May 2002

Spring Conference ACM (Wales)

ACM (Wales) in association with the Welsh Colleges Forum held a successful one-day Conference on 22 April 2002 at the Vale of Glamorgan Hotel. The event was well attended with representation from almost every Welsh further education college. The theme of the day was ‘A Partnership Approach to Developing and Implementing College Strategic Plans’ the key-note speaker being Steve Martin, Chief Executive of Elwa – the Welsh funding body. ACM Immediate Past President John Rockett chaired the Conference.

Towards the end of the morning session delegateswere able to take part in an extra item when Wilson Longden received the ACM Award 2002 from John Rockett for his outstanding contribution to the post-compulsory education sector.

Wilson, who is well known in Walesand indeed throughout the UK, thanked ACM for honouring him in this way
and expressed particular appreciation at being able to recieve it at the Welsh Conference. Wilson wrote to Peter Pendle, Chief Executive & General Secretary, to express his pleasure at being nominated for the Award and said what an honour it was. He said the award was a lovely design and beautifully engineered. The award was produced by Bradford College Wilson has placed it pride of place by his piano.

Wilson Longden, ACM Caseworker & John Rockett, Immediate Past President

ACM to meet the Education Minister in Wales

A delegation from the Association will be meeting the Welsh National Assembly Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning, Jane Davidson, at the end of May. The delegation will comprise of Gerry Evans (ACM Wales Chair), Jeffrey Robinson (ACM Wales Secretary) and Peter Pendle (General Secretary) and will lobby the Minister on a number of issues, including funding and pay, CCET and leadership/management training for FE managers in Wales.

Funding Campaign

The ACM has joined together with the Association of Colleges (AoC) and the other National Joint Forum trades unions (ATL, GMB, NATFHE, TGWU and UNISON) to make a submission on employment policy, as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). The Association also played an active role in the lobby of Parliament, which took place on Tuesday 23rd April. The lobby was organised by the AoC and all of the NJF trades unions in order to support the joint CSR bid. The event was well attended by managers, staff and students from further education colleges and attracted a reasonable amount of publicity. Margaret Hodge attended the lobby meetings, as did a number of MP’s from each of the major parties.

Following the lobby, Peter Pendle and Nadine Cartner met with Peter Mucklow, FE and Partnership Divisional Manager at the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) in Sheffield, and who has responsibility for funding and pay issues. The purpose of the meeting was to lobby the DfES on the College Pay Initiative (CPI) and funding issues generally. Peter Mucklow said the sector had made a strong case to the Treasury as part of the CSR exercise and that the Department was cautiously optimistic at the outcome.

The latest ACM branch newsletter, recently mailed, encourages members to lobby their MP’s in order to support the case for more funding.

Initial indications in respect of the CSR outcome are expected towards the end of June. The Chancellor gave some indication in the budget that the college sector would receive additional resources.