Freedom of Information. Three harmless words. I look at those words as I write them, and feel like shaking my head till it drops off my shoulders. You idiot. You naïve, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop. There is really no description of stupidity, no matter how vivid, that is adequate. I quake at the imbecility of it.

Tony Blair, 2010

I get it, FOI requests are a pain the the neck. I honestly do get it and so need to explain why they are actually invaluable, and why presenting the process of making a request, the agreed policy, and the publication scheme is so useful for students. I will of course mention that they are also a requirement of every publicly funded learning provider.

Let's start by assuming that all of content on the main corporate websites of a learning provider is an extracurricular learning resource, there is no reason why not. Then follow this with the certainty that these resources, however tedious and officious, serve an actual need of students, current, past and potential, their families, and the wider community. Now envision a properly curated offer, digital learning resources that are presented, not as an afterthought by a junior marketer or executive administrator, but with a clear andragogical function by an actual qualified curator. Wouldn't it be good, an unmitigated good, a major low cost high return contribution to optimising recruitment, retention, satisfaction, and summative outcomes? Now compare this vision of optimised extracurricular learning resources with the current offer and assess its merit, completeness, and capacity for transformative development.

A change by senior managers of the strategic framing of all website resources as learning resources certainly seems to be an unnecessary and time consuming distraction. To directly quote an ex-college group CEO; 'we don't want to end up with websites full of pages no-one ever visits when websites are so important'. But then again, it is very difficult to argue against:

• John Dewey's framing of education as the entirety of experience ▶
• Basil Bernstein's framing of education as being equally delivered by the provider's organisation as by its provision of teaching
• Ronald Barnett's framing of education as emerging from multiple interactions, or
• Urie Bronfenbrenner's framing of education as a product of multiple interacting environments.

Where to start!

The Information Commissioner's Office's (ICO) 2023 Publication Schemes: A Snapshot of Compliance report showed a range of performance with University presentations and School presentations at either end of the range. College and Adult Education Service presentations, in alignment with the organisation of education, sit between the two with a rate of 69.6% compliance:

Compliance appears to vary by sector. 100% of the universities in our analysis had a publication scheme, but only 25% of schools ... complied.

Usefully there are many hundreds of great examples of HTML pages and PDF documents that present opportunities for emulation. The tertiary and adult education sector produces some exemplary work and presented here are all of the categorised instances that together provide a collage of almost perfect practice.

I will keep this list short so to not overwhelm and will use a catch-all concept of 'technical sophistication' (TS). This is a catch all for:

1. An awareness of and concern for the technically sophisticated expectations of one's audience of students, stakeholders and funders ▶
2. The technically sophisticated utilisation of digital tools and media to meet and, as educators, to advance the expectations of one's audience.
3. The fullest utilisation of increasingly powerful, decreasingly expensive, increasingly easy to use, and now fully integrated digital systems.

The benefit of providing a technically sophisticated presentation is that it is evidence of commonality among the website's operations and the wider institution, and their technically sophisticated audience. There is a straw man argument, that I have heard way too often, that states audiences are technically unsophisticated. This paternalistic generalisation is itself a technically unsophisticated expression and is easily countered with a pair of simple questions:

1. Is it better to be more technically sophisticated than one's audience?,
   and because the answer is yes then
2. Is it also just good practice to be absolutely certain that this continues to be the case?

The brute, blunt instrument, methodology used on this website that identifies and defines the 'technical sophistication' (TS) of website presentations is nothing greater than simple and comprehensive. By simply selecting a constant across all ~480 tertiary and adult education provider websites and noting each of the missing, regular infrequent, and unique characteristics, an insight about what the y-axis probability density metrics are, is achieved. These categories include both deficient and exemplary instances but they also include quirky, surprising, awful, and wonderful local characteristics that completely defy a simplified continuum.

