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Since incorporation, the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) funding formula and the development of new vocational qualifications, there has been a growth in posts with the function of co-ordinating policies across the whole college. A key feature of these type of posts is that they usually have to fulfill that function without direct line management of the staff implementing the procedures or practices. Using the cohort who attended a training event on this topic, the article analyses these cross-college managers’ perceptions of the nature of their managerial role in terms of the sources of power they use. The overall analysis suggests that there is a continuum of sources of power stemming from external requirements such that the stronger the external requirements the more coercive the source of a co-ordinator’s power. The co-ordinators’ main aim was to turn this and the other sources of power (reward, expert and referent) into legitimate power.

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Integrated quality enhancement and review (IQER) was introduced as quality assurance designed specifically for higher education (HE) in further education colleges (FECs) in 2008. Following a historical account of the quality assurance systems applied to HE in FECs prior to this date, we analyse the first 64 IQER summative review reports produced between May 2007 and March 2010. The citations of good practice and the recommendations (which come under three headings: essential, advisable and desirable) are categorised and analysed under core themes. The distribution of 'good practice' citations and recommendations is correlated against the number of HE partners and the IQER co-ordinator and analysed for trends over time. Finally, we have produced a Good Practice Index which aims to weight the number of entries and arrive at an overall score for each college.

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This article discusses the implications of continuing to support the delivery of higher education (HE) in further education (FE) settings. Although a critical mass of students studying HE in further education colleges (FECs) is significant in sustaining the viability of the provision, we argue that the qualitative dimensions to 'capturing HEness' are in need of further critical scrutiny. This is undertaken by highlighting the importance of institutional and individual autonomy in maintaining an HE culture, with specific reference to the curriculum, pedagogy, and research. Throughout, some key similarities and differences between HE and FE organisational practices and cultures are identified, and the various pressures which are simultaneously pulling the two apart, and together, are analysed. The article concludes by arguing that there are some grounds for cautious optimism but we must be mindful that both FE and HE need to retain practices and a culture, without which the essence of HEness could be compromised in both settings.

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The new requirements for initial teacher education (ITE) courses for the learning and skills sector mean that mentors now have a more significant role in the formal assessment of their mentees' practical teaching. This research looks at the emerging dilemmas and challenges and investigates the changing and complex relationship in institutions where both parties are working as colleagues. Data have been collected since 2006 through questionnaires administered during the programme of mentor training, a survey of mentors and mentees and more recently through focus groups, questionnaires and discussions with mentors, as well as semi-structured interviews with a small sample of mentors and their mentees. Data analysis has been informed by a particular model of mentoring by Klasen and Clutterbuck. Besides practical issues and choice of mentor the dilemmas and issues stem from the tensions between the varied roles that mentors play and the boundaries between those roles and those that lie outside these limits.

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