Thank you for the hard work you have invested in your Self-Evaluation Documents and for bearing with us through a very busy couple of months getting the 38 individual reviews started:

• 34 Self-Evaluation Documents have been received and processed - including early analysis of trends in the common and bespoke themes.
• 284 panel members have been appointed.
• Nearly 50 hours of panel training has been delivered across different categories of panellist, of which all but 15 of our panellists have attended at least one session.
• Guidance, templates and exemplars for the review process have been finalised and published within the panel review channels in Teams.

We experienced some delays in onboarding our external and student panellists, specifically conducting the necessary Right to Work checks and filling the last few gaps in panel composition. These issues are now resolved: we have a full complement of panellists and a way forward to ensure our external and student panel members are ready to join ITLR.

Looking ahead to the next steps in the process:

• Many of the panels have now met for the first time and have begun reviewing your submitted SED and evidence.
• The panel secretary will be in touch in due course to set up a briefing meeting with your ITLR departmental/cluster leads to share the themes to be explored in more detail during the online and in-person review visits, and to discuss who they would like to meet during those visits.
• The panel secretary will also work with your team to agree a date for the online review visit. This has already begun where panels have a SED, all panellists are appointed and trained, and you have confirmed there are no conflicts of interest with your appointed panel.
• A schedule of discrete meetings between the panel and your senior team, staff, students, and stakeholders will be developed for each review visit. This means that only the panel will need a clear diary for the whole day on review dates.

If your panel have not been in touch then please do release any diary holds that were put in place to accommodate the ITLR context setting meeting. We are still broadly on track with the overall scheduling through Term 2 for lots of the 38 reviews (panel prep in January; online visit in February; in-person visit in March), but there is flexibility in this schedule where the early stages are delayed and to accommodate the availability of the panel and your team. We know that diaries are getting booked up and assure you that every effort will be made to accommodate availability, with flexibility used to meet the requirements of the project alongside your other commitments. This will of course include taking account of the impact of industrial action where needed.