FUNDING chiefs have been attacked for provoking a crisis at a Scottish college which suspended its principal.
Teaching unions said an investigation by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) into events at Glasgow Clyde College had "paralysed" the running of further education in the city.
The comments from officials from the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) follow the SFC investigation in March.
The SFC acted because officials were concerned about the process the college board and its chairman George Chalmers had followed in suspending principal Susan Walsh in February.
The DLA Piper review was initiated under the 2005 Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act, which allows for the SFC to review the governance of colleges to assess whether they should continue to be funded.
However, the board has already secured legal advice suggesting the investigation was "unlawful" because the SFC does not have the powers to intervene in ongoing operational matters such as employment or grievance procedures.
Now the bulletin of the EIS Glasgow Regional Committee also attacks the SFC.
It states: "The funding council has been trying to derail the disciplinary investigation into allegations against the principal of Clyde College ever since they were initiated in February.
"Of course, the SFC denies this, stating initially that they were only supporting the student representatives who had been wrongly, supposedly, excluded from the decision to suspend the principal.
"It seems that, immediately following the suspension of the principal, the SFC..... discovered incredibly worrying levels of hitherto undetected incompetence at both the Glasgow Clyde College Board.
"So far, no-one has actually identified where the areas of deficiency specifically lie, but we are assured that they are there and that they merit drastic intervention by the SFC."
The bulletin concluded that the actions of the SFC had already resulted in expenditure on legal costs of several hundred thousand pounds and had "paralysed" the Glasgow Colleges Regional Board, leaving reform of the curriculum in "chaos".
Laurence Howells, chief executive of the SFC, said: “We have provided advice in confidence to Scottish ministers in relation to Clyde College.
"Our concern in this matter, as for any college in Scotland, is for the quality of students’ learning and for services to employers and the wider community.”
The intervention comes seven months after Mrs Walsh was suspended after concerns over her style of management and allegations of bullying.
Angela Constance, the Education Secretary, has written to the board threatening them with “removal” over governance issues, including the way board meetings were held and the fact the college has been without a principal.
The board have now responded to the minister and said they believed there was "no case to dismiss the chair or the board".
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