UNISON members provide essential roles across higher and further education, these roles while often overlooked by policy makers are crucial to the functioning of education institutions and to the student experience. The Post-16 Education Act (2013) was intended to bring substantial changes to the organisation and governance of the sector. The Audit Scotland reports support UNISON calls for much more to be done to resolve outstanding staffing issues from mergers and regionalisation. Staffing issues cannot be an afterthought.
We welcome the calls for better measuring and reporting on both the costs and savings of the mergers and reporting on the costs and benefits of the mergers process and the new ways of working. UNISON also supports a review of the role of the SFC in relation to the organisations which it funds and the Scottish government. We believe that there needs to be much clearer and stronger accountability from higher and further education institutions for the public money they receive and the vital role they have in Scottish public and economic life.