If the FE commissioner turns up at your college’s reception, the situation is already grave. At present, Richard Atkins and his team of deputies are drafted in to intervene in cases when a college fails an Ofsted inspection, or is found to be financially inadequate.

But a radical expansion of the commissioner’s role is on the way. Rather than simply being summoned to deal with failing colleges, changes are being drawn up that would also make the FE commissioner the first port of call for institutions in need of advice and support.

In July, education secretary Justine Greening announced plans for a £15 million college improvement fund - and that the commissioner’s role was to be extended to take in sixth-form colleges. It has emerged that this is part of a more substantial expansion of the commissioner’s remit.

While the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) will continue be responsible for intervening when colleges are in serious financial difficulty, the FE commissioner is expected to be asked take the lead on interventions around the quality of provision.

There will also be a second level of involvement, which will include offering additional assistance to colleges at deemed to be risk of seeing their performance deteriorate, with a view to address problems before they become entrenched. All colleges rated as “requires improvement” by Ofsted are expected to come within the scope of the programme.

Spreading knowledge

Under the scheme, expert guidance will be made available from a cadre of “National Leaders of Further Education”. Between 30 and 40 principals and chief executives of successful colleges are expected to be recruited, Tes understands. In her speech to the British Chambers of Commerce during the summer, Greening outlined that these leaders will be “empowered to spread their expert knowledge, as well as mentor and support weaker parts of the system”.

College leaders were due to meet Department for Education officials this week to discuss how the new system of support and intervention might operate, and how to make best use of the allocated £15 million budget over two years.

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, says: “This is an important move and I think we should all try to make it work. It’s about helping people who need help in difficult times.

“A key element is that it would be voluntary for colleges to come and ask for help. It’s a positive move, but I think it’s going to be difficult to make happen.”

Expert advice should be made available from leaders with experience of running both sixth-form and FE colleges, according to Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association.

Any move to develop cooperation across institutions could help the approach of a “self-improving system”, widely accepted across the schools sector, transfer over to FE.

To date, the FE commissioner has published 10 college intervention reports in 2017. In the same period, four institutions have formally moved out of intervention after making substantial improvements.

‘Robust and meaningful’

According to the most recent ESFA data, colleges are currently subject to 63 notices of concern. Two-thirds of these (40) are for financial health, with the rest being issued over financial control (four), inspection (nine), apprenticeship standards (eight) or the standards of overall education and training (two).

Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College was subject to notices of concern over its financial health and inspection performance, dating back to 2014 and 2015 respectively, as well as being subject to FE commissioner intervention. However, in May its overall Ofsted grade rose from “inadequate” to “good”. The interventions are expected to end shortly.

Garry Phillips, the chief executive of the college, who was appointed in 2014, says he treated FE commissioner intervention as “free consultancy”. “We found it to be a very supportive, challenging, robust and meaningful dialogue around what needed to be improved, and how we needed to improve it,” he says.

“One of the challenges for the commissioner and his team is to get the indicators in place, to say to colleges that are about to fall over, ‘Let’s have a conversation’ before they do - that’s time well invested and money well spent. It’s always better to go to the GP to get the medicine and treat the symptoms early on, rather than to wait until you need remedial surgery.”

The DfE declined to comment.