Section 8.7 - Approval and Post approval Management

The University operates a triple-staged approach to Partnership development. A two-phased Approval system followed by a third Operational stage before delivery can commence:

Stage

 

End Point

1

Strategic Approval

(Planning Stage)

 

 

  • Faculty discussion and support
  • Initial Due Diligence and Risk Assessments
  • MOU Signed and Exchanged
  • Application approval to proceed by designated scrutineers (for low risk projects)

or

  • Application approval to proceed by FAAC/CPB (for medium- high risk projects)

2

University Approval

(Detailed Scrutiny and Development Stage)

 

 

  • Due Diligence and Risk Assessments
  • CPB Approval of Partnership (for low-medium risk projects)
  • CPB Reports and recommendation to proceed to Business Case
  • Senate Approval (medium-high risk projects)
  • MOA Signed and Exchanged

3

Post-Approval Stage

(Set up and Operational Development Stage)

 

 

 

  • Admissions: UCAS Set-up
  • Marketing: Plan and strategy agreed
  • Faculty/Dept.: Schemes and modules
  • Handbooks: Operational and Student
  • VLE (Blackboard) Site Set-up (IS)
  • Registry: Policies, Rules & Regulations
  • Finance: Student Finance and SLC set up
  • Admissions: Open to Recruitment
  • Registration
  • Course Starts
  • Monitoring and Compliance

 

In accordance with the requirements of the ‘UK Quality Code for Higher Education – Partnerships’, the University conducts proportionate due diligence in developing and approving collaborative projects. These procedures are tailored according to the nature of the collaborative project and the level of risk inherent to it. Please refer to the timescale for development detailed in Quality Chapter - Section 8.6 Timescales for Development as a guide as to how much time you should allocate for these processes.

The University’s Development and Approval Process for Collaborative Partnership activities consists of the following three stages. Each stage has a clear end point triggering the start of the next stage. For larger projects, the project board will coordinate progress through each of the each stages and set out detailed timelines, plans and workflows.