A History of BAC's first 25 years

What is the British Accreditation Council
At the end of BAC’s first year of operation a total of 35 institutions had been awarded accreditation.
This included 26 CIFE colleges and a further nine institutions offering business and professional
education and training at further and higher education levels. Over the next nine years the number of
accredited institutions grew slowly, reaching 82 by the end of 1993. Sixth form and tutorial colleges
continued to form the bulk of these. However, there had been a significant increase in accredited
institutions offering business and professional studies and higher education courses. There was
also a sizeable group of colleges catering for students with special educational needs.
In 1993-1994 BAC sought to encourage more institutions to apply for accreditation, whilst
cutting unnecessary costs, by reviewing and then streamlining its inspection and accreditation
procedures. As part of this process, BAC’s fees structure was also overhauled. The reductions
in the charges for inspections and accreditation initially had a significantly adverse effect on the
company’s finances. This difficult financial position was compounded when most of the colleges
for students with special educational needs withdrew from accreditation, as new rules saw them
become subject to inspection by the Further Education Funding Council.
David Parry, BAC’s Chief Executive until 1993, conducted many of the preliminary visits to
prospective new institutions himself. It was his view that full inspections should only be undertaken
by members of BAC’s inspectorate, in order to preserve the distinction between inspections and the
management and decision-making processes. However, aware of the need to reduce costs further
and also to foster closer relations with accredited institutions, Robin Laidlaw (who succeeded
David as Chief Executive in 1993) undertook not only to conduct most of the preliminary visits but
also to lead many full inspections himself. Robin continued to do this throughout his tenure, despite
the considerable pressures which these tasks imposed on him. Looking back, the willingness of
the Chief Executive to bear the brunt of leading inspections and writing inspection reports was
probably the key factor which ensured BAC’s survival during the financially challenging period of
the mid-1990s and established it on a sound footing for the years to come.
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