The restructuring of Scotland’s further education sector, which saw the creation of regional “super colleges”, was a controversial move. No one foresaw, however, that the issue that would cause the biggest stooshie would involve severance pay to senior staff.
But so it goes on. John Doyle, the former principal of Coatbridge College, will appear today in front of Holyrood’s Public Audit Committee for the second time this month to explain why he received a pay-out of £304k when he stepped down - almost twice the level of severance laid down in guidance by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC).
And we now know that Mr Doyle’s big pay-out was not the only one that went through in the wake of the mergers. In total, £2.4m was handed to 14 college principals who agreed to step down.
Of course, senior staff in the public sector have big responsibilities, and many command significant salaries. Mr Doyle, as we know, earned £116k as leader of Coatbridge College. And, when major restructuring requires people to step down, those that do have a right to expect recompense.
However, the scale of that recompense and the way it is managed raises big questions of the bodies that oversee funding, and the politicians that oversee them.
The fact that individual colleges were allowed to decide how much resigning principals were to be given is extremely concerning. Why were these colleges not forced to follow the SFC guidance, especially when the pay-outs came from public funds at a time of job losses among lecturers and cuts to student funding? Put these pay-offs into the wider context of cuts to public services and they become even more difficult to justify.
Our politicians and senior civil servants are responsible for ensuring public money is spent wisely. The mismanagement of these pay-outs highlight that in future oversight must be conducted with far more rigour.
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