Collaborative Approaches to 14-19 Provision - Communities and ...

14-19 PATHFINDERS: THE SECOND YEAR69. The identification of significant local skills gaps and labour market needs could act asa spur to collaboration. In the Islington pathfinder, for example, skill shortages in localhealth and social services had brought about a major collaboration between the NHS, localsocial services and Islington schools and the college. Similarly in Sheffield the pathfinderwas closely linked to the city’s regeneration agenda in ways which had helped to promotebroad-based collaboration with a range of employers and training providers. In otherpathfinders where skills gaps were not clearly defined and where there was a preponderanceof small and medium-sized employers collaboration between the education and employmentsectors was often more difficult to achieve.70. We noted above the imperatives driving institutional collaboration, but there werealso contextual pressures which might inhibit collaboration. These included competitionbetween institutions and/or cultural differences. There were also instances where someinstitutions were reluctant to allow their students to be taught in other institutions becausethey were not convinced that they would be as well taught as if they stayed at ‘home’. Thiswas particularly likely to be the case where ‘high stakes’ GCSE or AS/A2 subjects werebeing taught collaboratively.71. More generally, individual institutions enjoy high levels of autonomy and despite allthe drivers towards collaboration identified above, it was still open to individual schools andcolleges to resist or selectively engage with collaborative arrangements. We noted sometendency for this to occur where schools were large and perceived as being successful interms of exam results and where the institutional incentives to collaborate were thus seen asbeing somewhat limited.72. Local leadership capacity was another important contextual factor influencingcollaboration. We noted in paragraph 33 that in most pathfinders leadership was exercised bythe LEAs and some were outstandingly successful in providing effective leadership e.g.Knowsley, Nottingham and Salford, although other agencies were also effective in otherpathfinders, for example, local LSCs in Hampshire and Southwark and consortia of schoolsand colleges in South Gloucestershire. What was evident, however, was that strong strategicleadership needed to be provided. In the complex policy and funding environment described24