Keith Smith has a unique perspective on the FE sector’s challenges, having viewed them at bird’s eye level as one of the Department for Education’s top policy masterminds, and now on the campus frontline as chief executive of Harrow, Richmond & Uxbridge Colleges (HRUC).
Smith’s fingerprints are all over many of the policies that have shaped the FE sector as we know it. At the Education and Skills Funding Agency, he led on apprenticeship funding reforms and the introduction of the levy, before becoming the architect of the 2021 skills white paper as DfE’s director of strategy.
After receiving a college education, Smith skilled himself up further during his 25-year civil service career by taking short courses at night school. He later helped come up with the government’s lifelong learning entitlement (LLE) policy, which aims to ease the way for others to bypass the traditional degree route to success too.
