Inspired choice for practical partners

Merger mania in Hertfordshire has proved perfectly timed, Maggie Richards discovers. College inspectors touring a further education campus in Hertfordshire recently canvassed one of the staff for his views of the pace of change.

"More has happened in this college in the past three years than had taken place in the past 30," came the response.

John Evans, principal of Hertford Regional College endorses these sentiments, but looks back on this brief period of upheaval and of unprecedented change without regret.

Hertfordshire begun the 1990s with a disparate array of 11 small, local and specialised further education institutions. Now, barely halfway through the decade, its further education provision has changed out of all recognition.

From a merger process begun by the local education authority in the late 1980s have sprung four larger and stronger further education institutions - each judging itself far better equipped to deal with the newly instituted funding regime and more confident about tackling future developments.

The new-found stability of the four Hertfordshire colleges also confirms last year's findings by management consultants KPMG that larger institutions are far better placed to survive in the new further education world, adding some material evidence to the KPMG prediction that up to 100 smaller colleges may be at risk as pressure mounts to cut costs and increase student numbers.

Mr Evans was principal of one of the original 11 Herts colleges - and the only head of a former institution to emerge unscathed from the merger process in 1992. Previously head of a local college with a little more than 2,000 FTE students, he now heads, at Hertford Regional College, an institution with a student population of some 5,000 FTEs.

Mr Evans and his fellow principals in Herts acknowledge that the amalgamations, coming ahead of incorporation, were fortuitous.

Though the Hertfordshire education authority had no means of anticipating incorporation, it had divined some of the major trends which would affect the pattern of further education in the 1990s - perceiving that further education would need to grow within an increasingly tight budgetary framework and with the likelihood of student target numbers being set.

In setting out its framework for the new colleges of the 1990s, Herts identified five main criteria necessary for success: l A sufficiently large team of academic and support staff to provide a complete range of expertise.

l A broad range of work to enable students to gain the full breadth of experience from their studies.

l Sufficient numbers of students to enable the development of specialist courses which could be run economically and effectively.

l A substantial and stable resource base - enabling each college to support expenditure on modern equipment, provide flexibility, and the ability to plan ahead.

l Maximum levels of devolution.

In addition the criteria emphasised the need for the continuation of the "local" nature of some aspects of further education in Hertfordshire - notably non-vocational provision and general education courses, which would still need to be available within walking distance.

Ten of the further education institutions merged in 1992 to become the four new institutions. One of the previous specialist institutions, the county's former college of art and design, was subsumed within the University of Hertfordshire.

The mergers - which were "timely and inspirational" according to one of the Herts principals - did enable each of the four new colleges to enter the era of incorporation on a financially sound footing, already fashioned to accommodate a funding system based on student numbers.

For the two largest colleges - South West Herts, and Oaklands College in mid-Herts - the task of transformation was a more complex one. Now among the largest colleges in the country, Oaklands has a student population of 8,700 FTEs, and South West Herts has just over 6,000 FTEs - 1,100 of them involving higher education studies.

At South West Herts, where the new college emerged from the amalgamation of a college of technology with two smaller local further education institutions, initial rationalisation included combining three departments of business studies into one, and the merger of two engineering departments. As well as departmental and staffing restructuring, the college has been endeavouring to address its accommodation problems, and attempting to make the best use of its various sites.

Oaklands experienced similar problems - a major issue for the college has been to co-ordinate the activities of some 2,000 staff located on a total of 17 sites. Oaklands has opted for a structure whereby a "campus director" is responsible for each of the college's four main sites, and supervises a number of additional "satellite" locations.

Oaklands provides an example of how a college can benefit from economies of scale. It had inherited a sizeable building and construction department (originally a small specialist college in its own right). Despite the severe downturn in the fortunes of the construction industry, Oaklands has managed to retain this specialism, but believes that the programme would probably have been sacrificed in a smaller institution.

As the recession has begun to ease, the college has found the demand for construction skills beginning to revive, and its courses are once again in demand.

For each of the newly established Herts colleges incorporation has presented opportunities for development - albeit under more rigorous financial management structures than had existed previously.

At Hertford Regional there is a firm belief that the changes have been positive, enabling the college to develop its student support systems, as well as creating a new institutional climate.

The college now offers pre-entry advice and ensures that each new student enrols and progresses with the aid of a "learning agreement", drawn up between the individual student and course tutor. "It is incorporation which has enabled us to put into place the resources and support for students, and which makes the learning experience more effective," declares the principal.

Via the college's strategic plan all staff are made aware of their own responsibility for curriculum development, with each discipline drafting a development plan linked into the overall strategic policy.

Within this framework the college now emphasises to staff that target setting and target achievement are of vital importance. "Staff realise all our futures now depend upon it," says Mr Evans.

"The old days of the LEA pulling a college out of trouble are over . . . we have to offer a business approach, and target setting is very much a part of that process."

The requirement to plan on a strategic basis is also one that each of the colleges recognises as a beneficial element of incorporation.

In northern Hertfordshire industrial giant Glaxo is constructing the largest pharmaceutical plant in Europe - and, as a consequence, the local North Herts College is adapting its course provision accordingly.

The college's principal, Roger Gochin, instances this as an example of how the larger institution can use systematic planning to adapt its provision.

"Because of both amalgamation and incorporation the 'menu' we can now offer students is greater, and offers more diverse opportunities.

"Previously it was just not possible to plan on a systematic basis - and this is not a criticism of the l.e.a - the structure was just not able to cope."

Incorporation has given colleges such as North Herts a sense of financial freedom of action - and the ability to engage in larger spending projects. The college has embarked on a Pounds 1.5 million building programme at its Stevenage campus - financed from its own efficiency gains.

Under previous local authority control it would not have had the financial independence to direct savings back into its own coffers.

Each of the four new colleges now face the future with a measure of confidence, anticipating that their size and financial independence will enable them to cope with the changes which lie ahead.

Already in Hertfordshire there is an expectation that the next few years are likely to bring dramatic changes in the use of technology. The development and more widespread use of interactive multimedia, it is anticipated, will not only place a financial burden on institutions, but will also challenge orthodoxies about teaching and teaching practice in further education.

As one principal concluded: "The biggest benefit of all the changes is the sheer scale - giving us that vital ability to shift resources around the system, and adapt to the condition of the market as it changes."