Question reference: S6W-13956
- Date lodged: 16 January 2023
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Current status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 26 January 2023
Question
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-12954 by Jamie Hepburn on 20 December 2022, which of the Good Governance Task Group’s recommendations on college governance that were made in 2016 (a) have been and (b) are still to be implemented.
Answer
Following the recommendations of the Good College Governance Task Group in 2016, my predecessor Richard Lochhead MSP Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science wrote to the Education and Skills Committee in 2019 outlining the 8 actions that the Scottish Government would take forward in response to the recommendations.
To date, the College Development Network (CDN) has embedded teamwork training within the induction training of board members and now publish college board vacancies on their national website. At present, the Scottish Government has, after a pause due to the Covid-19 pandemic, restarted workaround the Task Group’s recommendations and is currently consulting on proposals to introduce trade union nominees onto College Boards, with the consultation closing on 27 January 2023. This work will sit within a wider package of transformation and change within the tertiary education and skills sector, as the Scottish Government progresses recommendations from the SFC Review of Coherence and Sustainability 2021.
The Scottish Government works with stakeholders through the Good Governance Steering Group, where work around governance reforms in the college sector is discussed; at present as well as the work to implement the recommendation of adding trade unions nominees on boards, there is ongoing work to refresh the Ministerial Guidance. No decision has yet been taken on the timeframe for implementing the other 5 actions in response to the recommendations made by the Good Governance Task Group.