Minutes of the Meeting of the Governing Body Of

Minutes of the Meeting of the Governing Body of THE CITY LITERARY INSTITUTE held on 11 October 2016 at City Lit, Keeley Street, London WC2B 4BA

Present: GOVERNORS

Penny Allen* Mark Malcomson+ Annita Bennett+ (Deputy Chair) Tim Mitchell+ Jane Cooper+ Keith Moffitt+ Jonathan Flowers+ Sandy Pfeifer* Jon Gamble + Raj Parkash + Moira Gibb+ (Chair) Joanna Reynolds+ Harjit Hart* Paula Smith* Fiona Larden* Michael Simmonds+ Wendy Moss +

Key: + Present *Apologies tendered

In Attendance: Paul Evans (Chief Financial Officer) Liora Ives (Vice Principal) Brian Watts (Vice Principal) Kate Wickham (Assistant Principal)

Clerk: Katrina O’Sullivan.

PART ONE: STANDING ITEMS

16/59 Apologies for absence

There were apologies for absence from Penny Allen, Fiona Larden, Sandy Pfeifer and Paula Smith. It was also reported that student governor, Harjit Hart, had tendered her resignation due to relocating to Atlanta, USA for 18 months at short notice. The Governing Body wished to express its thanks to Harjit, who had been a great contributor on the Board, and the Chair agreed she would write to Harjit to express gratitude for her time and contribution.

16/60 Declarations of Interest

There were no declarations of interest.

16/61 Minutes of the previous meeting

The minutes of the meeting held on 5 July 2016 were approved and signed by the Chair.

16/62 Matters arising not appearing elsewhere

There were no matters arising not appearing elsewhere.

16/63 Presentation: Access and Inclusion –

Orlane Russell – Head of Access, Inclusion & Study Support and Wendy Moss – Head of Teaching & Learning gave a presentation to the Board on Access and Inclusion at City Lit [which have been appended to these minutes]. The Chair thanked Orlane and Wendy for an informative and interesting presentation. 16/64 Principal’s report, including governors’ crib sheet: July-October 2016

The Governing Body noted the Principal’s report which updated the Board on general activities during July-October. The Principal added that he wanted the college to undergo a Quality Review (mock inspection) within the next few weeks as it was likely that the college would be inspected this academic year. Although a Quality Review would increase the workload for staff, and had a cost implication, he believed it would be a beneficial exercise. This proposal had been discussed at the Quality Committee who confirmed its agreement with holding the Review. The Governing Body discussed this, and the importance of excellent teaching and learning for the college’s students, and therefore endorsed the Quality Review. The Clerk would liaise with governors about the Quality Review as it would involve some governors meeting with the Inspector.

Governors enquired about the newly appointed role of Executive Director of Stakeholder Engagement. The Principal replied that this role would be an addition to the senior team and have responsibility for ensuring that each event achieved maximum benefit for the college. He explained that a search company had been used and there had been a long list of 15 applicants, followed by 9 short listed, and 5 were interviewed. The Executive Director of Stakeholder Engagement would be responsible for government relations, PR, external affairs, corporate fundraising/relations, and the Director of Stakeholder Relations would report to this role. The appointee would be starting in the new year and the Board suggested a session on Stakeholder Engagement at the May Governing Body once he had established his role.

The Board commented that it would find the proposed crib sheet useful but with ‘finance’ information added to the sheet, and a few sentences of further information against each of the ‘areas of focus’ bullet points. Governors agreed that the crib sheet should be termly.

16/65 Area Review update

The update was taken under the confidential section.

16/66 Annual fire evacuation brief

The Principal gave a fire evacuation briefing to the members of the Governing Body which detailed action to be taken in the case of a fire and/or alarm.

16/67 Date of the next meeting

The date of the next meeting was confirmed as Tuesday 6 December 2016, 5pm.

