Glasgow and Lanarkshire college regions - regional strategic bodies review: consultation analysis

Background

1. The Scottish Government’s “Review of Regional Strategic Bodies within the Glasgow and Lanarkshire college regions” consultation included proposals to reform the governance structures and regional planning arrangements in the Glasgow and Lanarkshire college regions.

2. The two proposals within the consultation were to dissolve the Glasgow and Lanarkshire Regional Strategic Bodies, and to introduce alternative collaborative forums to allow for regional planning within the Glasgow and Lanarkshire college regions.

3. The Glasgow and Lanarkshire Regional Strategic Bodies were introduced as part of the college regionalisation work and have been able to use existing provisions within the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) 2005 Act to exercise powers with a view to securing coherent provision of a high quality of fundable further and higher education in the localities of its colleges. To dissolve the Glasgow and Lanarkshire Regional Strategic Bodies would require an affirmative statutory instrument to modify Part 1 of Schedule 2A of the 2005 Act. In order to give effect to this change, Scottish Ministers must lay this in the Scottish Parliament and follow the appropriate processes for this to come into force.

4. The Scottish Government launched a consultation on the proposals, which ran for 12 weeks from 17 June until 20 September 2024. The consultation sought views on the proposals to inform decision-making and to establish whether these proposals were seen as the right changes to take forward through an affirmative statutory instrument.

5. All responses to the consultation were analysed and themes identified, and are presented in the analysis section of this report.