Created on: 10 Sep 2026
The report on Scotland’s Colleges 2026 by Audit Scotland reports a picture of a collective of colleges who reported surplus in 2020/21 becoming a collective of colleges reporting deficits which are predicted to continue for the next few years, despite additional Scottish Government funding this year.
Whilst the report praises the “resilience” shown by colleges (i.e. staff) for meeting their credit delivery targets and ensuring the proportion of students successfully completing courses rose in 2024/25, EIS-FELA highlights that it goes on to note opinion from “college finance directors and business development network members” that nationally bargained pay and conditions for those staff are “barriers” to income generation.
EIS General Secretary, Andrea Bradley, said “The EIS view is that colleges need to have proper public sector investment which follows the learner and provides a pathway into further learning and, as appropriate, employment, which helps to achieve the educational and socio-economic aspirations of our society.
"Making savings and growing commercial income is a distraction from the core purpose.
“College employers will often attribute their deficits to the impact of pay awards, pension and National Insurance costs; but what do they want to do with their income if not pay staff fairly?
"Staff are the ones delivering the education. A race to the bottom on wages and terms and conditions only increases the income and wealth gap in this country - something which colleges are supposed to be actively working to reduce.
“Additional to their educational mission, colleges offer significant return on investment for the economy. Increasing funding to colleges directly fuels economic activity, providing the workforce for priority sectors.
"Beyond the economic argument, colleges are anchor institutions in communities which improve the life choices and chances for disadvantaged people and communities.
"They are spaces to come together and share social and cultural differences, learning from each other. However, it now seems the Scottish Government is not even asking colleges to use any additional grants from the Scottish Funding Council for workforce and curriculum development.
"Instead, they are asking them to divert it from learning and teaching into hiring business development staff. This begs the question, what is the purpose of a college, if not the delivery of education for students?”
EIS-FELA Vice President, Dr Thora Hands, said, “Contrary to the frequent rhetoric from college bosses that nationally negotiated staff costs are their biggest challenge, the source of any financial problems in colleges is ultimately long-term under-investment, with weak governance structures, and lack of strategic leadership.
“EIS-FELA are disappointed there is no mention of the inflation-proofed interest rates of the public/private partnerships which built some of the college estates when the Auditor General reported on how the deficits may have arisen.
"Those rates were negotiated, we assume, in the same good faith as national pay awards have been negotiated and yet they never seem to be factored into discussions on deficit.
"Full transparency on the costs associated with these PFI-style agreements is required to ensure there is no maligning of staffing costs whilst money seems to vanish into these finance deals.
Dr Hands continued, “EIS-FELA are also concerned, however, at the selection of opinions used as evidence in the preparation of this report, and, crucially, what is omitted. For example, the opinion of finance managers and business development network members that ‘associate trainers’ are one mitigation of national bargaining is quite shocking.
"This is short-hand for preference for employing agency staff on precarious contracts, and inferior pay and terms and conditions than those they work alongside. This is often for up to five years, with those workers consequently struggling to get a mortgage or plan for a family. This is the human cost of cutting corners on terms and conditions.”
“Furthermore, there is undoubtedly an ongoing challenge in ensuring the funds going to colleges are delivered to a direct point of contact with learners. The Audit Scotland report draws little distinction between nationally negotiated staff costs, and ‘other’ staff costs.
"Results from EIS-FELA’s own research found that the numbers of senior staff have increased across the college sector and their pay is not subject to national negotiations.”
Sarah Collins, National Officer for Further Education with the EIS, and Joint Secretary for Lecturers of the National Negotiating Committee, said “Let’s be clear that lecturers’ pay increases during the highlighted years of deficit (2022/23, 23/24, 24/25) are £2,000, £1,500, and £1,500 respectively for each lecturer.
"This was in a period when inflation was over 11% by 2022 and over 7% in 2022-2024. The pay rises awarded – through national bargaining, therefore agreed by the employer and with additional funding from the Scottish Government of £4.5m per year, were very moderate rises in real terms.”
“Audit Scotland makes no recommendation with regards to national bargaining itself, and we believe a national bargaining framework facilitates good industrial relations which, in turn, should enable colleges to plan better, including for pay awards, reducing the need for additional funding from government as has happened previously when industrial relations had broken down.
"We have entered a new period in national bargaining whereby pay for 2026-29 has already been agreed, without industrial action, allowing colleges to better plan and use national bargaining more effectively going forward.”
EIS-FELA have raised concerns in respect of funding, staffing and governance as part of the ongoing work with Colleges of the Future, including a joint union and NUS Scotland letter to the Minister around lack of input into the ‘evidence base’ of the Scottish Government’s workstream.