Kevin Porter, Deputy Director of the Royal College of Music, considers how specialist institutions can be highly effective while achieving efficiencies and value for money. Interview by Amy Wishart.
Can you tell me a little about your role at the Royal College of Music?
My role is essentially leading the administration of the institution. It’s an unusual role in some respects, because of its breadth. I bridge the academic work of the College through to key professional services. That encompasses everything from governance and HR at one end right through to quality assurance and aspects of the academic profile of the institution, such as our Library and Museum and our Saturday Junior programme, at the other.
How do you balance the ‘business as usual’ with the need to improve the way things are done?
I am fortunate in having a very strong group of managers who I can rely on to run their departments well. Although there is inevitably still a lot of detail, this enables me to devote a reasonable amount of my time to the strategic interests of the institution. One of my roles is international strategy, leading the College’s international relationships. Our global relationships are extensive, which is a direct benefit to the institution as our objective is to educate and train the very best, the most talented musicians in the world. Making a compelling case for them to come to study here at the RCM is a key part of my job and we have more international students now than we’ve ever had.
Where do you think that efficiencies can be found in your institution? Are there hot spots?
We have worked very hard on making efficiencies in recent years as one would expect since the whole funding basis for HE has changed. We collaborate with other institutions – with the Royal College of Art and Heythrop College in particular – across a range of services including cleaning and security services. If we’re going out to tender as a team of three institutions rather than one, we all make significant savings on these contracts. We also share some services with our neighbour Imperial College, for example by buying into their catering service. We also make active use of LUPC, of which our Director of Finance & Estates is Chair. Across all of these collaborations we’ve saved hundreds of thousands of pounds each year. For an institution of our scale those are significant savings. At the RCM, we are aware of the Diamond report, which challenged HEIs to procure 30% of non-pay spend through shared services by 2014/15. The RCM has achieved this target two years ahead of schedule, procuring 40% of non-pay spend through shared services since 2012/13.
We also work very hard to improve the way we deliver our programmes. We find ways to avoid making cuts that would affect the student experience. Instead, we’ve increased income, principally through student recruitment and higher than inflation tuition fees, where we are able to. However, it’s been important to us to not do anything that would reduce entry standards. We need to attract the most talented students to attract the most high profile professors, and vice versa – it’s a virtuous circle. The primary reason many students choose the RCM is because they want to learn with a particular professor.
Do specialist institutions face particular barriers to achieving efficiencies via collaboration or sharing of business functions?
There are some areas where economies of scale are going to be more difficult to achieve in a small specialist institution. We don’t have the same spending power as a large university, but that’s where working collaboratively with other institutions helps us to achieve a critical mass that enables us to make good savings.
In many respects, being a smaller, specialist institution allows us and our students to reap benefits. The staff are deeply involved and absolutely committed to the institution. Administrative and teaching staff know the students as individuals, making it possible to tailor our approach to them to nurture their individual talent. The benefits of this are evident through our outcomes, whether it is in having more winners of the major international competitions than any other UK conservatoire or through our DLHE results – frequently at or close to 100% of graduates either in employment or further study.
What’s on your roadmap here at the Royal College of Music?
We have very ambitious estates plans. We’re in the process of demolishing our halls of residence, with a new larger residence opening in September 2015. In our courtyard, we’re creating new performance spaces, a new museum of music, and new social and communal spaces for students and the wider public.
We want the building to be more inviting to the general public. We get great audiences for our concerts, but most of the public don’t realise that we put on about 350 concerts every year, at lunchtime, early evening and late evening. We hope to increase our outreach to people of all generations, whether that’s through our museum, concerts or educational outreach programme. Our aim is to nurture the next generation of musicians and that starts before our undergraduate programme. Through our Saturday Junior programme for children we want to reach all backgrounds and our Courtyard project will be key to delivering an even more extensive programme from an even younger age.
What do you like to do outside your role as Deputy Director at the RCM?
I actually stay at the RCM many evenings to attend our concerts. When I’m not at a concert here, my husband and I can often be found at the Royal Opera House or other art and cultural venues, such as galleries and museums, if that doesn’t sound too worthy! We are fortunate in London to have so many such opportunities.
Kevin Porter is Deputy Director of the Royal College of Music. The Royal College of Music has been a member of the Kingston City Group since August 2006 and Kevin was chair of the KCG Board 2011-13, more recently chairing its cost sharing steering group.
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