Tavish Scott: Budgets cuts to higher eduction will lead to enforced centralisation and government control

IT IS a brave government minister who takes on Scotland’s seats of learning. As a trade union block, the university principals know how to push the right buttons, rally academia and keep the capital’s tearooms in a state of suspended animation. So Mike Russell has not.

The higher education minister had a clear choice between a row with Scotland’s universities or colleges over money – and he chose the latter. It was his call on a policy area completely devolved on how to cut his monetary cake. As Scotland’s unemployed overtakes the rest of the UK, the Nationalist government slashed the budget of colleges responsible for vocational training particularly for young people.

The repercussions of this decision are now being felt. Having cut their budgets, the minister then wrote to every college boss telling them that the “no compulsory redundancies” policy applies to them. He received by return a series of letters pointing out that colleges are independent bodies and they take their own decisions on staff. I am told the minister was furious. Retribution takes many forms, but there is a consistent theme to Nationalist payback.

It is enforced centralisation and government control. Scotland’s fire and police services will soon be directly controlled by the First Minister. The NHS has for many years been under such a regime. I hear that during the recent panic over weather, NHS boards spent more time explaining their contingency plans to the ministerial office than they did on actual preparations. And so with colleges who are being forced into mergers. Some make sense. In Scotland’s urban heartlands a strategic vision of vocational education across city regions can work where public transport provides access, but even here young people from financially stretched backgrounds will struggle.

But in rural Scotland this centralising approach will not deliver more for less or even the same for less. Less will be less. In many parts of the country the local college is the provider of vocational courses. A reduced college curriculum means that local school leavers will simply have no choice.

The Scottish Government suggests they can, in Norman Tebbit’s phrase, get on their bikes and go to a college where a particular course is taught, but if there is no road because you grew up on an island than that is hardly an option.

Transport costs mean school leavers do not have the mobility of others. The Scottish Government also fail to recognise the diversity of the Scottish economy. The ancient professions of law, accountancy and learning mean undertaking a university degree in one of Scotland’s big cities.

But what should have the university principals musing over their tea is that this could happen to them. In previous Nationalist budgets the universities have fought their corner publicly. Nationalist ministers have not forgotten. There will be payback.