The role of governing is clearly defined on the majority of College websites. Taking just the first instance, it is to be ‘responsible for guiding and monitoring the strategic direction’ with ‘ultimate legal responsibility for the College's activities’. The tasks of a governing board are also widely presented and, from the same slightly abridged instance, these are to:

• determine the College’s mission, vision and ethos
• approve the annual budget and 3 year financial plan
• ensure solvency, financial probity and safeguarding of assets
• approve retention and achievement targets, raising standards and monitoring academic achievement, and
• set a framework of pay and conditions for all staff

This report is a summation of the data collated from a review of the presentation on the corporate websites of all UK tertiary colleges, sixth form colleges, and adult education services, of the governing board, and for some Adult Learning Services their advisory board. The assessment rubric was in turn built from these 6 details:

1. Members of the Governing Board
2. Minutes of the meeting of the Governing Board
3. Vision, Values/Ethos, and Mission of the Corporation
4. Strategic Plan of the Corporation
5. Contact Information for the Governing Board
6. Report of the External Triennial Review of the Governing Board

Only in Scotland are publication of any of these details compulsory with Scottish Colleges being required to present their External Triennial Reviews online. Otherwise, for all learning providers across the UK this rubric aligns with the forth, fifth and seventh of the voluntary Seven Principles of Public Life, more commonly known as the Nolan Principles. The voluntary nature of exhibiting these principles are detailed in the seventh principle regarding leadership, and the hope is that this project will also 'actively promote and robustly support' these principles:

4. Accountability: Holders of public office must be accountable to the public for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to the scrutiny necessary to ensure this.

5. Openness: Holders of public office must act and take decisions in an open and transparent manner. Information should not be withheld from the public unless there are clear and lawful reasons for so doing.

7. Leadership: Holders of public office must exhibit these principles in their own behaviour. They must actively promote and robustly support the principles and be willing to challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs.

The headline results are that, of the 477 colleges and adult education services, with their own websites (the majority of adult education services do not have their own websites):

• 59 do not publish on their websites any details about the membership of the governing or advisory board
• 141 do not publish on their websites any of the minutes of the meetings of the governing board
• 93 do not publish on the website their vision, values, and mission statement.
• 131 do not publish on the website their strategic plan (this total goes up to 184 inclusive of the many out of date strategic plans), and
• 324 do not publish on the website their triennial external review report.

Admittedly it is a assumption to expect that governing or advisory boards exist or have members and that they meet and that minutes are taken. This assumption continues with the expectation of a corporate vision, values, or mission, or, with the exception of the 53 out of date instances, a strategic plan.

Each of the regulatory authorities publish their own guidance documents and these certainly inform the regional variation in the review data. Two illustrative examples are the absence of any requirement to publish corporate minutes and papers in Wales and the requirement to publish the triennial external review of governance (D.24) in Scotland. There are exceptions to both and, as Simon Hewitt, Principal and CEO of Dundee & Angus College, clarified, non-compliance can actually be caused by the regulatory authority themselves:

You can't publish something that's not signed off.....we had queried some points and those points were accepted. We are now waiting on the final approval to publish.

The 2016 Code of Good Governance for Colleges in Wales very usefully introduces the ‘must and should’ convention:

A ‘must’ is an area of activity which is covered by statute and/or is the minimum expected by the principal regulator and funder. Activities which exceed these basic requirements and represent good or enhanced governance practice are noted as ‘should’.

The 2022 Code of Good Governance for Scotland’s Colleges, also usefully, states unambiguously that exceptions will of course occur but that they need to be:

Rare and must be explained publicly.

Rubric Metrics Selection & Definition

Producing data starts with a generalised exploration of current practice. The sample group includes learning providers both tertiary colleges and adult learning services from across the UK. The instinct is to comprehensiveness but this is restrained by the 1920px table width and 18px font size. Many metrics were excluded for other reasons, such as near universal passes or near universal fails. In contrast one of the benefits of the generalised exploration and methodical testing programme is that innovative outliers present themselves, such as Preston College's 2025-28 Digital Strategy. This benefit extends to identifying the very high quality work product of the sector's agencies, such as the College Development Network's 2025 Digital Skills Development In Scottish Colleges: A Scoping Report.

