CMI is strongly supportive of the further education (FE) sector and welcomes Government’s proposals to give it more autonomy and flexibility, and to open up access for a greater number of people. We therefore welcome the widening of FE provision, especially in response to local demand and in collaboration with local and regional employers, but underline the importance of maintaining standards. CMI and other professional bodies have an important role to play in collaborating with the FE sector and employers to ensure qualifications reflect employers’ needs, meet professional standards, provide professional recognition and provide continuing professional development (CPD) for learners.

1. CMI submission to BIS consultation
New Challenges, New Chances. Next steps in implementing the FE
reform programme
October 2011
Contact:
Petra Wilton Philippa Tucker
Director, Policy & Research Public Affairs Manager
petra.wilton@managers.org.uk philippa.tucker@managers.org.uk
Tel: 0207 421 2708 Tel: 0207 421 2723
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2. Executive summary
• The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) is strongly supportive of the further education
(FE) sector and welcomes Government’s proposals to give it more autonomy and flexibility,
and to open up access for a greater number of people
• We therefore welcome the widening of FE provision, especially in response to local demand
and in collaboration with local and regional employers, but underline the importance of
maintaining standards
• We are keen for the FE sector to maintain its essential role in facilitating social mobility and
providing learners of all ages with the opportunity to gain more skills, particularly employability
skills
• CMI and other professional bodies have an important role to play in collaborating with the FE
sector and employers to ensure qualifications reflect employers’ needs, meet professional
standards, provide professional recognition and provide continuing professional development
(CPD) for learners
• We are in favour of allowing specialist colleges to enter the market, eg. University Technical
Colleges (UTCs). CMI is leading a group of professional bodies to work with UTCs to ensure
that transferable professional skills are offered alongside technical skills, to help improve
business performance as well as to develop learners’ employability skills
• We welcome the proposal to introduce a parallel system of loans for FE as for the HE sector.
This will allow learners to shape demand for courses, rather than the more supply-led system
which currently exists. We also welcome the smoother path from FE to HE which may occur
as a result of the introduction of FE loans
• We are keen to emphasise the value of national occupational standards (NOS) which
underpin the National Qualifications and Credit Framework and common professional
standards and thereby ensure quality assurance. The NOS are important to ensure the
consistency of qualifications and transferability across different sectors. The NOS are best
developed by Sector Skills Councils and the relevant professional bodies in close
collaboration with employers and relevant awarding bodies and providers
• CMI supports streamlining the approval process for vocational qualifications, although we look
forward to hearing more details on this. We are keen to ensure that reducing bureaucracy
and complexity in the approval process does not lead to lower qualification standards
About CMI
The Chartered Management Institute is the only chartered professional body in the UK dedicated to
promoting the highest standards of management and leadership excellence. CMI sets the standard
that others follow.
As a membership organisation, CMI has been providing forward-thinking advice and support to
individuals and businesses for more than 50 years, and continues to give managers and leaders, and
the organisations they work in, the tools they need to improve their performance and make an impact.
As well as equipping individuals with the skills, knowledge and experience to be excellent managers
and leaders, CMI’s products and services support the development of management and leadership
excellence across both public and private sector organisations.
Through in-depth research and policy surveys of its 90,000 individual members CMI maintains its
position as the premier authority on key management and leadership issues.
CMI has an extensive network of approved centres around the UK, which are authorised to deliver our
qualifications. To date there are 680 centres, many of which are FE colleges. We therefore offer our
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3. qualifications to a wide range of FE learners through a flexible system of credit based learning units.
We are also able to develop new qualifications in response to the needs of employers, such as the
CMI Level 3 in Neighbourhood Management and the CMI Level 4 Certificate in Multi-Agency working.
Specific comments
We have responded to the issues raised in the consultation document and, where relevant, answered
specific questions as set out at the end of the document.
Section i - Vision for the FE landscape and shape of the sector
We welcome BIS’s policy intentions of increasing delivery of high quality higher level qualifications,
including at degree level, within FE colleges. We believe the FE sector has an increasingly important
role to play in helping people improve their skills and find work, at a time when specific skills gaps still
exist.
For example, in December 2008 the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) published
its first annual forecast1 on where future jobs will be created and identified management as by far the
fastest growing occupation. By 2017, it estimates that the net requirement for new managers will be
2.2m, with 802,000 additional management jobs created. The report concludes that the UK is at
serious risk of not being able to meet this demand for management skills, highlighting management
as a high priority skills need for immediate action.
Added to this is the Government’s ambitious Open Public Service programme, which represents a
step change in the way public services are delivered towards a more collaborative and integrated
system between the private, public and third sectors. The achievement of these goals for public
services such as the NHS, police service, local and central government, and education, are all
dependent on good management and leadership skills.
Part of the challenge for the FE sector is, as the consultation document rightly acknowledges, “to
make itself more responsive to changing social and economic needs, with a more diverse set of high-
quality providers who can constantly review their delivery models to ensure they are fit for purpose.”
(page 13). An important part of this more flexible, focused FE sector is the creation of a network of
University Technical Colleges, which CMI actively supports. We have set out below a brief description
of our involvement with UTCs and the JCB Academy, as an example of how a professional body can
work closely with other educational bodies and employers to deliver better vocational skills.
CMI’s work with UTCs
Currently the CMI is leading the working group for Professional Bodies on behalf of the Baker Dearing
Educational Trust. We are working closely in partnership with the Trust to develop a platform across
UTCs to test out different collaborative models, allowing the professional bodies to provide a shared
offer for the “bridge” subjects.
