By accident or design: Is our system of - CfBT

perspective 

By accident or design 

is our system of post-16 provision fit for purpose? 

Mick Fletcher and Adrian Perry

Welcome to cfBt education trust 

About the Authors 

CfBT Education Trust is a leading charity 

providing education services for public benefit 

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A former College Principal, Adrian Perry 

has worked as a consultant since 2003 on a 

number of educational policy projects. He is 

a former TEC and LSC Board member and 

currently Senior Visiting Fellow at the University 

of Sheffield. He was appointed OBE in 2002, 

and holds an honorary doctorate from the 

University of London South Bank. 

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© CfBT copyright June 2008 

All rights reserved 

Mick Fletcher led research on the planning 

and funding of post-14 learning at the former 

Learning and Skills Development Agency. 

He is now an independent consultant. Mick 

wrote Raising the Leaving age to 18: Symbol 

or Substance? with Mark Corney and Geoff 

Stanton – also published by CfBT as part of 

the Perspective series.



contents 

www.cfbt.com 3 

Preface 4 

Executive Summary 5 

1. Introduction – what’s the issue? 7 

2. What systems do we currently have? 11 

3. How good are the current systems? 17 

4. Can partnership help? 29 

5. Can mergers help? 36 

6. Conclusions 45 

7. Recommendations 47 

8. Appendices and sources 48 

Appendix 1 Interviewees and readers 49 

Appendix 2 Reading and sources 50 

Appendix 3 Partnership analysis questionnaire 52 

Appendix 4 Questionnaire for interviewees 54

preface 

The UK educational system is characterised 

by what some commentators have called 

‘policy busyness’ – a constant churn of 

reviews, of white and green papers and 

new requirements for ‘step changes’ in 

performance and the ‘transformation’ of 

institutions. We now seem to have major 

legislation affecting the post-16 sector 

appearing more than once per year. Whether 

the benefits of such constant ‘reform’ 

outweigh the turbulence and disruption 

experienced by the sector is an issue for 

another paper; it is important, however, 

to note here that publishing a paper on 

education policy is akin to stepping into a 

fast moving river. By the time that many busy 

people come to read it, some elements of 

the existing landscape will have changed and 

some new debates will have arisen. 

This paper was written in April 2008, and it 

therefore draws on material published until 

the end of March of that year. We hope that 

it will contribute to the discussion of the 

government’s current proposals for reforms to 

the planning and funding of the FE system as 

set out in the Machinery of Government White 

Paper; to discussion of the response in Wales 

to the proposals of the Webb Review; and to 

the continuing debates about the development 




of school academies and ‘presumption’ sixth 

forms. We hope also that it will contribute 

to debates as yet unframed by the political 

fashion of the moment, since we pose a simple 

but fundamental question – what pattern of 

institutional arrangements best meets the 

needs of all learners in an area. 

In a different context a distinguished 

economist once observed that, ‘the United 

States deserves a tax system that looks as if 

someone designed it on purpose’. Our view 

is that England similarly deserves a post-16 

system that is the product of conscious 

design. The questions that need to be asked 

of whatever initiative is currently before us, 

is whether it will help shape our institutional 

arrangements in a way that maximises the 

opportunities for all learners, and draw on the 

growing evidence that some ways of doing 

things are better than others. The experience 

of the past decades has shown clearly that 

the ‘hidden hand’ of the market does not 

produce either social justice or economic 

efficiency in this context. We need to find a 

way to do better. 

Adrian Perry 

Mick Fletcher



executive summary 

Tidy patterns 

are rare and 

becoming rarer … 

government policy 

is complicating 

the picture. 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

1. This paper aims to stimulate thinking 

about the structural arrangements for 

post-16 education, primarily in England. 

It is based on published and unpublished 

research papers, interviews with a 

range of stakeholders and experience 

gained from consultancy commissions 

undertaken by the authors. 

2. There is a ferment of activity for the 16–18 

age group at the moment, including 

curriculum reform, raising the leaving age, 

establishing new institutions, PSA targets, 

apprenticeship initiatives and maintenance 

awards. However there is little attention 

paid to the pattern of organisations serving 

the cohort, and those who might have 

responsibility for its design – the LSC and 

local authorities – seem disempowered. 

3. The structures and systems for post-16 

education vary greatly throughout the 

country. To understand the workings of 

each area requires not just a look at the 

names and nature of institutions, but the 

patterns of recruitment. ‘Tidy’ patterns – 

particularly of tertiary colleges, or clear 

division between sixth form college and 

general further education – are rare and 

becoming rarer. The paper proposes a 

new typology of local systems. 

4. Government policy is complicating the 

post-16 picture. The encouragement 

of new sixth form provision via the 

‘presumption’ and ‘academy’ routes 

is making the local scene ever more 

complex, and new patterns of partnership 

working can blur responsibilities. There is 

an unresolved tension between pressures 

to compete and exhortations to co-operate. 

5. We argue that there needs to be a clear 

focus on the performance of the whole of a 

local area, as well as the existing emphasis 

on individual institutional performance. 

The two can often be in conflict, and make 

common working difficult. We suggest that 

more attention should be paid to assessing 

the strengths and weaknesses of different 

systems before launching new provision 

and institutions. 


6. In reaching a judgement about which 

pattern of provision might be ‘the best’ 

we feel it is essential to focus on the full 

range of learners who live in an area. It is 

possible for all institutions in an area to be 

excellent but for some people to lose out. 

7. Section 3 reviews what is known about 

system performance. We consider work 

by NFER which adjusts local performance 

for social class and attainment. This 

suggests that post-16 participation is 

poorer in areas with 11–18 schools, 

particularly for low attaining young people. 

Other things being equal the average 

young person is between two and five 

percentage points less likely to stay in 

education or training if their school has a 

sixth form; an impact equal to the effect of 

the £500 million spent on EMAs. 

8. There is also evidence that competing 

institutions lead to social segregation. 

School sixth forms in particular tend not 

to recruit disadvantaged or low attaining 

students; and there is evidence that 

segregated institutions rapidly become 

unequal institutions. 

9. Comparisons of quality between 

institutions tend to be based around 

A-levels, or full time level 3 courses. Here, 

sixth form colleges perform best, with 

schools next and further education next: 

however, this hierarchy almost disappears 

when prior attainment is equalised. There 

is strong evidence from a number of 

sources that small sixth forms provide 

poor value for money. 

10. The paper briefly considers whether 

competition and choice offer a route to 

greater quality, and quotes evidence 

– both academic from the Centre for 

Economics of Education, and from 

scrutiny of inspection results – that 

concludes that it does not. Clear roles 

do seem to have a positive effect, but 

specialisation in colleges, on its own, does 

not appear to raise quality.

11. We then go on to see whether partnership 

can help reconcile the interests of 

individual institutions with the general 

good. It looks at research, and quotes 

from interviews, to suggest that we cannot 

yet be confident that it will. Much research 

is based around process or organisational 

links, rather than student opportunity. 

12. We suggest a four-fold typology of 

partnerships that might be effective in 

analysing local chances of success, and 

notes some local examples where diploma 

partnerships have sought new ways of 

working. The need for success measures 

for partnership based on student 

outcomes, not organisational benefits, 

is stressed. 

13. Section 5 asks whether larger scale FE 

organisations might help. It notes that 

much of merger activity is either crisis 

driven – from financial or inspection 

problems – or is defensive in character, 

but nevertheless concludes that larger 

institutions are more financially stable and 

offer better quality. There are advantages 

in colleges which are large enough – 

whether by growth or merger – to make 

the local agenda of education and seize a 

greater regional role. 

14. The paper concludes that there is clear 

evidence that some forms of organisation 

are less effective than others and that the 

current direction of policy is one that will 

lead to lower participation, poorer pass 

rates and higher cost. It is also likely to 

undermine the government’s ambition to 

increase participation in learning to age 18 

to 100%. 

15. What is needed is a more assertive 

management of local capacity. We 

welcome the Welsh approach which 

looked at the totality of post-16 provision 

before making recommendations about 

the role of FE. We look to stronger local 

management of the system, a halt to 

disruptive central initiatives, work on sub 

regional and area performance indicators, 

and a new post-16 admissions protocol to 

match those at 11 and 18. 




16. Further research on the influence of local 

structures on participation and success 

rates is needed so that reform is based on 

evidence rather than anecdote or fashion. 

17. We recommend that: 

• DCSF and DIUS work together to 

strengthen the powers of local authorities 

to create a managed tertiary system 

in their areas. This should not involve 

detailed intervention in the inner workings 

of schools and colleges, nor any attempt 

to corral students into ‘their’ area, 

but there must be someone who can 

determine the character of institutions 

and their place in the local system, and 

be accountable for local results. 

• DCSF should withdraw the sixth 

form ‘presumption’ that is already 

undermining the coherence of local 

patterns of provision and risks reducing 

both quality and efficiency. It should 

allow the development of academies 

without sixth forms as part of local 

tertiary or sixth form college systems. 

• DCSF and DIUS should jointly 

commission work to develop and 

implement performance indicators 

that assess the performance of the 

whole local system of education and 

training rather than the performance of 

individual institutions. 

• DCSF and DIUS should develop a 

protocol to cover admissions at 16 to 

stand alongside those at 11 and that 

administered by OFFA at university level. 

• Research should be commissioned to 

build on the NFER studies carried out 

for LSDA in order both to strengthen the 

evidence on the impact of structures 

on participation and to investigate the 

impact on participation and achievement. 

• Work should be commissioned to 

provide a more accurate identification of 

which colleges and areas are genuinely 

tertiary to support further research 

and analysis..



section 1: introduction – what’s the issue? 

…all this is 

happening without 

a serious look at the 

system of delivery 

that actually has 

to do the job… 

1.1 This paper is intended to stimulate thinking 

about the best ways of organising post-16 

education and training. At the moment 1 , there 

is – in England 2 at least – a ferment of debate 

and initiatives about the provision for this age 

group. A new qualification – the Diploma – is to 

be introduced progressively from September 

2008 with plans for local delivery via institutional 

partnerships. The government has tabled 

legislation to raise the age at which young 

people can leave formal learning to 18. A major 

increase in apprenticeships is planned, driven 

through by a new national body. Education 

Maintenance Awards, costing millions, have 

been deployed to raise post-16 participation. 

Funding for 16–19 studies is being transferred 

from a single national body to local authorities. 

Targets are set for level 2, level 3 and higher 

education entry. 

1.2 Yet all this is happening without a serious 

look at the system of delivery that actually has 

to do the job – a system which, we shall argue, 

is under increasing strain. This paper calls for 

an explicit view on the structural arrangements 

for 14–19 education, and particularly for the 

16–18 age group. To be fair, the Secretary 

of State for the Department of Innovation, 

Universities and Skills (DIUS) has announced a 

review of the role of further education colleges. 

This is to be welcomed, but is flawed by being 

partial in the way it looks at FE colleges without 

the other players. A better approach, in our 

view, would be to adopt the line taken by the 

Webb Report 3 into the whole further education 

world of Wales: here, a forceful analysis results 

from the decision to take a holistic view of 

institutions, curriculum and organisation. 

1.3 This paper is addressed to headteachers 

and college principals, to local authorities and 

learning and skills councils, to senior staff in 

the two departments of state concerned with 

post-14 learning (DIUS and the Department 

‘‘ ‘‘ 


for Children, Schools and Families – DCSF) 

and to the wider policy community – those 

who comment, advise and consult on this 

sector. The paper has to address a wide 

audience because there is no one body 

responsible for deciding the overall shape of 

local arrangements; and in that simple fact 

is its rationale. We believe that some ways of 

organising provision are likely to prove better 

than others, but they are unlikely to arise 

spontaneously from the interplay of different 

stakeholders following their own partial 

interests. Someone needs to examine the 

evidence and lead change. 

1.4 Leading change is currently difficult 

because the UK – and especially England 

– has many different local systems. Inside 

those systems, schools and colleges have 

considerable autonomy and can to a large 

extent shape their own future. Attempts to plan 

on an area basis – whether the earlier tertiary 

plans of local authorities or those arising 

from the Strategic Area Reviews (StARs) that 

followed the Success For All White Paper – 

have petered out. It is true that some areas 

have had post-16 competitions to choose 

providers of new post-16 provision, and some 

new institutions have been established 4 , but 

this has been a limited exercise to fill gaps. 

Local authorities are now to have strategic 

responsibility for education, at least up to the 

age of 19, but they lack the powers needed to 

impose coherence. Formerly, the position was 

that education authorities had powers under 

sections 28 and 29 of the School Standards 

and Framework Act 1998 to publish statutory 

proposals to establish or discontinue schools 

with sixth forms, including 16–19 schools, and 

to make changes to schools – for example 

they could propose to add or close a school 

sixth form. In practice they tended to restrict 

themselves to orchestrating collaborations of 

varying effectiveness. 

1 In view of the pace of change, it is worth recording that this paper was written in April 2008. 

2 The paper refers primarily to policy and practice in England; where it refers to other countries of the UK this is 

specifically noted. 

3 Promise and Performance: The Report of the Independent Review of the Mission and Purpose of Further Education 

in Wales in the context of the Learning Country – vision into action December 2007 

4 For example, sixth form colleges in Sheffield and Hackney

‘‘ 

…a collection 

of separate bits 

and pieces is 

not a system… 

‘‘ 

1.5 To further complicate matters, many 

of the actions of central government – the 

introduction of academies for example or the 

sixth form presumption – act to break down 

rather than build coherent local systems. 

Indeed, this is just the latest example of the 

ways in which institutional decisions can work 

against coherence of provision: another is found 

in the powerful incentives that drive schools 

and colleges to achieve the best inspection 

or league table scores, or maintain funding by 

maintaining numbers on roll. We shall see a 

number of these unintended consequences as 

we look at the organisational scene. 

1.6 So we have a position where the 

underlying structures differ around the country, 

are under no-one’s control and subject to 

frequent change. One consequence of the 

lack of a local system is that issues which 

require all institutions to work together cannot 

easily be resolved. A good example concerns 

action to raise the age at which young people 

can leave learning to 17 and then 18 in 2013. 

The minister has repeatedly described the 

proposal as intended ‘to galvanise the entire 

system’ to respond by offering appropriate 

provision 5 . But a collection of separate bits 

and pieces is not a system, and appeals to 

partnership cannot make it one. The dictionary 

definition – ‘a set of connected items or 

devices which operate together’ – demands 

common processes. In reality, there is often 

no system to be galvanised, and a real danger 

that many schools and colleges will simply 

leave the issue to others. 

1.7 In this paper we talk of system to 

mean, loosely, the collection of institutional 

arrangements intended to supply and support 

provision for post-14 students. In some 

areas, for example, most schools have sixth 

forms whereas in others all post-16 learning 

takes place in a tertiary college. Some areas 

have sixth form colleges alongside general 

FE colleges whereas many do not: there 

are districts where a sixth form college lives 

alongside sixth forms. A few FE colleges 

are still organised on the basis of vocational 

specialisms – Colleges of Art, Building, 




Agriculture etc. – though this is becoming less 

frequent: and the role and nature of general 

further education colleges varies greatly from 

place to place, with widely differing balances 

of young to older students, or academic to 

vocational work. There is however no evidence 

of a disciplined and planned management of 

such arrangements. For this reason, perhaps 

we would do better to refer to the concept 

of ‘organisational ecology’ 6 to describe the 

different ways in which institutions might be 

organised. That would describe an environment 

where different organisms act on one another, 

but not in a coordinated or planned way. It is 

possible – and we feel it is realistic – that one 

institution in maximising its own effectiveness 

can damage the interests of another by 

changing the environment, and reducing the 

overall effectiveness of the local system. 

1.8 The situation is one described in other 

policy areas as ‘post-code prescribing’, with 

the local institutional map varying from one 

area to another in the ways we describe in 

section 2. This very diversity could be seen as 

an advantage for researchers – enabling us to 

compare and contrast the strengths of different 

configurations. The present paper is part of that 

debate, bringing out ideas and evidence to bear 

upon the issue. If the evidence is not decisive 

yet, it is nevertheless useful. 

1.9 What does need to be said, though, is 

that it would be implausible to find that any 

configuration of schools and colleges will be 

as good as any other, or equally good at all 

the tasks of an education system. We may find 

that successful local structures share common 

features or institutions. Alternatively, it may be 

that some systems are better than others in 

particular tasks – raising participation, say – 

whereas others are more effective in raising 

academic standards or reducing unit costs. 

1.10 We believe that the current system of 

performance management – league tables 

of schools and colleges, inspection reports 

and assessment visits – may contribute to the 

problem by focusing on individual institutions. 

What is needed is the development of 

5 Reported in the Guardian 29 November 2007 

6 See Graham Peeke’s Synoptic Review of Papers for the Foster Review of Further Education, Institute of Education 

June 2005.



indicators that show how well an area as a 

whole is meeting the needs of its population. 7 

Only with this information can we see whether 

changes in institutional design – for example 

more sixth forms – or in network arrangements 

– such as formal partnerships – have delivered 

the goods. In reaching a judgement about 

which pattern of provision might be the ‘best’ 

we feel it is essential to focus on the full range 

of learners who live in an area. A strongly 

performing system should feature: 

• High rates of participation (and consequently 

relatively few students ‘not in education, 

employment or training – NEETs). In 

practice, staying-on rates are strongly linked 

to social class and academic achievement 

at 16, so assessments of effectiveness will 

need to make appropriate adjustments. 

• High student success rates at all levels – not 

just at A-level (a qualification that dominates 

institutional comparisons) but also at level 

1 and level 2. Work for LSDA 8 suggests 

that it is possible for individual schools and 

colleges to be strong (even ‘Beacon’), whilst 

provision is lacking for significant parts of 

the community. Some excellent schools and 

colleges achieve high results by focusing 

on able learners from outside an area rather 

than working with more challenging groups 

who are on their doorstep. 

• Strong progression rates, with young people 

coming out of the system and taking up 

apprenticeships, jobs and higher education 

places in large numbers. This suggests that 

a good local system will work with the grain 

of the regional or local labour market. 