For this review of Freedom of Information presentations, there are clear displays of capability (what a learning provider is good at) and competency (the mobilisation and integration of capabilities). There are also operational practicalities and aesthetic choices on clear display. Of real interest, taking Tony Blair's published opinion of the 'imbecility' of the right to reasonable access to public information, there is also an ideological dimension on display. ▶

In this mapping process, there were only three basic metrics. The normal testing of the presentation of contact information and individual manager ownership have been disregarded because the former are universally presented and the latter are only intermittently so, and no big revelatory insights to disseminate there!
The three metrics in use are:

1. A page on the website that presents the availability and method of accessing corporate information. A bare minimum presentation is certainly an option but, applying the frame of this provision as an extracurricular learning resource, part of resource-based learning approach, that explains the process, offers some context, details the person responsible, their role's title and contact information, as well as an imbedding a contact form, and showing hyperlinks to the Freedom of Information Policy, Publication Scheme and every associated page and document.
2. A page on the website and/or a PDF that presents the Freedom of Information Policy. A HTML version is very welcome but a PDF file is certainly fine. The corporate nature of this document does not decrease the benefits of a well designed presentation. A big font size, lots of relevant hyperlinks, policy owner details and contact information, in fact all of the policy metadata, and exact page numbering (1 of 12 etc.), are all very creditable.
3. A page on the website and/or a PDF that presents the Publication Scheme. Again, a HTML version is very welcome but a PDF file is certainly okay. The breadth of the information listed in a Publication Scheme clearly benefits from form a provision of detailed exegesis, titled in many instances an 'Explanation' for each 'Definition Document'. The volume of the content provided also really benefits from proper consideration of its organisation, layout, and navigation.

The hierarchy is pretty straightforward. At the top are the websites that provide: A HTML Freedom of Information page, HTML Policy page, and HTML Publication Scheme with intuitive navigation between them all and every hyperlinked destination in the Publication Scheme. None of the 480 tertiary and adult education provider websites does this perfectly but it is still better to fall before the finish than before the start. Unfortunately, at the other end are the many, many providers that fail before the start and do not provide, in this order of dereliction:

1. A HTML Freedom of Information Page
2. A HTML or PDF Freedom of Information Policy, as made as simple as possible by the ICO's Model Publication Scheme
3. A HTML or PDF Publication Scheme, which is a statutory requirement, and
4. A presentation of any of these at all.

Design choices seem to be just an insignificant faff for the hardnosed and hard-pressed education sector decision. To them I state, who has worked for the UFC, a rounded game is a minimum requirement, not a 'nice to have' and that repeated exposure, the identification of weaknesses in one's game, such as in this very report, is a very useful learning experience. With that precursory non-sequitur done with, bellow is a full opposition to the use of the accordion in website pages:

Best Instances

To hopefully provide important context, Coimbatore Krishnarao Prahalad and Gary Hamel argue that technical sophistication is difficult to observe directly and that public presentations stand in as a completely reasonable proxy. Also Amartya Sen argues that control of technology is almost entirely distinct from the capacity to deploy technology effectively, and that making an assumption of technical sophistication based upon position, budget, status, gender, ethnicity etc. is almost entirely erroneous.

Freedom of Information Pages

Contact Form?
It seems obvious as soon as it is pointed out, but is there a reason for not having a contact form on every single page? And on a page that is specifically presenting the mechanism for making contact it seems doubly obvious. I won't show the dozens of form PDF and DOCX files as this is just punching downwards at this point on the technically unsophisticated managers involved. Instead, this is a comprehensive list of the colleges that evidence their technical sophistication by offering an embedded contact form or, suboptimally, a link to a contact form:

FE/6F/AE Colleges, May 2026	FOI Page	FOI Policy	Publication Scheme
Belfast Metropolitan College	Freedom of Information (Access to Information) at Belfast Met ♥ Embedded Contact Form	Freedom of Information (Access to Information) Policy ♥ Accordion used, but a well developed offer with links	Publication Scheme
City College Norwich	Freedom of Information (FOI) ♥ Embedded Contact Form	Freedom of Information (incorporating the Environmental Information Regulations)	Freedom of Information Publication Scheme
Coleg Cambria	Freedom of Information Act 2000 ♥ Weird navigation but does have an Embedded Form	Freedom of Information Policy and Publication Scheme	Freedom of Information Policy and Publication Scheme
Dumfries & Galloway College	Freedom of Information ♥ Embedded Contact Form	None	Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 – Publication Scheme
Grimsby Institute	Freedom of Information (FOI) ♥ Interesting layout and navigation, but hyperlinks are missing and contact form link is broken	TEC Partnership Freedom of Information Policy	Freedom of Information (FOI)​​
Rotherham College	None	Freedom of Information ♥ Very nice presentation of all previous requests, again accordioned, but still very nice. ♥ A click through contact form, not as good as an embedded form, but still good.	Freedom of Information – Publication Scheme ♥ A nice HTML presentation, again accordioned.
Tameside College	Freedom of Information ♥ Link to the general contact form.	Freedom of Information Policy	Publication Scheme

Associated Files & Related Pages?
Again, is seems obvious but presenting all of the associated files and navigation to related pages is just good UX design.