The six metrics selected are less to do with regulatory compliance and more to do with the good or enhanced governance practice referred to by Colegau Cymru in their Code of Good Governance. Five of them and the prime governance presentation test for the presence on the learning providers' websites, including separate group or multi-academy trust websites. The sixth, contact information, is treated slightly differently and the data is either on the website or is identified from other sources. There are some instances where just the title and email address are listed but no individual is detailed. For many local government adult education services, the contact details are that of the senior manager responsible for governance.

Values & Ethos

The 2025 FE and Sixth-Form College Corporations: Governance Guide explicitly states that the board is ‘responsible for setting the values, culture and tone of your organisation’ and its role is definitively to:

Foster a common culture, shared values and ethos across the organisation

It is for this reason that the rather soft and, for harder nosed colleagues, wishy-washy, vision, values and mission is included as a metric in this review.

Biographical Profiles & Portraits

Continuing a theme of selecting metrics that may seem of secondary importance, the presentation of biographical profiles and portraits of members of the governing board, is actually by far the most important aspect of this review. This is principally because civic life is a tradition only for some. For most participation requires a great deal of detailed exposure and sympathetic familiarisation, and this is without any ambiguity the responsibility of every learning provider.

There is an ideologically oriented argument stating that familiarity with civic life will sow civic strife. Not coincidentally, the same argument was made 150 years ago against the universal provision of education to 5-12 year olds. This certainly could explain the minimal or absent presentation of board members' biographical profiles but then again, my sense is that instead, the cause is simply a lack of familiarity with civic life among senior managers.

Recognition of the value of governors to the learning providers is summed up in the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services & Skills' 2024 Durham Sixth Form Centre's Monitoring Visit Report:

Experienced governors and trustees bring a wealth of relevant experience to their roles. They are passionate about the Durham Sixth Form Centre and play a key role in working with leaders to reflect, review and strategically plan.

A Record of the Business of the Governing Board

It should go without explicitly stating that it is a virtue to make the minutes and papers of the business of a learning provider's governing board available for consideration by all stakeholders. I would have thought that the civic tradition would have been carried across from when colleges were established by local government units before the 1992 Further & Higher Education Act. It is good to read that Further Education Commissioner did respond to a 2025 review by FE Week that showed 106 of 215 colleges had not published any minutes for over 9 months, by calling on colleges to 'publish board minutes'. The closest that any regulatory authority gets to requiring public presentation of minutes and papers is the Information Commissioner's Office's Schools, Universities & Colleges: Accessing Official Information guidance. This succinctly restates the rights that are provided for by the 2020 Freedom of Information Act:

The Freedom of Information Act gives you the right to access official information from public authorities. This includes all publicly funded educational establishments, ranging from state nurseries to universities.
You have the right to request official information, for example about how the establishment is run, policies and procedures including those relating to marks and appeals by letter or email.

In contrast, there is unquestionably a reasonable justification originating from the expense incurred by providing documents in multiple languages. Then again, making access to the minutes and papers of the business of the Board difficult for everybody seems the worst way to comply with equality legislation:

We welcome requests for correspondence in Welsh and will respond without delay. If you require any of the above documentation in Welsh, please email.

Of particular irritation are the handful of instances of invitations to access the minutes and papers of the business of the Board ‘on request’. Here is where I think, despite the protestations in the FE Week article of Martin Sim and Ian Valvona, that ideology is a motivating factor in choosing, in direct contradiction to corporate accessibility statements, to place a barrier in the way of access:

For copies of Minutes of meetings please contact the Clerk to the Corporation.

Minutes of meetings are available on request from the Clerk.

If you would like a copy of the minutes, these can be requested by emailing.

Strategic Plan

Which function of society is more strategic than education? Everything flows from a commitment to optimising educational outcomes and as anchor institutions tertiary and adult education providers provide a critically important role in the strategic planning of all local public, private and third sector institutions. Highlands College defines the primary responsibility of the role of Governor as that of ‘strategic leadership’ and that Governors will:

Contribute to the college’s strategic plan and support the Principal and Senior Leadership Team in delivering quality education aligned with community needs.

The benefits of the macromanagerial function of governance are fully proven and representing the wider interests of stakeholders is a virtue. Ensuring that a learning provider’s full or abridged Strategic Plan is signed off, up to date, and available for consideration by stakeholders is an absolutely vital role of both governors and their supporting staff. This is explicitly stated by the 2026 Guide to Effective Practice in Strategic Planning in Further Education:

Transparency is vital. Organisations should share their strategic plan, supporting strategies, and operating statements so [that] stakeholders understand the organisation’s direction and ambitions. While some details may be commercially sensitive, this can be managed by publishing the full plan internally and providing a shorter executive summary for external audiences.

