Re: Stockport College Inspection Report

[Bowden Guy]

This, of course, isn't the first time that Stockport College has been judged  to be "inadequate" by Ofsted. The first time was in May 2001. The question I would like to ask is, when they commenced their multimillion pound re-building project' why did they start with spending huge amounts of money on old (albeit very attractive) buildings at the rear of the campus that are now boarded up? The rest of the campus, which must date from the 1950s, has had very little invested it it since the College achieved its independence from local authority control in 1993.

[hollins]

My fault, I know, but I guess we had better ask one of the admins to move this into a separate thread, else there might be some confusion over the relative merit of Aquinas and Stockport College Ofsted reports.

[That's done - Admin]

[Miss C]

Thanks Dave.
You've got to feel sorry for the reasonably new principal. Outstanding to inadequate is some going despite it not being his fault.

[Dave]

The Learning and Skills Council.  The body that funded FE and sixth form colleges until it fell apart and was wound up about three years ago.

[Miss C]

What is LSC? Or who?

[Dave]

The blame was undoubtedly with the LSC, and everybody knows it.  As a direct result of this debacle, the chief executive fell on his sword and the whole organisation was then wound up.  The blame was laid fair and square at their door by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, no less, which described the LSC's handling of its college building programme as 'catastrophic mismanagement'. It resulted in a £2.7 billion debt, with 144 college building contracts having to be terminated abruptly, and leaving many colleges with huge financial penalties for breach of contract with civil engineering companies. 23 colleges found themselves with debts of more than 40% of their annual income, with some facing possible financial collapse (See the Wikipedia link in my previous post).

[Bowden Guy]

There is no point in handing out blame to external agencies, whether it's Ofsted, the LSC or anyone else. The only people who can put right what is wrong with with Stockport College are the governors, managers and staff.

[Dave]

The college has indeed had major financial problems, but Harry's implication that this was the result of incompetence (or worse) by the college is well wide of the mark.  See http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/stockport-college-staff-agree-a-pay-851278    ...which reports accurately on why the college had to write off £4.3 million in abortive costs when the late and unlamented Learning and Skills Council pulled the plug on their capital funding for a new building programme.  And they were not the only college affected - far from it.  The whole sorry story is summarised here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_and_Skills_Council

As a result, they have not got their new buildings, as far as I know, and their demoralised staff had to agree to a pay cut, as a result of the utter incompetence of a government quango.  So along comes another government quango to beat them up about it. 

[Harry]

Since the previous Ofsted they've had massive financial problems (I believe millions went 'missing'), have had to cut a lot of staff, and had major building works. So, the buildings, facilities and teaching staff have changed considerably. Don't always presume it's the examining body that got it wrong.

[Dave]

It's certainly a bad report - you can't get any worse than 4 ('Inadequate') - but the most remarkable thing about it is that the college's grade in the previous report was 1, ('Outstanding').  So in just four years the college has supposedly gone from hero to zero!  Assuming that the buildings, facilities and most of the teaching staff will be the same, it's difficult to believe that they used to be brilliant, but now they are rubbish!   I think it's safe to assume that Ofsted either got it wrong last time (too generous) or this time (too tough). Which is a pretty 'inadequate' performance by Ofsted, I reckon.......

[hollins]

More worrying is the Stockport College Ofsted report: see
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/files/2285369/urn/130512.pdf