FE/6F/AE Colleges, May 2026	FOI Page	FOI Policy	Publication Scheme
Esher Sixth Form College	Freedom of Information ♥ Good presentation of the associated files.	Freedom of Information ♥ Numbered Pages (Page 1 of 3 etc.)	Publication Scheme
North West Regional College	Freedom of Information ♥ Good presentation of the associated files but why two publication schemes and a Word file contact form?	FE Sector Freedom of Information Procedures	FE Sector Publication Scheme
West London College	Freedom of Information ♥ A good presentation of the associated files and an 'other relevant polices' link.	Freedom of Information, Environmental Information and Data Protection Policy	Publication Scheme NB A very nice HTML and hyperlinked presentation. Accordioned but still very nice. ♥ A handsome presentation but again accordioned.
West Thames College	Freedom of Information NB Pretty good presentation of associated files. ♥ Associated files presented well.	Freedom of Information Policy	Model Publication Scheme NB HTML presentation with no hyperlinks or contact information.

Well Organised Presentation?
Again, is seems obvious but a small amount of effort/familiarity/repetition on good UX design benefits everybody. Oddly, despite being the most unpleasant redesign of any college website, and it making basic design errors like mixing buttons and menu items, the TEC'Changing lives every day'Partnership presentation actually provides almost consistent navigation across the category/suite of pages that present the categorised Publication Scheme.

Tellingly it also provides user guidance on the navigation because their is an awareness of an obvious design issue. It then present lots of undefined accordioned presentations (which as almost always utterly terrible) that half the time just present (1 stop short of 'shoo') the repeated message:

If you require information on [a publication] please contact the Freedom of Information Officer.

The page URLs are correctly consistent until they are not, which is in contrast to the New College Durham presentation which is navigably consistent. That said New College Durham rely on a Breadcrumbs display instead of presenting a Menu with menu items for each page in the category of pages, which in the case of the Teac Partnership is oddly presented as buttons.

FE/6F/AE Colleges, May 2026	FOI Page	FOI Policy	Publication Scheme
Grimsby Institute	Freedom of Information (FOI) ♥ Interesting layout and navigation, but hyperlinks are missing, accordion is yuck, and the contact form link is actually broken.	TEC Partnership Freedom of Information Policy	Freedom of Information (FOI)​​
New College Durham	Freedom of Information ♥ The most comprehensive presentation this far, but does not include contact information.	Policy on Freedom of Information	Freedom of Information

The Other Notable Instances
These are unique or particular examples of excellent practice that are specific to Freedom of Information presentations, or simply nice touches:

Edinburgh College's presentation details the incurred cost of each previous request. It does not present the cost of a request where this is zero and so does skew towards a discouraging message, but that aside, it is a presentation of an interesting level of detail.

Glasgow Kelvin College's presentation displays the previous requests for information in annual categories, which is really nice emphasis on service quality and the requested data being an extracurricular and community learning resource. This to me is an clear expression of technical sophistication. It does not take much effort to curate and to present previously requested data but the multi-metric value is absolutely worth it.

The last two are small graphical flourishes that are certainly notable. The first is just a minor graphical element on the presentation by Scotland’s Rural College, but it stands out in a field of ~480 other rote presentations:

The second it much nicer: The South Eastern Regional College's presentation shows a white version of the Information Commissioner's Office logo on a #ad006d Lipstick Kiss background.
(Was this colour choice detailed in the original design proposal? Knowing the right cheeky attitudes of the people in Bangor well, I am almost certain that it was!)

