Earlier this year, Ian Pretty broke his usual rule of ignoring headhunters and agreed to take a call about an intriguing job opportunity. The resulting discussion did not go quite as he had been expecting.
“I asked, ‘Who’s your client?’,” he recalls. “They said, ‘The 157 Group.’ I said, ‘Come again?’ ‘157 Group.’ ‘Never heard of them. Who are they?’ ‘They’re in the education sector.’”
By now, Pretty was getting rather confused. “You do know I know nothing about education?” he asked the headhunter outright. “Yes. That’s why they want you,” came the reply.
But a quick glance at Pretty’s CV explains why he was so sought after for one of the top jobs in the sector, representing 26 of the largest colleges across the UK.
After joining the civil service fast stream recruitment programme, the qualified tax inspector enjoyed a meteoric rise to senior positions in government, holding roles in the Cabinet Office, Prime Minister’s Office and HM Revenue and Customs while also gaining a strong reputation for managing transformational change.
In 2007, he was headhunted by Capgemini, a multinational firm offering management consultancy and IT services. Pretty had to adapt his approach to thrive in a private sector environment, but again rose through the ranks, eventually landing the role of senior vice-president.
“It brought me into new way of working and took me completely out of my comfort zone,” he explains. “But it’s about the same skill sets: how do you manage organisational change? How do you talk to clients? How do you create good relationships?”
And for the 157 Group, which was looking to replace retiring executive director Dr Lynne Sedgmore, Pretty’s expertise from working with ministers and in the commercial sector was exactly what was required.
Plan of action
Pretty found the lure of a new challenge irresistible. “I thought I’d give it a punt and here we are,” he says, grinning. “It’s taken me into a sector that I honestly don’t know anything about. I trust that [the 157 Group members] are quite happy. I don’t know anything about education, but I’m learning very fast.”
He is not a man who likes to waste time. A month before he formally started the role, Pretty instigated a wholesale strategic review of the organisation. Its new strategy will be unveiled before the year is out.
Pretty’s view is that the 157 Group must shift its focus from attempting to shape government policy to taking a proactive role in how it is implemented. “I think the government is quite comfortable with where its policy is,” he says. “What I’m saying to the members is: what is your role? You’ve got things like apprenticeships, area reviews, funding challenges going forward.
“Government listens to organisations that say they’ve got solutions and this is how we want to move forward. This is the thinking behind the 157 Group’s members; they want to be part of that journey with government, knowing that’s the agenda for the next five years.
“You can’t do the ‘yes but, no but’ approach. You’ve got to be able to turn around and say ‘yes, here are some solutions’.”
One of the key problems for the sector, as Pretty perceives it, is the restriction around colleges’ commercial activity.
“If public sector revenues are declining, how do you start to bring in new revenues and work that within the constructs that restrict your ability to be more commercial?” he asks. “You need to move towards models that are more like private sector models.”
And for the 157 Group’s member colleges, Pretty suggests that benefits could be gained from more joined-up enterprises.
“At one of our members, Blackpool and the Fylde College, there’s a strategy of shifting revenue streams to the private sector and higher education,” he explains. “That shift in streams, I think, is quite important. Do you do it individually or do it collectively?
“As a group, we could provide consultancy, learning services, partnerships with private sector trainers and much more international work - not necessarily bringing bodies in [to UK colleges from overseas], but going and working abroad.”
Pretty believes there could be rich pickings for colleges that set up English-language training in countries such as Vietnam. Establishing shared back-office services for the 157 Group could also be worth exploring, he argues.
Making the ‘Rightmove’ for colleges
Rather than looking to replicate a Ucas-style common application system (“It’s a bit last century”), Pretty suggests that a front-end approach to help college applicants, designed along the lines of Rightmove or Zoopla, could be more beneficial. It could also potentially attract the interest and expertise of tech giants, such as Microsoft and Google.
But any decision on the group’s future plans must be made by the colleges, Pretty insists. Members will also consider whether the group should look to expand. With massive institutional changes likely to result from the government’s area reviews of post-16 provision, Pretty has put a moratorium on accepting new members until a longer-term strategy has been agreed. Some “five, six or seven” colleges are currently on the waiting list, he adds.
“There may well be a smaller number of large colleges as a result of the area reviews. Part of the strategic review is to ask those questions. What are the membership criteria? What are the type of institutions we want to be part of 157? What is the optimum size? The numbers of members is currently 26. It sounds a nice number. Is 35 a nice number?” He laughs. “It would mean more membership fees.”
But while Pretty is sympathetic about the major challenges the sector is facing - not least funding cuts and area reviews - he does not believe they are unique.
“I don’t see this as much different to what local government has faced in the last 25-30 years,” he says. “I don’t see this as much different to what I saw when it was in the public sector in central government. I don’t see it as much different to what the private sector faces. When we had the global downturn, revenue went down and there was massive retrenchment.
“Transformational change is hard. I’ve been there; it’s bloody hard. You are putting out messages that people don’t necessarily want to hear. You can see everything as a challenge, or everything as an opportunity. I see this as a time of opportunity.”
CV: Ian Pretty
- 2015 Chief executive, 157 Group
- 2014-15 Senior vice-president, Capgemini
- 2007-13 Vice-president, Capgemini
- 2004-07 Director of strategy for the chief information officer, HM Revenue and Customs
- 2001-04 Director of communications, Aspire Project, HMRC
- 1999-2001 Director of projects, Cabinet Office
- 1996-99 Director of strategy, large business office, HMRC
- 1993-96 HM Inspector of Taxes, HMRC
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