Sandwell College: 'management spends while curriculum burns'

As a general further education college serving the Oldbury, Smethwick and West Bromwich area of the West Midlands, Sandwell College is planning to severely reduce the range of courses offered to the local community. It recently cut provision in music technology, electrical installation, brickwork, automotive engineering, IT and admin, such that many local residents now have to travel fifteen to twenty miles to other colleges for such courses.

The college now plans to get rid of all GCSE and A' levels, access courses for mature students restarting their education, and BTEC certificates and diplomas in music technology. The college plans to sack 25 full-time lecturers and support staff.

But on 2 October a mass meeting of UCU members voted unanimously to ballot on industrial action if a single lecturer is made compulsorily redundant. Unison, which represents support staff at the college facing redundancy, has voted likewise. The National Union of Students has expressed support for the unions.

UCU says the college should instead reassess its priorities and its methods of operation and spending. In September it appointed at least three highly paid management staff which will together cost the college around £250,000 a year, which could pay for many lecturers' jobs. The college also recently hired an expensive firm of solicitors to carry out a consultation with union members, something which UCU says could have been done in-house for a fraction of the cost.

UCU regional official Nick Varney said: 'Sandwell College management appears set to rip the heart out of the college curriculum and put a stake through the heart of the local community. People who want to study here are being sent 15 or 20 miles away to do courses which should be available locally. This area needs a fully functioning college which can meet the skills and personal needs of local people, but lecturers are fearful the college is being set on a course of decline.

'It's a case of the management spends while the curriculum burns. The college can find funds for yet more managers and for expensive external advisers despite already having an army of Human Resources personnel staff, but it says adequate teaching and learning is somehow unaffordable.

'UCU is not going to let this happen without a fight. We have the professional teaching staff here to deliver what local people want. Staff should not be treated like disposable extras, and local people should not be treated like machine parts to be posted away for repair. This is college for the community not a gravy train for senior managers and consultants.'