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Management, measurement and cultural change in the English further education college: 1963-1993 Roy Fishera a Centre for Research in Post-Compulsory Education, School of Education and Professional Development, University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, Huddersfield, UK Online publication date: 15 December 2010

To cite this Article Fisher, Roy(2010) 'Management, measurement and cultural change in the English further education

college: 1963-1993', Education, Knowledge and Economy, 4: 2, 119 — 130 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/17496896.2010.540478 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17496896.2010.540478

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Education, Knowledge & Economy Vol. 4, No. 2, June 2010, 119–130

Management, measurement and cultural change in the English further education college: 1963–1993 Roy Fisher∗

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Centre for Research in Post-Compulsory Education, School of Education and Professional Development, University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, Huddersfield, UK Further education (FE) colleges in England were statutorily ‘cut free’ from local education authority (LEA) control in 1992. This article, however, primarily considers changes within FE in the 30 years before this ‘incorporation’ of FE colleges, as well as debates that followed. It argues that the post-1992 changes were immanent in economic and social forces that had coalesced during the 1970s. FE and LEA relations altered decisively during the 1960s with the LEA grip on colleges slipping, and most principals were powerful figures by the end of that decade with colleges generally having developed significant administrative systems. During the 1980s performance indicators began to drive the educational process as quality assurance approaches derived from industry took grip. These were accompanied by a marketing approach that primed the colleges for competition. There was, by the mid-1980s, an established culture of managerialism and performativity that permeated FE. The post-incorporation years would witness diminishing democracy, intensified staff contracts and deteriorating industrial relations. Incorporation constituted an important constitutional change, but the process and the subsequent transitions represented a clear continuum, not a revolution. Keywords: further education; colleges; management; audit culture; marketing; incorporation

. . . studies of the Principal, the Vice-Principal, the Registrar and the Heads of Departments revealed the growing managerial content of these posts. . . It is essential that Principals have a firm grasp of modern management techniques so that they have a better knowledge of such matters as performance statistics and a better understanding of the principles of delegation and control. (Charlton, Gent, and Scammells 1971, 153)

Introduction On 1 April 2013, further education (FE) colleges in England will have completed 20 years as ‘incorporated’ institutions. They were statutorily ‘cut free’ from local education authority (LEA) control by the Further and Higher Education (F and HE) Act 1992. There has been a tendency among those who have long associations with FE to look back nostalgically on the local authority years as a ‘golden age’ (Simmons 2008), and certainly incorporation brought with it diminished circumstances for FE college lecturers. In the light of local authorities regaining a planning and coordinating role for FE in relation to 14–19-year-old students from 2010 (DCSF/DIUS 2008), Simmons (2008) has discussed *Email: [email protected] ISSN 1749-6896 print/ISSN 1749-690X online © 2010 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/17496896.2010.540478 http://www.informaworld.com


