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The Scottish Office has intervened to avert financial disaster at Clydebank College with a loan of almost Pounds 1 million, writes Olga Wojtas.

The deal includes the appointment of consultants who will recommend what action needs to be taken to ensure the further education college is financially viable in a year's time.

It follows several days of industrial action over the past month, in protest at the college's failure to offer its lecturers a pay rise in the current session.

Ian McCalman, president of the Educational Institute of Scotland, urged the government to give financial support "to a college apparently now unable to offer lecturers a level of pay appropriate to any comparable group of professionals."