Following the
Cardiff University cuts
that were announced not so long ago, Dundee University has had to make
similar decisions.
Staff were told the news of the plans to cut 632 jobs during a meeting on
Tuesday. The number of possible job losses is equivalent to 20% of the
university’s workforce of 3,000 people.
The staff and union reaction
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “It’s four months since workers first
learned that there was a problem, and it feels that very little has
happened in the intervening period to turn the university around.”
Ahead of staff cuts being announced, a protest was led outside the
university before the meeting on Tuesday.
In support,
Unite
– who represent the workers at the university – has responded by stating
that such redundancies will not be “tolerated”, and that in order to
protect jobs all available options will be considered first.
The trade union has suggested that the “very existence” of the university
itself is under threat. Despite an additional £15 million given by the
Scottish Government to support Scottish universities, more measures were
needed in order to save workers at Dundee University.
However, the general secretary at Unite, Sharon Graham, believes “plain and
simple” that the “distressing situation” is caused by a fault in the
university’s “gross financial mismanagement.”
Poor leadership accusations
The BBC reports that Principal Prof Iain Gillespie
told staff in November
that job losses were “inevitable” and blamed “an extremely challenging
period” for the UK higher education sector.
Yet, Prof Gillespie
resigned a month later
after news came out of a £7,000 business trip he took to Hong Kong with a
colleague, which the university defended.
This lead to staff questioning the fairness of if they were losing their
jobs due to expensive trips that the principal had been taken.
Will more universities follow suit?
CEO Today
predicted that a 72% financial deficit would occur during the 2025-26
academic year, “with an anticipated total deficit of £1.6 billion across the
sector.”
Dundee wasn’t originally listed by CEO Today as a university whose
financial issues were well-known, however the recent job cuts hint at the
tip of an iceberg full of issues.
The recent issues that are causing job losses and funding cuts are a result
of the overall budget decrease in funding for higher education. So, more
announcements like that in Dundee, will be expected to appear across the UK
as universities struggle to find the funding to pay staff.
The Tab has reported that even Russel Group universities will be making
cut-backs on staff.
However, recent evidence of the poor management of the University of
Dundee’s finances, could also be a main source of the blame.
