New College Worcester to make redundancies to reduce costs

New College Worcester (NCW), based in Whittington Road, said it will reduce costs by making a small number of compulsory redundancies within its care staff team.

NCW said it underwent a comprehensive review of all aspects of the school to maintain high-quality teaching while addressing any imbalance between income and expenditure.

As a result, it said it has introduced compulsory redundancies while also introducing opportunities for people to move roles.

There have also been new roles introduced and contracts.

Rachel Perks, principal at New College Worcester, said the team is committed to supporting all its staff members during this difficult period.

She added: “NCW is the only national provider of residential secondary education for academically able vision-impaired (VI) students in the UK, with a proud history stretching back 150 years.

"As with all organisations, we need to ensure that we are adapting to an everchanging economic and political landscape and that we are financially able to maintain our large and historic estate.

“In order to ensure we can continue to provide the best support for our students, we need to introduce new roles, shifts and contracts that more effectively align with what our students and parents need.

"Unfortunately, this is likely to result in a small number of compulsory redundancies within our care staff team.

"We are working hard to minimise this through making cost savings and efficiencies where possible and providing multiple opportunities for people to move into new roles.

"We are committed to supporting all of our staff members through this difficult period.

"By taking these steps, we can overcome these financial pressures to secure our unique offering for generations to come and create a clear path to a new era for the school and young people with vision impairments.”

NCW said it is liaising closely with the Department for Education and the Education and Skills Funding Agency, which support their actions.