WEYMOUTH College’s interim principal says a quarter of a million pounds could be saved by joining forces with Yeovil College.

Alan Birks has taken charge of the further education college following the departure of deputy principal Paul Lonsdale.

He said collaboration with Yeovil was likely to save on costs but jobs will not be lost from Weymouth.

Both Yeovil and Weymouth colleges are involved in a project known as the Wessex Federation, which will examine the creation of a shared service centre and cost and efficiency saving measures for five colleges.

Mr Birks said: “Weymouth College is financially secure at the moment but a lot of colleges are under pressure to try to collaborate so they can share services.

“We’ve been in discussion with Yeovil to see if we can solidify this a bit more and put money back into the curriculum.

“If you can share financial services then we may not need to replace Mr Lonsdale because there will be a director of finances at Yeovil.

“The issue is ‘could we save a principal’s salary?’ and that’s for the governors to decide.”

Mr Birks, 63, who has worked in further education for 35 years, said a decision on recruiting a new principal would be made in March.

He said: “The governors wanted a bit more time to think things through. Weymouth College has got a healthy bank balance.

“This is about trying to predict the future right in the middle of cuts coming through from the Comprehensive Spending Review and all of the further education sectors will be cut.”

Mr Birks retired as principal of South Birmingham College.

The former engineer said: “All colleges are looking at ways they can preserve front line services and one way is to share resources.

“There will not be job losses at Weymouth, it will come mainly through natural wastage.

“We could be looking at saving a quarter of a million pounds. Software licensing is one of the things we could share. It could all be delivered through a company.

“We’re also looking at what we can do to become more useful to the local community.

“Given the location of Weymouth we could be offering marine engineering courses or courses in boat building.”

The other colleges in the Wessex Federation partnership are Kingston Maurward College, Bournemouth and Poole College and Brockenhurst College.

A Yeovil College spokesman said the Wessex Federation partnership would improve quality through sharing best practice, identify areas where the colleges can work together to deliver better services and identify areas where the colleges can share some aspects of support to reduce costs.

Plenty of changes on campus

MANY changes have taken place at Weymouth College recently.

Deputy principal Paul Lonsdale recently took up a post at New College in Nottingham.

His departure comes after Weymouth College principal Sue Moore retired in December.

Last summer there was a vote of no confidence in senior management by staff, which was backed by Unison and the University and College Union.

In May, jobs were axed as the college faced the loss of seven per cent of its income budget totalling £1million.

The same month an Ofsted re-inspection monitoring visit found there had been reasonable progress in the college’s self-assessment and improvement planning, outcomes for learners and quality of provision but there had been insufficient progress for leadership and management A six per cent reduction of staffing, up to 30 jobs, was proposed followed by a 30-day consultation process.

In April, students protested against the scrapping of A levels at the college, making Budmouth College the sole provider of A levels in Weymouth.