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the ‘highly variable and flawed’ (359) nature of FE under local authorities in the preincorporation years. This article, in considering some changes at work within FE colleges in the 30 years before incorporation, necessarily involves some consideration of the period that followed that process as FE adjusted to its new legal status over the remainder of the 1990s. I shall argue that what happened after 1993 was immanent in wider economic and social forces that had coalesced in the 1970s, and that the aftermath of incorporation was essentially an acceleration of an incremental process that had been active from the early post-war years. In the 1950s and 1960s, through their responsibility for FE, the municipal LEAs worked to serve both their communities and the supporting commercial/industrial base. The local FE (or technical) college, affectionately known as ‘the Tech’, was generally associated with a culture of craft vocationalism. FE colleges were ‘solid’ civic institutions, integral to the fabric of most urban centres – they would produce the craft apprentices, the service workers (such as hairdressers and caterers) and the ‘white collar’ clerks and secretaries, needed by the economy. Although practice was subject to significant local variance, some FE colleges shared premises and resources with daytime technical schools where these existed as part of the never fully realized tripartite secondary system that had been envisaged by the Education Act 1944 (Richardson 2007). FE colleges also provided culturally improving opportunities for adults through ‘night schools’, with courses such as local history and modern languages. This remit was central to the promotion of social cohesion associated with the post-war consensus and efforts to both modernize British industry and engender a spirit of ‘self-improvement’ in society more generally. Even the anti-business idealism and ensuing cynicism of relatively cosmopolitan cultural shifts during the 1960s could not fully dislodge the sense of the FE college as a force for the cementation of a technicized vision of social welfare. In later decades, provision in FE serving mainly adults would include ‘access to HE’ courses, ‘outreach’ centres (usually located within local communities that might otherwise be reluctant to participate) and, in many colleges, a significant range of HE in FE courses (Hyland and Merrill 2003). Although often seen as essentially institutions for working-class students, as Thompson (2009) has shown, FE colleges in England today provide for a mixed social class constituency and, given their always diverse ‘curriculum offer’, this demographic is unlikely to be a recent development. Richardson (2007) has provided a useful history of the institutional evolution of FE in England from 1945, whilst Fisher, Harris, and Jarvis (2008) discussed cultural representations of FE colleges and of adult learning. Ainley and Bailey (1997) have set out the background to incorporation and, through their study of two distinct colleges, vividly charted its immediate consequences in the mid-1990s. Hyland and Merrill (2003) briefly outlined the post-war development of FE as a prelude to a discussion of its nature within the context of the approach of New Labour governments’ to lifelong learning from 1997. Some contextual factors Whitehead’s (1999) recollection was that as a new lecturer in 1986 he had ‘. . .entered a working environment that can best be described as sleepy’ (60), one in which ‘Course programmes altered only slowly and not at all if the motivation to do so was absent’ (62). My contention, however, is that many aspects of modern FE that, with ex post facto logic, could be attributed to the new found ‘independence’ of the sector, were being embedded in most colleges long before the supposed ‘Year Zero’ of 1993 – Simmons (2009) characterizes this process as a ‘long goodbye’. Not least of these factors was the instrumentalization


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of learning that flowed from the objectives/performance based curriculum/learning model that was well established by the early 1980s. The apotheosis of this came with the National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) that were introduced in 1986 (Hyland 1994). Far from altering ‘only slowly’ or ‘not at all’, between 1979 and 1993, when General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs) were introduced, the FE curriculum was subject to a series of radical changes. These were mainly driven by the Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) that covered areas such as Art and Design, Business, Catering and Engineering subjects and which developed extensive systems of monitoring and control to implement its vision of student-centred learning and integrated modules (see Fisher 2003, 2004). There was, by the mid-1980s, an established culture of managerialism and performativity in FE that not only impacted on but also thoroughly permeated the processes of learning. Incorporation effectively constituted the mechanism by which governance finally endorsed pre-existing changes. The wider political zeitgeist had been encapsulated in ‘Thatcherism’ that directly impacted from 1979 (see Ainley 2007). FE colleges in the 1950s and 1960s had offered an industry focused environment of workshops, kitchens, hairdressing salons and classrooms where lecturers implemented what was formally set down in curriculum documents drawn from external awarding bodies. Most FE students at that time were intent on following a well-trodden path to craft, technical and, increasingly, white-collar careers. This ethic of ‘betterment’ could be traced back to the mechanics’ institutes of the nineteenth century, out of which many FE colleges had grown. Before the economic downturn of the late 1970s, the FE college was frequently the key to gaining secure skilled employment. The advent of the Youth Opportunities Programme (YOPs) in 1978 and the Youth Training Scheme (YTS) in 1983 presaged a new and subsidiary role within FE, one that was concerned with the containment of aspiration and a guided negotiation with (and accommodation to) alternatives to skilled employment (see Finn 1987; Hyland and Merrill 2003). There were 376 colleges in April 2008 (DIUS 2008). In 1997, 4 years after incorporation, there had been 452 (Huddleston and Unwin 1997). Cantor and Roberts (1972) suggested that in November 1970 there were over 660 ‘major establishments’ (a term used by the then Department of Education and Science [DES] to encompass colleges of technology, technical colleges, colleges of FE and similar institutions including art colleges and agricultural institutes). Whilst this seeming collapse in the size of the sector can be partially accounted for by rationalization and merger, and some sector ‘mission drift’ through the rise of the ‘new higher education’, there is little doubt that definitional issues are a major part of the explanation. The institutions that comprise the FE sector are relatively diverse in terms of their histories, structures and provisions. Nevertheless, people generally have a clear idea of what a FE college is and, notwithstanding a long record of economic utility, the image is not usually a flattering one. Despite a substantial programme of impressive new building in the first decade of this century and investment in teacher training that became a statutory requirement for FE in 2001 (Orr and Simmons 2010), FE today still conjures up visions of shabby classrooms, ‘second chance’ students who have underachieved at school, low-status ‘non-academic’ (vocational) courses and underqualified staff. This ‘image problem’ is partially grounded in elitist English attitudes to the vocational but has been reinforced by FE’s changing role. Conservative Education Minister Kenneth Baker’s (1989) reference to FE as the ‘Cinderella Sector’ quickly became an entrenched cliché that could not be shaken off by a decade of New Labour investment. Yet in the 1970s, one commentator had used this fairytale metaphor in a more positive sense, characterizing the post-war expansion of FE as a Cinderella-like transformation – ‘. . . we stand open-mouthed in the ballroom of the palace . . . In your town the college of

