Better news on Caithness college job cuts
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
JOB cuts at North Highland College UHI may not be as bad as first feared, according to its principal.
Dr Gordon Jenkins said that he was growing more optimistic about the college’s financial situation.
North Highland College is being forced to make budgets cuts of £1.2 million by the end of this month.
It is expected some staff will lose their jobs as a result of the measures needed to be implemented to ensure the college’s future.
Speaking to the Caithness Courier yesterday, Dr Jenkins said that even though job losses had been confirmed, he believes it will not be as severe as he first thought.
“We did estimate that we would be losing around 20 members of the staff as a result of the budget cuts,” he said. “However, we are now quite optimistic that the amount could be lower than that.
“I cannot give an actual figure until the consultations have been completed, but the outlook appears to be brighter than before.”
It was hoped that consultations with staff would be completed before the end of term time. But Dr Jenkins said it was necessary to continue talks for another two months.
He said that it was unfortunate that the college would be losing valued colleagues for the beginning of next term.
“We are still going through consultations with staff about how we are going to proceed,” he explained.
“However, meetings have been delayed which has in turn forced a slight overrun of the whole process.
“As a result, we are not going to finish the consultations until August. It was hoped to have made the decisions before the start of the holiday period but we will now have to delay.”
He added: “We are where we are. We are still working with the funding council to see what the situation is.”
All departments have been affected by the budget cuts except the environmental research unit which will remain unaffected after the summer.
“College staff have been very realistic about the financial situation and accept that we will have to let staff go,” he explained.
“But hopefully we will not be losing as many as we once feared.”
Dr Jenkins also confirmed that all courses currently taught at Wick College will be moving to its Thurso campus after the summer.
The building will remain open where it will become home to NHC Online which is the commercial arm of the college.
The department specialises in developing teaching materials for college courses and for commercial customers to teach students online.
Dr Jenkins said that the college is still looking into the possibility of bringing back courses to Wick some time in the future.
“The situation at Wick College is we are moving NHC Online to keep the building open,” he said. “It is a temporary measure which we plan to implement for the next two years.
“Hopefully the idea is once we get out of the financial blip we are currently experiencing, we will look again at offering mainstream courses in Wick.
“We don’t want the building to be sitting empty. But at the same time we have to look at ways which we can keep it open but won’t cost us money.”