• Acceptable unit costs – not just in the 

resources deployed in each institution, 

but economy in planning and partnership 

arrangements. The concept of value for 

money is under-developed in the sector, 

with Ofsted’s assessments being apparently 

based on a broad sense that the institution is 

doing a good job, rather than any developed 

idea of cost per successful outcome. 

• A management structure that can act flexibly 

and with authority to deliver the above. 


It might be argued that a good local system 

should be inclusive – that is, offer provision 

and success to the full range of learners. 

There are real issues here – for example, in 

ethnic minority access to apprenticeships. 

However, diversity and inclusiveness should 

be covered in the points above as long as we 

define participation and success across the 

whole age cohort and ability spectrum. Our 

work is to ask how well different configurations 

– sixth forms or not, small colleges or large, 

partnership or individuality – meets our criteria. 

1.11 Our work is centred around 14–19 and 

especially 16–19 provision. This is not because 

we ignore the needs of adults, but because 

the institutional choices are sharper for the 

younger age group, and because government 

policy is causing substantial change there. 

It must also be said that there is much less 

research into the effects of institutional design 

on participation and success for adults. We 

believe that this might be important work – 

particularly at a time when the Prime Minister 

has thrown his weight behind the cause of 

distinctive adult provision – and hope to see 

developing research in this area. We have also 

ignored work on (e.g.) school federations for 

the younger age group. This is not an area 

of our expertise, though there will plainly be 

lessons there are about effective joint working 

and the economies and diseconomies of scale. 

Methods 

1.12 This report is based on a study of 

relevant literature and conversations with a 

range of stakeholders in the post-14 sector 

undertaken between December 2007 and 

February 2008. Those consulted specifically 

for this paper are listed in Appendix 1. It is also 

informed by the experience of the authors, 

one as a consultant and academic with a 

background in college senior management 

over many years and the other as a leading 

researcher for a national organisation. Both 

authors have conducted interviews specifically 

for this project but have also drawn on 

their recent experiences as independent 

consultants working on a range of policy 

7 Within the Framework for Excellence there is a commitment to testing an indicator of Responsiveness to Communities 

8 Perry & Simpson Delivering Quality and Choice – how performance indicators help and how performance indicators 

hinder LSDA Research Report 2005

…the 

performance of 

combinations of 

institutional types 

remains an underresearched 

area… 

related issues. This has enabled us to feed in 

interviews from other commissions to broaden 

the spread of participants – including more 

school headteachers, for example – and to 

gain a sense of geographical balance. 

1.13 There is a growing body of literature 

relevant to this topic and the study seeks to 

draw upon most of what is readily available. 

There is useful research conducted by the 

former LSDA and its predecessors; there are 

important studies conducted as part of the 

research programme of the government’s 

education departments (in their various 

incarnations); support material for studies such 

as the Foster Report and FE White Paper; and 

there is a limited amount of material available 

from the academic research community. 

The Nuffield Review of 14–19 Education and 

Training 9 has been a particularly useful source 

of papers and a guide to the ‘grey literature’. 

1.14 Nevertheless the performance of 

different types of institutions, and particularly 

the performance of combinations of 

institutional types remains an under-researched 

area. There has been a series of studies over 

the years examining the relative performance 

of selective and non selective secondary 

systems but in relation to the post-14 world 

we only know of a few studies, and just one 

robust piece of research 10 , that addresses the 

question directly. We invite our readers to let us 

know of others. In our conclusions we return 

to the question of the sort of research that is 

needed to inform policy. 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

1.15 The interviews do not pretend to 

represent a random cross section of opinion 

in the sector. The intention is to illuminate the 

topic rather than to construct a hypothetical 

average view. We approached people because 

of a particular experience they could describe 

– having successfully carried through a large 

merger for example, or being part of a tertiary 

system under pressure. We sought people 

who had clear views on the subject and 

people from a range of backgrounds – college 

principals, LSC officers, local partnership staff 

and members of the research community. In 

www.cfbt.com 10 2 



addition to the interviews we sought to check 

the accuracy of our findings and the credibility 

of our conclusions with a reading group drawn 

widely from our contacts across the sector. 

The members of the reading group are listed in 

the appendix. 

1.16 The current paper is necessarily 

limited in scope by the budget available. We 

nevertheless believe it represents important 

work, for if we are to succeed as a nation 

in raising the participation and skills of our 

young people and adults, we cannot simply 

assume away a major part of the debate. We 

are currently entering a major campaign with 

agreement on weapons (curriculum), aims 

(PSA targets) and funds (LSC allocations), 

but no idea of the right organisation of our 

armies, nor any general in charge. The units 

involved are asked to work together, but can 

make their own decisions about the role they 

play. Such an approach seems to the authors 

to be profoundly unlikely to succeed. For 

this reason, we make no apology for being 

controversial: the stakes are too high to be 

risked on approaches which ignore evidence 

and hope for the best. 

9 Details of the Nuffield Review of 14–19 Education and Training are available at http://www.nuffield14–19 

review.org.uk/ 

10 Schagen et al Do Post-16 structures matter? Evaluating the impact of local patterns of provision LSDA 2006.



section 2: What systems do we currently have? 

The basics 

2.1 The various forms of post-14 – and 

especially post-16 – organisation that are 

present in England will be well known to our 

audience. The overall picture is as follows, but 

the local picture varies a great deal: 

tABle 1: participation of 

16–18 year olds – 2006/07 


%age 

Maintained schools 18.6 

Independent schools 4.4 

Sixth form colleges 7.1 

Further education colleges 27.8 

Higher education institutions 8.3 

Work based learning 6.9 

Employer Funded Training 4.6 

Job without training 12.4 

NEET 10.3 

Source: UNESCO 

In some areas, most 16–18 education takes 

place in the sixth forms of 11–18 schools, 

which some students leave at 16 to attend 

a general further education college for 

vocational or foundation studies. In other 

areas, the secondary schools take young 

people to the age of 16, where they transfer 

to either an academic sixth form college or 

a further education college. In some areas, 

it was decided in the sixties and seventies to 

amalgamate the sixth form college and general 

further education sectors into a single institution 

– a ‘tertiary college’. Tertiary colleges were 

chosen partly for reasons of economy – forming 

viable groups in rural areas – but there was 

also a political desire to see all young people 

educated in the same institution – an extension, 

if you like, of the neighbourhood comprehensive 

idea 11 . The faith school system partially overlays 

the state system, with 11–16 schools feeding 

through to well-regarded sixth form colleges 

in, for example, London and Manchester. It is 

increasingly rare to find ‘clean’ examples of the 

three typologies – in practice, travel-to-learn 

areas overlap and many areas have a mixture 

of 11–16, 11–18 general further education and 

sixth form colleges. We shall see that this 

confusion is growing, as hitherto ‘tidy’ sixth 

form college or tertiary areas see the growth of 

new school sixth forms. 

A typology 

2.2 The earlier mention of ecology emphasises 

that institutions do not exist in isolation; their 

possibilities and performance are shaped by 

their environment including the other institutions 

in a local area. Not all combinations are 

possible – for example, tertiary colleges cannot 

co-exist with school sixth forms any more 

than truly comprehensive schools can exist 

alongside grammar schools – but there is still a 

range of patterns that can be identified. Figure 

1 on page 12 gives one way of analysing the 

different patterns with some examples of local 

areas that approximate to them. 

Complications 

2.3 The simple existence of institutions – FE 

colleges or sixth forms, sixth form colleges – is 

rarely enough to tell us the underlying nature 

of the local system. What is needed is detailed 

statistical evidence about the choices that 

local young people make. In many areas of the 

country, for example, despite the presence of 

local school sixth forms, the college route is 

the dominant one for young people. In Stoke, 

83% of young people take the college route; in 

Hull and Bristol, the figure is similar. The story 

from mid-Sussex is typical – 81% of 16–18 year 

olds in education go to FE, and in one area, the 

college has 4800 16–18 year olds against the 

largest local sixth form of 370. We learned of 

areas where the FE college has single classes 

11 There is another reason for the formation of distinctive 16–18 institutions that is ironic given the current 

enthusiasm for smaller secondary schools. One of the motives for the large 11–18 school was to enable the 

creation of viable post-16 class sizes. With this imperative gone, smaller 11–16 schools can be created. There is, 

in other words, a conflict between the government’s enthusiasms for sixth forms and for smaller scale schools.

…many schools 

and colleges attract 

from far beyond 

their ‘home’ 

authority… 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

Figure 1: patterns of post-16 provision 

School 

sixth forms 

COllEgES 

bigger than total enrolments in some local sixth 

forms, even in areas that are not formally tertiary. 

In other areas, school sixth forms are larger than 

the A-level cohort in the local FE college. 

What’s in a name? 

2.4 Just as the institutional map alone can be 

deceptive, so can terminology. Many nominally 

‘tertiary’ or sixth form colleges compete with 

school sixth forms on their doorstep. There 

are schools that advertise their 11–18 status, 

but who have minimal sixth forms. The term 

‘general further education’ for a college can 

also be deceptive. In some areas, such a 

college can host the biggest academic sixth 

form in the area, sometimes as a result of 

having absorbed the local sixth form college 

in a merger. Elsewhere, by contrast – often 

where there is a vibrant sixth form college 

or school sixth form system – the FE college 

has made a strategic decision not to offer 

academic work, concentrating exclusively on 

vocational courses. 

Travel-to-learn 

2.5 The problem of defining an area is an 

intractable element of this debate. There are 

some clear and fixed travel-to-learn areas – 

what are known as ‘fried egg’ patterns, where 

people commute to a town or city centre. But 

the picture is often blurred. There are boroughs 

in London, for example, where most of the 

resident post-16 (and in some cases pre-16) 

students travel to another for post-16 education. 

And, matching the way that students from 

an area travel to outside institutions, many 

schools and colleges attract from far beyond 

their ‘home’ authority: indeed, most students 




FE and sixth form colleges Few or no sixth form colleges 

Many Mixed provision 

Worcestershire, London 

Few Mainly FE and sixth form colleges 

Hampshire, Oldham, Solihull 

FE Colleges and school sixth forms 

Kent 

Tertiary College 

Bridgwater, Selby, Truro 

would be hard-pressed to say which local 

authority they live in. Manchester College of 

Arts and Technology for example recruits from 

every borough in Greater Manchester. It is not 

uncommon for a college to take the majority 

of its learners from outside the boundaries of 

the council within which it sits – only 20% of 

Newcastle College’s intake comes from the City 

of Newcastle authority area. 

2.6 These extensive catchments reflect 

a number of factors. Transport routes are 

important in conurbations – students take the 

shortest route to college, not the trip that stays 

in borough. In any area some people will live 

near a boundary and find it more convenient 

to study outside. Some will travel out of an 

area because they are seeking specialised 

provision, or think that the provision there 

is better. In some urban areas – London, 

Birmingham, Manchester – students choose 

to travel out of the inner city to suburban 

colleges 12 . They make a point of leaving their 

old environs to make a fresh start. Some 

colleges attract from a wide area because 

they have built a reputation for excellence. 

Students rarely travel as a second choice after 

finding nothing near to their home: what we 

see is student choice in action. The degree 

of travel-to-learn mobility varies around the 

country. Glyn Owen has constructed a useful 

typology that we used when interviewing our 

stakeholders: he plotted the proportion of 

residents leaving on the vertical axis against 

the proportion of non-residents entering on 

the horizontal. This gave four basic descriptors 

for a travel-to-learn area, descriptors that 

resonated with our interview sample. 

12 There is also a potentially worrying ethnic dimension to student travel in London where college populations can 

be dominated by some groups to the exclusion of others.



Figure 2: A travel-to-learn typology 

High 

2.7 Diverse travel to learn patterns should 

not normally be a problem and we would not 

wish to see measures brought in to restrict 

such movement. Nevertheless they present 

a challenge for researchers in assessing how 

well an area performs. Do you for example 

include in any assessment the performance 

of residents who study outside an area, or 

outsiders who come in? In attempting to get 

round this problem researchers such as Ian 

Schagen from NFER 13 have focused on areas 

that are relatively self contained, with little 

movement into or out of the area. This is not 

quite the same as Owen’s idea of ‘isolated’ 

travel to study areas since some can be 

quite large – the whole of Kent for example. 

Focusing on such areas, and controlling 

for factors known to affect an individual’s 

performance such as social class enables 

one to identify the impact of a particular 

pattern of provision or local ecology. 

Fragmentation and partnership 

2.8 When talking to institutional leaders 

and other senior stakeholders we observe a 

system that is fragmenting at the very time 

there is increased policy emphasis on working 

13 Schagen 2006 


Residents leaving 

Unpopular Chaotic/ 

competitive 

Isolated/ 

self-contained 

Popular 

low High 

Non residents entering 

together. One of the college principals we 

spoke to referred to the local area as ‘a tertiary 

system that is breaking down’. Another told 

us that the funding and inspection regimes, 

which are the principal drivers of school and 

college behaviour, create perverse incentives. 

They establish goals for institutions that are in 

tension with the needs of the local community. 

2.9 There are several reasons for this 

fragmentation. One is the steady erosion of 

the capacity of local authorities to influence 

provision in their area 14 . A quarter of a century 

ago elected local authorities were responsible 

for managing schools, colleges, the Careers 

and Youth Services, student financial support 

and a large part of Higher Education. First the 

polytechnics and then the colleges became 

independent incorporated institutions, 

responsible to national funding councils and 

national policies rather than their local area. 

Then the Careers Service was nationalised 

under the Connexions brand; and increasingly 

schools have acquired greater freedoms under 

trust status, or left the local authority orbit 

altogether by becoming academies. 

14 Recent announcements on the machinery of government (March 2008) signal a partial reversal of this trend but 

whether local authorities will acquire sufficient power to reshape local systems remains to be seen.

2.10 There are some countervailing trends at 

the moment – the key role of local authorities 

in developing diploma partnerships, and 

the proposed transfer of post-16 funding to 

them from the LSC – but they remain unable 

or unwilling to structure local provision in 

a coordinated way 15 . The LSC too has lost 

powers: we even heard credible reports 

of senior regional staff being browbeaten 

by Whitehall to facilitate new sixth form or 

academy developments that made no sense 

to them locally. 

2.11 The Machinery of Government reforms 

that were announced on 17 March 2008 16 

propose to transfer to local authorities from 

2010 the LSC’s powers to commission 

provision to meet local needs. This is a helpful 

step, but is not accompanied by any increase 

in the capacity of the local authority to influence 

the shape of the local system. The papers make 

very clear that the government is still committed 

to institutional autonomy and is agnostic as 

to whether post-16 systems are selective or 

comprehensive; segregated or inclusive. 

Strategic Area Review 

2.12 For a while it seemed that the Learning 

and Skills Council, through a series of 

Strategic Area Reviews, would pick up the 

task of bringing some coherence to local 

arrangements. The Strategic Area Review 

or StAR process was intended to examine 

all aspects of the supply of and demand 

for learning opportunities in an area and 

propose how they might be brought into better 

alignment. 17 The stated intention was that 

the process should ‘ensure provision is well 

planned.’ The StAR process would, according 

to the LSC, ‘aim to build upon the high standard 

of existing provision in many parts of the post-16 

sector. It will also identify options for improving 

weaker provision and filling gaps.’ LSC also 

stated that it ‘will be bold in its approach 




to Strategic Area Reviews’; aiming ‘to work 

together with stakeholders to enhance “tried 

and tested” forms of delivery and to identify and 

consider new, radical and innovative options 

for change ensuring that learners in each 

part of the country have high quality, safe and 

accessible learning opportunities capable of 

meeting their needs and those of employers 

and local communities’ (LSC March 2003). 

2.13 In a few areas LSC staff attempted to be 

bold. In Sussex for example a thorough review 

of the performance of six travel to study areas 

suggested that some were underperforming. 

In particular a number of small sixth forms had 

pass rates significantly below the expected 

level; there were concerns about the range 

of provision available in the area and whether 

young people were getting appropriate 

guidance on their options at age 16. A ‘bold’ 

plan to restructure provision in Hastings into 

a tertiary system won the support of local 

and county councillors, colleges and the 

LSC – but was undermined by national level 

political support for a separate sixth form 

college. Much the same happened to the LSC 

in Cumbria as proposals for post-16 reform in 

Carlisle hit the buffers. 

2.14 Ministerial support for the introduction of 

new sixth form provision is possibly the most 

important destabilising influence currently 

affecting local education provision. In 2004 18 

the government introduced what it called ‘the 

sixth form presumption’ – the view that any 

school which met quite modest performance 

criteria 19 should be able to open a sixth form, 

irrespective of the consequences for other 

local providers or the community as a whole. 

We were told of schools that were rung up by 

DfES officials to be encouraged to open new 

provision. The process has led to significant 

numbers of ambitious schools seeking to 

establish sixth forms; and other schools 

15 Indeed, in some areas – such as Merton in south London – the actions of the local authority seem likely to further 

disorganise the local post-16 system. 

16 Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver (Joint DCSF/DIUS consultation) March 2008 

17 For a full account of the StAR process and some of its inherent weaknesses see ‘The role of Strategic Area Reviews 

(StARs) and potential implications for 14–19 education and training’ Fletcher, M. & Davies, P. Nuffield Review 2004 

18 The ‘presumption’ was announced in the DfES 5 Year Strategy in July 2004 – details are available at http://dfes.gov. 

uk/publications/5yearstrategy/ 

19 One school in a major northern city has been urged to start a sixth form despite getting less than 20% of their 

students through GCSE English and Maths at A*–C.



…that the 

consequence is 

likely to be a poorer 

choice of subjects, 

poorer results 

and less cost 

effective 

provision. 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

feeling compelled to follow suit lest they be 

seen as second best. This creates substantial 

pressures on collaborative arrangements, and 

the availability of disinterested guidance at 16. 

We were told of specialist school staff who felt 

under pressure to ensure a certain proportion 

of their pupils followed their specialist subject, 

inevitably skewing the advice given. 

Whither tertiary? 