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FE is probably one of the most modern and imposing civic buildings . . . it is a source of pride . . .’ (Bristow 1976, 5–6). This civic pride, however, was by the mid-1970s already on the cusp of redundancy as social and educational status patterns were being reconstituted by economic change.

Slackening the reins: the 1960s and the 1970s


The principal is the chief executive, the general manager, solely responsible to the governors for the management of the college. He is a lonely man. (Bristow 1976, 71–2).

Although 1 April 1993 was the official date on which LEAs relinquished their responsibility for managing FE colleges, elements of that role had migrated to colleges before that date (Simmons 2009). This process, I suggest, was advanced before the end of the 1970s. The modernization of Britain through the ‘white heat’ of science and technology was a major theme of Harold Wilson’s Labour Government of 1964. A year earlier, the Robbins Report (1963) on HE had given impetus to a democratizing dynamic across education more broadly. This encouraged FE colleges to assert their case for greater autonomy, some having their aspirations whetted in 1966 by the tenor of the ‘Weaver Report’ (DES 1966), that sought to separate academic matters (to be controlled by the colleges) from administrative and financial matters (to be retained by the LEAs) (see Godwin 2000). The Education (no. 2) Act 1968 would make the establishment of a governing body a requirement for all colleges (Locke 1971). A process of democratization was now firmly on the march, and it had reached the lowly ‘tech’. In the light of the rapid growth of FE during the late 1950s and early 1960s the DES funded a study of ‘administration’ in technical colleges undertaken by the University of Manchester (hereafter referred to as ‘the Manchester Study’). The Manchester team conducted fieldwork (ultimately published as Charlton, Gent, and Scammells 1971) in six colleges during 1966 and 1967. The colleges involved varied considerably in their organizational and operational practices, underlining the points about local differences and inconsistencies in FE provision that have been stressed by Ainley and Bailey (1997) and Simmons (2008). From the beginning, the role of a college principal clearly differed markedly from that of a head teacher. Complex external relationships had to be developed and maintained with the Regional Advisory Councils (RACs) (set up to review both FE and relations between LEAs to ensure integrated provision) as well as with various other advisory bodies. In addition, colleges had to engage with a range of examination boards, professional institutes and craft associations and, increasingly, directly with local industries. In addition, were the demands of communication with the LEA’s Chief Education Officer (CEO) and (again increasingly) with members of the college’s board of governors. College/LEA relations differed widely, not only nationally but also within LEAs (Gray 1988). As early as 1959, however, a Ministry of Education circular had recommended that colleges should establish independent governing bodies rather than being dealt with through the LEA FE subcommittee as was then common practice (Charlton, Gent, and Scammells 1971). In 1967, five of the six colleges in the Manchester Study had a governing body and on only one of these did the presiding LEA have the majority of members – ‘industry and commerce’ were strongly represented on all. The LEA grip on colleges was slipping and most principals were already powerful figures.



