College mergers
There are currently 211 further education, sixth form colleges and designated institutions in England. This compares to more than 450 when colleges were incorporated in 1993.
Understanding college mergers
Colleges in England are statutory corporations. They operate like companies but are not registered with companies house. They are charities but they are regulated by the Department for Education (DFE) with only limited Charity Commission involvement.
When two or three colleges merge, the process involves the dissolution of one of more corporations and the transfer of assets, liabilities and staff to the continuing corporation. This is a well-trodden path which has been taken in more than 250 mergers in the last 30 years. Before 2012, the law required a Secretary of State to formally approve a merger. Since then, as a result of the 2011 Education Act, the college corporations themselves agree consult about a proposal and, following that consultation, agree mirror resolutions to implement the transaction. In the past, some mergers were described as Type A and involved all existing corporations dissolving with transfers to a newly created one. All the mergers in the last ten years have been Type B mergers in which one corporation continues with the other one dissolving. Continuity makes things simpler for all concerned.
Why mergers happen
Every case is different but the main causes for mergers are:
- A decision by two or more governing bodies that a merger would create a stronger college in terms of finance and quality of provision
- External support or pressure from government for a merger, either to achieve wider policy objectives or to facilitate support for one of the colleges because it has weaknesses in finance or performance.
- Other approaches for reorganising colleges have proved to too difficult to achieve or have significant disadvantages.
There has been at least one college-to-college merger in 29 of the last 30 years but there have been years when the number of mergers has peaked (1998, 2007, 2017). All these years were ones in which there was significant government encouragement and pressure for merger. This chart shows the overall trend:
Mergers are the main form of structural change to colleges but there have also been a small number of demergers, a trio of college insolvencies, a substantial number of transfers to the higher education sector (particularly in the 1990s) and, since 2017, a large number of sixth form college conversions to become academies. AoC has kept a full list of all of these changes which is available below.
The Department for Education records details about individual college corporations on its Get Information About Schools website but does not publicly record transactions.
Merger trends in recent years
Mergers have been a permanent feature of the college sector for decades but there was an upsurge of activity and interest in 2015 as a result of government policy to implement structural change which, in turn, was partly driven by financial weakness of a significant number of colleges. That, in turn, resulted from policies to cut public spending and to encourage some colleges to borrow to finance capital projects. The government's post 16 area review programme required every college to consider their future and provided official encouragement for mergers. The programme itself lasted until 2019. Since then, there has been much less support for mergers and structural change. However there is now a well-trodden path for those governing bodies considering structural change to follow. Over the ten year period from 2015 to 2025, the list of changes can be summarised as follows:
- 85 college-to-college mergers (two in 2015, 11 in 2016, 29 in 2017, 12 in 2018, 10 in 2019, seven in 2020 (excludes two colleges that were broken up), two in 2021, three in 2022, three in 2023, three in 2024, two in 2025 and one in 2026 so far)
- four university-college mergers have taken place (2018, 2019 and two in 2021). In all cases (post merger) the college remains or was designated as an FE institution under the FE and HE Act 1992
- one college attained University status and become a HE Corporation in 2018. Its FE activities were demerged and transferred to a company which was designated as an FE institution under the FE and HE Act 1992
- one university-HEI merger took place in 2024. The subsidiary company was designated as an FE institution under the FE and HE Act 1992
- two colleges were put into special administration in 2019 and their seven campuses were transferred to three other colleges in 2020. The corporations were subsequently liquidated.
- a sixth form college was put into special administration in 2022 and closed
- one college (a national college) was closed in 2023
- 36 sixth form colleges have converted to become 16-19 academies (17 in 2017, three in 2018, five in 2019, one in 2020, three in 2021, four in 2024, three in 2025)
The most recent merger took place in January 2026 and a couple more mergers are planned, subject to consultation.
AoC advice notes (April 2016)
Mergers are only one aspect of organisational change in colleges. Colleges have joined federations, shared services, bought companies, taken over charities, sponsored academies and transferred into other sectors. AoC's 2016 paper summarises some of the history and the issues that have come up in these changes
Mergers are complicated projects for colleges because of they operate in a changing and demanding environment, deal with a large number of stakeholders and regulators and need to focus on the needs of thousands of students. College leaders find that mergers are not for the faint-hearted. This document (which does not represent legal advice) summarises some of the issues involved in a merger. The document does not replace the need for legal advice. Policies and processes may change.
DfE reports
This Frontier Economics report provides a quantitative assessment of the impact of college mergers on improving college performance.
A process evaluation of the further education (FE) area reviews that took place in 37 local areas across England between 2015 and 2017. This report considers views on the area reviews process and perceptions of its impact.
The area review programme closed in March 2019 and this end of programme report has been produced to provide an account of its implementation.