2.15 In a number of areas – such as Harrow 

and Richmond-upon-Thames – central 

government has supported the ambitions of 

local schools to open sixth forms within well 

functioning tertiary systems. In the next section, 

we suggest that the consequence is likely to 

be a poorer choice of subjects, poorer results 

and less cost effective provision. In Solihull 

the decision to introduce a sixth form in the 

catchment area of a high performing sixth 

form college precipitated the resignation of the 

college principal in November 2007. In a letter 

to the Secretary of State she pointed out that 

the consequence was to put at risk the minority 

subjects that only the college could offer. 

Academies 

2.16 Although not an explicit part of the 

criteria for the development of an Academy it 

appears to be implicit in government thinking 

that these new forms of school will have a 

sixth form. The consequence is that in areas 

such as Manchester, where a number of new 

Academies have been approved, increased 

provision for 16–19 year olds will be introduced 

at the very time the size of the age cohort 

begins to decline. The decline may be partially 

offset by increased participation if more 

young people stay on as we move towards a 

leaving age of 18. However the extra provision 

required to attract those who currently leave 

learning at the first opportunity is not the 

level 3 full time programmes that sixth forms 

usually offer. An additional complication is 

presented by the fact that academies are often 

established on the sites of formerly failing 

inner-city schools: so new sixth form provision 

is to be established in the most unpromising 

locations. We failed to find evidence that would 


suggest that the new provision is sufficiently 

distinctive, which is the claim made when told 

that schools are not developing ‘sixth forms’ 

but ‘post-16 provision’. 

2.17 The other consequence of the Academy 

programme is that a growing number of 

schools fall outside the remit of local authorities. 

They are funded directly by the DCSF and 

have greater autonomy than other maintained 

schools. By 2010 it is estimated 20 that around 

£1 billion will flow directly from DCSF to 

Academies, perhaps more if the Academy 

programme expands as its sponsors wish. 

2.18 The machinery of government changes 

announced in July 2007 proposed to transfer 

most of the funding for 16–19 provision 

from the Learning and Skills Council to local 

authorities by 2010. This aligned the strategic 

responsibility of local authorities for the 14–19 

phase of learning with financial responsibility, 

and can be seen as a move towards 

coherence. There are however three important 

qualifications to be made to this picture. 

• Although funding will be routed through local 

authorities there is likely to be a national 

funding formula that will limit their power to 

vary the rates of funding or the allocations 

to reflect local need. In other words it is 

not clear that the control of funding could 

be used as a lever to encourage moves 

towards coherence. 

• Secondly, the statement on the machinery 

of government changes explicitly stated that 

the operational autonomy of schools and 

colleges would be unaffected. 

• Thirdly, two important elements of 

post-14 provision have been excluded 

from the transfer – school academies 

and Apprenticeships. It is estimated 21 

that around 10% of the budget is thereby 

excluded. This underestimates the effect 

its exclusion has on the ability to create a 

coherent structure: we spoke to secondary 

heads who felt impelled, against their better 

judgement, to move to sixth forms in order 

to compete with a nascent academy. 

20 ‘New Localism and 14–19 Funding: putting learner choice first’ Corney, M. & Fletcher, M. Select Education and 

the Campaign for Learning 2008 

21 Corney & Fletcher 2008

2.19 The exclusion of apprenticeships from 

local management and the decision instead 

to create another quango – the National 

Apprenticeships Service – is particularly 

significant. The government sees an increase 

in apprenticeships as the main vehicle for 

increasing participation in learning as it seeks to 

achieve 100% participation until the age of 18 22 . 

Local authorities are responsible for ensuring 

that adequate provision is in place to eliminate 

the numbers of young people not in education 

or training; but do not have control of the key 

mechanism through which this is planned to 

be achieved. This is similar to the way that 

local authorities can currently gain substantial 

bonus payments – up to £1m in a major 

city – from reducing the number of NEETs 

youngsters, whilst having under their control 

none of the mechanisms (work based training 

and FE colleges) that could achieve the goal. 




2.20 One aspect of organisational ecology 

is the pattern of partnerships between 

institutions in an area. As the capacity of 

local authorities to manage local systems 

has diminished, and the LSC has failed to 

take its place, increased emphasis has been 

placed on voluntary partnership working 

and collaboration between schools, colleges 

and training providers to deliver coherence. 

The reforms to the 14–19 phase of education 

is a good example of policy that relies 

on partnership working; though to date 

partnerships have only been asked to deliver 

pilot programmes for a minority rather than 

plan coherent provision for everyone. We 

turn in a later section to considering whether 

partnerships are strong enough to carry 

the weight of policy being currently loaded 

onto them. 

22 There are some exceptions that will reduce the 100% figure – vulnerable groups have been mentioned



section 3: How good are the current systems? 

‘‘ 

Although 

the links between 

organisational 

ecologies and 

performance are 

complex, there are 

some studies that 

offer reasonably 

reliable evidence 

about which 

work better than 

others in delivering 

desirable 

outcomes. 

‘‘ 

3.1 In our introduction, we listed the 

characteristics of a good system, and 

commented that the idea that any institutional 

configurations would be as good as any other 

in securing them was implausible. Although 

the links between organisational ecologies 

and performance are complex, there are 

some studies that offer reasonably reliable 

evidence about which work better than others 

in delivering desirable outcomes. This section 

looks at the record in terms of participation, in 

quality, and in equality. 

3.2 A detailed paper on the impact of 

organisational structures on provision for 

young people has been prepared by Stanton 

and Fletcher for the Nuffield Review of 14–19 

learning 23 . It is available from the Nuffield 

website and contains detailed references 

to a range of source material which are 

therefore not repeated here. Although the 

references relate in the main to provision for 

young people there is no reason to suppose 

that the conclusions are not valid for adults. 

It makes use of the one study we know of 

that explicitly seeks to measure the impact of 

different organisational ecologies on learning 

outcomes. It was carried out by NFER for the 

then LSDA 24 and because of both the rigour 

of the work and the relevance of its findings 

tABle 2: taxonomy of types of provision 

Type 

Description 


Characteristics 

School sixth 

forms 

it is worth quoting from it extensively. The 

full report is available from both the LSN and 

NFER websites. 

3.3 The aim of the study was to identify 

whether the pattern of institutions in an 

area could be associated with learners’ 

performance after the age of 16 once all other 

factors known to influence outcomes were 

taken into account. This required the use 

of complex statistical techniques to control 

for such factors as GCSE scores, gender 

and levels of deprivation. The first task for 

the researchers was to develop a taxonomy 

which identified different patterns of provision 

or different ecologies. This was done partly 

by statistical clustering and partly by drawing 

on expert knowledge of local arrangements. 

The result of this exercise was to identify six 

broad types of systems as illustrated in table 2 

below. The table also shows the proportions of 

pupils attending institutions of different types 

to illustrate how close the areas were to ‘pure’ 

specimens of their type. 

3.4 The areas selected for study were ones 

that were largely self-contained; that is there 

was no significant level of movement in or out 

of the area at age 16 that could confuse the 

picture. For these areas the NFER team sought 

Colleges Sixth form 

colleges 

A1 Largely tertiary 0–13% 60–85% 0–11% 

A2 Quasi-tertiary 1–6% 26–56% 17– 5 3% 

B Mostly college, low SFC 2 2 – 3 3% 43–52% 0–7% 

C Mixed 13 – 2 3% 41–50% 13 – 25% 

D Equal college and school 42 – 47% 36–42% 0% 

E High SFC 14 – 4 0 % 18–32% 31– 4 3% 

23 S e e http://www.nuffield14-19review.org.uk/files/documents128-1.pdf 

24 ‘Do post-16 structures matter? Evaluating the impact of local patterns of provision’ Ian Schagen, Joana Lopes, 

Simon Rutt, Chris Savory and Ben Styles, National Foundation for Educational Research for LSDA 2006

…evidence 

supplied to the 

Foster Report 

suggested that 

school sixth forms 

were actually 

less socially 

inclusive than 

universities. 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

to identify the levels of participation post-16 

and also the overall retention and success 

rates of 16–18 year old learners. Problems 

of compatibility of data between school and 

college systems meant that they were unable 

to produce robust evidence in relation to the 

latter two indicators, but they could reach firm 

conclusions on participation. 

3.5 The researchers next sought to isolate 

those individual factors that were associated 

with increased participation post-16 so that 

they could be controlled for. Those factors 

with a significant positive relationship to the 

probability of Year 12–13 participation (all other 

things being equal) included: 

• good GCSE results 

• girls compared with boys 

• Black Caribbean, Black African, Black 

Other, Indian and Pakistani students, relative 

to White UK 

•ˆhaving English as an additional language 

(EAL) 

• having been in the same school throughout 

Key Stages 3 and 4. 

The key pupil-level factor with a significant 

negative relationship was the overall level 

of deprivation. There were no school-level 

factors with a significant positive relationship, 

but one school-level factor with a significant 

negative relationship: other things being equal 

pupils were less likely to stay on in a grammar 

school. This conclusion confirms earlier 

findings by David Jesson from York University 

that grammar schools depress student 

performance 25 . It is also strongly at odds 

with popular preconceptions – journalists, 

writers and, sadly, some politicians continue 

to remember grammar schools as a ladder of 

opportunity rather than an obstruction. 

3.6 Once these individual and school level 

factors could be controlled for the researchers 

were in a position to identify whether the 

organisational ecology of an area was 

associated with increased or decreased 

participation. It is to this area that we now move. 




participation 

3.7 Firstly, let’s look at how local systems 

affect participation – who stays on, and 

where they go. This is a vital matter. It is of 

serious concern that many young people, 

and particularly those from less advantaged 

backgrounds, leave education and training at 

the earliest opportunity. They do so in greater 

numbers than in nearly all our OECD partners; 

and the consequences of missing out remain 

with them throughout their lives. 

Who stays on where? 

3.8 Evidence from the Youth Cohort Study 

and elsewhere shows that where provision in 

an area is made through a differentiated set of 

institutions the characteristics of their intakes 

are different. Put simply some institutions are 

more white, more middle class, are more likely 

to contain high achieving learners and those 

without disabilities than others. In England 

school sixth forms and sixth form colleges 

contain many more such learners than general 

FE colleges: evidence supplied to the Foster 

Report suggested that school sixth forms were 

actually less socially inclusive than universities. 

Figure 3 on page 19, created from data from 

the Youth Cohort Study, compares the social 

class composition of schools and colleges. 

This pattern of skewed recruitment is 

further evidenced by figures from technical 

documents given to the Foster Review, which 

showed that the proportion of general further 

education college learners resident from a 

deprived background is 29.3%, compared to 

25% of the population; 25.4% of those in a 

sixth form college and 19% of those in school 

sixth forms. At a time when there is substantial 

public debate about the possibility of selection 

and creaming to secondary schools at 11, and 

discrimination at entry to universities at 18 – 

and governmental assurances that admissions 

protocols will stamp out bad practice – it is 

surprising that there seems little interest in the 

social composition of institutions at 16. 

3.9 But, notwithstanding which institutions 

which social class attends, what do we know 

about their effect on staying on rates? Common 

25 See Guardian November 1999 at 

http://education.guardian.co.uk/specialreports/grammar schools/story/0,5500,110568,00.html



…the presence 

of a sixth form in a 

school actually 

seems to depress the 

likelihood of pupils 

at that school 

staying on. 

Figure 3: participation by social class 

sense might suggest that a school with a 

sixth form would encourage staying on – and 

a first look at the statistics seems to support 

that. For all pupils the YCS analysis shows 

that the overall staying on rate in schools with 

sixth forms is 80% compared to 78% without. 

However, this takes no account of social class 

factors: 11–18 schools exist disproportionately 

in middle class areas, where one would expect 

higher staying on rates 26 . What is needed is an 

adjustment for social background. The NFER 

work referred to earlier compared participation 

rates in areas that have lots of school sixth 

forms and areas where there were none or very 

few. When factors such as social background 

and ability are held constant the researchers 

conclude that there are no significant 

differences between these areas. 

3.10 The research however goes further. 

In those areas where a significant number 

of pupils are in schools with sixth forms, the 

presence of a sixth form in a school actually 

seems to depress the likelihood of pupils at 

that school staying on. Other things being 

equal the average child is between two and 

five percentage points less likely to stay in 

‘‘ ‘‘ 


40 

35 

30 

25 

20 

15 

10 

5 

0 

Higher Prof. Lower Prof. Intermediate Supervisory Semi/routine 

School College 

education at a school or college than pupils 

from similar backgrounds in 11–16 schools. 

Lest anyone should think that this effect is 

minor we should remember that it is about the 

size of the improvement in staying on rates 

bought by Education Maintenance Allowances 

at a cost of over £500 million per year. 

3.11 Another dramatic piece of evidence is 

contained in the technical annexe to the 2006 

FE White Paper, shown in Figure 4 on page 20. 

It analyses participation rates for 16 year olds 

according to their attainment at year 11 and 

distinguishes those in schools with sixth forms 

from those in schools without 27 . For those with 

above average attainment schools with sixth 

forms have the edge – 93% stay on compared 

with 90% in schools without . But for those 

with below average attainment, the ones 

that government is so concerned about, the 

presence of a sixth form has a huge negative 

impact. Just 45% of those with 5+ grades D–G 

stay on in schools with sixth forms compared 

with 59% in 11–16 schools. For those with no 

GCSE achievements it is even more stark. 

Only 27% of those from schools with sixth 

forms stay on compared to 38% without. 

26 Indeed, the difference in staying on rates is often the reason why working class areas have 11/16 schools and 

middle class areas 11–18. Local authorities were keen to pool post-16 work into viable units where staying on 

rates were low: so it is socially determined staying on rate that creates an 11/16 or 11–18 school, not vice versa. 

27 Though this could be over-participation, reflecting the poor performance of 11–18 schools in recommending 

apprenticeship to able 16 year olds.

Figure 4: effect of sixth form on participation 


100 

90 

80 

70 

60 

50 

40 

30 

20 

10 

0 

3.12 A possible explanation is that in a 

school with a traditional sixth form ‘staying on’ 

is seen by younger pupils as only being for 

the academic. To the extent that most sixth 

form provision requires five ‘good’ GCSEs 

for entry, their judgement is right. It is the 

poorly qualified young people that we need 

to encourage to stay on, and it is college 

systems that disproportionately achieve that 

objective. One of our interviewees working in a 

tough northern port explained in exasperated 



participation of 16 year olds (from Ycs) 

5+ A*–C 1–4 A*–C 5+ D–G 1–4 D–G None 

Without 6th form With 6th form 

Figure 5: staying on destinations by qualification 

100 

90 

80 

70 

60 

50 

40 

30 

20 

10 

0 

Source: Foster Report papers, derived from YCS 

tones how local 11–16 schools were making a 

case to open sixth forms in order to address 

the NEETs issue: unless these schools are 

planning remarkably innovative provision, such 

ambitions are a delusion. The diagram below 

shows the destinations of learners arranged by 

prior qualification: it confirms that pupils who 

do not obtain any A*–C grades at GCSE – the 

very students we wish to attract into post-16 

education – do not go to school sixth forms. 

8+ A–C 5–7 A–C 1–4 A–C 5+ D–G 1–4 D–G None 

Independent school 6th form college State school FE



…schools with 

sixth forms achieve 

lower GCSE 

results than 

those without. 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

3.13 Putting the findings of this section less 

technically you could say – other things being 

equal, in areas where between half and a 

quarter of young people typically attend school 

sixth forms, coming from a school with a sixth 

form reduces staying on rates by between two 

and five percentage points. The effect seems 

to be less marked where there are more sixth 

form colleges in an area which suggests that 

the more selective the local system the more 

participation is depressed. 

3.14 Finding that sixth forms depress staying 

on rates is all the more worrying when research 

has also suggested adverse effects from the 

presence of sixth form on the 11–16 segment 

of the school. Truancy rates tend to be slightly 

higher in schools with sixth forms (NAO 2005 28 ). 

Smith and Street’s recent research (2006) – 

funded by the DfES 29 – concludes that, when 

social factors are taken into account, ‘schools 

with sixth forms achieve lower GCSE results 

than those without’. Given that sixth forms are 

often justified on the grounds that they improve 

the academic ethos of the school, these are 

striking findings indeed. 

3.14 Recent research 30 published in the 

Journal of the British Education Research 

Association shows that pupils in schools with 

sixth forms were less likely to receive impartial 

careers advice and were more critical of the 

quality of advice and guidance they received. 

3.15 It is important not to be totally negative. 

We have seen that large sixth forms achieve 

good results at level 3. Many schools believe 

that the presence of a sixth form enables 

them to recruit specialist staff in hard-to-recruit 

areas such as Physics and Languages. 

However, we must note that current research 

does not support the simple idea that bolting 

a sixth form onto a school is a sure way to 

improve either the school itself or the local 

infrastructure. We were given clear cases – 

such as one from south west London – where 

the reverse was true. Improvements in data 

collection arrangements mean that it would 


now be possible to carry out the detailed 

examination of the impact of organisational 

ecology on retention and achievement that 

NFER were unable to do in the 2006 report. 

In view of the current policy emphasis on 

developing new 6th forms such work is 

needed as a matter of urgency. 

standards 

Success and performance 

3.16 Let’s move from participation to results. 

As with staying on, the post-16 performance 

of learners is heavily affected by their level of 

prior attainment and social class background. 

For young people taking level 3 academic 

qualifications, there is a strong relationship 

between prior attainment at level 2 (e.g. 

GCSE) and level 3 (e.g. A-level) outcomes. 

This creates a strong incentive for institutions 

needing to show exceptional GCE A-level 

scores to ‘cream’ their intake. Successful 

11–18 schools can establish high thresholds 

for A-level study – in one case we noted, 

proposing to ration places in its sixth form by 

GCSE grade without reference to whether 

the candidate had spent their 11–16 year old 

phase at the school 31 . In two other cases we 

observed, ambitious sixth form colleges sent 

minibuses into neighbouring authorities and 

college catchment areas to recruit able L3 

candidates, despite being both in areas of 

some deprivation. One justified the practice 

to us by saying that student numbers needed 

to be maintained to fund an ambitious capital 

programme: but level 1 and 2 students from 

the close locality would equally have generated 

LSC income. 

