Dick Palmer

Dick Palmer is Principal at City College Norwich having started at the college in January 2003. City College Norwich is a large college of
Further and Higher Education with a turnover of around £45m per annum, a staff of over 1,000 and around 16,000 students each year.

It is now part of four National Skills Academies (NSAs) – in Financial Services, Hospitality, Creative and Cultural and Manufacturing – with a fifth, Retail, in process. During his five years in office, success rates of the college’s students have risen by over 16 per cent.

Formerly, he was Deputy Principal at Lewisham College and has worked in the further education sector for over twenty years.

In 2000-2001 he moved to the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) to create the e-learning Unit (formerly the ICT Strategy Unit) – as Head of ICT Strategy for the country.

Prior to his teaching career he was involved in a number of positions including running his own business and spent a number of years overseas.

Dick has sat on the Foresight Task Force (Learning 2020 Panel) and the CBI’s Information Age Partnership. He is a member of the University of East Anglia’s (UEA) Senate, a member of the Aim Higher National Partnership Board, a member of the Association of Colleges (AoC) Higher Education group and a Director of Foundation Degree Forward (fdf).

He has also joined the London Qualifications Committee (of Edexcel). He is on the HEFCE Joint Progressions Strategy Stakeholders Sounding Board, the DfES HE and Specialist Diplomas Committee and a member of NIACE’s Further Education Committee. He has recently been appointed by the Association of Colleges (AoC) as one of their National Skills Champions – for the skills area of Business and Administration (including Financial Services).

He is also active in local community life; he is a member of the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce’s Business Council and a member of the Norwich Local Strategic Partnership (LSP).He is a member of a number of local boards and community organisations and of a
local Academy school.

Dick lives in Norwich and is married with three children.