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All six principals in the Manchester Study were either science or engineering graduates. All had been employed in industry (on average for nine years) before entering FE. With an average age of 53 and around 10 years in the role of principal, each would have risen rapidly on entering FE. The person at the helm of a 1960s FE college was almost certainly male and likely to be essentially technocratic in nature – neither a ‘pure academic’ nor a former town hall apparatchik. College structures during the 1960s and 1970s were relatively hierarchical: staff was highly conscious of grades, seniority and power. By the end of the 1960s most colleges had developed specialist support roles and the college principal was in practice unlikely to be as ‘lonely’ as represented by Bristow (quoted above, and himself a college principal). The college registrar – often still termed the ‘college secretary’ or ‘clerk’, or, by now sometimes the ‘administrative officer’ – would generally answer directly to the principal, presiding over admissions and course fees, devolved finance, examination procedures, student records, secretarial services, committee work and, in some cases, estates functions. Refectory and cleaning services were also often managed ‘in college’ – one principal in the Manchester Study had sole control over the work of five ‘maintenance men’ based in the college. The ratio of ‘office staff ’ to full-time teaching staff in the six colleges involved in the Manchester Study was 1:8.5, suggesting that by 1967 colleges maintained a significant administrative machine beyond that which serviced their operation within the local authority. Significant capital projects were frequently delegated to colleges and the task of managing finance in colleges, although within limits, went far beyond that associated with a school bursar. The terms of reference and autonomy of the college principals in the Manchester Study ‘varied considerably’ (Charlton, Gent, and Scammells 1971, 18), but teaching was not seen as part of the role of a principal or vice-principal. Some Heads of Departments (HoDs) in the Study taught as few as four hours a week, and none taught more than 12 (40). This left room for ‘management’, and Simmons (2008) has pointed to the ‘baronial’ power wielded by some heads of department (365). Four of the six colleges employed registrars who were firmly ‘college officers’, whereas two registrars saw their role as being primarily ‘in the hands of the LEA’ (Charlton, Gent, and Scammells 1971, 39). The Manchester Study underlines that more than 30 years before incorporation, many colleges were already highly managed from within. During the 1980s, as Ainley and Bailey (1997) pointed out, ‘flattened hierarchies’ (50) (part of a wider trend in the public services), would be imported into FE, with the side effect that some lecturers they interviewed believed that the new organizational models ‘foreshorten(d) their career prospects’ (51). Whilst a plethora of new structures, roles and titles bloomed post-incorporation and the ideology of managerialism would run unchecked after 1993, opportunities for real progression would be limited. In 1970, DES Circular 7/70 recommended that the governing bodies of colleges should have about one-third LEA members, with a third from industry (including unions). The rest were to be drawn from relevant professions, from staff and from students (Bristow 1976). Under Circular 7/70, the LEA would be responsible for ‘determining the general educational character’ of the college; the college governors would be responsible for the ‘general direction of the college’ and the principal would be responsible to the governors for ‘internal organization, management and discipline’ (Davies 1975, 246). DES Circular 7/70 also gave colleges freedom to spend within limits as well as some powers of financial virement. Locke (1971), as a contemporary commentator, identified resistance from LEAs, with some colleges fearful of the consequences of testing the patience of their erstwhile municipal overlords. It quickly became clear, however, that the DES would be firm in dealing with those LEAs reluctant to recognize the capacity of colleges to act (Locke 1972a) and that college governing bodies would need to assert themselves (Locke 1972b). The

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Employment and Training Act 1973 set up the Manpower Services Commission (MSC), that sought to coordinate the interests of industry, trade unions, local authorities and education (Bennett 1988). The MSC would be responsible for funding up to 25 per cent of work-related non-advanced FE, further weakening the influence of the LEAs on colleges. Many LEAs attempted to resist the rise of the colleges, however, by 1975 Noel Davies, then a college vice-principal, was able to write that ‘. . . at the end of the day, the Principal is No. 1, and is accordingly accountable for the management of all college affairs.’ (Davies 1975, 247).