External Reviews of Governance

The Scottish Funding Council admirably does not truck with ambiguity. Its 2022 Code of Good Governance for Scotland’s Colleges states categorically that an ‘externally facilitated evaluation of its effectiveness every three to five years’ and that the board must:

Send its self-evaluation (including an externally facilitated evaluation) and board development plan (including progress on previous year’s plan) to its funding body and publish them online.

In contrast, the Department for Education’s 2022 External Governance Reviews: Guide for FE College Corporations and Designated Institutions explicitly, if inelegantly, states that ‘transparency and accountability are fundamental to ensuring public trust and confidence in how a charity is run and to the Seven principles of public life’. Less explicitly, and almost directly contradicting the first quote, the Department for Education only recommends that colleges make an ‘overview of the review be available on your organisation’s website’.

In greater contrast, Colegau Cymru’s 2016 Code of Good Governance for Colleges in Wales, makes only a minimal reference to external reviews:

Any review should include an external perspective, for example, by using a suitable external facilitator or a suitably experienced governor and/or clerk from another college.

In the greatest contrast, the Northern Irish Department for Education’s 2025 Guide for Governors of Northern Ireland Further Education Colleges makes no mention at all externally reviewing the governance functions. That said, Colleges in Northern Ireland are defined as Non-Departmental Public Bodies and appointment of the Chair and Officers of their boards is reserved to the devolved Department for Education. It will be interesting to make an FOI request to view the Department’s (triennial?) report documents.

For the three remaining jurisdictions:

Guernsey has an Education Strategy that details the priority of Outstanding Leadership and Governance, and that support for its learning providers is achieved by:

Reviewing and developing appropriate education governance systems for settings and across the States of Guernsey.

Jersey's Highlands College has a Strategic Plan and in it there is a sentence that is the closest the College, or the Children, Young People, Education & Skills Department, comes to mentioning external review of governance:

Deliver a college “approach to change” policy operating at the highest levels of transparency and accountability, ensuring all stakeholders are informed and involved in the decision-making process.

The Isle of Man currently has a full external review underway right now that will provide a review of the effectiveness of governance. Of note, the Manx News article mentions that there is a, in partnership with Guernsey and Jersey, a triennial review that hopefully considerer the effectiveness of all three governing bodies:

Mrs. Caine confirmed it was in the 1990s but noted UCM undergoes a tripartite review every three years with Jersey and Guernsey, which began in 2017.

Responsibilities of boards and governors

Core functions

The core functions of your corporation board include:

• determining or, for Catholic sixth-form colleges, preserving and developing your college’s educational character
• setting and communicating your college’s strategy and goals
• holding executive leaders to account for the educational performance and quality of your college, and for the performance of staff
• exercising effective control to ensure that funds and assets are protected, your organisation remains solvent and legal obligations are met

Six main duties

As a member of the board, you are a governor and a charity trustee. You and your co-governors are collectively responsible for your charity and have 6 main duties under charity law:

1. Ensure your corporation carries out its purpose for the public benefit

You must ensure your corporation carries out the charitable purpose for which it was set up, and no other purpose.

Corporations can operate one or more colleges. Their principal powers include the provision of:

• further and higher education
• secondary education to students aged 14 and over
• goods or services in connection with the above

You should:

• ensure you understand your corporation’s purpose and, with your co-governors, plan how this will be achieved
• understand, and be able to explain, how your corporation benefits the public
• be able to explain how your corporation’s activities support its purpose

2. Comply with your corporation’s governing document and the law

You must:

• comply with charity law and other laws and regulations that apply to your corporation
• comply with your corporation’s instrument and articles of government

Your board can amend your corporation’s instrument and articles in accordance with the procedure set out in that document. But your board must not make changes that:

• cause the corporation to cease to be a charity
• give a personal benefit to a governor, unless this has Charity Commission authority
• cause the instrument and articles to no longer comply with Schedule 4 of the FHEA 1992

3. Act in your corporation’s best interests

You must:

• decide with your co-governors what will best enable your corporation to carry out its purpose
• make balanced and informed decisions with your co-governors
• avoid being in a position where your duty to your corporation conflicts with your personal interests
• not receive any benefit from your corporation, unless this is authorised and is in your corporation’s interests

4. Manage your corporation’s resources responsibly

You must:

