KEY officials from a Scottish college at the centre of a row over severance payments will be forced to give evidence to a Scottish Parliament inquiry if they refuse to attend.

Holyrood’s public audit committee has written to former staff members from Coatbridge College, Lanarkshire, to find out what happened.

Paul Martin, convener of the committee, said witnesses who were reluctant to provide evidence would be compelled to attend under the terms of the 1998 Scotland Act.

Under the legislation a witness failing to appear could be fined or even imprisoned for up to three months.

Mr Martin said: "We are seeking written evidence from key individuals involved with Coatbridge College.

"If any of those we subsequently invite to appear before us refuse to come to Holyrood, I will have no hesitation in exercising the option to compel them to do so."

The investigation was launched after the Auditor General Caroline Gardner raised serious concerns about financial deals for senior managers who left the college when it merged with two others to form New College Lanarkshire.

The college’s former principal John Doyle, who received a severance payment of £304,000 before he retired, is one of those who will be asked to give evidence.

Former acting principal Margaret Rose Livingstone, who was paid £120,000 and is now working for schools quango Education Scotland as an inspector, will also be asked to give her views, along with others who received severance packages.

In addition, the committee is writing to the former chairman of the board John Gray, his replacement Thomas Keenan and members of the remuneration committee who sanctioned the pay-offs.

And senior officials from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), which provided the money for part of the pay-offs, will also be called to explain why they were approved despite concerns.

MSPs launched the investigation after it emerged that seven people from the college shared payments totalling £850,000.

The case, which came at a time when college budgets were being cut and staff laid off, was described by Ms Gardner as one of the most serious failures in governance she had ever encountered.

Because there was nothing illegal in the way the payments were made, the principal and officials cannot be prosecuted nor the money recovered.

Ms Gardner told the public audit committee last week: “These are very serious failures of governance, amongst the most serious that I have seen in my time in this role.

“What appears to have happened is the chair of the board and the principal worked together to achieve a certain outcome, with members of the remuneration committee not receiving the information they needed to make their decision, and not receiving the concerns that had been raised by the SFC.

“It was a deliberate withholding of information, as far as I am able to draw a conclusion from the evidence that is there.”

Thirty-three staff left Coatbridge College as part of the merger, at a total cost of £1.7 million, of which the SFC contributed £1.3 million and the college contributed £397,945.

The accounts note that the SFC had concerns about the severance terms for the principal and senior management team and reinforced its guidance on several occasions.

"However, the college’s chair and principal did not provide the remuneration committee with advice provided by the SFC," the accounts add.