The 1980s: the internalization of audit and control In his foreword to a collection of articles and syndicate reports arising from a Further Education Staff College seminar, Melling (1985) explained that the event had been convened to ‘. . . explore ways of moderating or extending the methodology of audit studies’ (95), (a Janus-like phrase which implied unease with the already extant mechanisms). The emblematically titled Measuring College Performance (Birch and Latcham 1985) employed an input/output model of education together with a systems theory based conception of a college in order to identify possible measures of effectiveness and efficiency for teaching programmes. In a similar vein, Managing Colleges Efficiently (DES/TWO 1987) identified a range of efficiency indicators. Minihane and Richards (1989) considered the application of industrial productivity measurement schemes in education asserting that, . . . despite the difficulties which may be encountered in defining and measuring inputs in education, it appears to be a legitimate proposition that education is no different from other forms of economic activity – its inputs are transformed to a final product. (5)

To illustrate this principle in relation to FE they proceeded to somewhat selectively quote Jones (1985) as follows: The college is seen as a processing plant that takes in students as the ‘raw materials’, passes them through teaching departments – the ‘processing units’ so that they come out as ‘value added’ products by virtue of their qualifications if they successfully survive the assessment process – ‘quality control’; otherwise they may be ‘recycled’, perhaps along a different production line. (139)

This extract omits from the beginning of the original text ‘For the purpose of this approach the college is seen as . . .’. Jones had immediately followed the end of the above extract from his work by conceding that, ‘The production process in education is generally far more complex than that encountered in industry and commerce’ (139). Others would not be so circumspect. Gray (1992) complained that despite a governmental assertion (DES/TWO 1987) that efficiency should not be considered in isolation from effectiveness there was ‘. . . enormous emphasis on the efficiency component, with rather crude performance indicators beginning to drive the whole educational process’ (69). The year 1988 saw the publication by Further Education Unit (FEU) of a series of introductory reports under the aegis of the DES’s Professional, Industrial and Commercial Updating (PICKUP) initiative that summarized the development and evaluation of quality assurance packages (FEU 1988a) and outlined the principles of ‘statistical process control’ (FEU 1988b) popularized in post-war Japan following the adoption there of the ideas of the celebrated American management consultant W. Edwards Deming.



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Following a large scale postal survey to find the extent to which quality initiatives were being undertaken in FE colleges. Sallis (1990) reported that quality assurance was already receiving high priority in many colleges with the British Standard (BS) 5750 quality assurance system, originally pioneered on a whole college basis by Sandwell College proving attractive. Ninety-five colleges (39 per cent of the respondents) were using BS 5750, though just half of these were doing so on a whole college basis. Thirty-five per cent of respondents (86 colleges) were developing Total Quality Management (TQM) approaches, whilst a third (79 colleges) was developing their own systems (see Somekh et al. [1999] for a discussion of effectiveness in FE). Industrially derived quality regulation systems had taken root and colleges had become (in a Foucauldian sense) internally vigilant long before the influence of the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) was brought to bear by the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. The ground for incorporation had been finally cleared by the Education Reform Act (ERA) 1988 that required LEAs to delegate funding to colleges and further strengthened business representation on governing bodies whilst reducing that of LEAs to less than 20 per cent (Ainley and Bailey 1997). The role of the LEA would now be more markedly ‘professional and strategic’ with the ‘administrative and managerial’ dimension further reduced (Fay 1989). Johnson (1991) stated that ‘. . . the 1988 Act and its associated policies destroyed the conventions about “partnership”, subordinated LEAs to the DES, and restructured professional relationships’ (66). In some measure, however, legislation was following rather than driving change, giving an official imprimatur to current practices. Being responsive In Spring 1995, just two years on from incorporation, a special ‘Quality For All’ edition of the NATFHE Journal 20, no. 1 (NATFHE 1995) was devoted to a critical review of ‘. . . the maze of what has become a booming business of assessment and measurement’ (3). During the 1990s, attention was repeatedly drawn to the presence within FE of managerialist approaches, the casualization of labour, harsh inspection and audit regimes, performance indicators as a basis for funding mechanisms and quality ideologies drawn from industry (Elliott 1993, 1996; Elliott and Hall 1994; Avis 1996, 1998; Ainley and Bailey 1997; Randle and Brady 1997). By the mid-1990s some college staff was complaining loudly, on occasion through the education press, (see, for example, Green 1994), about the ‘business culture’ that held sway within colleges. What the ‘New FE’ of the 1990s witnessed, however, was an intensification of the fascination with measurement that was well ensconced by the mid-1980s. This was reflected in the tendency for the vocational curriculum to test all aspects of student performance, as well as prescribing and monitoring the pedagogic approaches to be adopted by tutors. Studies relating to issues of the performance of colleges as institutions were regularly published by the Further Education Staff College and the Further Education Unit during the 1980s. Bristow (1976), in devoting a chapter to ‘public relations’, stated that ‘Colleges have to advertise to live. No full-time student is compelled to come to us’ (122). As Gleeson (1996) and Ainley and Bailey (1997) have pointed out, FE colleges have entrepreneurial traditions. FEU (1985) commissioned and published research that examined the question of colleges using the services of external marketing consultants. Although this was a small-scale study, involving five colleges, it evidenced considerable support for the creation of a specific marketing function in colleges. Very soon college-based marketing roles would be common place and integral to recruitment in an already competitive market. The appearance in 1986 of The Responsive College (Theodossin 1986) would underline that marketing had already arrived as an integral rather than ‘add on’ element of the work of colleges. This marketing

