Gordon Senior
“Following school in Huddersfield I was articled to Wheawill & Sudworth, qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1962. Three years later I moved into industry as I wanted to contribute to a company who manufactured something useful. I spent 5 years as Accountant at metal window frame manufacturers, Heywood Williams, before moving to the Allied Colloids Group. I started as Assistant Company Secretary and was Group Finance Director from 1984 until I retired in 1996. When I joined the company in 1970, many Allied Colloids’ employees attended Bradford College for their chemistry education.
I became a member of the Corporation in 2002. I was initially involved when my former MD, Peter Flesher, a former member of Corporation, asked me to act as specialist advisor to the Audit Committee.
I am pleased that there is now more of a mix of ethnic backgrounds and ages. The strength of the Corporation is that it consists essentially of people outside the education sector and this enables us to challenge some of the ideas. Our function is to challenge, encourage and cajole. We can put alternative views to management if we think they are going down the wrong road. In a sense there are 2 parts of the College – running the educational and curriculum offer and running the business. We have limited input into the first aspect but quite a contribution to make to the second. Our different backgrounds mean we all bring different knowledge and ideas.
The Corporation’s role is to make us all aware that Bradford College can’t stand still, since the world is in a state of continual change. We have to provide the education in the form our customers' want it, whether in lectures or in a manufacturer’s workshop. Our customers are the LSC, employers and individuals and it is imperative that we meet all their needs, since they are our paymasters. We all feel sad about the reduction in Adult Education provision but we cannot do everything for everyone. In an ideal world we would, but the LSC changed the rules. We cannot transfer resources from funded to non-funded programmes but we can keep costs as low as possible and find less expensive ways of delivering courses. Our contribution is not restricted to formal meetings. We have regular conversations with the Directorate. It is helpful for Financial Director, Doug Stott, to be able to bounce ideas off me so that I can give him the benefit of my experience.
The new building programme is an exciting development. My main concern is to ensure that we don’t have a cohort of students studying on a building site - we must give them a good experience. I Chair the Policy & Resources Committee and I am a member of the Search committee responsible for locating new corporation members and directors. In choosing the top level of management we are responsible for the running of the College. In a business the Corporation would be the Group Board and the Operating Board would be the Directorate. We are a business, in the business of providing education, and we must never forget it. The College is well governed and the way the Corporation interacts with management is a crucial part of this.”