PART TWO: TEACHING, LEARNING, ASSESSMENT AND QUALITY

16/68 Quality Committee Chair’s Key Points and unconfirmed minutes from 19 September 2016

The Quality Committee Chair’s key points and unconfirmed minutes of the 14 June 2016 meeting were received and noted; many of which the reports were on the agenda for the Board.

16/69 Attendance and Punctuality policy for accredited courses

Wendy Moss explained that the new policy set out the expectations of good attendance and punctuality for accredited courses to ensure that students benefited fully from their lessons. The suggested policy had been discussed and recommended for approval by the Quality Committee at its meeting on 19 September 2016.

The Attendance and Punctuality policy addressed attendance targets for accredited courses, expectations of good punctuality and guidance on actions for teachers or departments to take. Governors commented that from the Quality Committee minutes that the policy taken to the Committee had been for accredited and non-accredited provision but the Committee had felt that it was not suitable for non-accredited provision. Wendy answered that the Committee had recommended it for accredited provision and more work would need to be undertaken on a suitable non-accredited policy. Governors agreed with this, and also felt that some of the language used in the policy should be stronger, ie, instead of ‘should be encouraged’ use ‘it is expected’ and had some further amendments which would be emailed to the Clerk.

The Board confirmed it approved the new policy for accredited courses, with the inclusion of the small suggestions from governors. Like the Quality Committee, the Board agreed that the policy was important to have in place for the accredited courses as if the student was not attending then they were not learning.

16/70 Student Experience: 2015-16 summary and 2016-17 objectives

Liora Ives presented the student experience summary for 2015-16 and the 2016-17 objectives to the Board. It was noted that the proportion of complaints and suggestions had reduced and compliments had increased. The Board commented on the encouraging work across the college in 2015-16 which included digital signage for the Keeley Street building, simplifying the online enrolment process, shortening course outlines, new venue guides for Keeley Street, EC and FRA, gathering student stories and producing 7 films, producing infographics and dashboards to communicate achievements and student feedback to all staff.

Governors asked about the Simon-Kucher Review, which was sent to 11,284 current students with 683 replying; and whether 6% was a low response and what the follow up action was. Governors, whose area of expertise was within this area, replied that 6% was a healthy sample. The following projects were being looked in to for 2016/17 as a result of the feedback: price points and pricing review, pay as you go courses, City Lit ‘experiences’ and a membership scheme.

The Governing Body were encouraged with the key projects planned for 2016-17 which included personalising student communications, adding tutor names and biographies to the website, collating all feedback to have a live feedback dashboard available to staff and refurbishing all students lounges based on what students tell the college they would like.

PART THREE: FINANCE AND PERFORMANCE MONITORING

16/71 Finance Committee: Chair’s Key Points and unconfirmed minutes of the 4 October 2016 meeting

The Governing Body received and noted the Chair’s key points from the 4 October 2016 meeting of the Finance Committee and the unconfirmed minutes of the meeting. The Finance Chair commented in particular about the concern the Committee had about the impact on the college’s financial position due to the Local Authority Pension Fund obligations. Furthermore, the Committee have asked management to investigate this further for the November Committee meeting, with any proposal to be taken to the full Board. He asked fellow governors to let the Clerk know if they had a particular interest or expertise in the pension issue.

16/72 Management accounts to 31/7/16 & statutory accounts summary

Paul Evans provided the Governing Body with details of the draft financial outturn to 31 July 2016 as reviewed by the Finance Committee at its meeting on 4 October 2016. He reported that Terms 3 and Summer School had both been successful terms for the college. Term 3 exceeded the prior year’s income by £250k and yielded £30k higher net contribution than budget. Summer School had delivered 3% higher income. The college has ended the year with a small surplus.

He highlighted that the draft final outcome for the year was a profit of £41k, prior to the FRS102 (26) pension adjustments. This compared favourably to the budgeted surplus of £35k – this would be subject to external audit verification, with the audit scheduled for the first two weeks in October. This was a positive result, as funding had reduced by £358k compared to prior year, and there had been some exceptional investment expenditure in areas such as the Simon- Kucher review and public affairs work.