• make sure your corporation’s assets are used only to support its purpose
• avoid exposing your corporation to undue risk
• not overcommit your corporation
• take care when investing or borrowing
• comply with any restrictions on spending funds or selling land
• ensure the effective and efficient use of resources

5. Act with reasonable care and skill

You:

• must take reasonable care in governing your corporation, making best use of your skills and experience, and taking appropriate advice when necessary
• should give enough time to your role, including preparing for and participating in meetings

6. Ensure your corporation is accountable

You must comply with accounting and reporting requirements. You should also:

• demonstrate that your corporation complies with the law and is run effectively
• ensure accountability in your corporation, especially where duties or tasks are delegated to staff

For more information on your responsibilities, we strongly recommend that you read The essential trustee Charity Commission guide.

Governing bodies are entrusted with public funds and therefore have a particular duty to observe the highest standards of corporate governance at all times and to ensure they are discharging their duties with due regard for the proper conduct of public business.

The Governing Body is the highest level of decision making in the college and has a responsibility to lead by example. It must act and be seen to act in accordance with the highest standards of propriety at all times. Guiding principles for a Governing Body are, the Governing Body must:

• observe the highest standards of integrity and objectivity in the transaction of all its business, and particularly in the management of funds;
• ensure that the college acts within its proper authority, as delineated by legislation, the Instrument and Articles of Government and the PA;
• wherever possible, follow a policy of openness and transparency;
• be accountable for the activities of the college and for the stewardship of public funds;
• maximise value for money by ensuring that services are delivered in the most effective, efficient and economical way.

Our strategic plan states that we will work to ensure institutions enhance their financial health and good governance.

We must also be able to rely on the whole system of governance, management and conduct of institutions to safeguard funds. It is a condition of grant, with its basis in legislation, that institutions comply with the principles of good governance set out in the Codes of Good Governance for both colleges and universities.

Colegau Cymru promotes strong and effective governance and supports member colleges to meet their legal requirements as public service bodies.

Colleges are public service bodies.

Colleges in Wales are classified as NPISH bodies or more fully they are described as non-profit institution serving households. That is, they are independent corporate bodies engaged mainly in providing services to individuals and the community at large. As these services are delivered free of charge or at prices that are not economically significant, they stand apart from government agencies or local authorities and are not classified as business.

The colleges are also charities but as they are regulated by Welsh Government, they do not appear of the Charity Commission’s register of charities. Colleges are led by a Chief Executive Officer or Principal and governed by a board of governors. The legal basis for much of the work of colleges is set out in the Instrument of Government and the Articles of Government found in The Further Education Corporations (Replacement of Instrument and Articles of Government) (Wales) Order 2006 which also references the other statutes and regulations that determine how colleges operate.

The Further and Higher Education (Governance and Information) (Wales) Act 2014 also sets out specific requirements for colleges and all are signatories to the Colegau Cymru Code of Good Governance for Colleges in Wales which is a framework of best practice for FE governance. Colegau Cymru takes responsibility on behalf of the sector in reviewing and advising on the best practice.

Conclusion

This review of learning provider governance demonstrates that the whole sector presentation of on corporate websites is inconsistent, frequently incomplete, and in many cases falls short of the most basic expectations of transparency and specifically leadership in the education setting. There are certainly many examples of strong practice but overall the data presents a fragmented provision shaped more by the regulatory expectations than by any advanced commitment to both demonstrating and teaching accountability, openness, and leadership.

The contrast between jurisdictions is so instructive. Where requirements are explicit compliance is measurably higher. Where guidance is ambiguous or optional publication becomes sporadic and often entirely deprioritised. This strongly suggests that voluntary alignment with the Seven Principles of Public Life is insufficient on its own to ensure conspicuously high quality of leadership by education managers and governors.

The absence of any details regarding learning providers' board membership, minutes and papers, value statement, strategic plan, and external review, expresses a systemic weakness in how the sector presents itself as publicly accountable educators. It would certainly be useful in achieving the goal of universal sectorwide accountability, were it a goal, if operational reality was the metric instead of the much easier statements of principles.

The review data shows that the barriers to publication are neither technical nor financial, but operational, cultural and quire possibly even ideological. Decisions not to publish, even when they are framed as a simple administrative burden, a procedural delay, or even as an accessibility concern, all result in a reduction of openness, accountability and leadership. The most egregious instances of actively imposed ‘access available on request’ barriers, are just the most explicit demonstrations of the contradiction between a learning provider's operational reality and its publicly stated commitment to accessibility:

• Include accessibility as part of our mission statement.
• Include accessibility throughout our internal policies.