3.17 Previous attainment is not the only factor 

we need to bear in mind when looking at how 

institutions deliver success rates. Another 

technical problem arises from the differential 

pass rates of different qualifications. The 

national A-level success rate is over 90%, 

whereas (say) GCSE pass rates are in the 

mid 50%. A college which is overwhelmingly 

focused on A-levels will therefore have a more 

impressive crude pass rate than one which 

28 Improving School Attendance NAO 2005 

29 Smith, P. and Street, A. Analysis of Secondary School Efficiency, DfES 2006 

30 Foskett et al The influence of the school on the decision to participate in learning post-16, BERA 2008 

31 In this case, the school will benefit from the 11–16 work of other schools when it admits their successful pupils, and 

slough off those of its own pupils who have not achieved so well onto other post-16 institutions – and their league tables.

has a wider offer for the full ability range. The 

LSC has developed ‘curriculum adjusted 

success rates’ which provide a more accurate 

comparison between two institutions, but this 

rarely makes the front page of the local paper 

(or the tables of the nationals) come results 

day. A system of performance assessment 

that focuses on crude scores in individual 

institutions tends to exacerbate these 

distinctions. The most effective institutions 

according to these measures are the ones 

best able to restrict their recruitment. Perry 

& Simpson (LSDA 2005) suggest that it is 

possible for all the providers in an area to be 

apparently performing well whilst some groups 

of locals are losing out. 

3.18 For these reasons, league tables based 

on raw performance scores will be deceptive. 

They may appear to show some institutions 

(and some types of institutions) as performing 

better than others; but most of this difference 

disappears when class, curriculum and prior 

attainment are controlled for. This is shown in 

the next two diagrams, which were produced 

for the Foster Review of FE (Figures 6 and 7). 

Raw figures show general further education 

Colleges performing less well at level 3 than 




other types of establishment – but most of the 

difference disappears when prior attainment 

is taken into account. Figure 6 shows the prior 

qualifications of students taking GCE/VCE 

examinations in the three sorts of institution. 

Figure 7 shows how well they do for each level 

of prior qualification: the lines are very close, 

with sixth form college performance slightly 

better than schools and GFEC performance is 

slightly worse. 

3.19 It must also be noted that a comparison 

based on A-levels alone is unlikely to favour 

the college sector. A-levels are a very 

small part of the FE offer. Colleges provide 

a massive range of qualifications, from 

foundation level up to professional and 

degree level, and right across the vocational 

spectrum. Comparisons based on non-Alevel 

qualifications – such as level 2 full-time 

programmes – show FE coming out more 

strongly than sixth form or tertiary colleges 32 . 

And we must remember the participation 

statistics from earlier paragraphs – these are 

results from students, many of whom would 

not actually be in education under a sixth 

form system. Nevertheless, we might be 

facing the awkward position suggested in our 

Figure 6: prior qualifications of entrants to l3 courses in schools, sixth form 

college and Fe 

17 year olds entering 2 or more gce/vce exams (cumulative % below given 

average gcse/gNvQ prior attainment thresholds (2002/03)) 

100% 

90% 

80% 

70% 

60% 

50% 

40% 

30% 

20% 

10% 

0% 

All maintained schools 

Sixth form collegges 

GFEC 



It has been 

known for a long 

time that small sixth 

forms get poorer 

A level results than 

larger sixth forms, 

or sixth form 

colleges. 

Figure 7: gce A-level score by prior attainment 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

introduction of differential performance – it 

is possible that one system tends to deliver 

better academic results whereas another 

tends to achieve higher participation. 

3.20 There is one area of the standards 

debate where one can be reasonably certain 

of one’s ground – that concerning the small 

sixth form. It has been known for a long time 

that small sixth forms get poorer A-level 

results than larger sixth forms, or sixth form 

colleges. The 2005 Education and Skills 

Select Committee Report said bluntly that 


gce/Nce average points per entry 

Fec v Maintained schools: Average gce/vce points (17 years old taking 2+ gce) 

by prior attainment (2002/03) and institution type 

140 

120 

100 

80 

60 

40 

20 

0 

4 

Sixth Form College 

Maintained schools 

GFEC 

4.25 4.5 4.75 5 5.25 5.5 5.75 6 6.25 6.5 6.75 7 7.25 7.5 7.75 8 

tABle 3: sixth form size and results 

gcse/gNvQ average points per entry 

‘recent A-level statistics show that small 

school sixth forms tend to produce poorer 

examination results than larger institutions 

such as FE colleges or sixth form colleges. 

More school sixth forms per se are therefore 

unlikely to improve low participation or 

attainment, particularly if these are small sixth 

forms, providing a narrow range of options.’ 

(House of Commons 2005) 

More recently, Ofsted has expressed concern 

about Academy sixth forms on the same lines. 

The evidence is reasonably clear: 

Size of Sixth form No of schools % of all schools Average A-level 

points per pupil 

0–50 115 6.2 7.4 

51–100 319 17.4 9.4 

101–150 409 22.3 11.9 

151–200 398 21.7 14.6 

201–250 295 16.1 15.7 

251 and over 298 16.2 15.8 

Source: Hansard

‘‘ 

It can be in 

no-one’s interest 

– not the young 

people, not the 

government – to 

create a number of 

undersubscribed 

centres that diminish 

choice, reduce 

attainment and 

raise costs. 

‘‘ 

This pattern was confirmed by a number of 

our interviewees. A senior LSC officer spoke 

of finding a ‘cut-off point around 200 students. 

Above this, results matched sixth form 

colleges: below it, they dropped away.’ 

3.21 As well as poor results, there is 

evidence that small sixth forms are more 

costly, and offer less choice, than larger units. 

The LSDA report mirrors the 1996 Audit 

Commission Report: 

A 1985 DES report (Better Schools) 

suggests that 150 was the minimum size 

for a sixth form to be able to offer a costeffective 

and full range of course options 

– although the report recognised that 

smaller sixth forms might be viable where 

there were cooperative arrangements… 

(however) … the diversification of post-16 

options (for example the introduction of 

GNVQs) has led some educationalists 

to argue that 250 is a more reasonable 

minimum size …. 

This is reflected in LSC guidance issued 

in respect of competitions for new post-16 

provision (LSC 2005): 

Provision is recommended at not less than 

the average size of sixth forms inspected 

by Ofsted (173 students) and preferably 

over 200 students, which is the number 

at which Ofsted reports that a sixth form 

would, generally, be able to offer a range 

of 20 or more A-levels, with three or four 

AVCEs or equivalent. 

3.22 This finding is important at a time 

when presumption and academy sixth 

forms are being launched. In most areas, 

the expansion of post-16 places will lead to 

over-capacity on even the most optimistic 

assumptions of higher participation. It can be 

in no-one’s interest – not the young people, 

not the government – to create a number of 

undersubscribed centres that diminish choice, 

reduce attainment and raise costs. The 

presumption system was introduced at a time 

of expansion of educational funds – one of our 




interviewees hinted that increased competition 

was a condition of releasing the increased 

funding. Bringing new capacity on line when 

the demographic trends are downward, 

and educational funds are static, will create 

substantial budgetary pressures on whoever 

holds the post-16 purse strings. 

3.23 A number of our interviewees told 

us that sixth forms were often popular with 

parents 33 . In three cases reported to us, 

the destruction of effective local tertiary 

systems were supported by the local MP 

on these grounds: one openly stressed to 

an exasperated tertiary college Principal 

the marginality of his seat. This creates a 

challenge for the policy community. We know 

that the current direction of policy is one that 

will lead to lower participation, poorer pass 

rates and higher costs. Rationality needs to be 

supported. In other areas of policy – such as 

the Lisbon Treaty referendum, MMR vaccine or 

fuel tax – the government has chosen to stand 

by, and explain, an initially unpopular stance. 

Indeed, at times, it makes a positive virtue 

of taking tough decisions. It seems to the 

authors that this would be an approach that 

would serve the nation well in post-16 studies. 

Otherwise we find ourselves in the melancholy 

position currently being played out in Merton, 

where schools are being encouraged to open 

sixth forms for marketing reasons even though 

no-one – least of all the local authority and the 

LSC – sees a need for them on grounds of 

capacity or quality. 

inequality 

3.24 We saw earlier how differentiated 

institutions risk becoming unequal institutions. 

Michael Duane memorably described 

secondary moderns as ‘schools good enough 

for other people’s children to go to’. The 

tendency has been noted in the Webb Report 

on further education in Wales: 

Writing of health care over thirty years 

ago, Tudor-Hart 34 argued that an Inverse 

Care Law was in operation: those who 

were most in need received less care than 

33 It might also be the case that parental pressure for a sixth form is strongest where 11–18 and 11–16 schools 

co-exist: the picture is different where a common 11–16 and tertiary system exists, and there is less chance of the 

remaining 11/16 schools losing parental choices due to being considered low status. 

34 Hart JT; The inverse care law. Lancet. 1971 Feb 27;1(7696):405–12.



…more 

teaching is normally 

given to full time 

learners studying at 

level 3 than those 

studying at level 

2 or 1… 

the less needy. There is a distinct danger 

that this is also the case in education. 

Moreover, the total expenditure on 

disadvantaged groups is falling short of 

what is needed. Certainly the size of the 

groups remains stubbornly high. While 

these decisions are for politicians, the 

Inverse Care Law also raises questions 

about the proportionality of spend on these 

most needy people compared with that on 

such undifferentiated groups as university 

students and adult leisure learners. 


(Webb Report) 

It is important to look at our institutional 

arrangements for young people to see if this is 

happening in education. 

3.25 We have found that it is. The clearest 

example is the persistent failure of successive 

education departments in England to remove 

the funding gap between the resources 

allocated to pupils following identical 

programmes in schools and colleges; for 

2008/09 the gap, now officially enshrined in 

LSC funding rates 35 , will still be around 3%. 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

Figure 8: expenditure per pupil by level and institution 

4000 

3500 

3000 

2500 

2000 

1500 

1000 

500 

0 

Annual Funding 16–19 Ft 

This is not the only inequity however. Research 

for LSDA 36 has drawn attention to the fact that 

more teaching is normally given to full time 

learners studying at level 3 than those studying 

at level 2 or 1; and to the different treatment of 

adults learning at level 3 as against level 4. The 

financial implications of these differences, based 

on 2005 data are summarised in Figure 8. 

competition and choice 

3.26 The argument for provision in 

differentiated institutions – and the proliferation 

of rival sixth forms – primarily concerns choice, 

both as an end in itself and as a means of 

improving quality. It is argued that competition 

keeps institutions on their toes, whereas 

monopoly providers have no incentive to 

improve. The Centre for the Economics of 

Education at the London School of Economics 

investigated this theory in respect of schools37 . 

Using a large administrative census of London 

primary schools, they concluded ‘pupils who 

have a wider choice of schools at their place 

of residence perform no better than those 

with a more limited choice’ and ‘on balance, 

choice and competition does not seem to be 

Level 1 FE Level 2 FE Level 3 FE Level 3 Schools 

35 S e e http://readingroom/lsc.gov.uk/lsc/National/nat-thelscannounceskeyfundingratesfor2008-dec07.pdf. 

36 lSDA comments: 14–19 curriculum and qualifications reform: interim report of the Working group on 

14–19 Reform 

37 Gibbons, Machin, Silva 2006 at http://cep.lse.ac.uk/briefings/pa_education.pdf

generally effective in raising standards in the 

school context’. Reviewing the literature, they 

felt the evidence that choice and competition 

are effective was ‘at best, mixed’. It is in any 

case difficult to see how competition might 

bite in a world where admissions protocols 

and lotteries prevent parents switching to 

a preferred choice. It is interesting to note 

the views of the current Secretary of State 

for Innovation, Universities and Skills when 

addressing the Fabian Society last year: 

Our recent emphasis on parental choice 

and school diversity doesn’t necessarily hit 

the right note for most southern parents. 

Policies tailored for major city voters in 

major cities who fear sink schools don’t 

automatically attract southern voters. 

Some have a limited choice, if any, of 

secondary school. Others don’t want 

to choose between good and bad if 

they do… There are clear signs that 

the constant over promotion of choice 

is simply fuelling unresolved parental 

anxieties and increasing pressures towards 

social segregation… parents simply 

want a relentless pressure on standards. 

An assurance that schools that underperform 

in absolute or relative terms will be 

identified and action taken. 




(Denham 2007) 

3.27 Competition also has costs. Expenditures 

on marketing are not inconsiderable: and 

someone has to pay for the buses we 

saw in the North West and East Midlands 

drawing students from a wide distance. To be 

effective, choice also requires vacant places 

to be available. We note below that choice of 

institution may drive down group size and thus 

reduce choice of curriculum. 

3.28 Our resources were too limited within 

this study to replicate a post-16 study of 

the consequences of choice at the level of 

expertise shown by the CEE. However, we 

did undertake a review of every inspection 

report for English FE and sixth form colleges 

as part of the later section on the effects of 

institutional size. We were impressed time 

and again at the excellence of provision 

offered in areas where there was no, or little, 

competition. In this respect, three groups of 

providers stood out as achieving high ratings: 

• Four of the top seven inspection results – 

out of more than 200 – come from tertiary 

colleges. Some (like Bury, and Blackburn) 

are quite large, but smaller ones (Truro, 

Selby, Nelson, Runshaw, North Devon) 

plainly also provide outstanding services to 

their communities. 

• Those areas where two colleges provided 

clear and separate curriculum offers – for 

example an academic sixth form college 

alongside a vocational FE institution, or a 

tertiary alongside a specialist adult institution 

– also scored well in inspectoral judgements 

(Luton, Darlington, Manchester, Stourbridge, 

Telford, Scunthorpe, Richmond, Oldham, 

Solihull, Stockton). In these cases, the 

choice is one of curriculum, not institution – 

a topic to which we will return. 

• Lastly, there were some exceptionally 

positive judgements of very large colleges 

(such as City & Islington, Newcastle, 

New College Nottingham, City of Bristol, 

MANCAT, Ealing & Hammersmith, City of 

Liverpool, Lambeth) which were big enough 

to dominate the local post-16 market. 

choice at 16 

3.29 For the moment, we need to note that 

being in favour of more choice at 16 is only 

the start of the debate. Whether one has a 

choice of institution type depends on political 

decisions: an individual cannot choose 

between ‘staying on’ in a buoyant sixth form 

or going to a local sixth form/tertiary college, 

because such colleges can only exist where 

many schools end at 16. One must ask also 

– what sort of choice is important? Without 

effective collaboration, a system with many 

small sixth forms will lack the critical mass 

needed for the full range of provision, even 

at A-level: if you can take A-level English and 

Maths anywhere, you will probably be able 

to study Latin, Law or Geology nowhere. The 

Principal of Solihull sixth form college told 

the Secretary of State that ‘the College is the 

sole state-maintained regional provider for 

A-level Russian, Italian and Latin. We offer 

students specialist options in History and 

Mathematics… (as a result of the opening of 

rival sixth forms) we are currently considering 

what should be withdrawn.’ So is it more 

important for young people to be able to 

choose what to study, or where to study?



Specialisation 

is often held to 

improve quality 

though there is 

little evidence 

that it does. 

Post-16 choices are also strongly affected by 

attainment at 16. A low-attaining 16-year-old 

will rarely find an appropriate offer outside 

the FE or WBL sector: they cannot choose a 

sixth form or sixth form college environment, 

because they won’t get in. 

specialisation 

3.30 Specialisation is often held to improve 

quality though there is little evidence that it 

does. The word has two meanings in everyday 

speech: it can refer either to a provider which 

offers a limited range of programmes or one 

that is of exceptional quality. ‘We specialise 

in engineering’ could mean that we only do 

engineering, or that we are very good at it; but 

there is no evidence that one automatically 

leads to the other. The nature of ‘specialism’ 

in the schools sector is variable, and research 

suggests that specialist status does not raise 

standards. As far as the FE sector goes, 

some colleges have high quality specialist 

niche work – violin repair, dental technology, 

ophthalmics, carpet textiles – alongside the 

standard business studies, IT and social 

care. There is no reliable evidence on a link 

between provider specialisation in the first 

sense and quality as in the second. Indeed, 

there has been some contrary evidence. Art 

and Media departments in general further 

education colleges score better than separate 

art colleges at inspection, for example, and 

a number of land-based colleges have had 

Figure 9: expenditure per pupil by level and institution 

‘‘ ‘‘ 


Success 

gini vs success 01/02 for long l2+3 Adult 

gini 

to be rescued by their local FE institution. 

DfES statisticians have failed to find a link 

as illustrated in Figure 9 which compares a 

measure of specialisation expressed as a 

form of Gini co-efficient with success rate 

data; more qualitative studies of ‘distinctive’ 

provision by LSDA similarly have found little 

impact. It is striking that, at the time of writing, 

the LSC is attempting to bring to an end the 

most specialised college system in England, 

in Leeds – where, in any case, the workings of 

the educational market had worked to erode 

the distinctiveness of the college offers. 

conclusion 

3.31 What we have found is not surprising. 

Stable institutions with a critical mass 

working in a coherent system do well. For all 

the talk of ‘evidence-based policy making’, 

the Government’s current enthusiasm for 

competition, and for small sixth forms flies in 

the face of what we know about what works. 

It is worth saying that we did not come across 

a single advocate of the Government’s post-16 

policies in a substantial round of interviews 

and discussions. The atmosphere ranged from 

bafflement to anger. One of our interviewees 

said that he found it ‘perplexing’ that well 

researched local proposals, which clearly 

pointed up the inadequacy of the existing 

arrangement, could be overturned on the 

grounds of political fashion. Others describing 

similar situations were less polite. 

0.90 

0.80 

0.70 

0.60 

0.50 

0.40 

0.30 

0.20 

0.10 

0.00 

0 100 200 300 400 500 

more 

specialised 

less 

specialised

3.32 So where do we find ourselves, halfway 

through this report? We have identified that 

the pattern of provision for post-16 learners 

in England is a patchwork. Although in the 

past local authorities had the power, and in 

some cases the will, to determine an overall 

pattern (whether selective as in Kent, or 

tertiary as in Somerset) those powers no 

longer exist, and what is available to learners 

now derives partly from history and partly from 

institutional ambitions. 




