Accountability Statement

As the only specialist landbased provider in Gloucestershire, Hartpury has a mission to deliver relevant and high quality education in its niche subject areas to local, regional and national students. Our statement provides context behind our mission, explains our approach to developing the statement, and highlights our contribution to meeting local, regional and national skills needs. Read on to discover our key excerpts, or click below to view our full statement.

Context and place

Located in the Forest of Dean District in Gloucestershire and originally formed as an Agricultural College in 1948, Hartpury has a long and established history of delivering high quality, specialist education in Sport and Land-based studies on a local and national scale.

In September 2018, the organisation evolved to become a University and a College co-located on a single site, creating a unique organisation within the sector, and providing a number of strategic and operational benefits to the student experience.

Contribution to national, regional and local priorities

Hartpury College has a long standing, clearly defined and industry connected curriculum, focusing specifically on our specialist areas, thus meeting local, regional, and national needs, skills gaps and emerging trends identified as government priorities within the industries that we serve as reflected throughout this document.

Our offer very much considers the demographic, the economy and skills related labour market intelligence informing and shaping the five-year Hartpury Strategy. We have ensured that the aims and objectives of this Accountability Statement align directly with our overarching Hartpury Strategy.

The Accountability Statement draws on numerous sources and stakeholder engagements, while considering:

Hartpury 2030 Stakeholder Engagement
Hartpury Skills Review 2023-2024
Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP)
Ofsted Inspection Report, 2024
Gloucestershire Economic Strategy
Hartpury College Industry-Curriculum Co-creation Events
The Gloucestershire Agri, Food and Rural Business Group
LMI from the Hartpury Business Development Team
Review of the Gloucestershire colleges offer
The gfirst LEP Skills Strategy 2022-2027
National Skills Priority Sectors
Unit for Future Skills
Landex data sources
Involvement of the Governing Body

Our purpose and strategy

When we developed our 2025 strategy, we set our overall mission to be 'a specialist niche provider, delivering relevant, effective and high-quality education and training for employment in sport, equine, animal and agricultural industries; locally, regionally, nationally and internationally’ (Hartpury Strategy, 2025) which we believe we have achieved.

Our new Hartpury 2030 Strategy: Stronger Together, explains our strategic priorities of passion, people and place that will guide us in the coming years and help us become the UK’s leading education provider in our specialist areas.

"At Hartpury, we continue to strive to ensure we are meeting the local, regional and national skills needs for the sectors that we serve. It is so important that through our extensive industry liaison, we can support our students to develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed not just for jobs of today, but for the future. With the current and emerging digital and technological advances that we are seeing develop at pace within the job roles that our students are aspiring to, there has never been a more important time to work in tandem with industry so that our students are equipped to make a positive difference in the fields of agriculture, animal management and science and sport."

Claire Whitworth, Deputy Principal, Further Education

Outcomes reflecting Hartpury's national, regional and local priorities 2024-2025

In our overall Hartpury 2025 Strategy, we established a mission to:

Be the best we can be
Be inclusive in all we do
Build strength through partnership

With reference to each of the overall 2025 strategies, we've broken down each strategy into aims/ objectives, their intended impact and alignment with national, local and regional skills priorities.

Context and place

Contribution to national, regional and local priorities

Our purpose and strategy

Outcomes reflecting Hartpury's national, regional and local priorities 2024-2025

Supporting documentation:

See also...

Our partners & accreditations