Principal & Chief Executive | Bath College

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Principal & Chief Executive Bath College

As the new Principal and Chief Executive, you will build on recent improvements and transformation, with a key focus on financial efficiencies and quality improvement to lead the College to be recognised as a high-quality provider of education and skills.

• Location: Bath, Somerset

About the role

Bath College has undergone significant change and transformation over the past few years. The challenges that leaders and governors have faced during this period cannot be understated, and our college can be proud of the many great things that it has achieved.

We currently have an experienced and credible Interim Principal & Chief Executive in post, Martin Sim CBE, who has already navigated some urgent challenges regarding our finances. As a result, we are now reporting a positive outcome for our next financial year. Progress has been made, at pace, to improve the quality of education across the College to a much better place, and there has been a shift in culture for all our people, students and stakeholders.

Our next Principal & CEO will need to lead the College on to its next stage of the journey to success with the launch of a new strategic plan and a vision to be recognised as a high-quality provider of education and skills — playing an active role in regional economic development, by developing collaboration and innovation to provide students with work-focused and enterprising skills, that employers need and desire.

We are working hard to address the areas that require improvement and putting in place the necessary support and infrastructure to turn them around for the benefit of our students.

Working with our Chair and the wider Board, there is an immediate need for you to recognise and appreciate the distance already travelled and the value of the strategic plan. Under the leadership of a new Principal & Chief Executive, we expect this pace of essential improvement to continue with the support and engagement of our Board.

We have high hopes and expectations for our next Principal & Chief Executive. There is a great deal more work to do to ensure we achieve the necessary milestones that will move us from our current position to becoming an outstanding place for students to learn and a pillar of community education for the city and county.

Under your leadership, we will further develop an excellent reputation amongst the business and education communities.

As a medium-sized FE college trusted by thousands of students, we must ensure they reach their full potential when studying or training with us and take every opportunity to progress their learning through us over a sustained period.

As Principal & Chief Executive, you will need to work with your direct team to address all these areas and identify your own priority areas, making sure that our curriculum offer provides the necessary pathways for students whilst being sector and industry-relevant.

We appreciate that this is no short-term turnaround project and are fully committed to the journey ahead.

We are dedicated to investing heavily in our people, our resources, and the development of our community relationships.

Bath College is a great place already and as Principal & Chief Executive, we need you to take the very best parts of our college and the areas that need support and improve them further.

Who we are looking for

At Bath College, we need our Principal & Chief Executive to be an ambitious, inspirational and visible leader with highly effective people leadership and influencing skills.

We believe that for our college to flourish and realise the success we are planning for, the person appointed as our next Principal & Chief Executive will need to be a proven FE sector leader well-versed in the nuances of our sector, its policies, funding methodologies and curriculum specialisms.

Because of the strategic challenges faced by the College at this point in time, we require someone with the competence and confidence to lead as the Principal & Chief Executive, bringing direct experience of having overseen substantial and organisation-wide change and improvement with and through other senior leaders. Being equally comfortable with curriculum planning and development as you are with scrutinising organisational finances and performance, you will know from experience how to balance the need to invest (in people, resources and innovation) with cost control and financial sustainability.

Building relationships that add value to an organisation will come naturally to you. We expect you to have a great deal of experience managing major stakeholder relations and acting as a lead ambassador and spokesperson for your organisation.

You will know the importance of engaging businesses and organisations – such as the Heart of the South West, Bath City Council and Business West, Chamber of Commerce – and have experience engaging and nurturing partners.

Externally, you will be considered an expert on how an FE college can add value to the local communities served by the College and the businesses and institutions that do and will work in partnership with us.

Internally, you will recognise and value the importance of being visible and known ‘on the ground’, and you will want to get to know the people who work for you.

We need someone to embed and deliver the Board-approved strategy and add value to it. You will promote a sense of stability and a continuation of the emerging culture and the trust between the organisation and its leadership.

We believe this role will suit someone who thrives on challenge, can spot an opportunity and cares deeply about providing high-quality education and training to support social mobility and skills development.

Your relentless focus on improving the lives of students and enabling them to reach their true potential will be welcomed, as will your humble and approachable style of leadership, which encourages a mutual focus on high performance, fair reward, and staff well-being.

Strategic planning

Financial challenges and an Ofsted rating of ‘Requires improvement’ in October 2023 have necessitated a significant change in the strategic direction and stewardship by the Board in 2024.

Rightsizing Bath College to be a sustainable standalone College, financially secure and able to meet the challenges of future FE policy changes has been the focus of strategic review and planning in the first half of 2024.

Recognising that a period of consolidation and transformation was required, the Board sought to secure leadership with expertise in turnaround, and the Board appointed an Interim Principal & Chief Executive (Martin Sim) to set a renewed trajectory for the College for a period of 12 months. This appointment commenced in March 2024 and will end in March 2025. The objective of the fixed-term role is to set the College on a path to sustainability.

It is anticipated that the substantive Principal & Chief Executive will continue the path of this first 12 months and will be able to build on the foundations we have built during this time.

The appointment of a substantive Principal & Chief Executive who is skilled in leading successful organisations and able to translate vision into turnaround and transition.

This is an exciting yet challenging time to join Bath College. For the successfully appointed incoming Principal and Chief Executive, there is a journey to navigate that will bring rewards for all.

Further information

Bath College has Disability Confident Employer status, is a Women in Business Charter signatory and has an Internal EDI Steering Group.

Reasonable adjustments

Contact is made with every new starter regarding reasonable adjustments / support needed and these often result in DSE assessments, workplace risk assessments and supportive management meetings.

Applicants with a disability are invited to contact us in confidence at any point during the recruitment process to discuss steps that could be taken to overcome operational difficulties presented by the role, or if any adjustments or support are required regarding the recruitment process.

Timetable

Closing date: Monday 25th November 2024
Candidates informed of outcome: w/c Monday 2nd December 2024
First stage interviews: w/c Monday 9th December 2024
Second stage interviews: w/c Monday 16th December 2024