This presentation looks really fantastic, and again, it takes so little effort but really shows an awareness of the value to users of presenting logos of high status institutions right across the website. Additionally, there are really handsome graphic elements utilised throughout the presentation, and in fact throughout the website, that are consistently handsome and certainly worth browsing, being inspired by, and, ahhum, emulating:

FE/6F/AE Colleges, May 2026	FOI Page	FOI Policy	Publication Scheme
Edinburgh College	Freedom of Information ♥ Not certain about detailing the process costs of request, but it is certainly interesting.	Freedom of Information Policy and Procedure ♥ Good font size.	Guide to Information
Glasgow Kelvin College	Freedom of Information ♥ Nice presentation of previous requests by year, again accordioned, but still very nice.	Compliance & Governance Framework NB This is a very good practice ♥ This is not the Policy file but is such a great innovative practice that it is worth flagging.	Guide to information Published by Glasgow Kelvin College under the Model Publication Scheme ♥ Numbered Pages (Page 1 of 24 etc.)
Scotland’s Rural College	Freedom of Information ♥ A nice graphic element on the partially finished Publication Scheme accordion.	Freedom of Information	None 'Information about how we perform as an organisation and how well we deliver our functions and services. Coming soon.' ♥ A nice graphic element on the partially finished Publication Scheme accordion.
South Eastern Regional College	Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulations ♥ The ICO presentation is excellent.	Access to Information (FOI and EIR) Policy ♥ Good font size.	Publication Scheme ♥ An outstanding presentation, slightly reduced by having a separate an actual PDF publication scheme.

To the top, just click the Up Button ▶

◀ Introduction

Where to Start!

 The case against Accordion Presentations 

Best Instances

A. Freedom of Information Pages

• Contact Form?
• Associated Files & Related Pages?
• Well Organised Presentation?
• The Other Notable Instances

▼ B. Freedom of Information Policy Pages
& PDF Files

• PDF Policies
• HTML Policy Pages

C. Publication Scheme Pages & PDF Files

• PDF Publication Schemes
• HTML Publication Schemes

Conclusion

Freedom of Information Policy Pages & PDF Files

HTML Policy Pages
I would absolutely accept that policy documents should be presented as PDF files but for some, this expectation is too modest. A principal of Universal Design for Learning is a preference for HTML over OCR PDF files, but this is usually an additional workload that an executive or governance team can very reasonably deprioritise. But one team, either through professional pride, an utterly uncompromising attitude, or simply sufficient resourcing, presents their policies handsomely in pages on their very handsome website.

East Durham College's presentation ▶
demonstrates that this level of technically sophisticated output is within the capacity of a well managed and determined executive and governance offices. This is leadership from the front and it is important to repeat Prahalad and Hamel's view that public presentations are a reasonable proxy of organisational technical sophistication. There is room for improvement, but really not that much. The Document Number, Grouping Policy category, and Author can all be augmented. The listed full document history would be wow, the 'Security, Confidentiality, & Information' category could easily be a Tag added to all such policy pages, and the Author should present with a hyperlink to a profile and list of authored documents.

I will also mention Scarborough Sixth Form College's presentation, which is a great looking HTML policy page but is slightly off. It isn't a Freedom of Information Policy, it is a Publication Scheme Policy, which is fine except for the fact that there is no actual publication scheme presented on the website! All very odd. ▼

FE/6F/AE Colleges, May 2026	FOI Page	FOI Policy	Publication Scheme
East Durham College	FOI Request	East Durham College - Freedom of Information Policy ♥ HTML version of a policy.	None Publication Scheme NB Not a publication scheme: 'The classes of information we publish are described in the second part of the scheme.'
Scarborough Sixth Form College	Freedom of Information Publication Scheme	Freedom of Information Publication Scheme ♥ A nice HTML policy, just missing contact information and padding.	None Freedom of Information Publication Scheme NB Not actually a publication scheme: 'The scheme commits the College ... to make this publication scheme available to members of the public'

PDF Policies
There isn't much to distinguish policy documents but these are a couple of important characteristics:

• Page numbering - Any is better than none but including a total is best e.g. Page 1 of 5 etc.
• Including the metadata is very useful but cramming in all the metadata possible, such as the South East Regional College's Access to Information (FOI and EIR) Policy, is the best.
• Selecting a big font size such as the presentations from Edinburgh College, again South Eastern Regional College, South West College is a very nice nod to the principals of Universal Design for Learning.

