College prison teaching staff face redundancy months into new contracts
Article published: Tuesday, April 20th 2010
Prison teaching staff at Manchester College have been threatened with redundancies just months into their new contracts. The threats come less than a year after the College made a successful bid to become the largest provider of prison education in the country, teaching in 60 per cent of penal institutions.
Soon after the finalisation of the deal the College revealed it lacked the money to operate the contracts. In a letter to staff Principal Peter Tavernor claimed that the contracts were “financially challenging…due to unforeseen hidden costs that could not have been reasonably anticipated.”
The college lecturers’ union UCU reported the college is claiming that it did not know what the staff costs would be until two weeks before they took over the contract in October.
Tavernor, claiming a £5 million shortfall, has won an extra £2 million from the Learning and Skills Council following threats to pull out of its offender learning contracts in the South East and North East. However, Tavernor’s letter added that “additional savings of £3m” would be necessary.
A pay freeze has been put in place and a spokesperson for the College later clarified that “additional savings and efficiencies were needed that could result in up to 250 staffing reductions within offender learning.” In addition, there are fears that sick pay will be cut and terms and conditions worsened.
While the spokesperson argued that this only accounts for seven per cent of teaching staff, other providers have warned that the effects should not be downplayed. Jonathan Wells, founder of software company Guroo Ltd, which trains lecturers in penal institutions in the North East, warned that the resulting bigger class sizes could seriously damage the ability to teach.
“In a room of eight, you have eight different problems and you need eyes in the back of your head. You could end up with having 10 to keep an eye on, so things will be at least 20 per cent worse, and exponentially it could be even more serious,” argued Wells.
UCU general secretary Sally Hunt condemned the College.
“Even by Manchester College’s low standards this is a truly shocking announcement. Prison education is vital in stopping re-offending and these savage cuts will be a hammer blow to offender learning throughout the country.”
In oppostion, Alan Duncan, at the time shadow prisons minister, also criticised the College, citing the need for a “serious post-mortem” on the contracting process.
July 2009 saw strike action by UCU members at Oakhill Secure Training Centre amid allegations of bullying and harassment. The year since the takeover of the teaching contract at Oakhill by Manchester College saw the number of teaching staff plummet by a third.
The cuts follow on from a previous incident last autumn, when up to 300 English for Speakers of Other Language (ESOL) students were thrown off their courses after a similar miscalculation by management. Last-minute places for the students had to be found by the Council’s Manchester Adult Education Service at the expense of the city’s Working Neighbourhoods Fund.
While the College blamed the crisis on changes to ESOL funding and praised the “citywide co-operation effort which should be celebrated” it did not elaborate why such cuts were not anticipated until one month into the student’s term.
Richard Goulding
More: Education, News, Unions and workplace
Comments
No comments found
The comments are closed.