3.33 Yet there is strong evidence that the 

pattern of provision makes a difference to 

learners; if the evidence is not always decisive 

it is too powerful to ignore. If no one body 

can take action on the basis of the evidence 

we have to ask whether the institutions 

themselves, working together, can take the 

requisite steps to secure effective provision 

across an area. We examine whether 

partnership or more formal arrangements such 

as federations or mergers can help fill the gap?



section 4: can partnership help? 

In recent years 

‘partnership’ and 

‘collaboration’ have 

become increasingly 

important as 

themes in policy 

discourse and 

as the object 

of study. 

4.1 So the structure of educational institutions 

that deliver post compulsory 38 education, and 

the way that they relate to each other – what 

is loosely called the post-16 system – varies 

greatly in different parts of England; and 

no-one appears to be in charge of its design. 

What seem important are the decisions of a 

number of different actors – outstandingly, 

increasingly independent schools and 

colleges. We discussed how the behaviour 

of some institutions influences others – what 

we called the post-16 ecology. We then went 

on to review the evidence that suggests 

that particular forms of post-16 organisation 

seem to be better than others, and that 

the expansion of small sixth forms is likely 

to worsen the performance of our post-16 

system, reducing choice, raising costs and 

lowering success rates. 

4.2 The conventional rebuttal of such an 

argument would lay stress on the growing 

cooperation and partnership which schools 

and colleges show. ‘Autonomy’ one local 

government leader told us, ‘doesn’t mean 

isolation’. In recent years ‘partnership’ and 

‘collaboration’ have become increasingly 

important as themes in policy discourse and 

as the object of study. In the political context at 

least, the terms are often used interchangeably, 

and often poorly defined. We take collaboration 

to describe a process where two autonomous 

organisations choose to work together on a 

specific project, and partnership to describe 

more continuous or formal arrangements for 

shared activity. Partnership has been given 

great importance in the reforms to the 14–19 

curriculum, which envisage the introduction 

of a new range of diplomas which should be 

available nationwide by 2010 and available as 

an entitlement to all young people from 2013. 

The government has repeatedly emphasised 

that no one institution can deliver an individual 

diploma, still less the full entitlement, without 

active collaboration with others. Proposals 

to offer diplomas need to be submitted by 

‘‘ ‘‘ 


consortia rather than individual schools and 

colleges and be supported by local authority 

wide partnership groups. Extra funding 

has been made available to support such 

collaboration, and some local authorities are 

attaching the resources to partnership groups 

not individual institutions. 

4.3 We were keen to see whether it was 

possible to build effective partnerships, and if 

so, whether this would be a way of moderating 

– or even eliminating – some of the problems 

we have outlined earlier. Different interviewees 

had different views about partnerships. There 

was much negativity and cynicism, as we 

shall see, but at least some felt that good 

work was being done, or in prospect. One of 

our expert readers felt that great strides had 

been taken in the last year, as the two Diploma 

Gateway bidding rounds worked through. In 

order to see whether there was evidence of 

the effectiveness (or otherwise) of partnership 

working, we turned to the published work. 

4.4 A great deal has been written about 

partnership working, though in official 

documents the tendency has been to assert 

the benefits without recourse to a great 

deal of evidence. Partnership, it seems, is 

self-evidently a good thing. It is difficult to 

draw many conclusions from much of the 

existing literature because of the absence of 

a consistent and explicit frame of reference 

for evaluating partnership. Several pieces of 

research seek simply to describe different 

patterns of organisation without drawing many 

general conclusions. A report by Principal 

Learning Ltd in 2003 39 for example describes 

its purpose as providing ‘a range of illustrative 

models of effective provision of post-16 

learning in local areas. The models provide 

illustrations of how arrangements might 

be made to work operationally, rather than 

describing theoretical best practice’. Some 

academic papers take an altogether cooler 

stance; Chris Huxham from the University of 

38 This may be a term that will need to be revised following the raising of the learning age. 

39 Illustrations of Different Local Organisational Structures for Collaborative Delivery of Post-16 Education and Training’ 

Principal Learning Ltd for LSC and DfES 2003

…partnership 

as a second best 

solution chosen 

when institutional 

reform is 

fudged. 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

Strathclyde 40 advises organisations ‘Don’t 

work collaboratively unless you have to.’ 

Others have a still more cynical view, regarding 

partnership as what happens ‘when mutual 

fear exceeds mutual loathing.’ 

4.5 A more measured but essentially negative 

view is taken by researchers such as Geoff 

Stanton, who regard partnership as a second 

best solution chosen when institutional reform is 

fudged. This view is supported by Estyn’s study 

of partnership and collaboration in Wales 41 : 

Collaboration between school sixth forms 

and colleges may lead to better value for 

money by eliminating some uneconomic 

teaching groups. However … re-organising 

the learning provision in an area, especially 

in urban and more compact geographical 

areas, is a better way of improving efficiency. 

4.6 How should we steer between official 

enthusiasm and private reservation? Perhaps 

the way forward is to look at what partnerships 

do. Felicity Munday and colleagues 42 wrote 

two reports that provided useful descriptions 

of the types of collaborative activity in which 

institutions are engaged. The reports identify 

some of the challenges raised by partnership 

working including the cost and demands 

on staff time, but do more to highlight the 

variety of practice rather than produce clear 

generalisations. They do however note that 

most of their examples of collaboration 

had been prompted by the need to create 

efficiencies, or to broaden the range of subjects 

on offer. 

4.7 Munday also quotes work by Derrick 

Johnstone of Educe Ltd which proposes a 

scale against which the nature of partnership 

working can be assessed. The scale involves 

a spectrum from conflict to confederation. The 

approach can be helpful in describing one 

dimension of partnerships, but suggestions 

that it represents the stages of an evolutionary 

process – that we are moving into a world of 




collaboration – go beyond the observed facts. 

A report for LSDA by Edem and colleagues 43 

adds to the descriptive material available 

and extends the idea of a scale to include 

two dimensions. One dimension is a version 

of that used by Johnson; partnerships or 

collaborative arrangements are characterised 

as running from tight to loose with a federal 

arrangement representing the ‘tight’ end of the 

scale. The other axis distinguishes specialised 

from broadly based provision. Combining the 

two axes can give a fourfold categorisation of 

partnerships. (See Figure 10 on following page.) 

4.9 To focus on the breadth of provision is 

an important insight but unfortunately Edem 

and colleagues make a fundamental error 

in identifying breadth as a characteristic of 

the constituent institutions rather than the 

partnership as a whole. Thus a collaboration 

between two general FE colleges (but 

excluding local school 6th forms) would in their 

terms be broad. We later describe how we 

built what we feel is a more rigorous structure 

on this model. 

4.10 The descriptive studies enable one to 

make a number of general comments about 

current patterns of partnership working, 

many of which we have been able to check 

with our interviewees. It is clear from reading 

the literature that many of the reasons for 

engaging in partnership do not derive from 

the best interests of the learners. The overall, 

but not universal, pattern is one of limited 

and tactical involvement where participants’ 

engagement is sustained by external funding 

and qualified by institutional self interest. The 

case studies include examples where schools 

collaborated to preserve individual sixth 

forms; and colleges did so to avoid significant 

structural change. This mirrors the situation 

described by one of our London interviewees 

as ‘collaborative anarchy’. She claimed that 

‘school heads will say that partnership is good 

if they can get their own way.’ 

40 Huxham, S. & Vangen, S. Doing things Collaboratively: Realising the advantage or Succumbing to Inertia? 

Strathclyde 2003 

41 http://www.estyn.co.uk’publications/Remit_18_Collaboration_between_schools_with_sixth_forms_and_FE_ 

institutions_May_2006.pdf. 

42 Pratley, B. & Munday, F. A study of post-16 collaboration, Kent & Medway LSC 2004 and Munday, F. & Fawcett, B. 

Models of 16–19 collaboration Oxfordshire Learning Partnership 2002 

43 ‘Organisation of provision of post-16 education and training’ Edem, A. Spencer, P. & Fyfield, B. LSDA 2003



Many 

partnerships 

claim evidence of 

benefits but only 

rarely do these 

include improved 

outcomes for 

learners. 

Figure 10: lsDA partnership typology 

4.11 Many partnerships claim evidence 

of benefits but only rarely do these include 

improved outcomes for learners. To quote 

Derrick Johnstone again, ‘Evidence… is 

relatively limited in relation to results though 

there tends to be much more evidence 

of process benefits, such as improved 

understanding and trust between partners’ 

or Evans ‘overall the message… is that 

partnership and collaboration have positive 

effects on pupil and teacher morale, but the 

impacts on pupil achievement have been 

marginal.’ Estyn 44 commented that in Wales 

‘Overall, improving the quality of provision and 

raising the standards that learners achieve are 

not the main or most important reasons for 

undertaking collaborative activities.’ 

4.12 Partnership working is expensive; a 

senior LSC officer we spoke to described 

it as ‘hugely resource intensive’. From the 

case studies in the literature it was clear that 

substantial sums of money were spent on 

supporting the overhead costs of partnership 

working; a rough estimate is that the typical 

partnership established for the Increased 

Flexibility Programme (IFP) consumed £100,000 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

general 

(Several institutions offering 

similar or overlapping 

programmes) 


strong partnership 

(separate budget and staff, 

enforced rules, clear goals 

and targets) 

Weak partnership 

(resources from partners, 

informal routines, no clear 

goals or targets) 

specialised 

(Institutions with clearly 

separated roles in the 

network) 

worth of external funding and £150,000 

local funding to support 150 pupils to take 

vocational options. Around three quarters of 

the funding for IFP partnerships was taken up 

with overhead costs. The Welsh report quoted 

earlier tells us that ‘The Common Investment 

Fund has resulted in new collaborative 

arrangements, but there is uncertainty about 

whether they are sustainable once the funding 

ceases’. There is surely a question mark about 

the inherent value of activity that people stop 

doing if no-one pays them to do it. 

4.13 A major cost – relevant to the plans for 

diplomas – is transport. Partnerships often 

have to meet the costs of transporting learners 

between sites and sometimes the level of cost 

appears disproportionate. One well regarded 

and long established partnership presented 

figures at a national conference in 2006 to 

illustrate the cost of AS provision delivered 

jointly by a number of schools. Out of a total 

resource of £785 per AS level provided by the 

LSC, transport between sites accounted for 

£240. In this instance the collaboration was 

deemed effective in enabling a number of 

schools to maintain viable sixth form provision. 

44 Collaboration between schools with sixth forms and Further Education Colleges to deliver flexible high quality 

provision that expands choice and achieves value for money Estyn 2006

…participation 

in partnerships is 

voluntary and rarely 

engages all the 

institutions in 

an area. 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

However, given our earlier survey of research 

that suggests sixth forms – especially marginal 

ones – have poorer staying on rates and results 

than reformed provision one wonders why this 

is felt to be a good outcome, especially given 

the extraordinary cost. 

4.14 Another cost is sheer management 

time. All the school and college leaders we 

spoke to were engaged in partnership working, 

sometimes on an extensive scale. One told us 

that in his locality ‘we were partnershipped 

to death’. Another described the extensive 

range of partnerships of different sorts that 

his college was engaged in and the demands 

on the time of senior staff of servicing all the 

associated meetings. Opinions ranged from a 

genuine enthusiasm to make things work to an 

acceptance that involvement in some form of 

partnership was a cross that had to be borne. 

Even one of our positive interviewees told us 

that ‘the administration (e.g. calendars) can 

remain somewhat chaotic’. 

4.15 The most positive respondent saw 

partnerships as essential to meeting the needs 

of those young people who are ‘not a good 

bet’. ‘Competition,’ he said, ‘has advantages 

for high achievers but the needs of the less 

able can only be met by a partnership where 

there is joint ownership of outcomes.’ A view 

from the East Midlands told us: 

There is a temptation to look at the 

attractions of a single provider – but you 

get different perspectives from working 

together… I think that where people have 

common agendas and aims working 

together is positive and useful: where 

competition is the dominant mode, you can’t 

set up something that will work forever. 

4.16 These comments are not the norm. 

When you speak privately to the participants, 

a positive view of partnership is rare. We found 

that, although many partnerships are operating, 

there are serious reservations about their 

capacity to tackle difficult issues. The problems 

seem to come down to these factors: 

• Partnerships are often driven by school or 

college self-interest rather than a desire 




to improve provision. Senior staff attend 

to make sure their institution gets a 

favourable deal. In Wales, we are told that 

‘Schools, rather than colleges, gain most 

from collaboration. Collaboration enables 

schools to retain more learners in their sixth 

form than would otherwise have been the 

case.’ There seems little sense of analysing 

the problem – say, staying on rates for 

GCSE under-achievers – and focusing on 

what works for that group. The Diploma 

partnerships seem driven by the desire for a 

partition of the level 3 spoils. 

• Partnerships often seem dependent on 

the goodwill of a few individuals. We came 

across joint working that started, or stopped, 

when the leadership of key members 

changed. This reflects the picture we have 

seen earlier – that no-one is in charge of the 

local educational infrastructure, and so it is 

determined adventitiously by personalities 

and institutions. To comment on an earlier 

quotation – it is just as difficult to set up 

something forever from a collaboration as it is 

from competition. 

• Our interviewees confirm that participation in 

partnerships is voluntary and rarely engages 

all the institutions in an area. Sometimes it 

is the most prestigious local schools and 

colleges who choose not to attend: in one 

city, the academy seemed to be a particular 

offender. The NAO report 45 was quite robust 

about this problem: ‘There are still some 

institutions delivering education to 14 to 

19 year olds that are not actively involved 

with partnerships. Individual schools were 

most commonly cited as not yet being 

involved. Local authorities and LSC should 

be prepared to use sanctions where 

necessary in relation to the few institutions 

that are unwilling to collaborate to secure 

a high quality provision of the full national 

entitlement for their students.’ 

• The partnerships have no power other 

than moral authority, and, as one of our 

interviewees said ‘a partnership based on 

goodwill will always struggle’. A coordinator 

from a major City Council commented on 

the problem when schools renege on deals 

45 Partnering for success: preparing to deliver the 14–19 education reforms in England NAO/Stationery Office, 

December 2007



‘‘ 

…the sorts 

of partnerships 

that are needed 

are those that 

can deliver an 

appropriate learning 

entitlement to all 

those in an area; 

not ones that simply 

allow local leaders 

to meet and share 

views, nor those 

which provide an 

excellent service 

for the best but 

forget the rest, nor 

ones which have 

a splendid vision 

but cannot 

deliver it. 

‘‘ 

– she told a conference that ‘what is needed 

is hard contracting to overcome lack of 

commitment’. 

• Without determined local leadership, planning 

and funding can be weak. Local partnerships 

rarely have control over the core funding 

that could drive through agreed joint plans 

and provision. There are some exceptions 

– the collegiates in Birmingham and Solihull 

were an interesting example, and Bristol is 

developing innovative systems. However, our 

interviews more often supported the view 

expressed by Estyn: ‘few have formalised 

arrangements, well-developed strategic 

plans and effective co-ordination. Very few 

have appropriate procedures for assuring the 

quality of the arrangements.’ 46 

• Partnerships don’t seem to aim for improved 

student outcomes. Where there are firm 

aims, they tend to be about corporate 

working. This parallels some individual 

assessments of ‘good’ partnerships, 

defined by the cordiality of the personal 

relationships rather than any developed idea 

of the number of learners served, or the 

increases in attainment and participation. It 

can be argued (see the work of Huxham and 

Vangen) that understanding and common 

purpose are a necessary first step before 

provision can be improved, so there may 

not be a tension between the two views 

of successful partnership. However, in the 

current context the sorts of partnerships 

that are needed are those that can deliver 

an appropriate learning entitlement to all 

those in an area; not ones that simply allow 

local leaders to meet and share views, nor 

those which provide an excellent service 

for the best but forget the rest, nor ones 

which have a splendid vision but cannot 

deliver it. To be fair, the DCSF evaluation of 

partnerships aiming for Gateway status does 

include an assessment of the effectiveness 

of local education delivery, but this still 

covers less than 8% of the country. 

• There seems little concept of value-formoney. 

We have attended meetings with 

twenty or thirty senior staff present, and 


been told of arrangements which cost six 

figure sums for each partnership. There 

does seem to be a need to at least consider 

whether this money might be better spent 

on (for example) 100 IT study places, 7,500 

library books or five extra Maths teachers. 

Alternatively, the resource might be better 

spent developing alternative modes and 

partners for common working. Many 

colleges, for example, report positive 

experiences of membership of the Local 

Strategic Partnerships that engage them 

with (e.g.) the police, the social services 

and housing departments of the local 

authority, with the DWP and Economic 

Development staff. 

4.17 An effective partnership system would 

in our view be one that covers all the learners, 

involved all the local institutions, and had the 

power to compel outcomes and resource 

projects that would raise standards and 

participation. In order to consider what sort 

of partnership might be able to deliver these 

outcomes, we developed our own typology 

and backed it up with a questionnaire (see 

annexe) to test its applicability. We built on 

the Johnstone and LSDA models as shown in 

Figure 11 on page 34. 

The horizontal dimension concerns the 

inclusiveness of a partnership. This reflects 

the extent to which the arrangement covers all 

relevant provision in an area rather than just a 

selection. There are many examples of 14–19 

partnerships for example that do not include 

work based learning providers, or from which 

some high performing schools have opted 

out. The second dimension concerns the 

focus of the strength 47 of a local partnership. 

By strength we mean the probability that the 

overall needs of the partnership would take 

precedence over the self interest of any partner; 

in this sense a merger or confederation can be 

seen as the strongest form of partnership. 

4.18 Combining these distinctions gives 

us a fourfold classification of partnerships. 

In our experience there are very few local 

arrangements that fall into box A which is the 

46 It is significant that the Webb report proposes routing all 14–19 funding through consortia within 5 years 

47 In this we are following the practice of Spours et al in the Nuffield Review Issues Paper No 2 November 2007 who 

refer to strongly and weakly collaborative arrangements.

