Jobs and courses face the axe

A £4million cut in Government funding means that part time courses run by the NPTC Group of Colleges are being chopped and staff will lose their jobs.

The NPTC Group, a merger of Coleg Powys and Neath Port Talbot College, made the announcement today but stressed that full time courses will be protected.

All colleges across Wales have received a 2.6% efficiency cut across all courses but funding for part-time courses has been cut by 50%.

Mark Dacey, CEO of the NPTC Group of Colleges, said: “Nobody expected this level of cuts,especially the impact on part-time learners. Colleges have responded to Government policy by engaging with employers and helping with the re-skilling of the existing workforce.

“However, the more successful colleges have been in delivering this and other part-time courses for employers and employees, the greater the cuts to their funding.

“We understand the difficulty that the Welsh Government is facing with such a large reduction in their own funding, but we cannot see how this will support the re-skilling agenda."

The Welsh Government is promoting a policy of co-funding, where employers will contribute  50% of the cost of training. It is understood that the Welsh Government considers that training and education is a commodity which employers should pay for - similar to other European countries.

Mark Dacey added: “It is difficult to see how this will be achieved between now and September. However, it is clear that in this short space of time there will be less people willing to pay substantial increases for their education. Therefore, there will be less people undertaking part-time education and less staff to teach them."

The actual percentage of cuts is slightly different for all colleges. The highest cut is 16% and the lowest is 2.6%. The NPTC Group of Colleges is facing a cut of nearly 12%, which taking into account annual increases in costs, amounts to approximately a £4m cut in core funding.

"This will obviously impact negatively on the breadth of the curriculum we can offer and will mean redundancies for the staff who have helped us to become the best performing College in Wales, for the last three years,” said Mr Dacey.

“I met with staff today, and it is fair to say that they are very upset by the cuts that have been  imposed and the impact that this will have on those learners who want to raise their skill  levels to become more economically active and more employable.

“We have a very good relationship with all of the recognised trade unions and we met with them earlier to talk to them about the level of the cuts. We have agreed to work very closely together to try to achieve these cuts without compulsory redundancies, but we both understand that this is a big ask with such large cuts in funding.

“The Group of Colleges is proposing a number of options to the Board of Governors in order to produce a break even budget. We will then go into consultation with the trade unions; they always bring good ideas to the table in helping us to propose changes for the future.

“The Group of Colleges remains clear that this will not impact on full-time courses and therefore our outstanding 6th Form Academy will continue to produce some of the best A Level results seen in Wales. We will also still be able to provide all of the full-time vocational courses that have helped build our enviable reputation,” added Mr Dacey.