We call for the Minister and the Scottish Government to intervene to address the crisis engulfing the FE sector in Scotland.

We urge that action is taken now to address the unprecedented crisis in the sector. If the crisis is not averted staff and students will begin the new year with strikes in the first weeks of term, colleges unable to fund services & courses and staff facing the prospect of redundancy (unlike other publicly funded workers). Every worker in FE will begin the new term without a pay rise to address the cost-of-living increase which is the worst in living memory. Pay rises are already one year overdue.

There is also an urgent need to review the ongoing financial issues in our sector and we believe it is no longer acceptable for colleges to retain the same level of uncontrolled autonomy in the use of public funds.

We are calling for the Minister to urgently:

1 Stop compulsory redundancies in FE in line with Fair Work.

2 Provide ringfenced money for a fair pay rise.

3 Commission a proper review of college finances & governance.

4 Provide ringfenced funding to protect courses and services for students.

1 Stop compulsory redundancies in FE in line with Fair Work

Scotland's largest college, City of Glasgow College has announced 100 (FTE) compulsory redundancies as a cost saving measure.  A dispute has been lodged by both support and lecturing unions and they have both been ignored by the college who refuse to recognise it.

Until now, college staff had a no compulsory redundancies guarantee mirroring Public Sector Pay Policy elsewhere. The change in Scottish Government advice now indicates that compulsory redundancies are a last resort measure. College workers deserve and need the same protection other publicly funded workers have.

Disputes have also been lodged at Glasgow Clyde College, New College Lanarkshire and with Borders College with others expected to follow around failure to consult on the need for job losses before launching severance schemes. Threats of compulsory job losses have been used widely as part of a context to refuse to consult.

The Scottish Government Fair Work Framework states that fair work is not work where the burden of insecurity and risk rests on employees and workers.

2 Provide ringfenced money for a fair pay rise

All four Unions in the sector have issued disputes, balloted members and are set to take industrial action in the first week of term and beyond which will impact on new students. The employers have tried to starve out members in the worst year for inflation in living memory.

The sector's response is to blame the Scottish Government for everything and that it has been deprived of cash. We think there is fault on both sides but staff and students shouldn’t be made to suffer. The Scottish Government needs to step in in the same way it has for other sectors and assist. We need additional monies ringfenced for its intended purposes.  

3 Commission a proper review of college finances & governance

4 Provide ringfenced funding to protect courses and services for students

There is an annual crisis in the sector as soon as staff seek a pay rise, and it simply cannot go on. There is little to no transparency and no proper provision of information around non-staff costs for example. 

The City of Glasgow College has the most expensive college senior management team in the country, £179k per annum for Principal Paul Little alone. Recent press coverage exposes concerns from staff about the extravagances of their globe-trotting principal who is reported to have, amongst other things, his own personal chef and chauffeur. His executive chef reportedly costs the public purse over £50k per annum, although recent intelligence UNISON has received suggests the figure is considerably more. The Principal has travelled to Norway, Dubai, Lyon and Dublin in the current financial year; had 22 overseas trips and over 30 trips to London between 2018 and 2023; and his total remuneration package comes to around £215,000. Yet, senior management have stated they are not ruling out compulsory redundancies.

Staff and students should not pay for the impact of this behaviour. Rogue Principals need brought into line by the Scottish Government and made accountable. A proper review of the state of the sector needs to be undertaken. We believe that years of scattergun approaches to cutting courses and services through VS has created a post code lottery of provision for students depending on which area they live in. This is unacceptable and can only be addressed by providing ringfenced funding for pay, courses and services.