PER F O R M A N CE
In year one of the new regional college 2013-14, we
made significant progress on developing relationships
with employers and community planning partners, on
aligning the curriculum with the needs of the region,
and on implementing an organisational structure to
support the delivery of that curriculum.
In the first year of the new college we undertook an
extensive review of course provision for 2014-15 taking
into account employer, student and stakeholder feedback.
To ensure that we met the needs of employers within the
region and delivered a demand-led curriculum, the shape of
provision by industry area was rebalanced and the staffing
profile reviewed.
In our Outcome Agreement Self-Assessment for 2013-14 we
concluded that year two of Ayrshire College would present
a different range of complex post-merger challenges. For
example, while considerable efforts were made to have the
new staffing and systems in place for the start of 2014-15,
the organisational restructure process continued into the
early part of the academic year.
Two months into the 2014-15 session, a protracted period
of industrial action on one campus significantly disrupted
course delivery and, despite concerted efforts to mitigate
the impact on students by ensuring that classes continued
to be delivered, the learning experience of some students
suffered. This was exacerbated by concern amongst students
in December 2014, fuelled by national press reports, that
there might not be enough FE bursary funding to sustain
them to the end of their course.
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AYRSHIRE COLLEGE / QUALITY REPORT 2014/15
A comprehensive programme of management and
leadership staff development planned for delivery in 201415 to support curriculum and service managers was delayed
due to the industrial action. This group of operational
managers, critical to achieving college targets, therefore did
not benefit from the training the college would have wished
in the first year of their new roles.
Outcome Agreement targets
For 2014-15, the College received funding from the Scottish
Funding Council to deliver activity amounting to 183,269
WSUMs. In this challenging second year of merger, 98.8 per
cent of that target was delivered, ie 181,035 WSUMs - a
major achievement given the challenges the College faced in
2014-15.
Factors contributing to the small shortfall against target
included courses planned to start in January 2015 at our
Kilwinning Campus being cancelled due to industrial action,
and applications to our satellite campus in Cumnock being
significantly lower than in previous years, resulting in fewer
than planned courses taking place.
The tables in Annex A detail progress against Outcome
Agreement targets agreed with the Scottish Funding Council
for 2014-15. In summary, we met key activity targets on the
proportion of WSUMs delivered to learners aged 16-19 and
20-24, to students living in the most deprived 10% postcode
areas, to students with a disability, and to learners through
school-college provision.