A WAVE of redundancies at Forth Valley College has been avoided after an essential consultation process managed to save £2million.

The college entered the consultation process in May after finding out they would be receiving a 10 per cent cut in credit allocation.

Senior management at the college had to look for alternatives to redundancies to combat increased energy costs and inflation levels sitting at just over 10 per cent.

Several changes were made across the three Forth Valley campuses, which saw the removal of some courses to mitigate the reduction in credits and a re-launch of the college-wide voluntary severance scheme.

Evening classes at the Alloa campus were scrapped amid low demand and increasing energy and operational costs in addition to a number of corporate services teams being restructured.

Kenny MacInnes, principal and chief executive at FVC, said: “Due to a challenging financial climate, Forth Valley College took the difficult decision to launch a consultation exercise in May this year, to ensure the financial stability of the college.

“We were required to make savings of £2m and we hopes that a reorganisation and a new voluntary severance scheme for staff would prevent us from having to make compulsory redundancies from our academy and support staff workforce.

“I can confirm we have managed to do that, whilst at the same time trying to make sure that the impact on our students was as low as possible.

“Overall, 109 students were directly affected by the changes in our reorganisation, but they were either offered direct alternatives, or referred to support and guidance to discuss options.

“As a result of the changes, we are now able to look positively to the future on a stable financial foundation and continue making learning work for the people of Forth Valley and beyond.

“We understand that any change can be difficult; however, it was vital for us to take these difficult measures to support the security and long-term future of Forth Valley College.”