18
Debra Gray, Principal and Deputy CEO,16 is certain that the college
is now a key player in attracting inward investment. Gray sits
on various education sub-boards. She feels too that the local
authority has the right attitude. They work together to devise
systems to help and support small enterprises. Grimsby Institute
has developed a high-quality estate to support its dominant
profile and professional brand. The institute has also introduced
extensive HE provision to an area where progression to university
has traditionally been low.
The South Thames Colleges Group presents yet a different
profile and leadership approach to the foregoing. While the
three constituent colleges of the group, with 20,000 students
between them, serve differing socio-economic groupings
characterised in the main by rising household incomes, but
with significant exceptions. Households are mostly graduate,
and the local economy is, in the main, a graduate economy. The
area has perhaps the highest density of graduates is England.
The constituent colleges of the group send around 1,500 a year
to university. The area around Kingston has some of the most
successful schools in the world. In addition, there are a large
number of universities within the locality. The recent collapse
in entry standards and rise in unconditional offers, has blurred
the differentiation between university and this high-performing
college, escalating further an intensely competitive regional
market. The strategic response of Peter Mayhew-Smith, Principal
and CEO,17 has been to strengthen local brand identities,
together with a corporate narrative to stand out in this red ocean
environment.
Mayhew-Smith describes a great deal of churn within his regional
economy: relatively prosperous, full of innovation, high numbers
of small businesses that 'flower and fade'. He has to interpret
this fast-moving market place regularly, gleaning information
from local authority officers, links with small firms and spinoff
companies that may use training facilities, or from key
16 Interview, 7 February 2019
17 Interview, 6 February 2019