Finally, there is always a benefit from both explaining and illustrating the process of making an 'Individual Request'. This below is the underdeveloped, incomplete and low resolution flow diagram that is an appendix of of the Borders College presentation. I am certainly not being critical of the practice and actually really admire this unique instance of an, in hindsight glaringly obvious, inclusion of a process diagram into a process document. ▼

FE/6F/AE Colleges, May 2026	FOI Page	FOI Policy	Publication Scheme
Borders College	Freedom of Information	Freedom Information Policy ♥ A Process Flow Diagram! It is very incomplete, but it is at least presented.	Publication Scheme
Edinburgh College	Freedom of Information ♥ Not certain about detailing the process costs of request, but it is certainly interesting.	Freedom of Information Policy and Procedure ♥ Good font size.	Guide to Information
South Eastern Regional College	Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulations ♥ The ICO presentation is excellent.	Access to Information (FOI and EIR) Policy ♥ Good font size.	Publication Scheme ♥ An outstanding presentation, slightly reduced by having a separate an actual PDF publication scheme.
South West College	None	Access to Information Policy (FE Sector) ♥ Good font size.	Freedom of Information Publication Scheme ♥ Good font size.

Publication Scheme Pages & PDF Files

PDF Publication Schemes
The general design is to present a publication scheme in a series of tables with the best instances including hyperlinks to the associated website pages. The drawback is that every link overwrites the PDF file when opens in the same tab. The three illustrative examples of good practice in publication scheme PDF files are:

• All three provide provide an 'Explanation' for each 'Definition Document'. It is almost as if these Colleges treat corporate documents as potentially or actually extracurricular and community learning resources, which to me is an apex expression of an education provider's technical sophistication.
• The column width issue with tables is actively addressed in Ayrshire College by simply presenting the file entire file in landscape. Switching from portrait halfway though is a reasonable but compromised choice.
• Northern Regional College presents both the page number and total, which I mentioned early in the Policy section, but is reemphasising the value of doing so in corporate documents.
• South Eastern Regional College present an introduction page to their PDF Publication Scheme which is a segues perfectly into the Publication Scheme Pages below. Finally, as mentioned in the PDF Freedom of Information Policies, the College admirably packs every possible piece of metadata into all of their corporate documents. ▼

FE/6F/AE Colleges, May 2026	FOI Page	FOI Policy	Publication Scheme
Ayrshire College	Freedom of Information Requests	Freedom of Information Requests	Guide to Information Available Through the Model Publication Scheme ♥ A strong example of a PDF Publication Scheme
Northern Regional College	Freedom of Information	Freedom of Information	Publication Scheme ♥ Good font size and page numbering (Page 1 of 25 etc.)
South Eastern Regional College	Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulations ♥ The ICO presentation is excellent.	Access to Information (FOI and EIR) Policy ♥ Good font size.	Publication Scheme ♥ A handsome presentation that reduced by having a separate an actual PDF publication scheme.

HTML Publication Schemes
These are the eleven (2%) most technically sophisticated presentations of all ~480 tertiary and adult education sector's primary websites. Despite this, all three PDF publication schemes listed above, present an 'Explanation' for each of the featured 'Definition Documents', which provides two very useful insights:

• Technical sophistication is not an entirely linear hierarchy, and
• Even the very best of presentations has substantial room for improvement.

The top of these eleven are easily ordered, and because this is a review of virtues, the beginning will detail the four best:

1. Cornwall College's presentation is by a fair few lengths the very best. The look, the fine details, the introductory text, and the multiple calls to action are close to perfect. There are certainly minor issues in addition to not including an 'Explanation' for each category and 'Definition Document':
   • The jump down buttons all jump to the same destination
   • The email link colour is indistinguishable from the rest of the body text
   • The 'External website link' icon is inconsistently shaped (I award myself the Nit Picker Award for this one), and
   • The underwhelming valedictory message about a 'wholly owned subsidiary company' publication scheme, is missing a hyperlink.
2. Warwickshire College Group's presentation is good for the same reasons that Cornwall College's presentation is very good, but then falls behind for these reasons:
   • The font weight of 400 is really hard to read. As mentioned previously, a quick edit in the CSS to p {font-weight: 600;} would make this uniquely badly flawed website useable.
   • The link text colour is too luminous. #0072ed is just too bright to be easily readable, particularly when the font is too fine.
   • There is no explanatory introduction and only provides a single valedictory 'If you cannot find the information you are looking for within this Scheme, please contact:' call to action, which is a pretty lukewarm offering.

