Staff at Lambeth College have voted to go on indefinite strike in a row over proposed changes to terms and conditions.

A ballot among University and College Union (UCU) members was supported by 89 per cent of voters —with turnout of 72 per cent.

The proposed strike plans mean that once the strike started, it could continue until the matter was resolved, and a statement from the UCU said the union had authorised £50 per day in strike pay for the duration of the strike.

The date of the start of the strike is expected to be announced on Tuesday.

UCU regional official Una O’Brien said: “The overwhelming mandate from UCU members at Lambeth, despite pressure from the college and the knowledge that this could be a long and bitter dispute, is quite remarkable.

“We hope that the college will now move away from confrontation and sit down with us to resolve this mess.”

The dispute was sparked last month when the college introduced new contracts for staff joining after April 1, which a UCU statement said would “leave them with bigger workloads, but less sick pay and fewer holidays”.

Lambeth College had previously taken out a court injunction preventing the one-day strike on May 1 from continuing indefinitely, on the grounds that the ballot paper did not make clear that the changed contracts would apply to new staff only.

Ms O’Brien said: “The college was wrong to resort to anti-union legislation in an effort to halt staff from taking legitimate strike action.

“Delaying the strike thanks to a technicality has done nothing to improve relations with staff and only hardens our members’ resolve in this fight to defend working conditions.”

The injunction meant the UCU was prevented from taking further strike action without re-balloting its members and the initial ballot, which was supported by 95 per cent of a 70 per cent turnout.

Mark Silverman, principal of Lambeth College, said: “We were pleased that the court intervened and ordered that indefinite industrial action could not commence on May 1.

“To have allowed it to have gone ahead would have been deeply damaging to the students, who are preparing for year end tests and the community that the college serves.

“UCU intended to inflict the maximum damage on the college and its students, and I am pleased that we were able to avoid that.

“I am only sorry that the Union would not accept the weight of our arguments, and forced us to take this step, spending hard pressed college funds on this legal dispute – although UCU was ordered to pay our costs.

“We wish UCU could see that the steps we are taking are in the interests of our students, and the long term interests of staff, and reflect our determination to transform the College into an outstanding educational organisation delivering, day in day out, excellent opportunities to our students.

“This is a critical time for learners, who are taking examinations, seeing final tutor support for successful completion of their courses.

“The right thing for learners right now would be for UCU to recommend that their teachers put the learners first and suspend strike action.”

Further Education Commissioner Dr David Collins (pictured) has taken his tally of college reviews to 10, and will outline findings with an annual report this autumn.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) revealed that Dr Collins has been Weymouth College, Bicton College, City of Wolverhampton College and Stratford-upon-Avon College, on top of the six visits already reported by FE Week.

Dr Collins’s role means he is called in to colleges when they receive a grade four “inadequate” rating from Ofsted, are presented with a notice of financial concern or fail to meet national performance standards.

All four of the colleges in the recent announcement had been given grade two or three ratings in their last inspections.

It was previously reported that Dr Collins had been to K College, Stockport College, City of Liverpool College, City of Bristol College, Lesoco and Barnfield College.

Summarised reports of the commissioner’s college visits are expected to start being being released by the end of the month, but a senior civil servant has revealed that Dr Collins would also be producing an annual report on his findings.

Jon Howlin, assistant director for vocational education, said during a speech to a Westminster Education Forum seminar yesterday (Thursday, May 22) on accountability in 16 to 19 education and training, that the first annual report was due out in the autumn.

After speaking about the process followed by Dr Collins and his advisers during inquiries, he acknowledged the need to make the process open and accountable.

He said: “The process has been operating since August 2013 and we have done around 10 cases at the moment. We do recognise the importance that the process is open and transparent, and the sector can learn the lessons from those who have gone through the process.

“We intend to publish a more detailed process which builds on this high level summary in the next few days so all colleges and institutions can see how this works.

“The commissioner will also produce an annual report setting out the lessons learned from his assessments and the impact, hopefully positive, of the intervention process.

“The report will be published in the autumn and sent to all colleges and institutions.”

It comes with the Department for Education (DfE) facing questions about the treatment of independent learning providers (ILPs) following a grade four, or inadequate, Ofsted inspection result.

Education Funding Agency senior manager Karen Murray told delegates that of seven “commercial and charitable”  providers — so possibly employer providers, as well as ILPs — graded inadequate, two had gone through a “recovery process” that allowed them to hold onto government training contracts whereas the remaining five, it is understood, lost their contracts because of the Ofsted grading.

The DfE is yet to respond on the issue.

The Skills Funding Agency has produced its long-awaited and overdue online Learning Aims Reference System (Lars).

It is an online tool that allows providers to, among other things, look up qualification funding values.

And it went live today [click here for Lars] with learning aims data for the current academic year and also 2014/15.

It had been due out for the start of 2013/14 as part of the agency’s wider data collections and funding transformation programme.

A new funding information system (Fis) was also part of the revamp, but it has produced inaccurate reports. And Online Data Collection (OLDC) system replacement the Hub has also had problems.

But in November the agency conceded it was struggling to develop Lars in time for the R04 data return deadline the following month, and instead produced “Lars Lite” — which didn’t contain 2014/15 data.

However, there were reports that Lars Lite, a temporary downloadable database from the SFA, itself produced unreliable data.

The problems could now be over though, with an SFA spokesperson revealing that Lars was now live.

They said: “On Thursday, May 22, we will make a new learning aims search facility available in the Hub.”

They added: “This will replace Lars Lite and the simplified funding rates catalogue, which we will decommission in the coming months.

“We will also release an update to Fis to support the processing of 2014 to 2015 Individualised Learner Record (ILR) files alongside ILR files for 2013 to 2014. A reinstallation is not required.”

Lars helps providers’ Management Information System (MIS) officers check whether qualifications are eligible for funding, and how much per learner providers should receive.