College workers to step up fight for better funding

The sector faces a £34.6 million cut this year under the SNP's "regionalisation" policy, amounting to more than 6 per cent - while college payrolls shrank by 8 per cent over the last year alone.

Unison regional organiser Emma Phillips said her members faced a "double whammy" of deep funding cuts and mergers with other institutions.

But they would not go silently, she vowed: the union would deliver 1,300 postcards to Holyrood to symbolise the 1,300 jobs lost since 2010.

The union is demanding "decent funding," an end to compulsory redundancies, privatisation and "so-called back office cuts," along with a living wage for all staff directly or indirectly employed by colleges.

The union's further education committee chairman Chris Greenshields had earlier told MSPs that the cuts would stretch a sector already unable to keep up with demand.

Already 5,800 students were turned away from overstretched colleges last year, according to recently released official figures.