A college in Birmingham is to axe some of its staff and has made its finance director the new acting principal as it admits it is facing money problems.
A spokeswoman for Bournville College said principal Norman Cave was "currently unavailable due to personal reasons", while revealing finance director Michael Hill had taken over as acting principal.
And she admitted the £66 million state-of-the-art college, which opened its doors just three years ago after relocating from Selly Oak to its new site in Longbridge, was suffering "financial challenges".
She confirmed four agency staff had been axed while permanent staff were also being asked to take voluntary redundancy.
However, she would not comment on how many staff would lose their jobs, adding: "We are in very early stages of looking at finances so cannot comment on this."
She added: "Financial challenges are facing the whole further education sector at the moment.
"We are responding to these challenges as we do every year. As part of this response, we have invited staff to apply for voluntary severance and we are reviewing contracts with agency workers.
"We can confirm that only four agency contracts have been terminated in the process.
"None of these workers were teachers and the longest-serving agency worker had been here only six months."
While the Department for Education's funding for five to 16 year old has been protected, the budget for 16 to 18 year olds has been slashed.
A spokeswoman for the Association of Colleges said there had been no considered rationale for the funding cuts, bar the "crude need" for the Government to save money.
"We think that, in the 16 to 18 budget, there's been an eight per cent reduction," she added.
"These, remember, are students on the way to university or employment and deserve the funding they need."
She said the cuts also impacted on teenagers who had failed to obtain a grade A* to C in maths and English GCSE - qualifications deemed vital for them to continue on to higher education.
