SPECIALIST negotiators have been drafted in as a last resort to solve an increasingly bitter battle over pay and conditions in Scotland’s college sector.

ACAS is to step in after the failure of Colleges Scotland and the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) to reach agreement before planned strike action next week.

The row centres on a commitment from the Scottish Government to introduce pay harmonisation across the country which unions say should already be in the process of being implemented.

However, college management argue a separate deal needs to be struck on holidays and working hours before the roll-out of new salary structures.

A spokeswoman for the Colleges Scotland Employers’ Association accused the

EIS of striking for “more holidays and fewer working hours”.

She said: “They are striking to get more money for less work when the deal put on the table by employers is not only fair, but beneficial.

“The only thing standing between lecturers and an average pay rise of nine per cent is the EIS insistence on 66 days holiday and a teaching working week of just 21 hours.”

She said employers had already agreed to the pay rise and proposed a “generous package” of 56 days holiday and a teaching working week of up to 26 hours.

However, the EIS accused Colleges Scotland of reneging on the earlier agreement.

Larry Flanagan, EIS general secretary, said: “Lecturers have been waiting more than a year for management to deliver a binding agreement, including the introduction of national pay scales to ensure lecturers across Scotland are paid the same amount for doing the same job.

“It is deeply regrettable the organisation representing college management continues to rely on an unnamed spokeswoman to peddle alternative facts.”

John Kelly, president of the EIS Further Education Lecturer’ Association, added: “The EIS is not striking to get more money. The EIS is striking to get the binding agreement made last March implemented.

“The EIS has already demonstrated compromise in the negotiations with Colleges Scotland, negotiations that have already agreed national pay scales, pay migration and harmonisation and most national conditions of service.”

The issue has its roots in the SNP’s manifesto for the 2011 Holyrood elections where they pledged to introduce national pay bargaining and harmonisation.

Under the previous system of local bargaining significant differences had opened up in terms and conditions with some staff earning as much as £12,000 more for a similar job and others receiving up to a week more in holidays.

The March 2016 agreement was popular with unions because it established £40,000 as the top of the salary scale for an un-promoted lecturer, with the increases phased in over three years.

However, the sticking point is that colleges want reforms to terms and conditions in return.

The rationale for this is a section of the March agreement which states the EIS and management side “will also immediately develop a common set of terms and conditions for all teaching staff”.

Colleges Scotland argues this means moving all lecturers onto a new pay scale is inextricably linked to the wider issue of what it sees as more modern terms and conditions.

It further accuses the EIS of demanding an increase to 66 days holiday and a reduction to 21 hours class contact for teaching staff with the union “unwilling to compromise on overall reforms to pay and conditions of service... jointly agreed last March”.

The EIS is equally adamant the March agreement does not state that pay harmonisation will only be paid if national terms and conditions are agreed first highlighting separate implementation dates for the two strands of negotiation.

It states: “The employers have adopted this position after the agreement because they knew we would never agree to it."