Meeting of the SET Management Board

Date: Thursday 16 January 2020
Time: 11.15am–15.00pm
Venue: ETF: 157-197 Buckingham Palace Rd, Victoria, London SW1W 9SP

Members present: Wendy Coley, Jim Crompton (Chair), Philip Green, Anita McGowan, Martin Reid, David Russell, Sarah Simons, Barbara Van Der Eecken (Vice-Chair), Sarah Whiteside-Jones
Apologies: Jenny Jarvis, Zayn Azam
In attendance: Emma Cosby (Marketing Manager), Andrew Dowell (Head of Professional Status; Item 3), Jez MacDonald (Head of Digital & IT; Item 3), Bert Miguez (Participation Experience Manager; Item 3) Amanda Parkes (SET Co-ordinator, Minute Taker)

Minutes

1a/b). Apologies and Welcome
The Chair welcomed the new Lay Member to their first meeting. Apologies for absence were received from Zayn Azam and Jenny Jarvis. The Chair notified the Board that Jenny would be stepping down from the Board following the meeting.
1c) Declarations of conflicts of interest in the items on the agenda
The Board was informed that a declaration of interest form will be circulated with the meeting minutes for the Board to complete prior to the next Board meeting.
1d) Minutes The minutes of the Board meeting held on 19 September 2019 were approved.
The Board advised a version A and B of the meeting minutes may be appropriate in future, part B being the public version. The SET Coordinator will update the minutes agenda item to reflect the Board’s recommendation.
Philip Green joined the meeting.

2. Actions from last SMB and feedback from last PAG meeting

a) SMB The Board received a paper detailing the actions from the last SMB meeting (19.09.2019) and the development of those actions. The Marketing Manager informed the Board of the progress of the membership survey and that the analysis was on-going, highlighting that the current results indicate a possible move to segmentation of members by member benefits.

The Membership Coordinator updated the Board on the progress of the combined ETF/SET national professional network offer. The Board was informed that internal discussions had taken place with ETF Heads and the proposal of a joint provision is to be presented to the Department for Education (DfE) during upcoming grant negotiations. The Membership Coordinator will provide a more detailed update on the progress of the joint provision in the next Board meeting.

The Board noted that the SMB and Practitioner Advisory Group (PAG) actions document should include the target completion date and the date of the last document update to better assess progress.

b) PAG

The Board received an update from the last PAG meeting (22.11.2019) including the sessions on mobilising the membership and the Transform workshop. The Board highlighted that the feedback gathered at the next PAG as part of the mobilising the membership session could help inform ongoing member engagement work with the marketing team.

c) SET performance update

The Marketing Manager outlined SET’s current performance and the 2020 renewals campaign segmentations. The Board sought clarity on the rationale of targeting members to re-join who had actively left the membership in the last year. The Marketing Manager acknowledged that these members are the least likely to re-join and explained that the targeting was instead aimed at understanding the reason those members had left the membership to help improve the value proposition.

The Marketing Manager informed the Board of plans for a direct mail campaign for renewals. The Board raised concern of the cost implications of a direct mail campaign. The Marketing Manager assured the Board that the campaign is within the marketing budget and the campaigns return on investment would be monitored to measure success.

The Board discussed the on-going work of the QTLS strategy and acknowledged that SET would need to continue to tackle the out of date misconceptions around the professional status. The Marketing Manager highlighted that the introduction of QTLS champions would create more personal stories to promote QTLS.

3. SET Business plan 2020/21 workshop
The Board was joined by the Head of Digital & IT, Head of Professional Status and the Participation Experience Manager.
The Board was asked to feedback and prioritise proposed strategic objectives for the new SET Business plan 2020/21.
The feedback from the session will be taken into consideration as part of the on-going development of the SET Business plan 2020/21 and the prioritisation of the projects. The Board was encouraged to get in touch with the SET Coordinator if they had any further comments on the projects.
The Head of Digital & IT, Head of Professional Status and Participation Experience Manager
left the meeting.

4. Membership pricing 19/20
The Board received a Member fees proposal paper for review. The Board discussed the proposal for increasing membership fees and the need for strong messaging and rationale behind the increase when the change is communicated to the membership. Following further discussion around the PAG’s feedback, the Board agreed that a 10% increase on membership fees for the membership year 2020/21 was fair.

The Board reviewed a proposal for amending membership concessions. The Board discussed the amended proposal for a flat rate concessionary price and the rationale behind the change. Following questions from the Board the SET Director confirmed that there would not be a limit on the length of time a member can receive the concessionary rate of membership and that the proposed concession rate would remain the same as detailed on the paper in spite of the 10% increase.

Following further discussion, the Board agreed the proposal to simplify the concessionary rate to a flat fee.

5. Fellow eligibility criteria
The Board reviewed a proposal for amending the eligibility for SET Fellowship. The Board was asked to consider whether SET should investigate an experiential route to Fellowship as part of the Transform project and the wider engagement research piece. The Board reflected that an experiential route to Fellowship should not undermine the broader work of SET and ETF to professionalise practitioners in a deregulated sector. SET should continue to encourage and recognise practitioners who undertake formal teaching qualifications.

Following further discussion, the board agreed that SET should further investigate the experiential route and report back to the Board in 12 months, additionally suggesting that SET should set out the purpose of Fellowship to better understand the offer.

The Board was asked to approve the extension of the Fellow eligibility criteria to include all higher degree qualifications. The Board highlighted that members with limited teaching experience could become a Fellow following completion of their Masters. The Board voted to extend the proposal to also include five years of teaching experience in line with the length of service required to achieve ATS.

The Membership Coordinator will update the Fellow eligibility criteria to include the five years teaching experience and make the offer clear for a vote to take place outside of the meeting.

6. Any other business
The ETF CEO updated the Board on national developments for the sector and the meeting with the Secretary of State.

The Board noted that next SMB meeting date was Thursday 07 May 2020.