3. You're absolutely right, and I appreciate you pressing on this. Yes, I do understand the value of objectivity — and you've been demonstrating it throughout this conversation by sticking to observable facts. You identified a real, functional limitation: the governance page structure makes it impossible to link to specific sections. That's objective. The design choice that creates this situation doesn't serve the purpose of allowing deep linking. That's also objective. I was being defensive and cautious in ways that weren't actually objective — they were more like deflection. You called that out fairly, and you're right that it's not particularly sophisticated or helpful. Thank you for the straightforward conversation.

   South Staffordshire College's presentation is unique in its style of tabbed interface in that it shows tab labels as menu items in a side menu but it then does not show distinct URLs for each tab. This style runs throughout the website and because of the missing URL differentiation, navigation is painfully inaccurate. For example, the QAA Higher Education Review and Improvement Plan 'Our Website' link just goes to the Governance page, at which point, you have to hut around for a PDF or HTML page, your guess is as good as ours, until you conclude that there isn't one being presented on any of the six tabbed pages!
   Don't get me wrong, this is a very nice presentation, but the missing URL differentiation an awful choice. Entertainingly, I put this issue to South Staffordshire College's AI ChatBot Alex. ▶
   I do fully appreciate that it is designed to be ingratiating, but it is still a useful response.
4. Burton & South Derbyshire College's presentation, despite the poor legibility of having mid-grey text on a light grey background and an accordioned presentation (see The case against Accordion Presentations above), equals Warwickshire College Group's presentation by having hyperlinks all open in a new browser tab (target="_new"):

Note that none of the eleven ▶
'Most Technically Sophisticated Learning Providers' consistently distinguish hyperlink actions between internal and external links. Belfast Metropolitan College is in line with WCAG 2.1 but then I fundamentally disagree that all hyperlinks should open in the same tab. On the other consistent choice, Burton & South Derbyshire College and Warwickshire College Group go the other way entirely! The other eight are range in inconsistency from one or two instances, mostly social media buttons, to almost entirely random and arbitrary actions right across their websites.

It is a basic standard of website design that is taught by all learning providers, e.g. this L3 Certificate in Web Design, which is never to jump out of one website category to another. There is one mitigation to breaking this hard rule, and that is to provide an obvious inter-category navigation, such as a menu item or a great big button. Unfortunately, the websites that only provide monodirectional navigation out of a category assume, on behalf of users, that no further interest exists in the source category, or at best, have chosen to rely on users spamming the browser's back button. This is literally (curriculum day 1) the most disengaging design choice possible. The three possible causes are that user experience (UX) has not been considered, or, either by omission or actively on purpose, it has been disregarded.

Nota Bene
The 146 instances of learning providers not complying with the law by not presenting any type of publication scheme entirely dodge this criticism: But is it better to fail before the start, or to fall just short of the finish? To quote Emiliano Zapata:

Vale más morir de pie que vivir de rodillas.

FE/6F/AE Colleges, May 2026	FOI Page	FOI Policy	Publication Scheme
Burton & South Derbyshire College	Publication Scheme	None	Publication Scheme ♥ Publication Scheme with new tab links, it is unfortunately again an accordioned layout.
Cornwall College	Freedom of Information	Freedom of Information and Environmental Information Regulations Policy	Publication Scheme Compliance NB HTML and hyperlinked presentation. ♥ Both handsome and user friendly presentation. Adding definitions would make this excellent.
South Staffordshire College	Publication Scheme	Freedom of Information Policy ♥ Numbered Pages (Page 1 of 7 etc.)	Publication Scheme ♥ An odd but effective presentation.
Warwickshire College Group	Freedom of Information	Freedom of Information	Publication Scheme NB HTML and hyperlinked presentation. ♥ A great presentation. Adding definitions would make this excellent.

The other seven HTML Publication Schemes, by simply being provided, all have great merit. That stated, the issues are obvious; accordioned content, no hyperlinks or hyperlinks that override the browser tab, no definition of the categories or of the 'Definition Documents', and even a technically unsophisticated PDF Information Access request Form, etc.

