FE Governor Recruitment 25/26

The purpose of this Early Engagement Notice is to initiate market engagement and inform Potential Suppliers of the opportunity to express interest in providing the service to selected bodies in the statutory further education (FE) sector in England, encompassing FE corporations, sixth-form college corporations and the companies which run designated institutions. Suppliers should note that the organisations which operate FE colleges are charities and governors are charity trustees. Governor roles are voluntary and generally unpaid.

The FE Colleges Governor Recruitment Service ("the Service") will be an integral part of the Department for Education's (DfE's) help and active support offer for colleges. The Service is designed to strengthen governance in colleges by supporting the recruitment of a diverse range of appropriately skilled and knowledgeable governors to key roles on governing boards.

The Service will be free at the point of use. To ensure that the Service is targeted to those college boards which have the greatest need of help, access will be via a referral from the department, which will have the discretion to define "key" roles and will prioritise or limit referrals to ensure alignment with the terms of the contract with the Supplier.

The outputs will be:

A successful service model whereby the Supplier will need to: understand and communicate the benefits and responsibilities of being an FE governor to potential volunteers; work with college governing board chairs and governance professionals (clerks) to better understand the candidate requirements for the roles that are to be filled; and to ensure a diverse selection of appropriately qualified and well-briefed candidates for interview by the board. Subject to budget availability, a minimum of 210 appropriately skilled and diverse governors to be appointed to key governor roles over the contract term. Recruitment should be spread across the three financial years. This might, for example, mean 70 appointments per year. Support and advice for boards to put in place effective induction, support and development to help new governors understand their new responsibilities, and to continue in their roles for the longer term.

The required outcomes or key performance indicators will be derived from the required outputs and from measures of user satisfaction.

DfE will be hosting an open, virtual market engagement event on 13/01/2025 from 15:00-16:00 via Microsoft Teams. All parties wishing to attend this event must register their interest on DfE's e-Tendering portal: https://education.app.jaggaer.com. To register your interest please navigate to the Jaggaer home page, click view opportunities and then select: 8439_FE Governor Recruitment. Please aim to register your interest by 17:00 on 09/01/2025.

Please note this is not a call for competition and does not commit us to procuring or procuring services in specific ways, and any future opportunities are subject to budget availability.