“These are people who have families; they may have children in the sector. They have careers.”
That’s what Anne Murdoch, general secretary of the Principals’ Professional Council (PPC), told Tes when she urged the FE commissioner, Richard Atkins, to stop naming senior managers in his intervention reports.
“What we are concerned about is the naming and shaming of individuals in the reports. What we want is to avoid the humiliation of senior staff, whether it is the principal, the director of finance or any other,” she went on to say.
Her pleas came after a number of principals and chief executives were identified in reports by the commissioner in 2018 as being to blame for colleges hitting financial difficulties.
There are four reasons that can lead the FE commissioner to intervene in a college:
- It is rated “inadequate” by Ofsted.
- It has received a notice of concern from the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) about its finances.
- It has failed to meet the ESFA minimum standards.
- It has been found to be at high risk of failure following diagnostic assessment.
The commissioner then publishes an intervention report. Fifteen have been published since February 2018.
In November, the report for West Nottinghamshire College said that the former principal, named on the opening page, had “overseen a serious business failure which will impact on the whole college”.
A report on Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College, published on the same day, raised a number of concerns over the college’s former leadership. This included the former principal, Garry Phillips, who died shortly before Christmas.
There’s nothing wrong with accountability, says Murdoch. But when individuals are named in a report - which then is intentionally made public - that is a problem.
The Department for Education and the FE commissioner were contacted for comment.