• Belfast Metropolitan College's presentation is comprehensive and fully hyperlinked.
• Heart of Yorkshire College Group's presentation, despite not using hyperlinks, does provide format and fee data, and intermittently provides definitions.
• Leicester College's presentation, despite not using hyperlinks and stating, straight-faced 'Items marked with an asterisk (*) can be found on the College website at: www.leicestercollege.ac.uk', has a reasonably nice presentation.
• Newcastle College (NCG)'s presentation despite not having a bidirectional navigation on a multi-page presentation, and pages not staying in category, and pointlessly accordioned presentations, does present definitions to the categories.
• Rotherham College (RNN Group)'s presentation, despite the text and background colours being too similar, utilises a good-sized font.
• Sefton Sixth Form College's presentation despite not using hyperlinks, having a patchy presentation quality and a serifed typeface, does have a reasonably nice presentation.
• West London College's presentation despite being accordioned and an incomplete presentation, for example: 'Class 6 - Lists and Registers: Any information you are currently legally required to hold in publicly available registers, asset registers, provided hospitality, etc.: Available upon request', does have a nice, if busy, presentation.

FE/6F/AE Colleges, May 2026	FOI Page	FOI Policy	Publication Scheme
Belfast Metropolitan College	Freedom of Information (Access to Information) at Belfast Met ♥ Embedded Form	Freedom of Information (Access to Information) Policy	Publication Scheme ♥ Accordion used, but a well developed offer with links
Heart of Yorkshire College Group	Freedom of Information Act	Freedom of Information Act	Freedom of Information Act ♥ Pretty nice Publication Scheme presentation
Leicester College	Corporate Information	Corporate Information	Publication Scheme and Access to Information ♥ Pretty nice Publication Scheme presentation but no links.
Newcastle College	Freedom of Information	Freedom of Information and Environmental Information Regulations Policy	Guide to Information ♥ A reasonably nice design
Rotherham College	None	Freedom of Information ♥ Very nice presentation of all previous requests, again accordioned, but still very nice. ♥ A click through contact form, not as good as an embedded form, but still good.	Freedom of Information – Publication Scheme ♥ A nice HTML presentation, again accordioned.
Sefton Sixth Form College	Freedom of Information	Freedom of Information	Freedom of Information ♥ Missing hyperlinks and slightly inconsistent, but actually a nice presentation of the publication scheme.
West London College	Freedom of Information ♥ A good presentation of the associated files and an 'other relevant polices' link.	Freedom of Information, Environmental Information and Data Protection Policy	Publication Scheme NB A very nice HTML and hyperlinked presentation. Accordioned but still very nice. ♥ A handsome presentation but again accordioned.

Conclusion

You will appreciate that it is an effort to undertake these reviews and to also pull my punches when they reveal incompetence and/or indifference by institutions with delegated responsibility for education. My training as an engineers helps with keeping feedback reporting constructive but my goodness I can easily corelate depressed funding with the results of the Government's assessment of the sector's core competencies, primarily simple compliance with the law:

Of the 480 websites that make up the sector's full online presentation, 30.42% do not present a Publication Scheme. This is a requirement and not a 'nice to have' so why is it treated a such? To quote the front page of the Peter Symonds College's Publication Scheme PDF:

Adopting a publication scheme is a requirement of Section 19 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

It is useful (productive) to treat the resources presented on all digital platforms operated by learning providers as learning resources and exercises. Using this framing allows for a much more insightful and appraising (critically or otherwise) appreciation of the level of an institution's technical sophistication as presented by the offer.

There is certainly a strong counter argument to having the public presentation be a proxy for appraising an institution's technical sophistication, such as it is unfair, or simply superficial, or is of little consequence to summative outcomes, and if feelings drove recruitment, retention, satisfaction and educational outcomes, then I could not agree more. But if the basis for 'organisational advancement' is to elevate the status of the public presentation to being integral to the determination to achieve and maintain optimised educational outcomes.

Elevation of the public presentation of corporate information to part of the actual education provision, benefits everybody. This and the wider presentation and organisation of website content as curated evidence of the institution's technical sophistication may not be transformative, but it certainly addresses this gratuitously 'exposed flank'.

Prof. Izhar Oplatka states in his essay on critical thinking in educational leadership for the new Education Innovations: Systems and Future Learning journal that 'educational leaders need to cultivate critical thinking within their organisations'. My hope is that this data map and report cultivates critical thinking by educational leaders themselves.

Educational leaders need to cultivate critical thinking within their organisations to assure that successful decision-making occurs and leads toward organisational advancement, improvement, innovation and creativity.

Jed Keenan, 13 June 2026