Do we need a standards tsar?

Next month, Jane Williams starts work as head of the new Post-16 Standards unit. Will she add to the confusion of responsibilities or help to sort them out? Caroline Haydon talks to her

Jane Williams is not particularly keen on her new title of Post-16 Standards tsar. She has to admit, however, that the tag is a lot more catchy than her job description. At the beginning of October, she makes her first public appearance as Director of Teaching and Learning at the DfES (Department for Education and Skills), when the new Post -16 Standards unit that she will head launches a series of public consultations with invited "best practitioners" from around the country. She laughingly admits that the name is just a tag, albeit "not a particularly helpful one", and one can see what she means. In the slightly nervous atmosphere that accompanies new appointments such as this, it doesn't help that the press tag plays to some real fears about "top-down" management and the imposition of more targets.

So it's to her credit that the welcome for her personally, as a practitioner, is genuine and across the board. As the current principal of the City of Wolverhampton College she is credited with the successful emergence of that institution from the merger of Wulfrun and Bilston Colleges. Because the latter was once described as the worst in the country, it's appreciated that she has had her share of tough assignments. "This is an excellent appointment: someone who really knows FE and does listen," says Dan Taubman, the national education official in the colleges department of Natfhe. At the Association of Colleges (AoC), the director of curriculum quality Judith Norrington welcomes the fact that someone has been appointed from within the sector, saying that she thinks "teaching and learning are back on the agenda".

An English and Russian graduate from Bristol, Jane Williams spent her early career as an English teacher in secondary schools, moving into further education through basic skills volunteering. Since then she has spent 25 years in FE as a teacher, senior manager and principal. Talking to her, the enthusiasm for what she feels she has been able to achieve in Wolverhampton – indeed, for the whole FE cause – is palpable. Student numbers in the college have risen by 25 per cent over two years, both adult and 16-18 year-old achievement is above the national average and through a "managed process of convergence" she feels she has put everything on track. She is almost evangelical about the enormous benefits that FE has to offer, with the college playing "an important part in the local community and economy, and helping the city to move forward in its regeneration".

She is too unassuming to say so, but you get the feeling that the college is an example of what she means when she talks about "stunning examples of excellent practice" in the UK that "can compare with anywhere in the world". She adds: "But they are in pockets. We need to know why they are in pockets and do more to spread that excellence." The Department has deemed that her job, which she starts after Christmas, is to work with ministers and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) to transform standards "by extending proven teaching methods and overhauling weak curriculum areas". But why does the sector need a new standards unit, given the existence of the LSC and other bodies, and why does it need to be within the DfES?

"The more people you deal with, the more confusing the picture gets," says the AoC's Judith Norrington. "Joined-up government needs to be real, not a slogan." Dan Taubman clearly spells out the Natfhe position: "We have some reservations about the whole concept. We've got two inspectorates (Ofsted and Adult Learning), we've got the LSC; there are enough people with responsibilities for raising standards – do we need another set?"

The answer from the Department is that it is easier for it to act as a national coordinator of best practice than any single body, and that it can also benefit all sectors by importing best practice from any area. Jane Williams responds: "What is being looked for here is more leadership and coordination from the Department itself, so that it can act as a champion and transform learning outcomes across the post-16 sector. We have to bring together expertise in national agencies and inspectorates, and also draw in expertise across the field to work out at a national level the best model of what might be possible."

To this effect, she says the new unit exists "partly to address possible confusion, rather than to add to it". The LSC becomes the key partner in this role. "I regard it as being essential to delivery," she says. "In fact, it has a great capacity nationally and locally to support my strategy." Likewise, although she isn't keen to elaborate on detail at this stage, she says that she also looks forward to a "positive, collaborative strategy, particularly in relation to 14- to 19-year-old development" with the schools Standards and Effectiveness unit. And, reassuringly, she says that although targets, set nationally or within institutions, are necessary, she doesn't think they are "the only tool in the toolbox". She regards self assessment as being "an enormously useful" tool. "Top-down by itself doesn't work," she maintains.

To a welcoming but understandably nervous FE world, therefore, the message is "watch this space". The crucial issues of salaries and conditions are not ones on which she will be drawn so far in advance of her official start date, and her emphasis at first will be on listening, both to the submissions to the FE "Success for All" discussion document on which final responses are due this week, and to the views drawn out in the public consultations to come.

Whatever the feeling in colleges about mixed messages from the department in the past, her own view is diplomatic, yet firm. She believes that at the top there is "an equal preoccupation with identifying and celebrating success as well as shortcomings, and I shall try and sustain that in my work. One should be clear and straightforward about weaknesses and shortcomings but one should also celebrate success."

There are many people out there who will be hoping she is successful in her efforts.

education@independent.co.uk