Odenrick, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Management accounting information and the board meeting of an English further education college

Fletcher

Ridley-Duff

2018

QRAM

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http://shura.shu.ac.uk Management accounting information and the board meeting of an English Further Education college Purpose This paper aims to investigate the intersection between corporate governance and management accounting information within the board meeting of an English Further Education college. Design/methodology/approach The empirical fieldwork uses an interventionist approach. Board members' mental models of a management accounting boundary object are analysed. Findings The paper supports Parker (2007) and Cornforth & Edward's (1999) observation that, within a board meeting, collaborative 'micro-management' type talk is considered to lie outside of the acceptable remit of non-executive and executive board member interaction. Such an attitude can prevent an intertwining of management accounting information and other mental models of an organisation occurring. This can preclude management accounting information from rendering an organisation visible, in an expansive manner, within a boardroom. Research limitations/implications Interventionist researchers working within the black box of the board are encouraged to design more radical and collaborative interventions than the interview/report format used here. Practical implications Non-executive directors might benefit from being offered the opportunity to interact with management accounting information outside of the formal board meeting and committee structure. Originality/value A deeper understanding of how directors' mental models, boardroom behaviours, and attitudes influence their interaction with management accounting information is offered. Insight into the limitations of using management accounting information in the boardroom is developed.

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Section: The Intersection Of Corporate Governance and Management Accomentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Case Study Sector and Organisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Management accounting information and the board meeting of an English further education college

Fletcher

Ridley-Duff

2018

QRAM

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“…This competitive environment, coupled with political and financial uncertainty, steers the practice of college governance towards managing the huge risks, most of which are financial, associated with failing to 'get it right'. Although this threat is very real, in part due to the ever-increasing scrutiny and 'intervention' by the FE Commissioner (Hill, James, and Forrest 2016;J Burke 2018), the changing shape of governance in recent years has nevertheless been to the perceived detriment of those who are working at the 'chalk-face' (Hill 2000;Gleeson, Abbott, and Hill 2011); a shift that has been described as a move from trust to 'mistrust' by Thompson and Wolstencroft (2018). They argue that FE leaders have little say in the direction of their organisations due to heavy-handed political influence over vocational education strategy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distrust by design? Conceptualising the role of trust and distrust in the development of Further Education policy and practice in England

Donovan

2019

Research in Post-Compulsory Education

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where her doctoral research focuses on how trust is socially constructed in Further Education settings; a sector where she was a practitioner for several years. Distrust by Design? Conceptualising the role of Trust and Distrust in the development of Further Education Policy and Practice in EnglandIt would be relatively easy, and with good reason, to assume that social trust is a normatively good value to promote within institutions. Trust encourages cooperation between actors, and thus normalises policies, practices and behaviours that tend to work for the social good of all people, rather than just individuals. To assume all of this would also be to assume that trust should, in aspiration at least, be central to public policy design. However, I argue in this conceptual paper that the competitive landscape of the English Further Education sector in the years since Incorporation does not lend itself to the values of cooperation and social good. The extent to which forced competition has become normalised has made concerns over financial health commonplace around the boardroom in FE Colleges. In this context, perhaps the benefits associated with building and maintaining trust in this context are problematic. Perhaps it is important to consider whether in fact, distrust is fundamental to institutional survival? This paper draws upon three key theoretical concepts from the trust literature to conceptualise how the Further Education policy environment could necessitate measures which enlist organisations and individual actors towards objectives which are increasingly linked to competition, centrally devised standards and institutional survival. In this way, I suggest in this paper that strategies of distrust may be of greater use in the design of institutional policy, as the need to establish control encourages self-interested practices which take primacy over cooperation.

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“…The declining financial health of the FE sector and the recent programme of Government-led area reviews (O’Leary, 2016) has resulted in an increase in the number of mergers across the sector, where two colleges join together for financial or quality reasons. In their work on FE college governance, Hill et al (2016: 79) identify ten key challenges which they consider to be ‘significant, substantial, simultaneous and synergistic’ relating to the turbulent nature of the FE sector, the need to secure improvements in learner outcomes, and the cost of resourcing provision. In addition, employer-led reforms require managers to liaise and network across a wide range of stakeholders.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Process to practice: The evolving role of the academic middle manager in English further education colleges

Wolstencroft

Lloyd

2019

Management in Education

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The English further education sector has undergone significant change since the Further and Higher Education Act (1992) encouraged a culture of entrepreneurship, competition and the use of what was seen as best practice from the commercial sector. This led to a cultural shift and the introduction of many new initiatives – a situation that still exists now. The implementation of these initiatives was often delegated to middle managers – a group of people who occupied the gap between the senior leaders and the lecturers in the classroom. Current austerity measures, restructuring and the shift towards the creation of larger organizations have resulted in reorganizations that could present opportunities for middle managers to participate in the strategic processes and leadership of the organization, further developing their role (Greatbatch and Tate, 2018). The purpose of this article is to investigate the leadership and management aspects of the middle-manager’s role within the context of further education in England. Although many managers in the sector are reluctant to identify as leaders (Briggs, 2006), our research shows that their role has evolved so that they are undertaking a range of activities that could be classified as leadership. We suggest that using ‘practice’ rather than ‘process’ as a descriptor of the role would reframe, identify and bring forward the leadership aspects of what they do. Encouraging a focus on a holistic, practice-based approach, rather than a succession of process-driven tasks, could help managers to perform their role more effectively. Findings taken from interviews with 32 participants and a questionnaire with 302 responses are used to illustrate our argument.

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The challenges facing further education college governors in England

Cited by 9 publications

References 6 publications

Management accounting information and the board meeting of an English further education college

Management accounting information and the board meeting of an English further education college

Distrust by design? Conceptualising the role of trust and distrust in the development of Further Education policy and practice in England

Process to practice: The evolving role of the academic middle manager in English further education colleges

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