They tend 

however to be 

limited in their 

capacity to take 

firm action if it 

contradicts the 

wishes or interests 

of individual 

groups. 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

Figure 11: Fletcher and perry partnership typology 

total 

(Wide ranging membership, 

powerful influence on 

institutions) 

arrangement we believe to be necessary in 

order to meet the government’s ambitions 

for the 14–19 phase of learning. Where 

arrangements are inclusive they tend to 

be weak. Where they are strong they tend 

to be partial. It is probably inevitable that 

arrangements that are driven by institutional 

action rather than strong local leadership 

should evolve in this way. 

4.19 In order to see whether the 

characteristics of strength and inclusiveness 

could be identified on the ground we 

developed an interview schedule set out in 

Appendix 3. We asked a number of providers 

to use it to describe their local arrangements 

which they could do without difficulty. In 

discussions with them afterwards they agreed 

that the two dimensions and the way they 

were assessed reflected the reality that they 

had to deal with on the ground. 

4.20 Many local authority areas have area 

wide partnerships on which all relevant actors 

are, at least in theory, represented. They 

tend however to be limited in their capacity 

to take firm action if it contradicts the wishes 




partnership typology 

centrally driven 

(separate budget and staff, 

enforced rules, clear goals 

and targets) 

A 

D 

B 

C 

Member driven 

(resources from partners, 

informal routines, no shared 

goals or targets) 

partial 

(Limited membership and 

impact) 

or interests of individual groups. One local 

authority level co-ordinator in a shire county 

told us that ‘the partnership has very few 

cards to play’ and expressed the view that 

government expectations about the role it 

should play could not be realised. A London 

Principal was pithier: the local partnership had 

‘no leadership and no strategy’. 

4.21 We have also identified a number of 

arrangements that fall into category D – they 

are strong but do not include all provision. 

Many of the college mergers we came across 

were concerned to achieve the benefits of a 

strongly collaborative model, but only within 

the subset of provision for which they were 

responsible. Strong federal arrangements 

allowed for rationalisation of provision across 

sites; or action to invest in areas of proven 

need. For example, the imaginative StAR work 

in Birmingham and Solihull LSC created new 

centres for construction and engineering. In 

some cases a merger of a general FE college 

and sixth form college broadened the scope of 

an institution, but nowhere did we encounter 

such a model that also brought on board 

schools provision.



‘‘ 

…there is 

a considerable 

tension that must be 

resolved between 

the government’s 

wish for collaborative 

delivery of diplomas 

and the desire to 

introduce assertive 

new competitors 

into the local 

post 16 scene. 

‘‘ 

4.22 In several of the areas we looked at 

something close to a strong and inclusive 

model did at first sight appear to be emerging. 

Sixth form provision located in local schools 

was organised through the FE college on 

a franchise basis. Whilst this appeared 

to mitigate some of the worst effects of 

institutional competition it also seemed to 

be driven by the ambition of schools rather 

than the needs of pupils, and to reflect a 

relatively weak bargaining position on the 

part of FE. One college Principal described 

the arrangements as a ‘second best’ solution 

made necessary by the lack of political 

support for genuine tertiary arrangements. 

There is no reason to believe, for example, 

that a small sixth form funded by the local FE 

college will offer any greater choice or higher 

standards than one funded through more 

conventional means. 

4.23 Throughout our interviews we were 

struck by the disruptive effect that academies 

and presumptive sixth forms were having 

on previously established relationships. We 

do not believe that this was the reaction of 

a tired cartel of local providers resentful of 

new and fresh approaches. Developments 

outside local planning mechanisms increase 

the complexity of already difficult relationships 

– and, it must be said, increase suspicion. 

In one case, the local academy declined to 

participate in collegiate working: in another, 

existing partnership members excluded the 

new academy. Different rules for (e.g.) pupil 

exclusion and suspicions about admissions 

processes worsen this position. We believe 

that there is a considerable tension that must 

be resolved between the government’s wish 

for collaborative delivery of diplomas and the 

desire to introduce assertive new competitors 

into the local post-16 scene. 

4.24 In summary, we concluded that 

currently partnership arrangements cannot 

deliver the coherent local system needed 

to ensure opportunity and quality for all. 

We were struck, however, by the volume 

of activity in developing partnership that is 

coming from the Diploma implementation, and 

some stakeholders told us that partnership 

has moved forward – towards our model of 

centrally driven model. Local authorities have 

become more proactive, and in a number 


of places – not everywhere – have begun to 

devolve funding to a partnership rather than 

to individual institutions. The understanding of 

institutions has changed in some areas. As an 

example, a consultant involved in assessing 

gateway bids told us that first phase plans 

were implausible as every school said it could 

do everything, but the second phase was 

much more realistic and took on board the 

partnership dimension. This is reassuring, but 

poses a whole new set of issues that need 

further development – 

• Will strong partnerships move us to a 

system which has a 14–19 and a pre-14 

phase, not the way we conventionally see it. 

If the diploma is to be successful and covers 

30–40% of pupils, current structures will not 

cope with the demand at all – it will radically 

change the way we see schools. A school 

with 40–50% taking the diploma will require 

pupils to take at least a day elsewhere, and 

will need to trim its offer of GCSE subjects. 

• This will ask significant questions about 

nature of schools – e.g. small 11–14 schools 

and 14–19 federations. Calculations suggest 

that even large cities like Manchester and 

Bristol will only be able to provide the full 

diploma entitlement with two or three 

federations. The next section goes on to 

discuss whether college mergers have a 

role in providing a more coherent post-14 

or post-16 system – but maybe the world is 

moving too fast for us, and we need to go 

beyond mere college mergers to include 

schools and colleges to provide necessary 

breadth. 

4.25 We come back to the need for local 

statistics that will show the achievements in 

participation and success. These need to 

be built in to partnership activity, so that we 

can judge whether there is generally a move 

forward, and whether the resources fed into 

collaboration can be justified.

section 5: can mergers help? 

…John 

Denham however 

told the 2007 

AoC Conference 

that ‘there is no 

evidence that larger 

colleges provide 

more effective 

education’. 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

5.1 This paper aims to investigate the 

various ways that schools, colleges and other 

organisations can be configured to provide 

education and training for students after the 

age of 16. As we have seen, England provides 

a rich test bed of various forms of organisation 

– from those with many schools and colleges 

offering post-16 work to others where there 

are few providers. The number of areas which 

have a genuine monopoly provider are very few, 

but there is a trend towards larger units in the 

further education sector. Larger colleges could 

also be part of the world of greater coherence 

that we seek. The Secretary of State for 

Innovation, Universities and Skills John Denham 

however told the 2007 AoC Conference that 

‘there is no evidence that larger colleges 

provide more effective education’. Testing that 

assertion is important for the current debate. 

The Minister’s statement is not, of course, just 

about mergers – colleges in England vary in 

size considerably. Some merged colleges – 

Merton, Tyne Metro – are comparatively small in 

size, and on the other hand some large colleges 

– like Lewisham – have grown to their current 

size organically rather than by acquisition. 

5.2 Section 4 of our paper looked at the 

various forms of partnership. The ultimate 

form of collaboration – one which was 

comprehensive in scope and which could 

impose decisions – is very close to a merged 

corporate organisation. New forms of 

organisation including ‘federations’ of colleges 

and mergers between distant institutions are 

being explored; and there are new variations 

on old models such as franchising. In 

Manchester, for example, Mancat funds sixth 

form provision located on the premises of 

deprived secondary schools, offering a chance 

of coherence alongside locality and access. In 

section 3 we learned that large colleges seem 

to have a good record, and small sixth forms a 

poor one; and saw that arguments from choice 

and competition are weaker than expected. 

Can we bring these arguments together to see 




whether large organisations might deliver a 

better service to the client? This section looks 

at the various arguments that have led to large 

units. First, we investigate the financial case for 

larger size. We then look at the case from an 

aspect of quality. The section ends with a look 

at the opportunities presented by larger units 

in creating greater coherence and inclusion in 

the local system, but before then we need to 

look at the defensive nature of some of today’s 

merger talks. 

Mergers – the record 

5.3 When the further education sector was 

incorporated in 1993, there were 465 colleges, 

of which some – such as Wakefield, Sheffield, 

Lambeth, Manchester – had been merged in 

local authority days. Consultants predicted 

that the number would rapidly fall – some 

said by as much as half – but 414 colleges 

entered the LSC world in April 2001, and at 

January 2008, 373 remained 48 . The reduction 

was achieved mostly by merger: the FEFC 

and LSC have been anxious to retain local 

access to education, so no institution has 

completely disappeared. The traffic is not all 

one way, though. Five new colleges had 

been formed (mostly sixth form colleges 

following area review) and seven colleges 

moved to the HE sector. At the time of writing 

the LSC is processing 11 merger proposals 

(some multi-college) and a number of other 

colleges are undertaking feasibility and 

options studies. In addition, we have just seen 

a major reorganisation in Northern Ireland 

where 16 colleges have been coalesced into 

6 regional institutions. 

5.4 The process of reorganisation is 

described in the LSC’s Circular 09/02 49 which 

requires, for approval of a merger, evidence 

that the proposal: 

• Is likely to extend participation, learning and 

training 

• Is likely to result in raised learner achievement 

48 Comprising 16 land based, 4 Art & Design, 195 general FE, 1 Specialist FE, 67 sixth form colleges, 28 voluntary 

aided or denominational sixth form colleges, 11 specialist designated institutions, and 51 tertiary 

49 This is another document that is currently under revision!



…most 

mergers aimed to 

solve problems 

of finance and 

standards, rather 

than move 

forward to deliver 

educational 

and social 

advantages. 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

• Is likely to result in raised standards of 

education and training delivered 

• Is likely to address any issues of over- and 

under-provision in an area 

• Has been subject to adequate consultation 

and consideration of alternative options 

• Is likely to be financially viable, affordable, 

cost-effective and successfully managed 

• Is consistent with any area wide inspection 

report received 

This list can, however, be deceptive in 

representing the motives of most mergers. A 

look at the activity of the past ten years shows 

that most mergers aimed to solve problems 

of finance and standards, rather than move 

forward to deliver educational and social 

advantages. The financial motives are not so 

much an attempt to generate scale economies 

on the industrial model, though these may 

be present. It was more often a matter of 

survival: colleges that need a partner to pay 

the bills. And merger to raise quality was often 

a response to an adverse inspection report: a 

college would see – or be cajoled to consider 

– whether an alliance with an effective and 

well-managed neighbour could bring in the 

systems and expertise needed to lift the 

provision to acceptable levels. 

Financial advantages? 

scale economies 

5.5 Why does a large organisation offer 

greater financial security? This is a very old 

debate in economics. The topic of what are 

known as ‘economies of scale’ is so well 

known that the example of Adam Smith’s pin 

factory now appears on the back of a £20 

note. The theoretical textbook forms of scale 

economies are as follows: 

• Technical economies – from sharing 

equipment, libraries and social facilities, 

and teaching more efficiently in larger 

class sizes. Glyn Owen and Mick 

Fletcher undertook a study of college 

scale economies (LSDA 2006), which 

concentrated mostly on A-levels: they 

found that the costs of running smallscale 

provision was very high, and that 

large organisations were able to use their 

financial elbow-room to enhance choice for 


students. They identify two effects of scale 

economies. One is simply providing courses 

more cheaply. The authors conclude that 

‘cost penalties can be very large: unit costs 

may be twice as high with 100 students as 

with 500, if comparable subject choice is 

offered.’ The second effect of larger scale 

reported by Owen and Fletcher affects 

choice. Institutions between 200 and 

500 post-16 students can offer efficient 

provision, but only by restricting choice. As 

institutions get larger than this, they tend 

to use their scale economies by offering 

wider choice to young people, rather than 

delivering a restricted range ever more 

cheaply. ‘In practice the larger institutions 

use their greater efficiency to offer wider 

range of options so a small institution would 

typically offer 18 A-levels, a mid-range 

institution 24 and the larger providers 40.’ 

This provides evidence for the point made 

in para 3.29, that choice of institution may 

work against choice of curriculum. Gaining 

savings from academic operations, though, 

depends on the ability to rationalise the 

curriculum offer. A sixth form college with 

2,000 A-level places is likely to find the job 

easier than a general FE college twice the 

size: a merged college in an urban borough 

more able to rationalise than one spread 

across a rural county. The link between the 

size of providers and the range of subjects 

they can offer is confirmed by data derived 

from a Tribal study in a large LSC area. 

• Managerial economies, from having 

specialist managers and being able to bid 

for more expert staff. The national leaders 

of major colleges have often cut their teeth 

running smaller institutions, and been 

attracted by the challenge and rewards of 

a larger scale institution. Discussions with 

successful colleges which have prospered 

from coming together draws attention to the 

importance and value of strong corporate 

services such as estates, HR and finance. 

Even colleges with a federal feel – such as 

Hammersmith and West London – centralise 

their corporate services. 

• Marketing economies – where costs can be 

spread across more units. An advertisement 

costs the same whether it is for a college 

of 5,000 students or 30,000; print runs 

are remarkably cheaper as volumes grow.

‘‘ 

Retaining 

separate institutions 

in a given area 

involves multiple 

capital building 

strategies and 

building project 

managers, 

duplicated facilities 

in key sectors, 

and clumsy 

arrangements 

for specialism 

by level. 

‘‘ 

Savings can also be made in procurement 

– items like paper and IT equipment being 

cheaper in bulk. Effective employer relations 

units can be created, to create a distinctive 

brand and make more effective bids for 

regional and corporate work. 

• Financial economies from better access to 

capital funds and financial organisations. 

American community colleges are actually 

large enough to launch bond issues: this 

may not be the case in the UK, but better 

financial terms are certainly available 50 . 

More commonly, a larger college can often 

use its inherited premises assets to fund 

a programme creating more modern and 

fit-for-purpose accommodation. This is often 

a persuasive argument for merger between 

neighbouring institutions, where the receipts 

from surplus assets in one partner can be 

used to expand promising areas in the other. 

One London college was able to fund a 

major renovation after merger by reducing 

sites from fourteen to three: another took 

disposal assets from a site in the City to 

fund a sparkling sixth form centre. Retaining 

separate institutions in a given area involves 

multiple capital building strategies and 

building project managers, duplicated 

facilities in key sectors, and clumsy 

arrangements for specialism by level. In one 

West Midlands merger we studied, bringing 

colleges together allowed the partners to 

jointly develop a third site in response to 

regional development planning – something 

that would not have been possible with two 

rival institutions. 

• Risk-bearing economies – reflecting the 

old saw about putting your eggs in one 

basket. Larger organisations can better 

withstand changes in funding policy 

(16–19 v adults, revised support for ESOL), 

prosperity in specific employment sectors 

(boom and bust in construction) or changes 

in demography. Merger proposals often 

include curriculum review to investigate 

the gains available from balancing the 

operations of the two partners. Modern 




business practice often includes judicious 

diversification (Tesco selling financial 

products, Marks & Spencer going into food) 

or even major changes in the business 

model (Rank moving to office equipment 

from cinemas, IBM into consulting from 

manufacturing 51 ). 

It can be argued that forming larger units 

may reduce the risk for the institution but 

places greater risk on the community – if 

the one large supplier goes wrong. This 

was an anxiety during the problems of 

Sheffield College in the 1990s, and, despite 

the generally positive picture, there are still 

some large colleges – City of Birmingham, 

Dudley, Doncaster – with poor grades. 

Delivering in practice 

5.6 Examples of these textbook opportunities 

are not hard to see in particular cases – 

outstandingly, curriculum rationalisation on 

a ‘hub-and-spoke’ model, and premises 

rationalisation to secure a spread of provision 

for all communities in effective modern 

premises. However, it is not enough to merely 

claim opportunities for financial benefits. One 

study advises that ‘possible cost savings should 

be systematically identified and monitored, 

rather than simply being asserted; clear 

time-bound objectives, for example, about 

curriculum change, should be set and postmerger 

evaluation undertaken’ (Stewart 2003). 

Higher quality? 

Quality 

5.7 If finance has been a major reason for 

bringing colleges together, quality has not 

been unimportant 52 . This corresponds to the 

second and third criteria listed in para 5.4, but 

until recently has been more often a reaction 

to crisis rather than a measured attempt 

to raise standards. Merger is also used to 

achieve a rapid change of senior management. 

However, merger alone will not secure quality 

improvement. What is needed is a programme 

embedding quality systems and raising staff 

skills, which can be done independently by 

50 Though there have been attempts to manage borrowing on a common basis that would reduce costs for colleges 

engaged in capital works 

51 The same has happened to colleges that started as servants to the textile or mining industries. 

52 Having said that, finance and quality are connected – colleges which have poor financial controls are often weak 

academically.



‘‘ 

The general 

conclusion that the 

data seems to show 

is that bigger 

is better. 

‘‘ 

a smaller college. In one case in the East 

Midlands, a college judged ‘inadequate’ had 

recovered to a respectable re-inspection just 

as it entered a forced merger. 

5.8 What is the evidence on size and quality? 

As part of the current study, we looked at the 

inspection results of all general FE colleges, 

and tracked them against measures of college 

size (like budget or FTEs). The result – which 

was accurate at February 2008 – is shown 

below: the graph when income is used as a 

proxy for college size is virtually identical. 

5.9 Sixth form colleges were not included 

in this chart as they are small 53 and often 

selective, which is likely to distort the findings. 

