governance good practice guide

process and cycle

who and what is involved?

Details of the self-assessment process will vary from college to college, depending on the type and scale of provision.

Whatever the approach, all colleges (and other providers), need to show a clear understanding of:

• what they do well (and be able to provide evidence of this)
• what needs improving (and why)
• how to set realistic, stretching yet achievable targets
• how improvements can be achieved, monitored and evaluated
• how quality is consolidated and sustained, and improvement ensured.

Honest, objective judgements are needed if real self-improvement is to be achieved.

This will happen only if the culture of the organisation encourages and values transparency and honesty from everybody who is involved – both inside and outside the college – for example, from:

• learners
• teaching staff
• support staff
• governing board
• college managers
• parents
• employers
• community groups
• other colleges and other types of provider
• funding agencies such as the Learning and Skills Council (LSC).

Learners (or students) are at the top of the list because they are at the heart of all college activity. Their views, therefore, are critical to a reliable self-assessment process.

Achieving a holistic, inclusive approach to self-assessment can present organisational and management challenges – particularly where colleges are large and operate across many campuses.

Whatever the challenges, however, it is essential to establish, maintain and monitor effective processes to ensure that self-assessment is truly embedded within a college's culture and practices.

Where self-assessment has real substance, it is a powerful mechanism to achieve quality of service and governance.

Where self-assessment is simply a surface exercise, undertaken to achieve an empty compliance, the college will gain no quality or business advantage, and there will be no value-added benefits for learners and employers.

colleges and the quality improvement cycle

To be effective, the self-assessment process must not only be robust and holistic, but also systematic.

Colleges devise, implement, monitor and improve their individual processes and procedures to ensure that all those with an interest in the business of the college have an input to the self-assessment in a structured, systematic way.

This includes learners, employers, stakeholders and the local community, as well as teaching, management and support staff. Not to include all those involved would mean that only a partial – and therefore, unsafe – picture of the quality and effectiveness of provision would be achieved.

Consequently, college processes are likely to comprise a mix of in-house monitoring and evaluating (using a variety of methods to get a clear picture of issues and to secure honest views), and external focus groups or surveys.

Organising the self-assessment process can be a very complex undertaking. To help colleges manage this undertaking, and decide who does what and when, they follow a systematic self-assessment and quality improvement cycle, as illustrated in the diagram below.

systematic self-assessment and quality improvement cycle

Further information on the Framework for Excellence is available on the LSC website.