College Governance

Legal Status

Cornwall College is a further education corporation. Further education corporations were incorporated by Parliament under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 (FHEA), as such their powers are limited to those set out in this act as amended by the Learning and Skills Act 2000, the Further Education and Training Act 2007, the Apprenticeship, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 and the Education Act 2011.

The FHEA also states that further education corporations are exempt charities. This means that corporations are required to demonstrate compliance with charity law but the majority of the regulatory provisions of the Charities Act 2011 do not apply.

Further Education Corporations are regulated by an array of bodies but their main regulator is the Education Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) which is the principal funder for most colleges.

The key governing documents for further education corporations are:

• The Instrument and Articles of Government which prescribes the membership of the governing body and sets out rules for external and internal conduct. Please see here
• The Financial Memorandum with the ESFA which sets out the conditions of funding.
• The Post-16 Audit Code of Practice which sets out the mandatory audit requirements for further education colleges

Board of Governors

The Cornwall College Board of Governors comprises twenty governors including the Principal and Chief Executive, student and staff members. Governors are collectively responsible for determining the strategic direction of the College and oversight of its activities as well as ensuring the effective and efficient use of resources, the solvency of the institution and safeguarding its assets.

The Governors of Cornwall College come from a variety of backgrounds and have a wide range of skills, knowledge and experiences. Governors are unpaid and act in a voluntary capacity. They are required to act in the best interests of the College and to comply with a code of conduct. Governors are required to declare any interests, financial or personal, which could be perceived as influencing their judgement. Governors’ completed declarations of interest are available to inspect along with the code of conduct at the College on request to the Director of Governance.

See our Current Governors

Anyone interested in becoming a governor should contact the Director of Governance.

The Board of Governors operates through a committee structure which can be viewed here:   Governance Structure Chart

Each Board committee and sub committee has terms of reference agreed by the Board. These are available on request to the Director of Governance.

In addition to the Governance committees the Corporation has a subsidiary company, CCMS (2000) Limited which operates a recruitment agency trading as Concorde Recruitment.

The schedule of meetings can be found here.

Staff and Student Involvement

The Board of Governors encourages staff and student involvement through membership of formal committees. There are two staff and two student members on the Board of Governors and they are encouraged to present their views at meetings.

The Board considers good communication with its staff to be very important.  To support this there are termly Principal forums on each campus, a weekly staff newsletter ‘Insight’ and local campus publications.

The Board of Governors gathers learner views through a variety of mechanisms including close working with the Cornwall College Students’ Union, student representation on the Board of Governors, Board committees and corporate and campus management groups. Regular whole college learner views surveys are carried out with key findings and outcomes reported to Governors.

Cornwall College Student Union (CCSU) operates a course representative system for gaining learner feedback and has its own Board of Trustees which reports through to the Board of Governors.

Public Access to Meetings

Members of the public, including representatives of the press or media, will not be admitted to meetings of the Board of Governors or its committees. In exceptional circumstances, the Board or a committee may decide (by a majority vote) to allow public attendance for all or part of a particular meeting.

NOTE: Members of the public are defined as anyone who is not a member of the Board, Director of Governance or any member of staff, student or officer invited by the Chair to attend for a specific purpose

Whistleblowing

The Board is committed to ensuring that the business of the Board and of the College is conducted openly and with accountability. The College’s policies and procedures set out good practice and guidance in the day-to-day conduct of the College and to manage risk. In the interests of good governance the Whistleblowing Policy, which is an essential part of the internal control mechanism, provides an additional safeguard against fraud, corruption or malpractice which the Board of Governors takes seriously.

For further details contact

Wendy Randle, Director of Governance
wendy.randle@cornwall.ac.uk
01726 226557

Facilities

The Cornwall College Group is required to publish the Local Recognition & Facilities Agreement to include the Facility Time which is time off from an employee’s normal role to undertake trade union duties and activities as a TU representative, as set out in the Trade Union (Facility Time Publication Requirements) Regulations 2017.

Useful Documents