Richard Blackwell, 45.
Hefce - Regional Consultant for the South East
Circa £60k
Job advertised in The THES , February 21 2003

The Higher Education Funding Council for England has eight regional consultants who liaise with universities, colleges and other organisations.

Hefce contracted ARC, a recruitment agency, to sift the 80 or so applications for the Southeast post, interview them and draw up a shortlist.

A Hefce team discussed ARC's conclusions to ensure that they had not excluded people.

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Steve Egan, director of finance and corporate resources, chaired two further interview panels. "We generally look to get a combination of people with different experiences," he says. "They can come from inside or outside higher education or the region. It's a high-salary job, but it's demanding and requires knowledge and interpersonal skills."

Applying was a logical career step for Richard Blackwell, who was working for the Learning and Teaching Support Network. "I have a broad remit. I cover an area around London and the Thames estuary that extends northwest of the M1, but the borders are fluid and I liaise with other regional consultants."

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Although Blackwell is based in London, he travels to the Hefce headquarters in Bristol on Mondays, stays overnight in a hotel and spends Tuesday in the office.

"The transfer went surprisingly smoothly - with the caveat that I'm renting while I find my feet. I had to sell up in Nottingham, and I banked the money. Hefce does not have a relocation package. Anyone taking up a job has to look carefully at their finances."

He likes the Hefce culture. "It is the opposite of what people imagine - open, non-hierarchical and committed to training in a way that's pretty unusual."