Bath Consultancy Group has recently worked very successfully in the further education sector helping colleges improve their leadership to transform performance. We have noticed that teachers are under increasing pressure to make management decisions amidst a policy labyrinth.

Danny Chesterman has been instrumental in raising awareness of the challenges faced by Further Education colleges. He has contributed to Sir Adrian Webb's report on the policy confusions in the FE sector and has recently led a seminar with senior leaders on policy and leadership. Danny draws on his experience working with government departments, local authorities and within three further education colleges in recent months.

The dilemmas faced by politicians and civil servants who are trying to respond to global market pressures at the same time as accommodating local circumstances have led FE to a hugely complex set of policy making bodies and funding streams. Rather than new policies for modernising FE replacing older approaches, they are laid one upon another.

Teachers and managers have to sort out the confusion and must therefore make decisions on which direction to follow - learning, for example, to blend both a market philosophy with a collaborative mind-set.  Teachers at all levels find themselves taking increased responsibility in management decisions, yet having had no professional training...or even expectation...in making such tough choices. The inevitable result is stress, confusion, and inefficiency.

Sir Adrian Webb, who has recently written a powerful critique of the Leitch era, says: "It is FE providers who shoulder a large part of the burden of managing the tension between learner preference, employer demand and economic need."

There are challenges and implications as a result of this complex policy environment at all levels:

• For the FE sector as a whole, they must urgently grasp the window of opportunity afforded by self-regulation. If they do, there is a chance that they may be able to build the government's confidence in the sector, and to earn the autonomy that will enable colleges to take more of a role in setting policy frameworks locally.
• Leaders must devolve decisions throughout the college so that they can concentrate on strategic issues. But they must also develop the capacity amongst teachers for exercising good judgement and decision making in domains which may be quite new to them. They also need to act as a shield between the college and the outside world, providing a clear sense of direction.
• Professional bodies need to consider how they include management, leadership and decision making into their curricula, so that the next generation of teachers are better prepared for the challenges that society places upon them.
• Teachers themselves need to recognise that no-one is going to turn the clock back and that managing complexity is now an integral part of their role...as for many other public service professionals.

Collaboration is one route to coping with policy complexity - the sharing of best practice enables colleges to test and share experience.  But how do you blend this with the need to be vigorously competitive?  And if so, what leadership approaches are required to facilitate this?

Sir Adrian Webb in a recent report on Leadership in Further Education amid policy complexity argues that it's time for the FE community to decide for itself what model of modernisation should be championed by the government and to press vigorously to move in the desired direction.  In the meantime, FE colleges need to support teachers and management to cope with the complexity and adapt leadership approaches accordingly.

If you are interested in finding out more about Bath Consultancy Group's work within the FE sector please contact This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it