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would ‘sell’ both the colleges and the vocational provision that made them distinctive from schools. Taking inspiration from Peters and Waterman (1982) Theodossin had intended to identify ‘excellent, innovative’ colleges with the aim of disseminating their characteristics throughout FE, however, he identified a tension between traditional educational values (which he characterized as missionary), and those of industry/commerce (which marketeers held). A responsive college, it was argued, would put ‘client needs’ before ‘provider needs’ – there was a sense within the system that improved market research would be central to success (Somekh et al. 1999). Scribbins and Davies (1989) expected marketing structures in FE to be increasingly ‘. . . underpinned by properly trained staff devoting the whole, or a large proportion, of their time to the marketing function’ (21). The 1990s would pit college against college in an intensified arena of logos, ‘strap-lines’, and corporate ‘make-overs’.


The 1990s: values, FE and a managerialist culture (writ large) If you have a tough, dynamic, executive style principal, he will make the decision and get backing. . . (Industrial trainer quoted in Theodossin 1986, 38)

Post-incorporation, Halliday (1996) addressed the question of what values might inform and be transmitted by further education. Halliday identified a tension between the value laden mission of FE colleges and ‘. . . the perception that FE is a value-neutral commercial response to a presumed market in education’ (67). Halliday (1998) would subsequently observe that, ‘It is on this issue of quality that value concerns and the flight to avoid value judgments become most apparent’ (6). For FE colleges, the 1990s certainly underlined this observation. Dearing (1994), following a survey conducted in 1992, highlighted four sets of factors then affecting strategic planning in FE. Firstly, ‘functional factors’ were concerned primarily with the development of effective business (especially financial) systems. Secondly, ‘environmental factors’ arose from the market economy principles then flowing (ironically) from central government: senior managers were concerned about possible reductions in funding and consequent difficulties in maintaining quality and serving disadvantaged client groups. There was also, at this stage, a sense that the public service ethic was still dominant amongst staff and this gave rise to what Dearing called, thirdly, ‘values, culture and planning factors’. There was a perceived resistance to change. There was, fourthly, a concern with career issues and questions of job security – these Dearing termed ‘personnel/individual factors’. Following a review conducted at about this time Betts (1994) attacked the ‘diminishing democracy’ of college government as revealed in the declining extent of staff representation on governing bodies, with nearly 10 per cent of governing bodies having voted to completely exclude staff representatives. Betts utilized National Association Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) research into the gender and ethnic balance of FE governors that revealed a split of 82 per cent male/ 18 per cent female, whilst 97 per cent were white with just 1 per cent Afro-Caribbean and 2 per cent Asian. Whitehead (1999) would subsequently argue that the decade witnessed ‘. . . a profound shift in the ethos and culture of UK education management . . . which is especially apparent in further education . . .’ (57). In his discussion of the audit culture of the FEFC during the same period Best (2009) describes a process of increased centralized government control and surveillance, utilizing Perryman’s (2006) term ‘panoptic performativity’. The 1990s certainly witnessed a deterioration of conditions in FE but, as



