The SNP Government will be urged this week to stop “short-changing” Scotland’s crucial college sector after it emerged the sector is navigating a funding gap of nearly half a billion pounds.
The Scottish Conservatives will use their debating time on Wednesday in the Scottish Parliament to call on the SNP to change its current funding approach and give colleges more flexibility to "allow them to flourish".
Shadow education secretary Liam Kerr said successive SNP education secretaries – including their new leader-in-waiting John Swinney – have passed down “brutal and sustained” cuts to the sector, rather than fully funding them.
Audit Scotland warned last year that “risks to the college sector’s financial sustainability” have increased, while reports say the Scottish Funding Council have identified three colleges with "significant cash flow issues".
Graeme Dey, Minister for Higher and Further Education, was pushed on the eye-watering financial difficulties facing the sector after The Herald exclusively revealed the nearly half-a-billion pound shortfall on Monday as part of our State of Scotland’s Colleges series.
For the year 2024-25, colleges are due to receive a total of £643,040,000 from the Scottish government; however, inflation since 2021 means that the sector would actually have required more than £834m of funding this year in order to avoid a real-terms cut to their budgets.
Over the three year period since 2021-22, the total combined budget gap stands at more than £464m.
The minister said he disputed The Herald’s figure though he accepted that there was a “gap”.
He said the Scottish Government was facing “extraordinary financial challenges” after “years of austerity."
READ MORE:
Further Education Minister grilled over college funding shortfall
Colleges facing budget gap of nearly half a billion pounds
Deep dive: Exploring the key stats for Scotland's college sector
Mr Kerr said “brilliant staff and talented students” were being let down due to the SNP Government’s inaction.
He said: “Successive SNP education secretaries – including John Swinney – have repeatedly short-changed Scotland’s crucial college sector.
“The SNP’s leader-in-waiting along with others responsible for our colleges have passed on brutal and sustained cuts to them year after year.
“When I challenged the SNP minister on the eye-watering funding gap facing colleges, he typically deflected blame elsewhere and had no plan to fix this crisis which is why we are using our time in Holyrood to challenge him again.
“The financial strain colleges are under is bad enough, but the SNP Government is failing them on many other fronts.
"It is shunning much-needed reforms, and they have not created an environment in which colleges can be flexible or show more innovation.
“The potential and indeed existing outputs of Scotland’s colleges are incredible, led by brilliant staff and talented and committed students – but they are being let down by this SNP government."
“The SNP minister must listen to these calls from the Scottish Conservatives and the sector, otherwise colleges will only be put at greater risk.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “While the 2024-25 Budget is the most challenging to be delivered under devolution, we have protected as far as possible investment in the college sector, with more than £750 million to support their delivery of high-quality education and training.
“This support will continue to ensure that colleges continue to play a vital role in future economic growth, while opening up vocational and academic pathways for young people, enabling them to fulfil their potential.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel