Partnerships

It provides our view on partnerships, including our regulatory requirements, and what we commonly see in programme delivery.

This information should be considered by education providers when developing new and existing programmes, linked to this area. 

Our threshold requirements

Summary reflections 

Across education providers, partnership working is understood as integral to the running of programmes. Education providers identify the stakeholders they need to work with, and are purposeful about their interactions with these stakeholders, focused on learning and influencing quality. Formal agreements are in place, with defined mechanisms to collaborate contained within these agreements. Different considerations are needed depending on the partnership.

In relation to practice-based learning, education providers recognise that collaboration with practice partners is key to the sustainability and quality of their programmes. This is due to the centrality of practice-based learning within education and training, which requires programmes to be adequately resourced to deliver practice-based learning to all learners, and to support the delivery of the learning outcomes and standards of proficiency (SOPs).

Education provider approaches 

Formal partnerships working arrangements are often defined through memoranda of understanding (MOUs) and service level agreements, and are normally goal-oriented, with a specific focus for each partnership or group. We consider this is what good partnership working looks like – formal arrangements which clearly define objectives, expectations, and responsibilities, which are supported by clear and auditable engagement procedures.

Many education providers have specific roles to manage partnership relationships, which is helpful to ensure strong partnership working.

Education providers have partnerships with many different organisations, including:

• practice education providers across a range of organisation types – often there are two approaches to engagement for these partnerships, in forum-type settings, and one-to-one with each partnership;
• professional bodies, normally focused on accreditation of professional programmes, and on informing professional expectations of professional bodies through feedback and engagement;
• other education providers delivering HCPC programmes – often these partnerships are well established and focused on coordination, especially related to practice-based learning;
• government departments, the NHS, and commissioning organisations, to influence policy, and related to commissioning;
• employers, where education providers deliver apprenticeship programmes. This is a different type of partnership to those established with practice education providers, as the focus is on the education provider being a ‘customer’ of the employer. Often, employers deliver the majority of practice-based learning for linked apprenticeship programmes and will also normally deliver practice-based learning for non-apprenticeship programmes. In these cases, there are two types of partnership relationships to maintain with the same organisation, which introduces complexities to the relationship;
• membership bodies, like the Council of Deans of Health;
• where non-HEIs have an HEI as a validating body, this is a crucial partnership; and
• service user representative groups.

Although we hold the education provider responsible for all aspects of the programme, in practice the nature of apprenticeship programmes mean they are often seen as a joint venture between the education provider and employers, as learners are also employees. For these programmes, the delivery method differs from a traditional higher education programme, and there are differences in areas such as funding. As such, different areas are considered through MOUs when compared to direct entry programmes.

When proposing new programmes:

• education providers who already deliver approved programmes normally outline how their existing engagement processes and relationships would be used for new programmes; and
• education providers are normally able to show how working with their partners has informed the development of new programmes.

Current sector focus and challenges 

Education providers are normally open about challenges faced, and solutions enacted. Problems being identified and fixed through partnership working is a strength of good partnership working, and improves the quality of education and training.

With increased demands for practice-based learning, education providers have often developed partnership arrangements with a broader range of organisations.

Areas commonly explored further through our assessments 

We explored areas related to partnership working more frequently than other areas. Normally, we explored how new partnerships were formalised and were functioning in practice. We referred issues with partnership working for a slightly smaller proportion of assessments than for other areas, which showed that education providers were able to address the areas we explored.
  

Proportion of performance review assessments with quality activities / referrals