Process Evaluation of Birmingham and Tees Valley Area Reviews

The further education (FE) and skills sector is critical to the Government’s strategy to raise productivity and economic growth. To ensure the workforce has the required skills local areas through a programme of Area Reviews are examining their further education infrastructure to make sure it is of high quality and financially sustainable. CFE has been commissioned by DfE to conduct an evaluation of the Area Review process as experienced by Birmingham & Solihull and Tees Valley, both of which were in the first wave of the programme.

CFE is employing a stakeholder perception survey and follow up depth interviews with members of the steering groups for both Area Reviews to provide a comparative analysis. CFE will identify the strengths and weaknesses of the process, including the suitability of the framework and structure for the reviews and collaborative working, and identify areas for improvement.

The evaluation will make recommendations to inform the remainder of the Area Reviews, which are taking place up until spring 2017, to ensure that the reform objectives for post-16 education and training are achieved.

Key project contact

John Higton

John joined CFE in October 2014 and became a Research Director two years later. CFE’s research and evaluation studies concerning the economy and further education fall under John’s leadership, alongside CFE’s wider educational offer. John strongly contributes to teaching policies including evaluation financial incentive schemes targeting teacher recruitment and retention, and professional development activity across all educational phases. Higher education policy areas such as open access to research and impact analyses of nationally important data collections are also areas of research interest. John leads many of CFE’s market-sizing studies, research with employers and many of CFE’s behavioural insight projects.

Contact: john.higton@cfe.org.uk