criticised on finance (April 30). Your statement that ''only three of Scotland's 43 further education colleges have a strategy to improve their financial health'' is inaccurate and potentially misleading.
In fact, the National Audit Office's report, ''Corporate Governance and Financial Management in the Scottish Further Education Sector,'' was based on a sample of only 12 colleges out of Scotland's 43 incorporated colleges of further education. No assessment was made of 31 colleges not included in the sample, nor of the steps which the FE sector was already taking.
NAO has given some useful pointers for improving both financial management and governance in colleges. Many of its recommendations were already being addressed by colleges at their own initiative, at the behest of the Scottish Office as the funding authority, or by taking forward guidelines on governance which the Association of Scottish Colleges issued last year. A survey of the whole sector today would show much more positive results.
It is unfortunate, therefore, that you have reported a comment by the EIS on the Governance aspects of the report without first checking the facts and current position in the sector. Colleges have responded very positively to the recommendations by the Nolan (now Neill) Committee on Standards in Public Life about appointments and other matters of governance.
The colleges are making great efforts to ensure that the public has confidence in the governance and accountability of FE colleges. The NAO report provided both a spur to further improvement and an initial - if rather belated - appreciation of progress already made.
A more balanced picture would have emerged had you sought ASC's comments as the representative body for FE colleges in Scotland.
Robert Kay,
Chairman,
Association of Scottish Colleges,
Castle Business Park, Stirling.
May 5.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article