Exclusive:Revealed: The Scottish colleges hit hardest as 1,700 staff leave in voluntary exit packages worth £37m

Data released to The Scotsman shows nearly £14m was spent on the departures of 534 staff in 2022/23 alone, followed by more than £7m on at least 350 packages last year.

The institutions with the highest number of voluntary redundancies over the past five years were Edinburgh College with 179, New College Lanarkshire with 171, followed by Fife College’s 148, a further 139 at West College Scotland, 133 at SRUC, 130 at City of Glasgow, and 126 at Dundee and Angus College.

Glasgow Clyde has had at least 100 voluntary departures in the period, while there have been 98 at Ayrshire College, 88 at Forth Valley, 81 at UHI Perth, and at least 79 at Glasgow Kelvin.

Dumfries and Galloway College has lost 54 staff as part of such agreements, with 45 going at Borders College, 37 at both North East Scotland College and UHI Inverness, 22 at West Lothian and 13 at UHI Shetland.

Around 50 compulsory redundancies have also been pushed through since 2019/20, including ten last year at the City of Glasgow College, 23 at UHI Argyll over the period, seven at UHI Perth, and four at Newbattle Abbey. Further staff reductions will have resulted from not filling vacant posts.

A lecturers’ union warned last night it was “impossible to overstate the damaging impact” of the loss of so much knowledge and experience from the sector, which is also “piling ever more pressure” on remaining staff.

Experts estimate Scotland’s 24 colleges are worth £52 billion to the nation’s economy, but their budget from the Scottish Government was slashed in real terms by 8.5 per cent between 2021/22 and 2023/24. According to the Scottish Funding Council, the total workforce headcount in the sector fell by 418 between 2019/20 and 2022/23, from 14,565 to 14,147. However, figures from Freedom of Information (FOI) responses and annual reports show far more staff have left under voluntary redundancy schemes in the period. Huge sums have been spent on these packages, including £4.6m by New College Lanarkshire in five years, £4.2m by Edinburgh College, £3.4m by Dundee and Angus College, £3.3m by Fife College, £2.8m by City of Glasgow College, £2.6m by both West College Scotland and SRUC, and £1.8m by both Forth Valley College and Ayrshire College. At City of Glasgow College, there have been 130 voluntary redundancies and ten compulsory redundancies in just the past two years.

Meanwhile, new data for 2023/24 shows there were 53 voluntary departures at New College Lanarkshire, 49 at UHI Perth, 41 at Fife College, 31 at Edinburgh College, 21 at both Forth Valley and West College Scotland, 20 at Ayrshire College, 16 at SRUC, 13 at UHI Shetland, 12 at North East Scotland College and 11 at West Lothian College. The overall spending on staff restructuring is in line with forecasts published by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) in January.

In the same report, the agency said current projections suggested staffing could be reduced at colleges by close to the equivalent 2,400 full-time workers between 2022/23 and 2025/26 - more than a fifth of the workforce.

More than 1,100 of these staff were expected to leave under voluntary agreements, with a similar number of posts being cut through vacancy management, and the remaining 154 coming from compulsory redundancies.

“Given the experience to date of industrial relations in the sector, this level of staff reduction is likely to result in widespread industrial action,” the SFC said.

Strike action and a resulting boycott was called off last month after a breakthrough was reached to end a two-year pay dispute between college lecturers and management, which also involved assurances that compulsory redundancies would be avoided.

However, despite the resolution, colleges still face huge financial pressures over coming years, with the minister, Graeme Dey, signalling fresh funding cuts could be on the way.

A spokesperson for the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) union said: “The number of experienced lecturing staff lost from the further education sector in recent years is a matter of huge concern.

“The scale of the job, and thereby service, cuts within colleges are having a detrimental impact on the learning experience of students while simultaneously piling ever more pressure onto remaining lecturing staff.

“It is impossible to overstate the damaging impact that the loss of so much knowledge and experience from the lecturing staff of Scotland’s college sector has on learning provision.

“Lecturers have taken a stand against this ongoing process of cuts through local disputes and strike action in recent years but, without additional funding and resources in the sector, there is the very real prospect of the flow of lecturers out of colleges continuing to erode service provision.”

Scottish Green MSP Ross Greer said: “There is something fundamentally broken in a college sector which has seen national strike action in nine of the last ten years.

“Multiple ‘lessons learned’ reports after previous disputes simply haven’t been followed through on. This has led to low expectations on all sides of a real and permanent improvement in relations, even if some progress has been made recently.

“The Scottish Greens recently delivered a change to governance rules, requiring all colleges to include staff representatives on their boards. I’m confident that these reps will challenge the often dubious business cases put forward for redundancy programmes by college management.

“Much wider changes to college governance and funding are required though. In the context of a financial crisis for the Scottish Government, it's entirely reasonable to expect businesses to contribute a bit more for the many courses their staff require to meet the skills demands of a rapidly changing economy.”

Gavin Donoghue, director of College Employers Scotland, said: “Staff are integral to the world-class education on offer at Scotland’s colleges, which is why no institution ever wants to lose valued colleagues, and why redundancies are always a last resort.

“However, with Scottish Government funding for colleges falling by 8.5 per cent in real terms since 2021/22, and institutions hit by an additional cut of £32.7 million in the 2024/25 Scottish budget, colleges have to make tough decisions on staffing just to balance their books.

“When such decisions are taken, college leaders aim to ensure they have the right mix of staff required to deliver the skills and qualifications needed for the current and future prosperity of their communities.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “While the 2024-25 Budget is the most challenging to be delivered under devolution, we have protected investment in the college sector as far as possible, with more than £750 million to support their delivery of high quality education and training.

“Decisions on operational matters, including pay and staff, are a matter for individual colleges.”