Third Lothian college to shed staff to save money

Jewel & Esk College is in final talks about shedding a number of its staff following a 1.5 million cut to its budget.

The final number of redundancies needed is not yet known, but is thought that a few dozen jobs will face the axe.

The news comes just a day after Telford College announced that it is set to cut one tenth of its workforce in light of a 2.4m reduction to its financial pot.

Unlike Telford, however, it is believed that Jewel & Esk is looking to cut more management staff than lecturers and admin employees.

Mandy Exley, principal and chief executive, said: "Jewel & Esk College has been allocated a teaching grant by the Scottish Funding Council that sees a reduction in excess of ten per cent from last year. This is not unexpected in the current climate of reductions in public spending.

"It does, however, give us a difficult task, at a time when the college is trying to extend the services we provide to enable more and more young people to enter both further education and work. It is against this background that we have had to look closely at structures across the college."

She added: "Jewel & Esk College has a strong history of supporting the communities we serve and will continue to try to do so at this particularly challenging time."

One staff member at the college, which has around 7000 students and 400 staff, said employees were understandably saddened and worried about the redundancies.

They said: "We've heard that it'll be more management staff than teachers, so a few people with larger wages might have to go. If some higher-up, higher-paid staff are made redundant, it means we'll have to sacrifice fewer people who work with the students on the ground. But at this stage everybody is worried. I'm not sure what number is being discussed, but it might be around ten per cent of staff."

The latest news follows an announcement that Stevenson College plans to cut 25 full-time academic posts and 28 full-time support staff in order to save 1.8m in the next year.

David Belsey, national officer of the EIS teaching union, said the repercussions of funding cuts on colleges throughout Edinburgh caused grave concern.

He said: "The deep cut of 11 per cent imposed on both the FE and HE sectors by the Scottish Government for 2011/12 is already beginning to have a damaging effect on our FE colleges, who do not have the additional revenue streams and reserves to mitigate the effects of such a cut.

"The proposed redundancies at Jewel & Esk and Telford will reduce the colleges' ability to deliver further education and training for their students."