Guidance

College oversight: support and intervention

How the government will support and intervene to improve financial resilience and quality in colleges.

Applies to England

Documents

Details

This guidance is for:

  • governors
  • principals
  • finance directors
  • senior leadership teams

It should be used by:

  • further education (FE) colleges
  • sixth form colleges
  • designated institutions

The guidance sets out:

  • how the Department for Education (DfE) will work with all colleges to identify any financial and quality issues that might hinder their success
  • how DfE has adapted our active support and intervention policy, following the reclassification of colleges as part of the central government sector
  • the support and advice available to colleges when they need it, from:

    • DfE
    • FE Commissioner
    • Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA)

It should be used alongside the guidance on statutory intervention powers for the FE sector.

Published 1 April 2019
Last updated 14 December 2022 + show all updates
  1. Updated 'College oversight: support and intervention' for December 2022.

  2. Updated guidance to reflect the new duty to review provision; enhanced Secretary of State intervention powers; improvements to active support; and revised Ofsted framework.

  3. Renaming of Formal Intervention as Intervention and introduction of Active Support - to replace previous categories of Prevention and Early Intervention.

  4. Updated with details of emergency funding and/or insolvency funding given to 7 institutions in the period 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020.

  5. Document updated to reflect amendment to formal intervention trigger for cash related concerns.

  6. Extended the criteria for FE Commissioner diagnostic assessments so a college can be referred for one earlier than the current criteria allows. Delegated the decision to place a college into Supervised College Status to the Case Management Group (CMG).

  7. First published.