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indicated above, my own sense is that the 1990s were part of a continuum rather than any ‘profound shift’. Robson (1998) has argued that ‘The (F and HE 1992) Act precipitated some massive shifts in the FE workplace and its culture . . .’ (585). Between 1993 and 1999, the average level of funding per student would drop by a fifth (Williams 2003). Beale (2004) has outlined how post-incorporation restructuring generated bitter disputes that marginalized the lecturers’ union NATFHE. Twenty-two per cent of the total working days lost to strike action in 1994 were in FE (Williams 2003). Between 1993 and 1998, 15,000 lecturers’ posts (or a fifth of the establishment) disappeared (Shain 1998). By 1997, just 75 per cent of full-time main grade lecturers were trade union members, as against not less than 81 per cent of school teachers at this time (Ironside, Seifert, and Sinclair 1997). In addition most colleges were employing high proportions of part-time lecturers – the sector had always placed a high reliance on ‘part-timers’ but this was generally now well in excess of 60 per cent (Elliott and Hall 1994). College lecturers have never been as unionized as school teachers, with a more diffused professional identity they were unable to enjoy the same levels of solidarity – although there was a similar intensification of school teachers’ work during the same period (Gewirtz 1997). The emergence in 1995 of employment agencies such as Education Lecturing Services (later Protocol) further weakened the position of FE lecturers, who by 2004 were on average earning 10 per cent less than school teachers (Williams 2003). Teaching loads increased – the old ‘silver book’ contracts (NJC 1981), scrapped by the College Employers Forum (CEF) in 1993, had specified a maximum annual teaching load of 756 hours. Lucas and Betts (1996) estimated that the average number of hours taught was, three years after incorporation, about 800 per year. Today local contracts frequently state maximum requirements of 860 hours or more. These indisputably difficult post-incorporation years left bitterness for some – others were more accommodating to the new FE, with some even sanguine about its prospects having embraced the ideological shift in Britain. Indeed, it may well be that the traditionally highly differentiated and localized organizational, professional and subject cultures of FE colleges explain the wide range of experiences expressed by those who were ‘there at the time’. ‘There’, in reality, turned out to be many different places. Conclusion In the 1960s college structures, cultures and values began what was effectively a 30-year march that created the platform for incorporation and all that has followed. Incorporation constituted an important legal and constitutional change, but it was not in any sense a revolution and, on a day-to-day basis, the continuities outweighed the changes that followed. Hannagan, Lawton, and Mallory (2007) have pointed out that while the Further Education Act (1985) allowed colleges to establish their own commercial companies, even following the strengthening of market forces in the 1990s ‘. . . colleges remained largely funded by taxation, with their functions limited by statute and with accountability to a range of stakeholders’ (485). They argued that the shift from ‘old public administration’ to ‘new public management (NPM)’ was complex across the public sector and cite Lowndes (1999) cautioning against a ‘bipolar’ analysis (486). Hannagan, Lawton, and Mallory (2007) conclude that ‘. . . individual colleges responded in different ways . . . within the same college the extent to which new values and management imperatives were internalized varied . . . the rise of NPM did not herald a new paradigm but led to an “unstable settlement”’ (495). Essentially, the transformation of FE colleges was necessarily in step with changes that were restructuring education more widely and the whole of the economy (not just the public

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sector). Casualization of the workforce, an ethic of individualization and competition, the introduction of an instrumentalized curriculum and the growth of systems of audit and control emerged from the ideology of the New Right during the 1970s and this provided both the backdrop to and the impetus for change in FE colleges. When these ideas morphed into the policies of New Labour (see Bryson and Fisher 2011) the direction of travel was unchanged. Acknowledgement I thank my colleague Robin Simmons for his helpful comments on a draft of this article.


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