Accountability Statement 2025 | Hartpury University & Hartpury College

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 new five-year Hartpury Strategy and Hartpury College, 2030. We have ensured that the aims and objectives of this Accountability Statement align directly with our overarching Hartpury 2030 Strategy and the Hartpury College 2030 Strategy.

The Hartpury 2025-2026 Accountability Statement draws
on numerous sources and stakeholder engagements
and has been developed, considering the following:

Hartpury 2030 Stakeholder Engagement
Hartpury Skills Review 2023-2024
Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP)
Ofsted Inspection Report, 2024
Gloucestershire Economic Strategy 2024-2034
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 Gloucestershire's Skills Strategy 2022-2027
National Skills Priority Sectors
Unit for Future Skills
Landex data sources

Learn more

Our purpose

Hartpury is the only specialist landbased provider in Gloucestershire. In 2020, as part of our 2025 strategy development 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.

"We remain committed to ensuring our curriculum aligns with local, regional, and national skills needs. By placing employers at the centre of our curriculum design, we ensure their insights directly shape and influence our offer. This collaborative approach allows us to respond effectively to current, emerging, and future technical and core skills requirements across the sectors we support. As a result, our students are well-equipped to make a meaningful impact, and we actively contribute to the economic growth of Gloucestershire and beyond."

Claire Whitworth, Deputy Principal, Further Education

Outcomes reflecting Hartpury's national, regional and local priorities 2025-2026

With reference to our overall Hartpury 2030 Strategy, we have established a mission to:

deliver high-quality, industry-connected, and inspiring student experiences that fosters outstanding learning and skills development
foster and strengthen collaborative partnerships with students, staff, parents/carers, employers, other industry professionals and representative bodies, educational providers, and other key stakeholders
further develop our provision to accommodate a full-time student population of over 2,100, a growing part-time apprenticeship population and further potential growth through partnership opportunities and commercialisation.

Accountability Statement

Context and place

Contribution to national, regional and local priorities

Our purpose

Outcomes reflecting Hartpury's national, regional and local priorities 2025-2026

Supporting documentation:

See also...

Our partners & accreditations