Association of Colleges

The AoC and the 157 Group Collaboration and Shared Services Grant will be used to develop innovative work by FE sector organisations to drive forward significant efficiencies and innovation.

AoC held the first Innovation Committee meeting on 2 June and the majority of its 24 College Principal/Chief Executive members were able to attend. The Committee discussed the supervision, allocation and process of the £6.5million shared services money granted to AoC by the SFA.

It was agreed by the Committee that in order to help the sector in terms of applications and making processes clear and transparent, the bids and assessment process should be joined with the 157 Group to ensure a single process as they too have an allocation of funds. The funds will be granted for the development of innovative work to drive forward significant efficiencies and innovation within the FE sector.

The AoC and the 157 Group have jointly published the documents detailing the selection criteria and application process. The grant documents are available on AoC’s and the 157 Group’s websites.

Please click on the link below to download a copy of the prospectus.

  AoC and 157 Group Collaboration and Shared Services Grant prospectus

Angela O'Donoghue, Principal, City of Sunderland College and Chair, AoC Innovation Committee said:

"The Efficiency Funding has been made available to Colleges to explore and develop new innovative ways of working, to cut bureaucracy and enable us to take some control of our future as a sector. The Innovation Committee has been established to monitor, promote and ensure the sharing of best practice in designing the future development of Efficiencies in Further Education in order to maintain high quality provision for all our students."