Job losses 'inevitable' at Scottish university to deal with 'very difficult' £30m deficit

The university has become the latest to indicate it will need to cut jobs to meet a projected deficit of up to £30 million

Staff at Dundee University have been told that job losses are “inevitable” as the institution grapples with a looming £30 million deficit.

University principal Prof Iain Gillespie has used an all-staff email, seen by The Courier, to say the institution was planning for "a significant deficit" for the next financial year.

The university had already announced a recruitment freeze.

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The University of Dundee has flagged staffing cuts to meet a 30 million pound deficit. Picture: NationalWorldThe University of Dundee has flagged staffing cuts to meet a 30 million pound deficit. Picture: NationalWorld
The University of Dundee has flagged staffing cuts to meet a 30 million pound deficit. Picture: NationalWorld | TSPL

But Prof Gillespie used his email to outline how Dundee was still looking at a deficit of between £25m and £30m next year amid "an extremely challenging period" for Scotland’s higher education sector.

Prof Gillespie told staff: "We must take further action now to address our financial stability and long-term future.

"Given the profile of our costs, it is inevitable this will mean a reduction in our staffing levels. This will be a very difficult period, certainly for this financial year and next."

Dundee University employs more than 3,000 people.

Some of the cost challenges have been attributed to the failure to recruit enough fee-paying international students and the long-term decline of government funding.

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Prof Gillespie said in the email: “While we have done well in recent years to recruit record numbers of international students, a significant drop in recruitment this academic year, combined with other factors, means we are now planning for a significant deficit in this financial year.

“We now have measures in place to reduce our costs including a freeze on recruitment, including on filling vacancies for existing posts, [and] reducing operational expenditure.”

He added: “This will be a very difficult period, certainly for this financial year and next. We must meet this challenge together as a mutually supportive community.

“The decisions we take will be in the interests of the future health and sustainability of the University but they will not, in many cases, be easy ones.”

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The email comes after The Scotsman reported last week that Robert Gordon University (RGU) in Aberdeen had told staff it planned to make a further 135 redundancies to ensure its long-term “viability”.

The “devastating news” had been delivered to RGU employees at a meeting on Wednesday last week and followed 130 workers already leaving in recent months under voluntary severance schemes.

Staff at Edinburgh University have also been told to cut spending and implement “significant constraint” on recruitment. Sir Peter Mathieson, the university’s principal, wrote to all staff in August outlining the “severity of the financial challenge” in the higher education sector.

Graeme Dey, the further and higher education minister, separated warned in the same month that Scotland’s beleaguered universities and colleges should prepare for fresh budget cuts amid a wider public spending crisis.

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Dundee University College Union (DUCU) said in a letter to its members: "I am writing to you on behalf of the branch committee to express our outrage at the message the principal sent to all staff this morning.

"DUCU was not involved in any conversations that UEG [University Executive Group] had around financial sustainability."

A branch meeting will be held by the union on Friday to address the university's financial situation, which the DUCU said was "now a priority for all our members".

Dundee University declined to comment further.

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