Further Education (Industrial Dispute)

Portfolio Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at on 26 June 2024.

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Photo of Monica Lennon Monica Lennon Labour

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to end the reported disruption to students in further education, in light of the on-going industrial dispute between College Employers Scotland and the Educational Institute of Scotland Further Education Lecturers Association over pay and conditions. (S6O-03638)

Photo of Graeme Dey Graeme Dey Scottish National Party

Although there is no direct role for the Government to intervene in the dispute, I have made it clear to the college management that they must do everything in their power to ensure that students are not adversely impacted by industrial action, while at the same time doing their best to conclude the dispute.

All appropriate mitigations and support must be in place to minimise disruption to students and provide them with timely information on their options. I have also called on the employers and EIS-FELA to work together to find a way of suspending the marking boycott in order to allow positive progress to be made on settling the dispute and to ensure that students receive the qualifications that they have worked so hard to achieve.

Photo of Monica Lennon Monica Lennon Labour

I am grateful to the minister and I have listened carefully to his response, but students and college lecturers are already adversely affected.

The Scottish Government’s fair work credentials in further education are in tatters. We are seeing anti-worker deeming, threats of compulsory redundancy and the threat of closure of the trade union education centre at City of Glasgow College. The question from picket lines across Scotland, including South Lanarkshire College in my area and New College Lanarkshire, is this: when will the minister intervene to ensure that we see a funding package that will deliver a decent pay settlement for college lecturers that is consistent with the public sector pay policy, while protecting jobs and ensuring the continuity of course provision for our students?

Photo of Graeme Dey Graeme Dey Scottish National Party

Let us be clear—as Monica Lennon actually has been, and I welcome that—about what Labour means by “intervention”. It means shaking the magic money tree and giving colleges whatever moneys they need to satisfy the demands of the lecturers in this dispute, with no financial detriment to any other part of education delivery.

A pay rise is not even the totality of what is being sought in the dispute and the negotiations. It is not just about committing to a pay uplift for 2025-26 at a stage when the budget that will be available to the Scottish Government—and the colleges—is a complete unknown. It is also about colleges committing to an open-ended, no compulsory redundancies approach and returning all pay that was lost via striking during the present dispute. The price tag for delivering all that would be extremely significant.

The question for Labour is this: when it calls for intervention to settle the dispute, is it expecting all those demands to be met? If so, where would it have us find those sums?