Barnet College could lose 100 staff members after £3 million cut from budget (From Times Series)

Barnet College could lose 100 staff members after £3 million cut from budget

10:56am Tuesday 16th March 2010 in

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AS MANY as 100 members of staff could lose their jobs at Barnet College after the college had more than £3 million cut from its budget.

Concerned college bosses and unions have called a public meeting to discuss how the cut in funding from the Learning and Skills Council will affect Barnet College.

College principal, Marilyn Hawkins, said: "The Government's policies will require us to remove high quality, priority courses from the range we offer learners. That will inevitably have a negative effect on our communities, both young people and adults.”

She said that further education colleges like Barnet were the key to up-skilling Britain's workforce to help bring the country out of recession.

She added: "To reduce further education at present removes an unemployment and social mobility lifeline from people in Barnet and further afield."

These cuts are for the academic year 2010/2011, which starts on August 1, and are already fixed.

Ms Hawkins said she did not expect that a possible change of Government would make any difference to them.

However it is unclear exactly how deep education cuts will go, not least because of the uncertainty over who will win the General Election.

Education Secretary Ed Balls told the Association of School and College Leader's annual conference earlier this month that he wanted to save £1 billion between now and 2013, the period of the next Government spending round.

The cuts, designed to deal with Britain's surging debt, are coming at a time when more and more people are turning to further and higher education to delay their entry into the job market or to help them retrain after redundancy.

Barnet College has seen applications from young people remain static, while those from older adults have risen.

She said that both management and unions understood public finances were currently under extreme pressure and money should go to the areas of highest need.

But she argued that the cuts would affect courses which were more in need than ever, such as those which help people deal with redundancy.

Staff at the college say there are alternatives to cutting funding from colleges and universities, such as diverting resources from national educational quangos and regulators.

The college has written to local MPs and prospective parliamentary candidates about their concerns and invited the politicians to join the public debate, scheduled for next Tuesday, March 23, at 5:30pm at Building 3, North London Business Park.

All members of the public are welcome to attend the event. For more information about the location of the event or access, call 020 8200 8300.