BREAKING: Jobs go, students pay to park, adult education contract and courses go as cuts bite deep at College of West Anglia
The College of West Anglia Principal David Pomfret - Credit: EDP Matthew Usher
THIRTY jobs will go, students will be forced to pay to park and study and horticulture at Cambridge and furniture making at Wisbech will be axed. And a major shock will be the decision to end a contract with Cambridgeshire County Council to deliver further education courses in Fenland.
And a major shock will be the decision to end a contract with Cambridgeshire County Council to deliver further education courses in Fenland.
Those are the main outcomes of a review announced tonight by the College of West Anglia that will reduce salary costs alone by £900,000.
The college says it needs to save more than £4m and the latest proposals follow “a period of consultation with staff on a range of cost saving measures”.
Teaching and support staff at Kings Lynn, Wisbech and Milton will be affected and some reductions will be achieved “by removing vacant posts and through voluntary redundancies.”
Principal David Pomfret said his college was no different to others in facing funding cuts “which invariably results in job losses”.
He claimed the college was already “lean and efficient” and that talks with staff had resulted in changes to original proposals.
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“Some of these will require further consultation with relevant staff but I am confident that the decisions we have taken are the right ones,” he said.
He said the college would implement pay and park by autumn 2014 and it will be run externally.
The principal also confirmed the college “will no longer offer a low take up furniture-making course in Wisbech and will cease to deliver horticulture programmes in Cambridge.
“However, current level 3 horticulture students completing the first of a two-year programme will be able to complete the second year of their course at the campus.
“The college will continue to offer apprenticeship programmes in horticulture, which are growing in popularity.”
Mr Pomfret added: “The college has also confirmed its decision to decline a renewed contract from Cambridgeshire County Council to deliver the adult community learning programme in Fenland.
“We will now work with the council to help them put in place alternative arrangements.”
Lynsi Hayward-Smith, Head of Adult Learning and Skills, Cambridgeshire County Council, said: “We are committed to ensuring adult learning provision continues and wish to reassure learners that there will be a programme of adult learning available in Fenland in the future.”
