IS THERE a crisis in further education in South Warwickshire? Why have two college principals “resigned” within months of each other in circumstances that are shrouded in mystery? And why all the secrecy anyway? What is there to hide?
These are perfectly legitimate questions given the turmoil that has engulfed both Stratford College and Warwickshire College in recent times.
The first principal to depart was Martin Penny from Stratford College in October last year. There has never been a satisfactory explanation as to why Mr Penny left, out of the blue, after eight years in the job. Indeed, his departure was suspiciously sudden.
Martin Penny resigned from Stratford College.
There was no long-term notice of his plans to “retire”, with the requisite several months’ breathing space for the governors to find a successor in an orderly manner—and certainly no series of civic receptions that might normally accompany the retirement of such a local dignitary.
The line being pumped out by the college at the time was that Mr Penny had “decided to stand down from his role to pursue a new career in top-level leadership”—whatever that meant.
His deputy Nicola Mannock—who had been at the college only a matter of months—became acting principal until she got the job on a permanent basis in spring this year without the post being advertised (either internally or externally).
In February, while she was still acting principal, she announced that between 30 and 40 teaching and support jobs at the college would have to go because of a cutback in government funding from £10 million to £8.5 million.
Since Mrs Mannock became principal more than half of the governors at Stratford College have resigned—including the relatively new chairman, Cllr Tony Jefferson—and the college has been the subject of an investigation by the new Further Education Commissioner, Dr David Collins.
Deputy Nicola Mannock stepped into the role following Mr Penny’s resignation.
The commissioner was concerned about finance and governance at the college and his assessment is due to be published shortly. (Cllr Jefferson has questioned whether, following the resignations, the board of governors at the college is now quorate.)
While this drama was continuing to unfold at Stratford College there was a bombshell announcement from rival Warwickshire College that its high-flying, high-profile principal and chief executive, Mariane Cavalli, was taking “temporary leave of absence”.
No explanation was given for her “temporary” departure at the end of June, despite repeated requests from both the media and the University and College Union (UCU).
At the end of July it was announced that Ms Cavalli would be going for good at the end of August. Again there has been no explanation for her sudden departure, with “legal reasons” being cited as the excuse for keeping it all under wraps.
Ms Cavalli’s situation is an intriguing one. Until a few weeks ago she was the glamorous blue-eyed girl of further education who brought an entrepreneurial dimension to student learning and could apparently do no wrong.
But then—in May this year—she announced there would have to be redundancies at the college because of the cuts in government funding and a budget deficit of £3 million. It later emerged that up to 99 jobs were at risk.
No sooner had this bad news sunk in when it was announced Ms Cavalli would be taking “temporary leave of absence”—a legal expression that’s been repeated quite a lot in recent weeks. All efforts to find out why were to no avail.
Then, about a month later, came the announcement that Ms Cavalli’s “temporary leave” would become permanent at the end of this month. Warwickshire College insists that it cannot divulge the reasons for her departure because it has, in effect, been put in a legal straitjacket.
The smothering of this situation by the use of a blunt legal instrument—a “gagging” mechanism—has infuriated quite a number of people, not least among them members and officials of UCU.
The anger has been exacerbated by the discovery, following a UCU Freedom of Information request, that Ms Cavalli’s salary rocketed from about £170,000 a year when she arrived four years ago to about £220,000 a year in 2014—a rise of £50,000 in no time at all. As one UCU official put it to me recently: “Nice work if you can get it!”
What is really galling for many people is that this is public money— taxpayers’ money—that is being splashed around as though it is coming from the coffers of a highly profitable company operating in the private sector.
Not only are “legal reasons” standing in the way of the public knowing why Ms Cavalli is leaving —or has been sacked—but they’re also preventing us from finding out whether she was on full pay during her “temporary leave of absence”.
Perhaps most significantly of all, the public—which funds the college —is being told it is not allowed to know whether Ms Cavalli is being paid off and how much she is getting from the public purse as a “reward” for her sudden fall from grace.