“Bridging skills” cover transferable employability skills, soft skills, management and leadership,
finance, marketing, customer service, logistics, etc. We believe that they can make a valuable
contribution in terms of supporting the development and delivery of bridging skills and also to leverage
employer engagement through CMI membership. Many professional bodies are already working with
schools at a number of different levels, but the new UTCs provide a unique opportunity to develop a
more integrated approach. This approach recognises that it will potentially become problematic for
schools if they are targeted by many different bodies all with separate propositions.
The members of the Professional Body group include CMI, ACCA, RICS, CIPD, CILT, AAT, RAENG,
ICAEW, ICSA.
Higher level apprenticeships
We also support the policy intention of promoting specific training opportunities via partnerships
between employers or specialist providers. We have just completed the framework for a Level 5
1
“Working Futures 2007 – 2017”. UKCES, December 2008
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4. Apprenticeship in Management, which will open up access to skills development to a wider range of
learners than could traditionally access the higher education sector.
Need for effective leadership and management of colleges
We welcome the acknowledgement that good leadership and management is essential to deliver a
high-quality, effective and efficient HE sector. We look forward to seeing further details regarding this
proposal and in particular the role that professional standards and accreditation will play in
recognising effective leadership and management across the FE sector.
Section ii - Introducing level 3/4 loans and sharing responsibility for investing in skills
We welcome the proposal to introduce a parallel system of loans for FE as for the HE sector. This will
allow learners to shape demand for courses, rather than the more supply-led system which currently
exists. We also welcome the aim of creating a smoother path from FE to HE which may occur as a
result of the introduction of FE loans, allowing learners to progress to HE qualifications whilst
maintaining the same loan arrangements.
It is important to note that management is often a secondary discipline that employees will study on a
part-time basis, at an equivalent level to their initial specialist subject area, having been promoted into
a position where they take on new management responsibilities. It is an established route of career
progression for individuals to take a management qualification after their academic qualifications, and
in many cases employers are already providing support in terms of granting time off for study leave,
rather than by direct funding. We are therefore concerned that the loans system for those aged 24
and older may deter this group from taking management qualifications due to the cost.
We are also in favour of making it easier for awarding bodies to develop and gain approval for new
and innovative qualifications which respond to the demands of employers and learners alike. We have
worked closely with several sectors, including the police service, to develop specific qualifications
which satisfy their specific needs, such as a qualification in Neighbourhood Management and one in
Multi-Agency Working. We continue to respond to employer needs by working closely with employers,
our approved centres and other professional bodies to ensure that our qualifications remain relevant
to industry.
We would point out that the qualification development process is dependent on the regulator
approving the new qualifications, so any Government policy of encouraging new qualifications to be
offered would have to include consideration of the Ofqual approval process.
Section v – teaching, learning and qualifications (NOS)
An important aspect of CMI’s work is to raise the status of vocational education and training. We
therefore very much welcome the Government’s commitment to achieving this aim, and look forward
to working with BIS and other government partners to ensure that vocational qualifications and
training gain the same level of recognition and value as academic ones, and that vocational
qualifications are easily understood and accepted by employers.
Partnerships and professional bodies
An important role that professional bodies play is in delivering skills improvement in partnership with
the education sector, employers, Sector Skills Councils and trade bodies such as the CBI and TUC. In
working with all these partners we are able to provide our members with valuable learning resources
such as continuing professional development (CPD) programmes; online learning; professional
recognition of learning and skills (e.g. Chartered Manager) and clear career progression pathways
across the FE and the HE sector.
National Occupational Standards (NOS)
We would highlight that National Occupational Standards provide a valuable system for providing
common standards across many different sectors, and allow employers to recognise the respective
value of qualifications offered by different awarding bodies. Qualifications which are developed from
the NOS are based on consistent standards and are therefore transferable across different providers
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5. and sectors. Through our employer members, we ensure that our qualifications satisfy employer
needs. We are also able to gauge the needs of learners through our 90,000 members, many of whom
are student members. We therefore believe that responsibility for developing National Occupational
Standards should rest with the leading professional bodies for each occupation, rather than with
technical NOS experts who do not necessarily have direct contact with employers and learners.
The importance of management and leadership alongside STEM subjects
We understand the need to focus on the provision of STEM qualifications and welcome Government’s
plans to create national subject experts. We would add that technical skills on their own are not
sufficient – engineers, scientists and mathematicians also need good leadership and management
skills in order to apply their technical skills to an organisational setting. We would therefore propose
that Government prioritises management and leadership skills to the same degree that it has STEM
subjects, and ensures that management and leadership skills are embedded within technical skills
development.
Section viii – delivering higher education and skills
Again, we welcome the stated aim of making the HE sector more responsive to students’ choice,
providing a better teaching and learning experience and therefore promoting social mobility. It is
important for the system to deliver a transferable credit and qualifications system across FE and HE,
and we welcome the Government’s goal of achieving this. Management is a profession which
contributes significantly to social mobility as it has few barriers to entry.
We therefore welcome the aim of opening up the HE market to greater competition, as long as quality
does not suffer. We are also in favour of the proposal that institutions which charge full time fees of
£7,500 or less should be allowed to bid direct for 20,000 funded places in 2012/13. It is essential,
however, that good careers advice is given to learners to ensure that they pick the most appropriate
course for them, and that these 20,000 funded places are not wasted on courses which will do little to
support economic growth.
Finally, CMI has a wide-ranging online learning offer, which we have developed to be delivered as
part of distance-learning packages, to suit the needs and time-constraints of the learner. These
innovative resources can be adapted to particular sectors’ or employers’ needs, and can also be
personalised by the learner according to his or her development needs. In this way we help to ensure
that management and leadership development is fully flexible, innovative and sensitive to market
demands.
CMI
October 2011
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