Of the highest importance, leadership by the tertiary and adult education sector on governance transparency should be understood more than a simple compliance exercise. The effective presentation of governance, through the clear articulation of values, of visible and emulatable leadership, routinely accessible records and strategic planning, and full transparency on external scrutiny, serves the widest possible civic function. Familiarising stakeholders, particularly students, with the structures of public decision-making is a benefit to everybody. As part of a holistic effort to optimise educational outcomes, as well as our interrelated outcomes, this is a very quick and straightforward operational development project to undertake.

The findings from this review do seem to suggest a need for both consistency across the UK and an increase in regulatory requirements but this is certainly not conducive to either agency or leadership. The hope is that this type of publicly circulated data induces a Hawthorne Effect among tertiary and adult education managers and governors. Ultimately, role modelling accountability, openness, and leadership is not difficult at all. In fact, the lack of difficulty can certainly be one of the casual issues. Not ‘sweating the small stuff’ can often be counterproductive because working methodically is often less appealing than working reactively. To quote Jessica Gao’s Rick and Morty Pickle Rick script:

The thing about repairing, maintaining, and cleaning is, it's not an adventure.

One final point to make about the subcategory of Adult Learning Services (Adult Community Education ). After separating out the handful of superstars that are headed by the City Literary Institute, there is left a large cohort of learning providers that have no governance presentations on their websites. This extends to also having no value statement or strategic plan.

These services are all funded, managed, and governed, by their respective local government units and the 62 councils that have a separate website have at least achieved this level of service development from the 216 with Adult Learning Services. See the Adult Learning Services tab for the stripped out subcategory data.

Post Script

As of writing there is an ongoing inquiry into adult learning services by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Further Education and Lifelong Learning. In the hope that it can do some good, I will submit this data and report as part of the evidence gathering exercise.

Do let me know if I have missed any entries in the review data. I deeply appreciate any moderation of my ever so human errors. And feel free to ask any questions.

Jed Keenan
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jedkeenan/ | 07950 963069

Governance and scrutiny

It is important that ACE services are rooted in the needs of their communities, which means that local people should be democratically involved in the governance of these services through councillors and other stakeholders. This is the key role of councillors in respect of their council’s ACE service.

Councillors are the equivalent of a further education college board of governors and are responsible, ultimately, for ensuring the service on offer to residents is of high quality and relevant to their needs. Councillors also have a wider role as leaders of their local places and in helping to set the direction of local services.

Different councils take different approaches to governance. More than half (53 per cent) of the services that responded to the HOLEX survey said they were governed and held accountable through the council’s scrutiny committee, while 38 per cent had an advisory board. Despite this mixed approach, it is clear that all councils attach importance to ensuring that their ACE services are democratically accountable to the people they serve.

Councils’ scrutiny and challenge committees play a fundamental role in ensuring ACE funding is well spent, monitoring services and ensuring that learner outcomes are improving. They help councillors understand what the service is for, how service plans are developed and how success is evaluated. They give councillors from different backgrounds the opportunity to make connections and see the wider relevance of ACE. These committees can also bring in other local partners and providers to be scrutinised.

ACE service governance or advisory boards usually comprise a number of councillors, the head of service, and representatives of the private, public and voluntary sectors. Having a breadth of membership adds expertise to the board and creates new opportunities for partnership. These boards do not merely assure the quality of learning in the service – they ensure that the service is meeting local need and engaging in self-evaluation (as well as evaluating sub-contracted providers).

What ‘good’ looks like

Strategic Direction

• A clear vision by council officers and elected leaders for the future of the adult service, providing strong advocates of adult education in their area.
• Effective strategic direction for the service provided by council leaders, the executive member for education and skills, and the community advisory group to ensure that the provision meets local priorities for community improvement and regeneration.
• Continued links between the council’s strategic priorities and the planning of the curriculum supported effectively by the elected council members to ensure that local and national priorities are met.

Accountability and Scrutiny

• In whatever type of arrangement, accountability and challenge roles are clearly articulated and those involved understand their responsibilities.
• Reporting arrangements are thorough and all those involved value the resulting discussions on how the service can improve further.
• In a LA arrangement, elected members and senior officers need to provide a very good level of well-informed and intelligent challenge regarding the quality, success and continued financial viability of the provision.