Test case could cost colleges thousands

A tribunal begins on Monday that could cost colleges thousands of pounds in back holiday pay to lecturers. The Lecturers Employment Advice and Action Fellowship has brought the test case against Havering College, Essex, arguing that further education college staff should have benefited from a European directive entitling them to four weeks' holiday pay, two years before it came into force last October. It will also argue that lecturers' terms and conditions should not have been changed following transfer of colleges from local authority control to governing bodies in 1993 and lecturers should be compensated.