Birmingham Metropolitan College defends nursery closure and job cuts

Apr 7 2010 By Catherine Lillington

A Birmingham college which has announced 100 job cuts and the closure of a nursery has defended its plans and blamed the Government for reducing its public spending.

Union leaders accused Birmingham Metropolitan College of breaking promises on job security made when Sutton Coldfield College and Matthew Boulton College merged last year.

Meanwhile, mothers staged a protest after it emerged the nursery on the Sutton campus will shut in September.

Student and mother Emily Thornton said she might have to drop her two-year health and social diploma if there’s nowhere to leave her ten-month-old daughter Scarlet.

The 18-year-old, who lives in Sutton and hopes to become a nurse or midwife, said: “It’s absolutely atrocious they’re doing this, they’re affecting my future and my daughter’s future.

“The Government said that children and young people should be able to get futures and have good jobs but they’re taking this facility away so we will be unable to get the degrees and qualifications we need.”

The University and College Union, which represents lecturers at the college, said the college was using funding cuts as an excuse to get rid of staff and claimed it always planned to downsize.

It warned it would be fighting the losses, due this summer, and its members could be balloted for industrial action if talks failed to achieve changes to the college’s proposals.

Principal Christine Braddock said: “For some time we have been planning for the expected reductions to our allocations, following Government cuts in public spending.

"We are part of the whole college sector which at the moment is experiencing reductions to budgets, particularly around adult learners.