The chairman of governors at a further education college has been forced to resign.

George Mardle, a Keele University lecturer and chairman of Social Services at Staffordshire County Council, failed to have his co-option to Stoke on Trent College Corporation renewed last Friday and resigned as chairman with immediate effect.

Two months ago a study by lecturers' union Natfhe uncovered complaints of poor staff morale, stress, increased workloads and intimidatory management style.

Ron Lucas, a member of the corporation, said: "In the light of representations made to certain governors by college staff over recent months and following the results of the Natfhe survey, the governors wanted to take decisive action to improve staff morale and in the wider interests of the college."

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Kevin Farrell, chief executive of the British Ceramic Confederation, will take over as chair of the corporation until the annual general meeting on November 29 when the matter will be considered again.

The corporation agreed in principle that the chairmanship should be held by an independent rather than a co-opted member in future.

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But Mr Mardle accused a group on the corporation of "attempted undermining of the college management". He said he had tried to addr- ess complaints raised by staff; none related to Mr Mardle personally.

A further survey, published this week by public sector union Unison, found that 64 per cent of respondents from the college regularly experienced harassment or bullying and 97 per cent regularly had lack of confidence in their manager. Unison, which received 203 replies out of the 0 questionnaires sent out, also complains that its members have been made redundant from jobs in which students are now being employed at Pounds 4 an hour.

But a college spokesman said: "Students are employed in our learning resources centre but we are not employing them in work which staff who accepted voluntary redundancy would have been doing."