Candidate Pack - City Lit Executive Director

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City Lit Executive Director of External Engagement Candidate Pack – August 2016 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY City Lit is Britain’s leading adult education college. It provides over 5,000 courses to 35,000 students aged 18-90+ and operates seven days a week, 46 weeks of the year. Impressively, 54% of its revenue is derived from fee paying students, making it the first publicly-funded FE college to generate the majority of its income from non-Government sources. City Lit has over 1,000 specialist tutors and support staff (equivalent to 300 FTE), although 85% of its teaching is delivered by non-salaried, part-time tutors. Its educational provision is rated as ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted. The newly created role of Executive Director of External Engagement will report to City Lit's Principal and Chief Executive and be a central part of its senior team. This individual will lead on all areas of external relations and hold overall responsibility for delivering City Lit's strategic objective to strengthen stakeholder engagement and to increase revenue generation through both fundraising and the cultivation of closer business links. City Lit is seeking a heavyweight candidate with a proven track record of building and nurturing productive and enduring relationships and exerting influence over external stakeholders. Prior experience of the education sector is not essential. Applications should consist of a CV and covering letter and can be made online via the college's recruitment partners Society. The deadline for receipt of applications is midday (GMT) on Thursday 25 th August 2016. ABOUT CITY LIT City Lit is where marketers learn a new language; people in recovery learn skills vital for employment; barristers come to learn the piano; pensioners learn how to get onto the internet and connect through social media; counsellors and fitness professionals improve their skills; and young adults learn a craft with which to start their own business. Whereas many colleges create a niche and focus on attracting a particular sector of the market, City Lit has embraced the diversity of London and caters for the needs of everyone, whatever their background, whatever their ambition. This has been its mission for nearly 100 years. City Lit plays a particularly central role in the UK’s creative sector. Over 40% of its curriculum is focused on developing creative skills, and nearly 75% of its students are enrolled on creative courses. City Lit Fellows include the world-renowned artist Grayson Perry CBE, author, scriptwriter and Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman OBE, and award-winning author Andrea Levy. They all cite adult education as the starting point and motivation for their careers. For more information about City Lit and the transformative impact its work has on people’s lives, please visit www.citylit.ac.uk
Business Model City Lit is unique in its offering and operates within a business model that is moving the organisation towards financial sustainability through a successful balance of fees and funding. Core to the City Lit difference is the college’s commitment to providing learning opportunities for those who have been disadvantaged or simply cannot afford course fees. The model is very simple. City Lit offers a diverse programme with wide appeal to attract a broad demographic, including people who can afford to pay fees. Together with funding, this enables them to invest the surplus, subsidising various community programmes and a wide array of support services - ensuring those who have less money can benefit fully. The fees also subsidise socially-vital courses such as speech therapy and deaf education. In 2014-15 over £1.7 million of profit from student fees was reinvested in this way. However; public funding has remained flat for years and has recently begun to reduce. City Lit has had to increase fees and tightly control its costs. It has also had to review its range of provision and the amount of internal subsidies they can provide. But the college believes that there are other ways to enhance and secure its long-term financial security. Strategic Plan City Lit recently published its Strategic Plan for 2016-2019. The plan centres around three goals. The third of these is as follows: GOAL 3: “Strengthen stakeholder engagement” We will work with all of our stakeholders to have the greatest influence and financial security to continue to deliver our purpose This is an all encompassing group of different stakeholders, the most important being government. We need to be more strategic in our approach to stakeholders, so that we can achieve the greatest influence in areas of policy and coverage for our activities and to strengthen adult education in the UK. At the same time, we need to ensure our continued financial viability by working with individual stakeholders and groups of stakeholders to maximise the funds raised from them. The plan goes on to spell out who some of City Lit’s major stakeholders are, as well as to set several key deliverables. The newly created role of Executive Director of External Engagement will help to take this agenda forward.
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