HEFCE Monitoring Report Feedback

Tuesday 15 December 2009Comment on this article Permlink

Monitoring Report Feedback - West London LLN

Dear Graeme,

Thank you again for the submission of West London LLN’s monitoring report for AY 2008-09.

Your report has now been read and analysed by the HEFCE London and East institutional team and the LLN team and I would like to take this opportunity to provide you with some feedback on your submission.

As with last year, we are anticipating that an overall analysis of the progress of LLNs as a whole will be produced and published on our website towards the end of 2009/early 2010.

The LLN has made excellent progress against the original funded milestones and targets. You note that some milestones have slipped, but we are pleased to see that the network has been proactive around resetting targets and developing and implementing an action plan.

We are particularly pleased at the success of partnership building within the network which has led to the strong partner support for a membership subscription model to support an additional year of part-HEFCE/part-partner funded activity.

This demonstrates the value that partners see in the work being undertaken by the LLN, and in particular the success of the LLN in strengthening existing partnership and HE/FE links.

In addition to this, the ongoing commitment from TVU as a lead HEI for this activity is pleasing to see as are the links with the Future Skills project that will likely help to inform the long-term future of the project.

We are also pleased to see that pan-London LLN activity has continued into this year and this relationship has continued to be utilised to reach a significant number of partners and practitioners across London.

The activities of the LLN have also had a significant impact on national LLN activity, in particular the work that the LLN has undertaken with regard to Apprenticeships, which we comment on further below.

We were particularly interested to hear of the work that you have been undertaking around equality and diversity, an area where the LLN has had significant achievement.

The work that the LLN has undertaken with AchieveAbility has really demonstrated the positive difference that the work initiated by the LLN is making.

The ‘Maths cafe’ initiative is also an area of innovation where the LLN really seems to have led the way.

We would be interested to hear of the key findings of your study of this activity in the spring next year, and in addition, hope that this area of work and good practice relating to it, continues to be disseminated widely.

The LLN has clearly undertaken a wide range of successful work with employers, and of particular note is the involvement of employers in your curriculum development work, as well as working with Skills for Health to engage with local NHS trusts.

It was also interesting to see staff development events and IAG activities aimed at employers to develop their knowledge of the opportunities for vocational and work-based learners.

We were pleased to see the level of progress made by the network in terms of progression agreements, in particular it was interesting to note the number of signatories to the progression agreements, which signifies the level of collaboration and commitment from partners.

We noted that some progression agreements could not be shown in the template because they were multi-pathway – we understand that agreements are often difficult to quantify and to illustrate, and hence the difficulty for us in pulling together generic information.

If you have any feedback on whether the progression agreement section of the template could be improved, we would be keen to receive it.

We have noted that there still needs to be some clarity around numbers of students progressing through progression agreements, and that you are currently considering this as part of a wider evaluation of progression agreements – we would be interested to see the outcomes of this work, either through your next report, or through informal update.

We would also be interested in your next report of any reflections that you have on the process of developing progression agreements, and your thoughts for the future sustainability of this type of activity.

One point for clarification – the figures reported in the monitoring template don’t seem to tally up – i.e. you suggest that you have 23 progression agreements to FD; UG and PG, however the figures in the signed and implemented/in development columns total 43 – I would be grateful if you could clarify as soon as possible as this ties into our overall analysis of the progress of LLNs.

An area of particular interest is your work with regard to exploring progression routes from Apprenticeships.

We appreciated your honesty in the difficulty in this type of exercise, and also the sentiments around ensuring that progression routes are available for Apprentices should they desire to move onto HE.

We would be keen to hear more on this area of work as it expands, in particular following your involvement in the fdf/LLN forum work on LLNs and Apprenticeships.

The LLN has taken a focused approach to IAG which is clearly making an impact, particularly in terms of upskilling IAG practitioners in partner institutions as well as local advice agencies.

This is supplemented by a comprehensive guidance based website, which demonstrates the breadth of advice available not only to learners, but also helping to inform employers.

The report demonstrates that the LLN has taken a significant lead in the development of pathways from 14-19 diplomas, contributing at a strategic level with LAs and diploma development groups as well as working with partners to ensure that IAG around admissions for learners with the diplomas is clear.

We will be interested to see how this work progresses as more diploma lines come on stream.

Overall, this was a really positive report that demonstrated the significant achievements of the LLN over the last year.

Best wishes,
Jessica Trahar
Higher Education Policy Advisor
London and East Institutional Team
Higher Education Funding Council for England

Click here read Graeme’s blog on HEFCE’s response and add a comment.

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