This page gives some highlights of our recent activity, and provides links to some of our recent reports where these have been published or otherwise placed in the public domain.

If you would like more details on any of these projects, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kent County Council

Since Ocobter 2020, we have been working with Kent County Council on their comprehensive review of 16-19 education in the county. The initial phase of the review was completed in April 2022 with the publication of the Review report Pathways for All and information on review progress to date can be found on the review website.

The review is now moving into its implementation phase and we continue to support its progress with targeted consultancy input as required.

The Gatsby Charitable Foundation

During spring 2021 we carried out research into the funding and delivery costs of higher technical education (vocational qualification Levels 4 and 5) for the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, in collaboration with the Association of Colleges and the Department for Education. Our work involved interviews with over twenty further and higher education institutions and detailed work on the cost base for these qualifications, which are seen as providing a vital input into the skills agenda for England.

Our report can be found on the Gatsby website by clicking here.

The South London Commissioning Programme

During 2021 we carried out a review of 16+ High Needs commissioning for the South London Commissionong Programme. The Programme is owned by the London Boroughs of Merton, Croydon, Sutton, Bromley, Bexley, Lewisham, Wandsworth, Richmond, Lambeth, Southwark and the Royal Boroughs of Kingston and Greenwich and our project involved interviews with GFECs in each borough and workshops with local authority colleagues in the boroughs concerned. The project made recommendations for improving commissioning and ensuring that young people with additional needs receive the best start in life.

Better Regulation Delivery Office

We carried out four projects for the Better Regulation Delivery Office, looking at ways in which the Primary Authority programme supports businesses that have activities in more than one local authority area. The aim of the programme (in very broad outline) is to provide businesses with an effective means of resolving any conflicts they may experience in advice given to them by different local authorities' Trading Standards teams, Environmental Health teams, etc.

Our projects covered:

• an interim review of the Primary Authority programme
• a more comprehensive review of the first five years to assess the overall progress of the programme
• an evaluation of two pilots designed to test the extension of Primary Authority to fire and rescue services (this extension subsequently took place)
• an assessment of the benefit:cost ratio of participating in Primary Authority from the point of view of participant businesses.

To see the report of our interim review of BRDO click here; for our fire and rescue services report click here.

We carried out the most recent review of Programme Weights for the Department for Education and the Education Funding Agency. Programme Weights are the mechanism used to reflect the differential costs of providing programmes in different programme areas.

Our report is quoted in the 2021 Further Education White Paper, and can be seen on the DfE website by clicking here.

A little earlier (2019) we completed a study of the costs and cost drivers of the Further Educatiion system. The report argued for a considerable increase in funding for FE, and received widespread publicity. Our report can be found by clicking here.

We recently reviewed the provision of SEND support to schools in Derbyshire, on behalf the Council, and made a number of recommendations concerning the configuration and management of these services. We make particular recommendations concerning increasing the ownership of services and service provision by the mainstream schools whose pupils received SEND support from peripatetic teams.

The Local Government Association, the Association of Colleges and Natspec

During 2020 we carried out a major project for the LGA, the AoC and Natspec reviewing the provision of post-16 education for High Needs students in general further education colleges and special post-16 institutions. The report made a number of wide-ranging recommendations concerning the management and delivery of programmes to these students, and attracted significant press coverage.

The report can be read here.

We have also provided advice to Natspec on the costing and pricing of programmes of 16-19 and 19-25 education in the light of the reforms to the funding of high needs students. In addition to providing this advice, we have been working with a number of individual independent specialist colleges to check that their approach to pricing student programmes is robust and able to cover their direct and indirect costs.

More recently, we have been commissioned by Natspec to advise it and its members on how to respond to current approaches to procurement and commissioning. A number of local authorities and local authority consortia are adopting highly structure commissioning/procurement procedures and our project will provide guidance to independent specialist colleges on how to participate in these.

Any college that is concerned about its approach to high needs student funding is very welcome to contact us.