The number of students at Dundee College is set to fall by over 4,000 as it seeks to cope with budget cuts.
A “targeted reduction” in staff numbers has been achieved through voluntary severance. A need to lose 100 full-time equivalent posts was identified as part of a £4 million savings programme and “significant savings” were needed in part-time teaching budgets and support services such as marketing, estates and ICT.
However, the plan warns: “There are a number of projects delivered with community planning partners and others that will require to be reassessed, as funds reduce for the public sector as a whole.
“Work currently financed and supported by our core funding may no longer be viable and may only be able to continue if partners are prepared to increase their contribution to costs or the scope of the work is reduced.”
The plan adds that the quality of the learning experience will remain the “touchstone of our success as a college” and action is under way to try to tackle declines in some aspects of student achievement and retention rates.
“We have recently conducted a detailed analysis of student retention which has identified a rise in financial problems and poor attendance as factors in increased numbers of student withdrawals.
“We have instigated a review of our student funding processing procedures and this, together with the increased emphasis on the role of the course tutor in the care and mentoring of individual learners, will help tackle these.”
The Scottish Government recently announced it intends to fund colleges on a regional basis. Dundee College has held a series of meetings with its Perth and Angus counterparts to discuss how they would respond to funding pressures and they collaborated to try to give other options to students affected by course cuts, such as Dundee students getting fast-tracked to interviews for Perth after the music programme ended.
The plan adds: “This regional approach to the provision of services will help avoid unnecessary duplication while ensuring that the people in the area still have access to the widest possible programme choice.
“A series of meetings has also taken place between the principals of Dundee College, Abertay University and Dundee University aimed at ensuring the coherent provision of post-16 education in the city.”
Part-time further education courses will bear the brunt as the college complies with government demands to maintain full-time student places, especially for seeking vocational qualifications.
Total enrolments are expected to drop from 18,800 to around 14,500, a newly-published three-year strategic plan explains.
This will reverse most of the 40% increase in enrolments seen since 2008/09, although the number of students on full-time higher education courses is expected to be maintained.
Further job losses among the near-900 staff could be on the cards as “limited resources are focused on areas of greatest need” and some activities with city schools could also be curtailed.
The college has concentrated on two sites, Kingsway and Gardyne, with three old buildings being sold off. The plan says this represents a “significant turning point” that offers the potential for a period of renewal.
However, it pulls no punches in explaining the pressure managers are placed under by spending cuts, which see college income fall from £30.5 million in 2010/11 to £28.6 million in 2011/12.
It explains: “The funding cuts will necessitate reductions in staffing levels, a review of courses on offer and a concentration on core business.”
The biggest cut comes from a 10.4% drop in the grant from the Scottish Funding Council something all colleges have been hit with but £800,000 in European funding has also been lost.
The plan says managers face “very tight financial constraints” and careful control of costs will be needed. Instead of the healthy surpluses of recent years, the budget will be burdened with debt repayments arising from the £49 million cost of rebuilding the Gardyne campus.
A review of provision has already resulted in a “relatively small” number of courses being scrapped, some 15 out of over 300. Other courses have seen a reduction in face-to-face teaching, although the college says it expects to see benefits from new ways of delivering the curriculum.
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