Suggestions

Several suggestions were also received as part of the consultation. The themes and our responses are as follows:

Themes Response

Ensure that each college is marketed as a distinct entity and continue to treat campuses individually.

The CCG brand strategy emphasises the campuses’ individual identities, ensuring each college retains its own unique identity, specialisms and offer, and is marketed using their own visual identity within their local community.

Provide better and more accurate data on the skills gap.

Both colleges use a variety of sources to capture and analyse data on the skills gap. These include local demographic information and labour market intelligence, as well as market share statistics. The merged group will have access to a wider range of sources and have increased capacity to analyse and take action from the information available.

More STEM courses for Worthing and more GCSE courses for mature students (not just English and maths).

Increase the range of extracurricular activities.

We review our curriculum annually with support from our employer partners to ensure we are delivering the skills they need for their future workforce. We will include these as areas to focus on within our future review processes.

Students are at the centre of everything we do and to improve their experience whilst at college — in and out of the classroom — a wide range of extracurricular activities are delivered. These include fun events, learning life skills, awareness raising, and giving our students a strong voice so they can input and influence their campus environments. Post-merger, GB MET students will benefit from becoming a part of the well-established CCG Students’ Union and will also have access to a wider range of extracurricular activities.

A shared platform for students to access college data from home.

Both organisations already provide students with access to resources at home. Post-merger, we will combine our expertise to develop plans to continue to improve the systems and services we offer across the merged college group.

Ensure there is student union representation.

Improve facilities at the Northbrook campuses.

Focus on improving elements of the current campuses, including: • Study areas • Common rooms • Staff offices • Parking facilities • Employment policies

Improve recycling throughout the campuses.

CCG has a well-established Students’ Union, which includes a proactive and meaningful focus on the student voice. From 1 August 2022, we will begin to map this model across the GB MET campuses.

Investing in our facilities is part of our group strategy. The larger group will also attract more opportunities to bid for funding to improve our facilities.

Thank you for these suggestions which we will review within our planning and development processes.

Recycling is one of many sustainability factors we are currently reviewing. Both organisations are committed to the Association of Colleges’ Climate Change Roadmap which provides a framework for reducing our environmental impact. We are also reviewing the sustainability and carbon impact of all of our campuses to seek out ways we can make further improvements. Furthermore, GB MET also has a dedicated staff sustainability working group to identify and implement additional ideas.