“Where Have We Been? Where Are We Going?”

As I write this final chapter, on a cold, bright sunny day in mid-February, I am waiting for news from the UK Government as to the funding they will be providing for the next phase of an access to higher education national initiative known as Uni Connect. As Chair of that programme across my local region, such news cannot come soon enough.

Some colleagues' jobs will depend on how much money we get and, perhaps even more crucially, the strings that are attached to it. Will they be the same as those which accompanied funding of the first phase, or those we had to deal with in phase two, or will they change yet again? We have been given some clues already. They will be different.