Sponsored by Infrastar IT Solutions 

Kevin Hamblin is coming to the end of his time as CEO and principal of SGS College.

Having been appointed principal of Filton College in 2001, Kevin took the helm of the newly created South Gloucestershire and Stroud College in 2012 following the merger of Filton College and Stroud College.

Despite his long career in further education, Nottingham-born Kevin left school with no qualifications and started his working life as a miner at the age of 16.

He played schoolboy football for Nottingham Forest but injury prevented him taking it further. After working as a training officer for the Coal Board, Kevin went on to study business at Wolverhampton University.

He went into further education in 1997 at Swindon and in 1999 became deputy principal at Hartpury before joining Filton.

SCS has about 5,000 students - including more than 1,200 apprentices - and 750 staff spread across three campuses and a turnover of about £50 million.

In this interview, Punchline-Gloucester.com editor Mark Owen asks Kevin how he manages the funding and keeping staff morale up in further education?

Kevin says: "We do feel further education is the forgotten sector. Colleges are almost the afterthought. Since 2008 we've been the forgotten child and have very little increase in funding which means our staff are way behind on pay compared to what they were 10 years ago. We've got to grow in order to stay still.

"We've got some brilliant staff at SGS and some very long serving staff. I've been there since 2001 and a lot of the team I've got around me have a loyalty to the institution."

Watch the video to see what Kevin feels are the biggest challenge for a chief executive when you've got 750 staff.

And how do you motivate young people into different careers?

Kevin gives a fascinating insight into the nuclear situation at Berkeley and Oldbury with potential plans for small modular reactors (SMRs) to be built at Oldbury, which cost about £2 billion apiece.

"It's a great opportunity for Gloucestershire," he says. "We know there's going to be between 3,500 and 7,000 new jobs required to build the SMRs for at least the next 15 years once they get started. We know that colleges deliver the vocational level and technical level vocations for these roles.

"My challenge locally is how do we make sure that more young people understand there are significant opportunities around the corner but not for four or five years.

"What I'm calling for is for Gloucestershire to recognise they need a task force so we don't miss out on the investment and opportunity that is going to go into Oldbury and Berkeley."

"We need a nuclear skills centre or several of them up and down the Severn edge, we need to maximise the colleges we've currently got and we will use some of the funding we've already got and divert it."

Kevin concluded: "My only little bit of sadness is that I'm going to step down from SGS at the end of March. You have to pick your time. We've just come through Ofsted, we've just sold Berkeley, we're in a brilliant position but I've done 24 years and my time is up and it's time for me to move on."

To find out more about Infrastar, call 01242 303720, email info@infrastar.co.uk  or visit infrastar.co.uk