College staff jobs 'safe for next year'

STAFF at Stevenson College have been guaranteed there will be no compulsory redundancies in the next year after a "brave decision" was taken by management to reach an agreement with employees.

College bosses were looking to save 1.8 million through a range of cuts, including losing the equivalent of 25 full-time academic posts and 28 full-time support staff jobs.

They were also aiming to save money by reducing the number of courses on offer and cutting the delivery time for courses.

But after a consultation process involving the college board, management and staff, an agreement has been reached which will safeguard jobs for at least another year, as well as protecting courses.

The move comes after other colleges including Telford and Jewel and Esk moved to axe staff.

Gordon Plews, branch secretary of the EIS-Fela branch at Stevenson College, said: "This is really an example of how things can be achieved if we work together.

"People are still worried, but at the same time we have moved on a lot from the threats we had at the start of this process where management were talking about cutting courses, classes and staff."

College principal Brian Lister said savings have instead been reached through voluntary severance, additional funding, filling jobs internally and using some college reserves.

Lecturers have also agreed to move to 24 "timetabled" hours where they will teach for 22 hours and use the other two hours for "quality enhancement" to develop approaches to learning and teaching.

Mr Plews said this will mean more work for staff, but added that, overall, college bosses have made a "brave decision".

He said: "The college management have taken the opportunity to use some of its reserves to invest in staff to develop new learning and teaching strategies and materials which will prepare them to meet future sector needs with less resources.

"Working in further education has always been demanding and it will become more demanding.

"I think what the board of management at Stevenson College have committed to is investing in the future well-being and ability of the college to carry out its function to deliver high quality education and training."

A total of 25 staff members had their voluntary severance packages approved, which will save the college 750,000.

The college has also benefited from 300,000 of additional funding, which Mr Lister said has helped to protect jobs.

It is also going through an "internal restructuring" process, which means non-replacement of specific posts or re-deploying staff. The funding gap will also be plugged by using around 250,000 of college reserves.

Mr Lister praised staff and students for their part in coming up with a solution. He said: "The staff and students formed a very strong voice and this demonstrates that they were listened to. It's a very good commonsense solution whereby two parties have come together."