We are all too familiar with the phrase “systemic failure” - an organisation, system or even government that crumbles from the inside when neither its modus operandi nor its core principles are fit for purpose.

In 2016, Ofsted’s then-chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, made this very claim of the further education sector, recommending to the government that all 16- to 19-year-olds should be taught in schools, adding: “The further education sector is in a mess”.

Thankfully, the irony did not escape us all. The irony being that, as inspectors, we never give strengths for systems and procedures, only for the positive difference they make to learners’ experiences. So should we not extend that principle to all stakeholders in the FE and skills sector, if not the government itself? Should we not look particularly at the extent to which their systems and procedures have contributed to - or indeed caused - this “mess”?

For the past three years, the Policy Consortium - a group of experienced FE professionals that provides advice, support and research on education and training - has conducted an annual survey of people working in the sector.

Respondents have told us what concerns them most, whether it’s funding, government policy, bureaucracy, workload or the status of the sector. While all of these are legitimate concerns, none of them are “issues”; they are all “symptoms”. This year, we’ve teamed up with Tes to run a survey with a subtly different focus. Let me explain.

The difference between “symptoms” and “issues” is seismic. You can never resolve a symptom directly. Here is a medical example: you have a lump on your body and it hurts. Do you want your doctor to: a) prescribe painkillers, or b) identify and resolve the cause of the lump?

Here’s an education example. Your learners are habitually late for your lesson. Should you: a) continually reprimand them for being late, or b) make the opening of your lesson unmissable? Sustainable, impactful quality improvement is only possible if we identify the root-cause issues and resolve them. When we do, the symptoms evaporate.

Say what you see

To find a root cause, we just ask “why” until we arrive at a plausible hypothesis. So, let’s look again at the sector’s most commonly-cited concerns: funding, government policy, bureaucracy, workload. Now ask why these are the most common. This approach is at the heart of the Policy Consortium’s National FE Survey, in partnership with Tes, which has just gone live. We are giving the sector the opportunity to tell those who make policy what works, what doesn’t and, most importantly of all, why.

That said, the ambition of this survey is much bigger than a list of root-cause issues, vital as they are. I mentioned at the start of this article the phrase “systemic failure”. Wouldn’t it be something if the term applied to the FE and skills sector was the opposite: systemic success? Think for a moment about what that implies: all organisations in the FE and skills sector - whether education provider, policymaking stakeholder, or government - working continually to create the conditions for success.

While this may at first appear to be utopian, it is actually extremely pragmatic. Look, for instance, at any public sector organisation’s approach to equality and diversity (E&D). Whenever a new policy or procedure is introduced, the organisation must complete an E&D impact assessment to fully understand the potential for unintended negative consequences. The organisation then has to show how it intends to mitigate these issues.

Sensible stuff; but why stop at E&D? Just imagine what might happen if the government et al did the same.

Let’s be a little creative here and imagine we have a time machine and can go back to 2014. We’re in the meeting rooms of the Department for Education and Ofsted, where leadership teams are debating the importance of achieving at least a grade C in GCSE English and maths. Resit results have been terrible for years and there is an acute shortage of teachers. So the policymakers go on to decide that in order to resolve the poor results (the symptom), all learners who fail in school should have to do it again until they pass. Aspirational stuff, of course.

Retrospective reforms

However, what would they do with hindsight? Their new policy leads to, by some estimates, an additional 270,000 learners. Put this another way: colleges alone are required to run an additional 11,000 cohorts of learners to meet the policy’s aims, at a time when there’s a shortage of staff. And Ofsted then begins failing providers whose results don’t improve. You can see the problem. The FE sector ends up in a mess (at least with English, maths and inspection). What the government, and Ofsted, need to do is concentrate on finding, and helping to resolve, the root-cause issues. If they do that, the symptoms will then evaporate.

So why not help by telling our policymakers what the issues are, and contribute to a further education and skills sector in which all organisations work wholeheartedly and proactively towards creating the conditions for success rather than failure?

Tony Davis is a member of the Policy Consortium, a former Ofsted HMI and director of the Centre for Creative Quality Improvement