The next financial year was always going to be grim as the LSC had to find the money to fund 16-19 growth, adult basic skills and the level 2 entitlement. But the reports NATFHE is receiving seem to indicate that the cuts are biting even deeper than had been expected.

 NATFHE officials have convened a meeting of organisations that are also very concerned, to share information and co-ordinate campaigning. These include NIACE, UNISON, ACM, LEAFEA, AoC and NUS.

 NATFHE has also asked all FE and ACE branches to complete a simple questionnaire on what managements are informing branches about next year’s funding situation and where any cuts seem to be falling.

College pay talks to open today

Further education college staff unions will today (Tuesday) begin talks about pay for the forthcoming academic year with their employers, the Association of Colleges.

The six unions which comprise the FE National Joint Forum, including NATFHE – The University & College Lecturers’ Union, have made a joint claim for a 7% pay increase for their members in 2006/7.

For NATFHE members, this increase would represent a significant move forwards in narrowing the estimated 10% pay gap between college lecturers and schoolteachers.

Crucially, the unions’ claim for next year also includes a call for colleges to pay a previous pay agreement in full. The two-year ‘Modernising Pay Agreement’ was hailed by the unions and employers as a breakthrough step in achieving pay parity between college lecturers and schoolteachers. All colleges were recommended to implement it by August 2004. But 20 months later, 57% of colleges have failed to pay a key element of the deal.

To make matters worse, last year (2005/6) the Association of Colleges offered college lecturers a rise of just 2.8% which NATFHE rejected. The union highlighted such an increase would only widen the pay gap with schoolteachers, who were given a 3.2% rise for the same period. That led to NATFHE declaring an industrial dispute. Thousands of college lecturers around the country joined in a one-day national strike last November.

Barry Lovejoy, NATFHE’s head of colleges, said:

‘We’re now expecting a serious pay offer that compensates for the very disappointing offer we got this year and finally brings us closer to pay parity with schoolteachers. The persistent unfair pay gap is demoralising for our members in colleges and must deter a lot of young teachers from entering further education.

‘We recognise that colleges face a difficult funding situation but we believe that the national employers can do much more to help colleges honour the pay increases that lecturers were promised 20 months ago.’

A further pay talks meeting is scheduled for May 10.

Pay history:

2006/7
On Tuesday, March 21 NATFHE will make a claim for a 7% pay rise and the full implementation of the 2003/5 pay deal (see below) to employers, the Association of Colleges.

2005/6
In 2005, NATFHE made a pay claim for a 7% pay rise and the full implementation of the 2003/5 pay deal (see below) to employers, the Association of Colleges. In response, the AoC offered a 2% rise from August 1, 2005, followed by a 0,8% rise from January 2006. NATFHE negotiators rejected that offer arguing that it would only worsen the existing 10% pay gap between lecturers and schoolteachers. NATFHE declared an industrial dispute and lecturers overwhelmingly voted for a one-day strike which was staged in November.

2003/5
A two-year deal which offered a 3% increase to all lecturers in 2003/4 followed by a second 3% increase in 2004/5, was agreed between NATFHE and the Association of Colleges. In the second year, the deal also included the introduction of a new, shorter pay scale that would give further increases. This deal would mean the maximum salary for qualified lecturers would be raised to £30,705, and the starting salary increased to £20,283 for qualified teaching staff. To date, it has only been fully implemented by 43% of colleges.

Contact

Vicky Wilks, press officer; 020-7520 3207/07970-383995

FURTHER EDUCATION FACTS

• More than twice as many 16-18-year-olds study in colleges than schools - 701,000 in FE colleges or sixth form colleges compared with just 345,000 in schools (2003/4)
• 100,000 14-16-year-olds study in FE (2003/4) for up to one day a week and this will rise to 250,000 by 2008
• Further education institutions have a 72% pass rate – if schools were measured in a similar way their pass rate would be 50%
• Teachers and lecturers top the unpaid overtime league table doing an average of 11 hours and 36 minutes extra work a week
• Lecturing staff turnover figures increased from 11% to 14.3% between September 2003-September 2004
• Colleges are responsible for 90% of the adults who gain basic skills qualifications
• Colleges are responsible for half of all Level 3 qualifications in the workforce
• More than 40% of those entering higher education go via colleges
• Every year, colleges train three million adults
• 41% of teenagers in FE are from the bottom three socio-economic groups compared with 31% in sixth form colleges and 22% in school sixth forms
• Ethnic minority students make up 14% of learners in FE compared with 8% of the general population

ABOUT NATFHE
NATFHE is the largest trade union and professional association for lecturers, trainers, researchers and managers, working in further and higher education throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Total membership stands at 69,000.