What the towns fund can teach us about local partnerships

By Pat Jones, CEO and Principal of Weston College, and Research Further Scholar.

Investment in FE is scarce, and it’s easy as a college leader to get stuck in a space where you just want to secure funds for your college without thinking about the wider community beyond your gates.

But if we step back and look at the objectives of our stakeholders, we will see much alignment. Working in true partnerships with local and mayoral combined authorities and local stakeholders, we can think how we can invest and improve our towns and regions. An approach of no borders, no walls can bring huge benefits to staff and students, and also genuinely contribute towards making the place the college sits within a thriving community, delivering connected services to its residents.

For me, this ethos became really embedded through my involvement in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities towns fund. In July 2021, 101 towns were invited to develop a range of schemes up to the value of £25 million with the aim of fostering economic regeneration, stimulating investment and delivering vital infrastructure. As a fund, it was short-lived, coming to an end in 2022, but those objectives still live on through the new Labour government.

And as anyone who has been in FE long enough will know, there will always be another fund, another pot of money to bid for, another opportunity to gain investment for the better of your college and community.

So, what lessons can colleges take from the towns fund when it comes to partnership work that delivers strong outcomes across the wider community?

I was involved with two projects through the towns fund during my time at the Bedford College Group as their learner base spanned multiple local authority areas.

The two projects were quite different, but ultimately successful and have gone on to thrive. The first was the transformation of an old 1959 college tower block into a net zero, carbon in operation contemporary building fit for the future. The other was the development of a new zero, carbon in operation sixth form college on top of a shopping centre.

When I went to the Town’s Fund board meeting for the 1959 renovation, I was really struck by the true feeling of collaboration between the local stakeholders, from the school trusts to local housing authority, and from the local brewing company to the hospitals. Although we were all representing our own organisations, as a group, we became champions for the projects that had secured the funding, promoting the benefit that collectively they would have for the town. Our project was the first to complete and acted as a catalyst to move the remaining projects forward with increased momentum. The whole group took joy in seeing the projects succeed.

The experience of developing the new sixth form was quite different. The board was equally supportive, and we had brilliant buy-in from local stakeholders. However, the shopping centre was privately owned by a pension fund, and it became apparent that our values were misaligned. When it came to securing the deal to rent the space, they wanted to charge us an amount that was unviable despite the considerable capital investment from the towns fund. Relentless negotiations followed until both parties were comfortable signing the agreement. Regardless of this obstacle the towns fund board stood firm in its support of the project.

So, in my experience, the most successful projects are those that have the full wholehearted backing of the stakeholders, who may be public sector colleagues, local community influencers and local business owners, all wanting something better for the town and the community they live or work in. It’s a rare but precious moment when the purpose of all involved in delivering the local objectives align. Managing and nurturing these relationships are key as these are the people who come out to bat for your project; they are your cheerleaders within the community. They will carry the message, listen to the community and reassure the naysayers as the project progresses. These are your allies, all working towards a common goal for the good of the area.

With well-narrated projects, the opportunity to extend the support for your project is possible, enabling a wider group of people and organisations to be involved, offering future support in ways that will directly benefit the learners, enriching their experience and adding context to their learning.

However, some organisations you might encounter during projects will have an objective of financial gain and not educational gain. Working with these partner organisations can be a challenging aspect of the project as they may not share the values of the majority. None the less they are important collaborators in the scheme that need to be managed; this is when the language of the heart no longer matters and only hard facts and figures win over. These partners can often be landlords or other commercial organisations, holding your nerve and using the breadth of data persuasively will help manage the outcome of the arrangement, but compromise might still be required on both sides.

All of this, of course, takes a huge amount of resource and hard work. So, do I still think it is worth engaging in collaborative bids? Absolutely!