Similarly, specialist adult colleges and landbased 

institutions have been excluded. We 

plan to run the data again with these colleges 

included – and perhaps some smaller colleges 

that have recently been merged. As it was, 

there are 229 institutions analysed. The 

general conclusion that the data seems to 

show is that bigger is better. We have reversed 

the vertical axis scales, as under Ofsted 


Figure 12: Average inspection grade and Ftes (general Fe) 

Ofsted average grade 

0 

0.00 

0.50 

1.00 

1.50 

2.00 

2.50 

3.00 

3.50 

4.00 

4.50 

gFe colleges – Ftes and grades 

marking, a low score is best. The trend line 

slopes upward gently, with a suggestion that a 

£35m college scores half a grade better than 

a £5m college. This is not an inconsiderable 

advantage: ‘half a grade point’ sounds a small 

variance, but it isn’t. Given that no inspection 

grade can be lower than 1, or higher than 4, 

the range in play is three points – and so ‘half 

a grade point’ is a 17% better result. The trend 

line uses Excel’s log function, which suggests 

the effect is most marked moving from small 

to medium-sized colleges: it gets shallower for 

very large colleges. 

5.10 There are, however, good and bad 

colleges at all sizes, and many outliers. There 

appears to be a group of tertiary colleges that 

are small and score highly, perhaps because 

they share sixth form college characteristics. 

Maybe the data should be re-run with them 

excluded, even though they are outweighed 

by the many small colleges with moderate to 

poor grades. However, they are relevant to the 

debate. They are often the only local provider 

– indicating (as we have seen earlier with 

other school research) that competition does 

2006/7 FTE students 

2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000 14,000 

trend line 

53 Sixth form colleges are small in overall numbers and budgets, but large in the sense that they concentrate on 

A-levels. This enables them to achieve scale economies – class size, choice – that may not be available to a 

larger college with many subject departments (see Fletcher and Owen)

‘‘ 

…there are a 

number of colleges 

that are exploring 

the advantages of 

a strategic merger 

– not aimed to 

rescue an ailing 

partner, but to 

create a major force 

well positioned to 

respond to policy 

change and 

regional needs. 

‘‘ 

not necessarily raise standards. It is striking 

that the three groups of colleges that do well 

– small tertiary, sixth form colleges, and very 

large – are all under pressure from current 

government policies. 

5.11 Our exercise was necessarily brief, and 

there are reservations to be made. The study 

covered a period in which Ofsted used two 

different inspection methodologies. Some 

colleges had a light touch inspection that just 

used five dimensions (effectiveness, capacity 

to improve, achievement and standards, 

quality, leadership and management) – which 

accounts for the bunching of scores at whole 

numbers – whilst others had a substantial 

range of curriculum grades. Further, 

throughout the period there were mergers 

and reorganisations, so some larger college 

have not had an inspection yet and other 

smaller colleges which performed poorly 

disappeared into merger. If underperforming 

colleges rescued by larger neighbours had 

been included, big colleges would have 

looked (even) better. The use of Ofsted reports 

assumes that inspectorial judgements are 

accurate as a measure of quality. Other 

studies have used success rates 54 . There 

is however an advantage in using Ofsted 

grades, in that inspectors make adjustments 

for the difficulty of social context. They also 

take success rates on board in making their 

assessments of quality. A crude comparison 

of success rates and size would be deceptive: 

considerable resources would be needed 

to make the appropriate adjustments for 

curriculum, qualification at entry and social 

class. No reference is made to other aspects 

of college performance, e.g. finance or 

participation rates. The proposal to introduce 

a holistic star-rating of college quality – that 

includes quality, finance and responsiveness 

– under the banner of a Framework for 

Excellence will enable these judgements to 

be included. 

5.12 Most of these issues could be resolved 

with more time or tweaking the methodology, 

but none seem to us to be critical. There may 

be some rough justice (e.g. some inspection 

reports will be under- or over-critical, LSC 

income figures distort real college size or 




miscount FTEs) spreading across a 200+ 

sample is likely to smooth inaccuracies. 

strategic mergers 

5.13 We have seen that the major drivers 

for college merger in recent years have 

been finance and quality – and often from 

a negative aspect. Colleges are brought 

together because one partner is financially 

threatened, or has unacceptably poor 

academic performance. However, governors 

and senior managers are increasingly seeking 

opportunities to bring together successful 

colleges to create an organisation that will 

better meet the needs of the sub-region and 

survive changes in funding. The authors of 

this report have, as part of this and other 

commissions, talked to stakeholders in 

about merger proposals in the North West, 

in the East Midlands, the West Midlands and 

London. The Guardian (12 June 2007) drew 

attention to the growth of mergers between 

successful colleges, using the union of South 

and North Trafford Colleges as its touchstone. 

Currently, there are a number of colleges that 

are exploring the advantages of a strategic 

merger – not aimed to rescue an ailing partner, 

but to create a major force well positioned to 

respond to policy change and regional needs. 

the threats – 16–19 work 

5.14 The motivation to look at strategic merger 

has often been somewhat defensive. A number 

of colleges feel (in the words of one recent 

college document we have seen) ‘given the 

current and future challenges the FE sector 

faces… the colleges should seriously explore 

the advantages of merging.’ Two major policy 

changes have persuaded college leaders to 

seek more powerful regional organisations. 

One is the increasingly competitive climate 

that we have described in 16–19 work, a risk 

made more acute by the primacy of such work 

in the LSC’s planning and funding. In addition, 

as we have seen the Academy programme is 

wedded to the idea of 11–18 schools: this is not 

stated in the legislation, but has been insisted 

upon in practice in all areas that they have been 

established. These two new groups of providers 

will come on the scene just as a demographic 

down wave reduces the number of students in 

the relevant age cohort substantially. 

54 We understand that such a comparison lay behind Secretary of State Denham’s comments.



the threats – adult work 

5.15 The second recent policy development 

to support arguments for closer working come 

from the Leitch Report (ref) and its emphasis 

on employer-driven training provision. Leitch’s 

proposals can be seen alongside the Foster 

Report’s view that the purpose of further 

education was to meet the skill needs of the 

economy. Together they reinforce changes 

in the funding system that were already 

under way as a result of the LSC’s agenda 

for change. The portion of college budgets 

aimed at meeting adult needs will increasingly 

switch to the Train To Gain methodology – with 

income earned from employer commissions 

(often mediated by brokers) rather than 

a college grant based on open student 

enrolment. There have been some recent 

attempts to moderate the hurried introduction 

of the scheme, but it is still predicted that 40% 

of the adult budget will be routed through 

employer-led channels by 2015. Additionally, 

the proportion of budget to be collected as 

fees from mainstream adult FE will rise. Having 

been set for many years at 25% of course 

costs, it is being raised in stages to 50%. 

Research has suggested that the first few 

stages of this rise have not had great effects, 

but the result of effectively doubling in a few 

years may well reduce enrolments in the near 

future. Only government priority work will 

maintain low or nil fees. 

5.16 The changes aim to give more power 

to employers to select their training partners, 

and represent a move away from enrolment 

based on the choice of individual learners. As 

a result, colleges see the need to sharpen their 

employer marketing units to maintain market 

share, and the capital to create centres of 

excellence. This does not necessarily argue 

for size, for some colleges have been able 

to establish a niche position for specialised 

work. However, this will not meet the broad 

organisational need to safeguard income: Train 

To Gain and Learning Accounts will replace, 

not supplement, traditional FE budgets. 

5.17 Colleges looking for larger and more 

secure units have been further motivated by the 

clear intention of the government not to cushion 

any effects from their changes. Added to the 

55 Foreword, Delivering World Class Skills in a Demand Led System 


emphasis on employer need is a commitment 

to competition, customer choice and customer 

demand. As the consultation paper (reference) 

says, ‘new entrants to the market will be 

encouraged… suppliers of unwanted or lower 

quality provision will not be protected.’ There 

will be an increased element of contestability 

opening FE money up to local rivals: 

The FE system needs to operate in an 

open and competitive market, driving up 

quality and delivering more innovative 

provision. This means moving away from 

the traditional planning role that exists to 

delivering through a demand led system. 

Coupled with a funding system that reflects 

consumer choice, a demand led approach 

will free up the system to respond flexibly to 

customer demand over time. This is at the 

heart of this consultation. 55 

There have already been examples of this 

approach with the allocation of Train To Gain 

to new private entrants, including a large 

American conglomerate. 

5.18 Placing the enthusiasm for competition 

alongside the two funding changes, and the 

FE White Paper Further Education: Raising 

Skills, Improving Life Chances, we see a 180° 

change of direction in funding policy. Instead 

of placing a premium on institutional stability, it 

seems that the rigours of the market represent 

the best route to increased quality. This is in 

marked contrast with the approach in schools 

and higher education, a topic that was the 

subject of Mind The Gap, a National Skills 

Forum Research Paper in January 2008. The 

paper pertinently asked why an approach 

thought to be appropriate for adult learning 

in HE should be considered unsuitable for 

adult learning – sometimes of virtually identical 

courses – in FE. 

changes in motivation 

5.19 A number of the recent proposals for 

merger do not however come from a desire 

to remedy financial or academic weaknesses, 

or a defensive reaction to funding threats. 

There are those who take a positive vision 

of the future, convinced that there is an 

opportunity for growth and development as a 

unified organisation. This lies behind the LSC’s

ecommendation for a substantial merger in 

Leeds – with three colleges coming together, 

and a fourth being enjoined to work in close 

partnership (reference). Similarly, a very 

ambitious (though ultimately abortive) plan to 

bring together three colleges in south London 

– Lewisham, Greenwich and Bexley – was 

motivated by the desire to create a regional 

force. It is worthy of note that Bexley – the 

college which withdrew – immediately sought 

an alternative merger partner. 

Meeting the needs 

5.20 A merged college could make a better 

response to local needs because it pulls 

together a wider range of provision. A number 

of recent studies have drawn attention to the 

problems a competitive local climate creates 

in meeting local and regional requirements. 

Colleges and schools are judged by their own 

results – academically and financially. They 

have no formal responsibility to seek the best 

configuration for the public good. Indeed, 

some research suggests that the pressure 

for results has led some providers away from 

areas of community need: remember, one of 

our interviewees said institutions do not invest 

in students ‘who are not a good bet’. The 

presence of a number of providers makes it 

difficult to locate clear responsibility for (e.g.) 

reducing NEETs, increasing entry to higher 

education or raising level 2 performance. It is 

not uncommon to find, for example, poor level 

2 achievement even in apparently successful 

areas. As we shall see, partnerships are 

often weak and ineffective: a firmer corporate 

unity may be needed to make a difference. 

Research for LSDA suggested that large 

organisations can take control of these issues: 

‘we consistently found that large colleges were 

able to take a broader view of local need than 

smaller institutions. They knew the job was 

theirs because it could be no-one else’s’ (Perry 

& Simpson 2005). 

5.21 The opportunities available to a larger 

college for seizing the agenda go beyond 

hitting PSA targets or picking up the needs 

of problematic student cohorts. A large 

organisation can look regional development 

agencies in the eye, being part of campaigns 

to improve inward investment. They are better 

placed to make bids for educational contracts 

– in welfare-to-work and prison education 




for example – that are increasingly regional 

in character. It can provide a major brand for 

employer engagement, and economise in 

marketing and partnership arrangements. 

Mergers – the literature 

5.22 Most of the research that has taken 

place has concerned mergers rather than size 

per se. It must be said that the evidence is not 

conclusive: as with partnerships, there is little 

hard evidence of wider participation or better 

results. Studies of mergers have found – in 

education as in business – that the benefits are 

frequently overstated in advance and are slow 

to materialise. A number of reports have looked 

at mergers in the FE sector since incorporation 

in 1993. These are summarised below 

• FEDA 1995. The report is based on a case 

study of the merger of two welsh colleges 

in 1992 and case studies of ten English 

colleges post incorporation. It concludes 

that ‘Although there is evidence that 

mergers can be in the public interest, it is 

clear that this may not always be the case 

and their advantages can be overstated. 

There is evidence that no correlation exists 

between size and efficiency, and there is 

no evidence of a correlation between size 

and quality.’ The report quotes a study by 

Coopers and Lybrand for FEFC (The Costs 

of FE, May 1995) which casts doubt on the 

existence of economies of scale and uses 

trend data on staff-student ratios which 

show no relationship with merger. 

• FEDA 1997. This report is based on a 

case study of the merger of two colleges 

in Sunderland. It describes the motivation 

behind the merger as ‘to avoid wasteful 

competition’ but although it implies that the 

merger was a success it offers no evidence 

to support the view. 

• FEFC 1998. In 1998 the FEFC 

commissioned KPMG to report on the 

financial benefits of mergers in FE. The 

report is based on case studies of 10 out of 

the 29 mergers that had then taken place in 

the sector. They conclude that in the cases 

looked at there was ‘strong and compelling 

evidence’ of financial benefits and that 

the ‘curriculum benefits of merger are 

significantly greater than the financial’. They 

also conclude however that ‘the benefits



There are 

several examples 

of organisations 

that have achieved 

substantial strength 

and credibility 

from weak local 

constituents… 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

of merger are contingent on the specific 

circumstances of individual merger partners 

and no firm generalisations about merger 

benefits can be made.’ 

• FEFC 2000. In March 2000 the FEFC 

produced a summary of merger activity in 

the sector since 1993 for the DfES including 

a provisional evaluation of nine mergers 

during 1997/98. It reported a total of 37 

mergers of which 29 were FE/FE and 8 

FE/HE. The numbers increased from an 

average of 4 pa between 1993 and 1997 to 

9 pa in 1998 and 1999, reflecting a changed 

policy steer. Although the largest number 

of cases involved FE colleges, 21 cases 

involved specialist or 6th form colleges 

merging with a general institution. 

The evaluation concluded that the mergers 

had led to the safeguarding of minority 

areas of provision and some curriculum 

rationalisation but no consistent effect on 

recruitment and retention. While space 

utilisation was improving ‘the financial 

benefits of the mergers had not been 

demonstrated and were not likely to be 

realised in the first few years of merger, 

particularly given the significant costs 

associated with implementation’. 

• University of Warwick undertook a study of 

college mergers (Centre for Education and 

Industry 2003) that was one of the most 

complete and also optimistic of any of the 

studies. It found 10 of 19 mergers studied 

to be complete successes, others to be 

partial successes with only three expressing 

reservations. It is worth remembering this 

was a tough sample: many of these mergers 

involved colleges that were failing financially 

or academically. 

• In 2007, Leeds Metropolitan University 

(LSC, 2007) produced a brief survey of the 

literature about merger and collaboration. 

It concluded that ‘there are clear benefits 

to be realised from mergers, partnerships 

and collaborations – in theory and practice 

– however the extent to which they are 

materialise is highly variable… the evidence 

base associated with the outcomes of 

collaboration, partnership and merger 

activity on key aspects of the reform agenda 

– attainment, progression and learner 

experience – is emergent and in need 


of further development.’ The survey was 

weakened by a confusion between FE/FE 

and FE/HE mergers which ran through the 

document. 

5.23 Nevertheless there are now examples 

where provision in struggling small colleges, 

both specialist and general, has been rescued 

and enhanced by incorporation into a larger 

institution. There are several examples of 

organisations that have achieved substantial 

strength and credibility from weak local 

constituents – for example, the Lambeth 

colleges (Warner & Palfreyman 2003). Sussex 

LSC made a habit of returning to areas that had 

been restructured in order to assess whether 

the changes had created better provision: they 

found that level 2 provision had grown where 

the LSC had sponsored organisational change, 

but not in a parallel area where rival institutions 

remained. Evaluating merger this way is plainly 

good practice that will enable more secure 

judgements to be made about the benefits of 

college reorganisation. 

5.24 Another reservation sometimes 

expressed about college mergers is giantism 

– creating a mammoth organisation that is 

unmanageably large. There is often suspicion 

of large organisations, often based on good 

evidence from the industrial sector about the 

difficulty of managing on a large scale. 

In the business world, most mergers don’t 

work. Many fail to produce the sort of 

spectacular results that their promoters 

promised at the time of the merger, and the 

merged entity is often less successful than 

were the individual parts brought together. 

Inflated expectations, culture clashes, and 

the inevitable shuffling of positions in the 

new firm can cause problems in the merged 

firm several years after the integration. 

Ashish Nanda, Harvard Business School 

expert on corporate mergers 

Many mergers ultimately don’t add value to 

companies and even end up causing serious 

damage. There have been hundreds of 

studies conducted on the long-term effects 

of mergers, and researchers estimate the 

range for failure is between 50% and 80%. 

Robert Holthausen, Wharton 

Business School

These comments however refer to large, 

often international, mergers that founder on 

problems of communication and culture. There 

have been problems with a few big colleges 

– Sheffield College certainly had its problems 

before finding its federal solution – but others 

have prospered. Fears about manageability 

may be exaggerated. The largest FE colleges 

are smaller in budget terms than a modest 

university: the merged Manchester FE College 

will deploy an LSC budget of £60m, as against 

Manchester University’s £500m. This is smaller 

than the Competition Commission considers 

worth scrutinising. The validity of worries 

about local choice and competition will vary 

from case to case: we have seen, though, that 

colleges with full responsibility for a clear area 

of work do well. The evidence from the FE 

sector suggests that – far from big colleges 

getting into trouble – it is much more likely that 

smaller colleges find difficulty in viability. 

Merger – the opportunity 

5.25 In our view, the debate about merger 

has been constrained by looking at the 

advantages to the institution rather than the 

opportunities for the region. In the American 

community college system – where colleges 

are often linked in federal networks – the 

Chancellor of the community college is 

brought in to state-wide campaigns to raise 

skills or attract inward investment. Such 




roles are rare in English FE. Colleges occupy 

a subordinate, at times invisible position 

in RDA and local strategic partnerships. 

Their economic role is generally confined 

to emergencies when there are major 

redundancies in Sheffield steel foundries or 

Birmingham car factories. It is striking that the 

Kansas City College group justifies its size as a 

way to ‘speak with one voice to the community 

and be able to put more of its resources and 

more power behind its communication: instead 

of five voices calling for attention, there is 

one’. There are relatively few English colleges 

that have the size to punch at this weight, 

and some opportunities have been missed 

– for example in Nottingham and South East 

London – to create such units. 

