§ Mr. WillisTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans he has to resolve the dispute between further education lecturers who continued to retain silver book conditions of service in further education colleges after incorporation in 1993 and their employers. [74698]
§ Mr. MudieIt is for individual colleges to decide the conditions of service and what pay increases they will offer their staff, within the resources available to each college and within the framework of the Government's policy on public sector pay. Ministers, however, have consistently emphasised the importance of partnership between employers and staff in delivering the vital contribution of Further Education to our lifelong learning vision. We have been encouraging the national representative bodies to collaborate in the interests of that agenda, and we warmly welcome the announcement by National Association for Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) and the Association of Colleges (AoC) of the end of their dispute.