When Mandy Exley took on the role of Principal at Scotland’s up and coming centre for learning Perth College, she was confronted with a problem which other academic institutions could only dream of. Pert College had really done quite well. Ofsted reports gave big ticks in all the right boxes. The college’s problem was, though, a sense of complacency that had set in across the 500 academic and support staff. How would the Principal galvanize teaching staff? Was it possible to do better? How would the college secure additional finances? To help answer these questions, and more, Perth College turned to Montpellier, which has a track record of helping a range of FE and tertiary colleges, including Gloscat, North East Worcestershire and Weymouth. Each with its particular concerns and issues, and most with scary deadlines.
Perth College’s aim is to become recognised as a national college in FE by the year 2007 and a top 10 college by 2010.
• To promote a step change amongst a staff of 500 academics and support staff
• To support the College’s ambition to become the lead players in the University of
the Highlands and Islands (UHI)
• To prepare staff for a higher gear to propel the College into Scotland’s top 10
colleges
• To communicate effectively to a range of stakeholders and support positive
initiatives across the organisation
• The fourth and final objective was to increase financial security with a minimum of 2
per cent of turnover as operating surplus.
Whilst the programme was to have clearly definable goals, the College and Montpelier’s team, under the direction of chief executive, were keen to brand the programme to re-focus staff to reflect the characteristics of what was essentially a complex and sensitive programme. Montpellier, charged with delivering the strategy and creative elements within a six-week period.
A recce of the College, and discrete meeting with the Principal took place to go through the key issues which needed to be distilled into a workable strategy. As ever, with public funded education, budgets were tight, and so to were dates for delivery of the programme, with initial briefing taking place mid-January, development of creative materials by Mid-February, timed for a launch to all staff.
Montpellier’s recommendations included branding the entire organisational change programme True North. The brand was developed to provide a number of advantages:
• It is a correction of bearing for a positive purpose, not in itself therefore an inferred or
implied judgement of past failure or weakness.
• It is strategically and geographically all uniting, given the significance of the
College’s part in a regional model; thus it is subordinating parochial
geographic identities and ties under a neutral and higher regional agenda.
• It is synonymous with a journey. Perth College is setting out on a brave new journey.
• It suggests the journey is made with science and proper thinking behind its own
navigation.
• It is indigenous, unique and germane to Scotland as a brand for change; plus,
within the FE sector, it won’t be seen as a clone of other organisational
change programmes.
Montpellier’s recommendations allowed the College to play further on the navigational similes and metaphors creatively; branding the UK-wide reconnaissance of academic centres of excellence recommended by Montpellier to be done by all the different business-unit managers as ‘Argonaughts’, with a newsletter carrying the same name.
Montpellier’s programme has been designed to link with key aspirational measures, delineated at the outset of the programme:
Perth wants to be in the top 10 of Colleges by 2010 –
• 10 per cent top rewards i.e. staff remuneration and conditions
• 10 per cent top operating surplus and payroll to income ratio
• 10 per cent top best quality i.e. success rates, HMI and QAA ratings and customer
satisfaction
On each count the College is well on its way to achieving its ambition.
The number of students enrolled at the college has risen considerably over the past year for both FE and HE courses. Capital funds together with the many donors and supporters’ contributions are transferring the Estate into an attractive and well-equipped place of learning across a broad spectrum of curricular activities.
According to Mandy Exley: “There are many benefits to working in a more open and inclusive environment where there is a healthy professional ‘buzz’ compared to our previously compartmentalised – and latterly disparate – offices. True North has provided the environment where a success-driven culture has become the norm, with all staff behind this radical programme for success and change. ”
Performance indicators, including data from the Scottish Further Education Funding Council, illustrate that the performance indicators are being met and in mist cases surpassed. Perth College value the senior level counsel provided by the Montpellier team together with extremely fast turn round of creative fulfilment.