EVENT RECAP | The College Alliance Network Meeting - Ayrshire
21 May 2025
At our recent College Alliance Network meeting (May 2025), hosted by Angela Cox at Ayrshire College, we focussed on the theme of the college workforce. Workforce is clearly a key issue for colleges and policymakers across all our national systems, but also an issue where there are very considerable differences in the both the challenges and the approach taken. At the event, we took stock of where we are in relation to the college workforce across each nation, we heard short case studies of good practice, and we spent time thinking about where we are heading to in the future.
The meeting included key discussions around:
· The differences in approach to negotiating pay. In Scotland, Wales, Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland pay is negotiated and agreed nationally. In the Republic of Ireland, the situation is more complicated, given that different government departments negotiate for different elements of pay within an ETB. In England, decisions on pay, alongside wider terms and conditions, are agreed by individual colleges. The Association of Colleges in England makes a high-level recommendation each year on pay, but this is not binding – and pay levels and approach diverge quite markedly across individual colleges.
· Funding. Inextricably linked to discussions about pay is the approach to funding colleges across the different nations. Across the UK nations, there is a clear tension between pressures on pay (whether agreed nationally, or by individual colleges) and available funding levels. The move to national bargaining in Scotland for example, has seen many colleges facing deficit budgets. In England meanwhile, real-terms funding cuts over the past 15 years have seen significant downward pressure on pay, meaning that teaching staff in colleges can be paid £9000 less than there peers teaching at the same level in a school.
· Social partnership. In Wales, social partnership operates as a model both at the college level, and nationally. At the college level, social partnership involves union representatives having a broader role in informing decision-making outside of pay and conditions – involved in thinking about the long-term challenges facing the college, and involved on an ongoing basis in developing proposals for responding to this. At a national level, social partnership sees unions, government and college leaders come together to inform policy development, again with a focus on partnership and collaboration. The model is less developed in the other nations, although the new Labour UK Government is seeking to develop this approach within the DfE in England.
