Meetings and The Common Inspection Framework

Inspectors want the minutes of your key meetings. They haven’t defined what a key meeting is but I guess you know what is in their minds. Having said that, I did see mention of employer engagement and a few other vague indicators of what they had in mind.

No problem

Hopefully being able to produce the minutes of key meetings will present no problem to any provider. Or so I thought.

Having worked with one provider a year ago I discovered otherwise. When I was called one of their key projects was failing after months of planning. My first action was to ask for the minutes of the many meetings they had held.

Sadly this £20m education project was floundering because not one meeting had been minuted. Not one action point had been allocated. And, unsurprisingly, no one had taken any action to progress the project.

Inspection failure

So far the above provider has not been inspected. If they had have been they would be at serious risk of failing to make the grade in many senses.
Fortunately we were able to get them the help of a project manager and the project is, belatedly, back on track. But it has cost a lot of money to get back where they should have been and if an Inspection had taken place I shudder to think what the outcome would have been.

The solution

I’ve written about how meetings can be an expensive waste of time previously, but quite clearly some meetings are essential. So ensure you produce a timely agenda, take minutes and ensure actions are clear. Filing the meeting papers is the next logical step.

Another tip is to include some standing items on the agenda of meetings. Things like E&D, H&S etc are possible standing items. It maybe there is nothing to report at some meetings but the fact this is minuted proves it is regularly considered. It could prove important when you are inspected.

Marketing consultant Stefan Drew was previously director of marketing at two FHE colleges and now works with colleges, universities and private providers throughout the UK, Europe and the US – visit: www.StefanDrew.com and http://www.providermastermind.com