A DECISION to axe around 16 staff at a Taunton college could impact on students’ exams, it was claimed yesterday (Wednesday).

Managers at Somerset College hope some of the 362 teaching and non-teaching staff will take voluntary redundancy, but they have not ruled out forced job losses.

They say they have to trim employee numbers because of budget constraints.

A member of staff, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “There’s never a good time to tell people they’re going to lose their jobs, but this is very disruptive around exam time.

“We’re trying to do our best for the students, but you can’t concentrate on the job in hand when people are being called into meetings to be told they could lose their jobs.

“It’s not the first time lots of people have been made redundant at the college and there’s a feeling of instability which is bound to impact on students.”

A spokeswoman at the college, which has over 1,500 students on its campus off Wellington Road, said: “As for any responsible organisation, we constantly review our financial circumstances to ensure we can provide our learners with excellent educational standards, teaching experiences, resources and facilities.

“As part of this, we have recently taken a close look at departmental structures, to consider whether changes are needed to make sure we continue to meet our standards within the budget available.

“We have concluded that, unfortunately, we need to make some changes to staff roles and responsibilities.

“Regrettably, this means that redundancies are likely.

“At this stage, we anticipate no more than 16 redundancies.

“We hope that this will include voluntary redundancies for some individuals, but some compulsory redundancies may be unavoidable.”

The County Gazette approached the University and College Union for a comment but the organisation declined to make a statement “at this stage”.