CITY College's proposed merger could help it move to the next level and become an outstanding institution, its chief executive has claimed.

Nick Juba believes the proposed merger with Northbrook College would give the newly formed establishment the added edge and capacity to join the small select band of outstanding further education colleges in the country.

It comes after Ofsted officially announced City College had retained its good rating following its first inspection in five years, which was held last month.

Mr Juba, who only joined the college in September 2015, said the positive report was the latest official indication that the college was on the way up.

Inspectors praised its safeguarding of students, high achievements in GCSE English as well as the large majority of pupils who went on to further study or employment.

Ofsted praised the college's new leadership team and board of governors in raising standards and ensuring financial stability following on from the seven-figure losses and drop in quality of provision since its last inspection.

Inspectors said the college had successfully addressed areas for improvement from its previous inspection while there was much improvement in apprenticeship schemes - recovering from a significant decrease in achievement in 2013/14.

Inspectors said teaching and learning are good in most lessons, although too little is outstanding.

Mr Juba said the college would now work to deliver all round consistency to ensure that high levels of teaching and management were available to all students.

Ofsted also said that learners’ attendance and punctuality required improvement with teachers failing to sufficiently challenge learners or emphasise the damage to their learning from lateness and non-attendance.

Mr Juba said that the college made it really clear to students about the importance of attendance and punctuality while attendance levels were discussed weekly at leadership meetings.

A possible merger with Northbrook College was announced earlier this year with a public consultation on the plans to create The Metropolitan College set to close this week.

Mr Juba said the increased capacity of the new college with greater opportunities for staff development and progression could help it to the next level.

He said: "Northbrook is a good college with outstanding features and so if this merger goes ahead we will have two strong colleges coming together in a merger of equals.

"The merger will help us to make the next steps to outstanding."

Principal Sharon Collett said: “We are incredibly proud of the result of this inspection, which is a tribute to the ongoing hard work and dedication of all the staff at the college to provide our students with the highest quality teaching, learning and assessment.”

Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas said: “The improvements noted by Ofsted are down to the hard work and dedication of staff at the college.”