This report is based on visits to six colleges and structured telephone interviews with staff in a further four colleges. During visits to colleges, meetings with staff involved senior managers and programme leaders. Meetings with learners involved the presidents of the students’ associations, course representatives and others from both HN and FE level programmes as well as groups of apprentices, students of English for Speakers of Other Languages, outreach students and students on special programmes. A representative of the National Union of Students (NUS) Scotland joined HMIE on visits to two of the colleges. The report also draws on evidence from 20 HMIE reviews carried out during 2003-2004 and 2004-2005, and other HMIE contacts with colleges. The planning team for the report included a representative from NUS Scotland and there were helpful contributions from SPARQS.