5.26 We are particularly struck by the 

opportunities that such colleges could 

exploit in creating a local network of greater 

coherence and grasp described in paras 5.20 

and 5.21. In the absence of an assertive local 

authority or interventionist LSC, a large college 

could create the local market. We were also 

struck on our visit to Warwickshire College 

– a fine large institution – at the strides taken 

towards assessing the college’s contribution 

to the regional economy. The 157 Group of 

colleges are encouraging this development as 

part of their mission to strengthen the voice of 

the larger college in the policy debate.



section 6: conclusions 

There is 

strong evidence 

that some patterns 

of organisation 

are inefficient. 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

6.1 In this paper we have sought to answer 

two linked questions. Is there any evidence that 

some ways of organising schools and colleges 

are better than others? and if so, is the English 

education system capable of acting on such 

evidence to improve arrangements? We believe 

that we have clear answers to both questions. 

6.2 There is strong evidence that some 

patterns of organisation are inefficient. In 

particular the economies of scale mean that 

small providers, whether school sixth forms or 

departments of larger FE colleges, can only be 

made viable by subsidies from other parts of 

the organisation AND by restricting the options 

available to learners. The evidence comes from 

both inspectors and auditors, from researchers, 

and from many senior practitioners with whom 

we spoke. 

6.3 It is also the case that some patterns 

of organisation seem to be less effective at 

certain tasks than others. A number of pieces 

of evidence point to the damaging effect that 

selective systems and school sixth forms have 

on participation after the age of 16, particularly 

for pupils lower down the ability range. 

Selection at 16+ appears to have the same 

detrimental effects as the better documented 

selection at 11+. 

6.4 Small sixth forms appear not only to be 

inefficient but less effective than larger schools 

and colleges. Analysis of results shows that in 

general the performance of students in a sixth 

form improves as its size increases. Inspectors’ 

reports suggest that this may be due to lack of 

challenge and lack of choice as well as deriving 

from a poorer level of resourcing. 

6.5 It is probable that colleges with small 

A-level cohorts face similar problems to small 

sixth forms though this is less well studied 

than the school situation. We found however 

strong evidence for the converse – that larger 

institutions perform, on average, better than 

smaller ones. This is true for very large general 

FE colleges almost all of which perform very 

strongly. It is also true for sixth form colleges 

which relative to all other institutions have very 

large numbers in their A-level provision. 


6.6 There is evidence that having a number 

of competing institutions leads to social 

segregation; and that segregated institutions 

tend to become unequal institutions, both 

in terms of funding and in terms of prestige. 

There is no evidence of counterbalancing 

benefits deriving from competition and choice 

of institutions. 

6.7 We are clear that this evidence can and 

should be used to help shape education 

systems for the future; and are pleased to 

note that policy makers in Wales have come 

to broadly the same conclusion. In England 

however government interventions appear to 

prioritise institutional autonomy and make it 

difficult for any local body to act to shape 

local provision. 

6.8 The LSC currently has limited powers to 

reshape local systems, and the experience 

of StARs suggests that it is unable to do 

so against opposition from vested interests 

without the firm backing of the Department. 

This to date appears to have been lacking. The 

new commissioning arrangements set out in 

the most recent funding consultations might 

appear to give the LSC sufficient leverage to 

plan a coherent pattern of provision but unless 

the DCSF acts firmly in support of the LSC we 

conclude that contentious proposals would 

suffer the same fate as StARs. 

6.9 For Local Authorities to be able to 

reshape local systems it is essential that the 

powers of the LSC are transferred in full along 

with the funding of 16–18 learning. As with the 

LSC however it is essential that local action is 

not undermined by political intervention at a 

national level. 

6.10 On the basis of our work we conclude that 

it is very unlikely that the optimum solutions in 

any area will emerge as a result of institutionally 

driven arrangements. Almost all of those to 

whom we spoke agreed with this proposition, 

and many provided evidence of how things 

were changing in the wrong direction. 

6.11 We have examined documentary 

evidence about partnership working

and talked to people involved in a range 

of partnerships. We conclude that while 

partnership working can help support action 

that is relatively non contentious there is little 

prospect of partnerships tackling difficult issues 

where institutional interests strongly diverge. 

6.12 We have also examined evidence 

about the impact of mergers and sought to 

understand the motivation for the most recent 

increase in merger activity in the FE sector. 

We conclude that although mergers can bring 

benefits for learners, particularly where they 




allow institutions to exploit scale economies, 

they are rarely concerned with delivering an 

inclusive entitlement. To do so would involve 

mergers between different types of institutions, 

not just FE colleges growing bigger. 

6.13 Although we believe that the evidence 

on efficiency and effectiveness is sufficiently 

robust to underpin action to reform local 

systems there is also a need for further 

focused research. We set out in our 

recommendations some suggestions as to 

the type of research that is needed.



section 7: recommendations 

We recommend 

DCSF and DIUS 

work to strengthen 

powers…to 

create managed 

tertiary 

systems… 

‘‘ ‘‘ 

7.1 We recommend that: 

• DCSF and DIUS work together to 

strengthen the powers of local authorities – 

perhaps groups of local authorities in area 

agreements – to create a managed tertiary 

system in their areas. This should not involve 

detailed intervention in the inner workings 

of schools and colleges, nor any attempt to 

corral students into ‘their’ area, but there 

must be someone who can determine the 

character of institutions and their place in 

the local system, and be accountable for 

local results. 

• DCSF should withdraw the sixth form 

‘presumption’ that is already undermining 

the coherence of local patterns of provision 

and risks reducing both quality and 

efficiency. It should allow the development 

of academies without sixth forms as part of 

local tertiary or sixth form college systems. 


• DCSF and DIUS should jointly commission 

work to develop and implement 

performance indicators that assess the 

performance of the whole local system 

of education and training rather than the 

performance of individual institutions. 

• DCSF and DIUS should develop a protocol 

of admissions at 16 to stand alongside 

those at 11 and (administered by OFFA) at 

university level. 

• Research should be commissioned to build 

on the NFER studies carried out for LSDA 

in order both to strengthen the evidence on 

the impact of structures on participation and 

to investigate the impact on participation 

and achievement. 

• Work should be commissioned to provide 

a more accurate identification of which 

colleges and areas are genuinely tertiary to 

support further research and analysis.

section 8: Appendices and sources 



is our system of post-16 provision fit for purpose?



Appendix 1: interviewees and readers 

We are grateful to the following sector leaders 

who gave us their views and commented 

on drafts of this document. Each spoke in 

a personal capacity. The final document, of 

course, reflects the views of the authors and 

Caroline Abrahams 

Local Government Association 

gordon Aitken 

Chief Executive, RCU Ltd 

Tim Atkinson 

Consultant and former LSC officer 

Henry Ball 

Regional Director, Learning & Skills Council 

John Brenchley 

OCR 

Trevor Carson 

LSDA Northern Ireland 

Marianne Cavalli 

Principal, Croydon College 

Hugh David 

Strategy Analyst, New College Nottingham 

Deborah Dent 

Consultant 

John Dunford 

Chief Executive, Association of School 

and College Leaders 

Barbara Field 

Principal, Harrow College 

Joanna gaukroger 

Principal and Chief Executive, 

Tower Hamlets College 

Julian gravatt 

Association of Colleges 

John graystone 

Chief Executive, Fforwm 

Kate greet 

14–19 co-ordinator South Somerset & 

Sedgemoor 

geoff Hall 

Principal, New College Nottingham 

Mary Heslop 

Vice Principal, Warwickshire College 

Chris Hughes CBE 

Former Chief Executive, LSDA 

Ozan Jacquette 

University of Michigan 


not the stakeholders we interviewed. The 

text makes clear that we have also fed in 

views from interviews with other stakeholders 

undertaken for other commissions. 

Tom Jupp 

Consultant and former Principal, 

City & Islington College 

Brett Kerton 

Nottingham City LA 14–19 Coordinator 

Nick linford 

Policy Adviser, Lewisham College 

Elaine McMahon 

Principal, Hull College and Chair of 157 Group 

Felicity Munday 

Consultant 

Judith Norrington 

City & Guilds Institute 

gareth Parry 

Professor, University of Sheffield 

gary Phillips 

Headteacher, Lillian Baylis School, Vauxhall 

Paul Phillips 

Principal, Weston College 

george Phipson 

NAHT 

Matthew Simpson 

Consultant and former Director of Education 

Dr Ken Spours 

Institute of Education 

geoff Stanton 

Consultant and former Chief Executive of FEU 

Brian Styles CBE 

Consultant and former Principal, 

City of Bristol College 

Sir george Sweeney 

Former Principal, Knowsley College 

Malcolm Trobe 

Headteacher 

Ken Warman 

Principal, Brooke House Sixth form College 

lindsey Wharmby 

Funding Consultant, ASCL 

gary Williams 

Consultant and former Principal

Appendix 2: reading and sources 

Abbott and Doucouliagos (2006) Assessing 

the Economic Efficiency of Specialised Tertiary 

Education Institutions: The Case of the 

English Agricultural and Horticultural Further 

Education Colleges. 

Audit Commission Trading Places: the supply 

and allocation of school places, HMSO 1996 

Cass, King and Milton (1997) Planning a 

Merger of FE Colleges, FEDA 

Chater, Letter to Ed Balls, Secretary of State, 

November 2007 

Clancy, ‘The Power of One’ Guardian, 

12 June 2007 

Corney & Fletcher (2008) New Localism and 

14–19 Funding: putting learner choice first, 

Select Education and the Campaign for 

Learning 

DCSF (2008) Raising Expectations: enabling 

the system to deliver (Joint DCSF/DIUS 

consultation), DCSF March 2008 

Denham (2007) Southern Discomfort, Fabian 

Society 

DfES (2005) Analytical Services evidence for 

the Foster Review, DfES 

DfES (2004) Five Year Strategy for Children 

and Learners (HMSO Cm 6272, 2004) 

DfES (2005) Raising Skills, Improving Life 

Chances: technical supplement to White 

Paper at www.dcsf.gov.uk/publications/ 

furthereducation/docs/TA.doc 

DfES (2006) Youth Matters: Next Steps, HMSO 

Economist, ‘How to be top’, 20 October 2007 

Economist, ‘Staying On’, 18 January 2007 

Estyn (2006) Collaboration between schools 

with sixth forms and Further Education 

Colleges to deliver flexible high quality 

provision that expands choice and achieves 

value for money (Welsh Assembly 2006) 

FEDA (1995) The Impact of Mergers, FEDA 

FEFC (1998) The Financial Benefits of Merger 

of FE Colleges, September 1998 

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(Summary Report), March 2000 




Fletcher (2006) ‘Sixth Sense’ Guardian, 24 

October 2006 

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Strategic Area Reviews (StARs) and potential 

implications for 14–19 education and training 

(Nuffield Review) 

Foster (2005) Realising the Potential: a review 

of the future role of further education colleges, 

DfES 

Foskett et al (2008) The Influence of the 

school in the decision to participate in learning 

post-16, BERA 

Gibbons, S., Machin, S., Silva, O. (2006) 

Competition, Choice and Pupil Achievement, 

LSE Centre for Economics of Education 

Hansard Debate on FE Bill 2007, 21 May 2007 

Hardman, J. (2006) Collaborating for success: 

collaborative arrangements for 14–19 provision 

in the West Midlands: summary and analysis of 

research findings from six case studies, LSN 

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Feb 1971; 1(7696):405–12 

Hayward, Hodgson et al (2006) Nuffield 

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Education: Evolution, Achievement and New 

Directions’, in Defining Comprehensive Education 

(Chapter 15), University of Northampton Press 

House of Commons Select Committee on 

Education and Skills, Fifth Report HMSO 2005 

House of Commons Education and Skills 

Committee: Government responses to fifth 

report on 14–19 diplomas, eighth report on 

sustainability of the HE sector and sixth report 

on the work of Ofsted, HC 1033, October 2007 

HMSO (2006) Education and Inspections Act 

HMSO (2007) Further Education Act 

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economy – world class skills HM Treasury 

Lindsay, Mujis, Harris, Chapman, Arweck 

& Goodall (2007) Schools Federations Pilot 

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Person completing the questionnaire: 

Contact details: Institution: 

Role: Name of partnership: 




Appendix 3: partnership analysis questionnaire 

Government and LSC place great stress on the importance of partnership in delivering aspects of 

educational policy – such as the diploma entitlement, greater choice at 14–16 and wider participation 

for adults. We are assessing the nature and effectiveness of partnership, and would be grateful if you 

could take a few moments to fill in this questionnaire that will show us the scope and nature of your own 

arrangements. Respondents are asked to circle under each heading the one statement that most nearly 

reflects their current arrangements and total the resulting scores. 

Scoring dimension A < 10 points – Limited; 10–14 points – Moderate; 

15–19 points – Inclusive; 20+ points – Dominant 

A1 

Membership 

A2 

Range 

A3 

Porosity 

A4 

Impact 

A5 

Performance 

indicators/Targets 

The partnership includes: 

More than one institution 

More than one type of institution 

All schools and colleges serving an area 

All providers serving an area 

The partnership relates to: 

Some aspects of provision at some providers 

Similar provision at all providers 

Diploma provision or vocational provision 

All provision covered by each participating provider 

In this partnership area: 

Very many learners study outside the area 

Many learners tend to go out for specific provision 

Some learners tend to go out for specific provision 

Few learners travel out for no specific provision4 

The partnership has led to: 

The introduction of new provision 

The withdrawal of specific provision 

A re-allocation of provision between sites 

A reshaping of provision of all types 

The partnership has: 

Specific targets for new provision 

Targets for rebalancing of overall provision 

Joint targets helping shape all aspects of provision 

Total 

1 

2 

4 

6 

1 

2 

3 

4 

1 

2 

3 

1 

2 

3 

4 

1 

2 

4 

Page 1 of 2




Scoring dimensions B < 10 points – Localised; 10–14 points –Influentia; 

and C 15–19 points – Powerful; 20+ points –Centralised 

B1 

Constitution 

B2 

Staffing 

B3 

Budget 

B4 

Timetabling 

B5 

Participation 

B6 

guidance and 

admissions 

B7 

Quality assurance 

C1 

Effectiveness 

C2 

Future 

The basis of the partnership is: 

An informal agreement or understanding 

A written ‘agreement to co-operate’ 

A specific agreement describing rules and prices 

A legally binding contract 

The staffing of the partnership consists of: 

Institutional staff supporting it ‘as part of their job’ 

Staff seconded to the partnership 

Own appointments to manage the partnership 

Own staff to deliver joint activity 

The partnership is financed: 

Entirely from project funding 

By each partner covering their own costs 

An agreed formula for partners contributions 

By a common budget for all delivery costs 

The timetabling for the partnership comprises: 

A common option block 

A common timetable grid 

A common central timetable 

The partnership has: 

Some learners learn at different sites 

Over 10% of learners travel between sites 

Over 25% of learners travel between sites 

Individual and common prospectuses 

Only one common prospectus 

Central applications and admission process 

Common guidance and admission service 

Quality assurance is regarded as institutional matter 

Information about success is exchanged and discussed 

Sharing good practice is a major part of activity 

Decisions on allocation of work are heavily influenced by performance 

indicators and inspection judgements 

Partnership makes little difference 

Partnership has impacted in some minor areas 

Makes a substantial difference to local opportunity and performance 

Future seems in doubt 

Continued working is planned, but mode and funding unclear 

Continued operation is assured 

Total 

1 

2 

4 

6 

1 

2 

3 

4 

1 

2 

3 

4 

1 

2 

4 

1 

2 

4 

1 

2 

3 

4 

1 

2 

3 

4 

1 

2 

4 

1 

2 

4 

Page 2 of 2




Appendix 4: Questionnaire for interviewees 

Interviewee: Position: 

Interviewer: Date: 

1. Can you describe the different educational provider structure, particularly for 14–19 year old 

students? Is this an accurate typology? (show card) 

2. What do you see as the strengths of the different forms of organisation? Is there one system 

that is better for young people? What evidence would support that view? 

3. What do you see as the major goals for provider organisations? Where do they come from? 

4. Is there a tension between the goals the provider organisations need to meet, and local needs? 

5. 

One way that is often recommended to moderate the tension between provider interests and 

learner needs is to create partnerships. What are the strengths and weaknesses of working 

in partnership? Do you feel there may be other ways of delivering provision of high quality for 

young people? 

6. How would you judge the success of partnership arrangements? 

7. Is there a case for firmer management of partnership activity? Would you set performance 

goals – like participation, success or progression? Seek outside management against target? 

Offer discrete budgets? 

8. What factors do you think work against effective partnership? What measures could be taken 

to minimise these barriers? Will the increasing role of local authorities help? How? 

9. One commentator has said that partnership is a substitute for a rational local infrastructure. Do 

you agree? The past ten or fifteen years has seen the breakdown of some tidy local tertiary or 

sixth form college systems – is that a matter for regret? 

10. Are there any other comments you wish to make about this topic?



cfBt education trust 

Further research publications 

Through the Evidence for Education 

programme, CfBT Education Trust is proud 

to reinvest its surpluses in research and 

development both in the UK and overseas. 

Our aim is to provide direct impact on 

beneficiaries, via educational practitioners 

and policy makers. We provide a range of 

publications from practice-based intervention 

studies to policy forming perspective papers, 

literature reviews and guidance materials. 

In addition to this publication the following 

research may also be of interest: 

• Still waiting for ‘big ideas’ on adult skills, 

Mark Corney 

• Raising the leaving age to 18: symbol or 

substance? Mick Fletcher, Mark Corney, 

Geoff Stanton 

• Adult skills and higher education: separation 

or union? Mark Corney and Mick Fletcher 

• Learning Matters: Making the 14–19 reforms 

work for learners, Geoff Stanton 


Forthcoming publications 

• 14–19 education and skills – ‘FE and 

schools: a meeting of minds’, Susan 

Farnham 

• Update on ‘Raising the leaving age to 18: 

symbol or substance’, Mark Corney, Mick 

Fletcher 

• From funding upskilling to funding reskilling: 

beyond the 2020 Skill Ambitions, Mark 

Corney 

• Information, advice and guidance for 

disadvantaged adults, CfBT Education 

Trust, City and Guilds 

For further information or for copies of the 

above research please visit our website at 

www.cfbt.com/evidenceforeducation or 

contact our Research and Development team 

at research@cfbt.com.

978-0-86160-054-0 

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