The deficit on the pension scheme had increased by £3.97m. The impact on the profit & loss account was a cost of £779k, which was higher than in previous years due to the changes associated with the adoption of FRS 102. This resulted in an overall deficit of £741k, compared to £524k last year and meant that the net assets of the college fell to £26k.

Based on the provisional results, City Lit’s financial health grade under the SFA ratings changed from ‘Good’ to ‘Satisfactory’ due to the stricter criteria under the new SFA rating guidelines.

The final Student fee income was £8,638K, compared to an annual budget of £9,325k. This represented a £44k decrease on the prior year outturn. Paul commented that whilst this was a small decrease, the college delivered 6% less guided learning hours in 2015-16 compared to 2014-15, which delivered savings in staff costs and improved profitability. In some areas there have been again some significant increases in departmental contributions. The cash balance at 31 July 2016 was £2.021m, which was £420k behind forecast. This was driven by a lower than expected surplus, £150k less monies received for Term 1 and a reduction in creditor balances compared to July 2015. Finally, total capital expenditure which included year-end commitments related to 2015/16 approved projects was £961k, £89k more than the £872,000 revised budget. The over spend related to investment in the website to fix issues associated with waiting lists, enrol after start date and level filters.

16/73 FRS 102

Paul Evans presented his FRS 102 report which asked the Board to accept the underlying assumptions for the FRS 102 (26) calculations leading to the disclosures in the Annual Financial Statements. This had been recommended by the Finance Committee who reviewed these at their meeting on 4 October 2016.

The assumptions used for the calculations of FRS 102 (26) were ultimately the responsibility of the Governing Body based upon the actuarial evidence. The paper set out the actuarial assumptions made by LPFA’s actuaries and these had been reviewed by the Committee. Paul reminded the Governing Body that FRS 102 replaced the previous FRS 17 financial reporting standard. Whilst FRS 17 only covered the requirements for pension financial reporting, FRS 102 covered all reporting standards for charities and education colleges under the new reporting framework and the pensions reporting standard is under section 26.

The Governing Body reviewed and accepted the actuaries’ recommendation for underlying assumptions for FRS 102 (26).

16/74 Management accounts to 31/8/16 and term 1 update

Paul provided the Governing Body with details of the management accounts to 31 August 2016 as discussed at the Finance Committee at its 4 October meeting. He explained that the outturn for the month ending 31st August was a deficit of £274k which compared favourably to the budgeted deficit of £288k.

Student fees were slightly behind budget by £5k which incorporated the August element to summer school. Enrolments for Term 1 were building momentum and the forecast predicted that the college would meet its contribution target for Term one once the buffer was incorporated. The cash balance at the 31 August 2016 was £2.532m, which was £414k behind forecast; and capital expenditure for the month was £95k. 16/75 Update on the refurbishment of the John Lyon’s Theatre

Paul Evans gave the Board an update on the refurbishment of the John Lyon’s Theatre as received at the 4 October Finance Committee meeting. He highlighted that:

 The John Lyon’s Theatre had ben successfully refurbished during August and September, and reopened on schedule for the 13 September 2016.

 No unexpected issues had arisen during the build process, although the build time was very tight. The snagging process had commenced, with a final element of the electrical works due to be completed in October.

 John Lyon’s had released the payment of the £200k grant, which would be recognised in the September accounts.

 The new space has been well received by students, staff and external partners. The space launched with the Staff Conference and then the two day Mental Wealth Festival, with speakers such as Ruby Wax and Alastair Campbell, with over 700 people attending. The Children's Writing Literary Festival was also held there. The space was officially launched with a gala night on 29 September.

 Project spend to date was £310K, and on track to be within the total project budget of £400K.

The Governing Body congratulated Paul and the management team for delivering the project successfully.

Chair…………………………………………….. Date…………………………