There is an exquisite irony about the fact that Ms Cavalli has been earning a bumper, private sector-style salary while running a publicly-funded institution. As a proponent of entrepreneurialism she has certainly brought the ethics of free enterprise into her own professional arrangements—but without the personal risks that normally accompany swashbuckling adventurism. With four other college principals around the country, she co-founded the Gazelle College Group, of which she became a director, to instil in students an appreciation of the virtues of entrepreneurial flair.
As far as UCU is concerned, this is a “controversial” organisation, which has received hundreds of thousands of pounds from colleges such as Warwickshire since it was set up but has shown no concrete evidence of a return on this “investment”.
Gazelle might well promote the notion of “entrepreneurialism”, but to date it has hardly generated wealth under its own steam and has proven itself to be curiously dependent on cash from the colleges—in other words, from the taxpayer.
As UCU has stated: “The controversial Gazelle Group of Colleges, founded by departing principal Cavalli, has received over £500,000 from the college.
“The college pays £35,000 a year to be a member of the Gazelle Group of Colleges. Gazelle was founded in 2011 by five college principals, including Mariane Cavalli. According to reports, the college has spent more than £200,000 on purchasing shares in Gazelle Transform Ltd and a further £324,000 for services in connection with developing a ‘new education concept’ with Gazelle Global Ltd.”
Immediately after the announcement of Ms Cavalli’s “temporary leave of absence”, UCU’s West Midlands regional official Anne O’Sullivan said: “Almost 100 members of staff at the college might lose their jobs, pay has been driven down in recent years and yet we are starting to uncover details of massive pay rises for a principal now on leave and for other senior managers.
“The college needs to open up its books and explain why such large sums were given to the Gazelle Group of Colleges and what the new education concepts are and why they cost £324,000.
“We also need to know what has been spent on overseas travel and expenses, why senior managers
got such big pay rises and who is getting a bonus on top of their salary and why.
“The time has come for proper scrutiny of colleges’ spending. We would urge the [House of Commons] Public Accounts Committee to properly investigate how taxpayers’ money is being spent by our colleges.” In a statement to the Herald at the beginning of July, Fintan Donohue, Gazelle’s chief executive, said the £3.5 million given to Gazelle represented the total investment in the enterprise over the past three years.
Gazelle was now made up of 23 colleges, whose total budget over the three-year period was approximately £1.6 billion.
He added: “The 23 members of the Gazelle Colleges Group all invest £30k per annum, which represents a relatively small proportion of their annual budgets for business engagement, staff development and student experience into the work of Gazelle. By sharing resources they benefit from economies of scale and better value for students.”
Mr Donohue said: “The final element of the total investment is in partnerships with private sector partners—to develop new products and services for colleges and the wider market. This reflects the confidence of investors in the value created by Gazelle in the first three years of operation.”
Sue Georgious took over the helm at Warwickshire College.
Meanwhile, in a twist that provides further ammunition for sceptics, Ms Cavalli’s departure prompted Warwickshire College to appoint its chair of governors, Sue Georgious, as interim chief executive. Although Ms Georgious has a professional background in education, this still provoked some tart observations.
Dame Ruth Silver, the former chair of the Learning and Skills Improvement Service and now president of the Further Education Trust for Leadership, told the trade paper FE Week: “This move from chair to chief executive is highly unusual and more than a little disturbing.
“It goes against all the standards we know and which guide us about openness and transparency in public life, especially in the context of the principal being described as on some sort of leave.
“I can think of no circumstance when this would be acceptable. There are agencies with trained and experienced FE colleagues readily available.
“This college is now without a principal and also an experienced chair. This is no solution— more a diminution of the importance of governance in public life. I trust it will be very short-lived.”
The college defended its decision to appoint Ms Georgious to the interim post, saying it had taken legal advice and followed due process.
Behind all this high drama may lie a simple explanation—funding. As one further education insider told the Herald this week, the sudden and significant cutbacks in public funding of further education colleges—which have been autonomous bodies for many years —may have resulted in a higher degree of self-examination than had been usual in the past.
And all these comings and goings could be part of the fallout…