Richard Lochhead’s appointment as Scotland’s minister for further and higher education is a welcome development for the Scottish FE sector at (another) critical juncture. His predecessors have overseen the difficult birth of national bargaining, with national strike action under both Angela Constance and Shirley-Anne Somerville, and if Mr Lochhead hopes for a quieter initiation, he may be disappointed.

Pay negotiations in the sector reached stalemate before the summer break and the EIS Further Education Lecturers’ Association (EIS-FELA) opens a consultative ballot next week with a recommendation to reject management’s offer. The offer conflates the issues of equal pay, covered in the March 2016 National Joint Negotiating Committee (NJNC) Agreement, and the wholly separate matter of annual cost-of-living increases.

The 2016 agreement delivered a three-year plan for equal pay across the sector, with all lecturers on a new national scale point by April 2019. While this represented an increase for some lecturers, others stood still and some promoted lecturers faced salary conservation. No lecturer, promoted or unpromoted, has received a cost-of-living rise since 2016, and widely publicised rises awarded to principals have been met with anger and frustration in staffrooms.

‘Derisory’ college pay offer

Management’s “final offer” is a mish-mash of unconsolidated payments across the sector for 2017 and 2018, with unpromoted staff at North East Scotland College (Nescol) receiving the maximum £600 and £1,000 and most unpromoted lecturers gaining nothing, followed by a 2.5 per cent consolidated increase in 2019. This, in effect, is a 2.5 per cent cost-of-living rise over a three-year period, well below the rate of inflation and in defiance of the government’s commitment to lift the public sector pay cap.

The offer becomes derisory when you work out that for lecturers at Nescol it represents a £1 pay increase in 2019!

While the ballot question will focus on pay, the roots of this dispute reach beyond an annual cost-of-living rise. Lecturers in Scottish FE are rapidly losing patience with a management side which has sought to thwart national bargaining since its inception, from the refusal to honour the 2016 deal to the myriad local frustrations in implementing the 2017 agreements on core terms and conditions.

Lecturer workload and adequate time for preparation, marking and student guidance have long been key issues for EIS-FELA and were a focal point in the strike action which brought the sector to a halt last year. The agreement sets out a weekly timetabled maximum class contact of 23 hours, with provision for an additional hour to be used for cover or internal verification to a maximum of eight weeks in any consecutive 12 teaching weeks. Local managements have tied themselves in knots in their attempts to undermine this, with suggestions ranging from cutting five minutes from every class to removing breaks.

Colleges ‘not committed to national bargaining’

Such efforts reinforce lecturers’ belief that colleges are not committed to national bargaining, and previous government-led efforts to “learn the lessons” and take a broader view of the future of the sector have come to nought around the negotiating table. The chaotic non-appointment of Gillian Martin and subsequent delay in appointing a new minister have given the impression once again that further education - and further education learners - are simply not a priority for the government until strike action looms.

Further education is central to the government’s hopes of widening participation and closing the attainment gap, particularly in Stem and other skills-shortage areas. Colleges play a pivotal role in the Scottish economy and in our wider society, and we do so while working with learners from working-class backgrounds who face multiple barriers to accessing education.

It’s high time that the government recognised this and invested accordingly - for without high-quality, qualified, experienced teaching staff, colleges are empty shells in which no learner can fulfil their potential.

National bargaining has brought the sector together after a quarter-century in our incorporated college silos, and it has done this on a truly national basis, from the City of Glasgow super-college to a six-person picket line on Benbecula. It has engaged FE lecturers in discussions in staffrooms, on social media and on the streets - not only about pay and conditions but also about what it means to be a lecturer, about teaching qualifications and CPD, and about the role and future of our sector. For many college principals, in contrast, national bargaining represents only a threat to their power and ego, the dismantling of their local empire.

The return to national bargaining has long been an aspiration of both EIS-FELA and the Scottish government, and it will not be delivered until all agreed elements on equal pay and conditions have been implemented. No one wants further strike action in the sector, but until management get around the negotiating table - and there is the political will to force this - no progress will be made.

Pam Currie is president of the EIS Further Education Lecturers’ Association (EIS-FELA)