Union says 270 jobs to go as Queen’s seeks voluntary redundancies

Queen’s University Belfast has become the latest UK higher education institution to launch a voluntary severance scheme, with unions warning that 270 jobs are set to go.

Queen’s said that the number of roles being axed would be determined by how many applications there were, and how many were accepted, and stressed that there were no plans for compulsory redundancies.

The local branch of the University and College Union has called an emergency meeting to discuss the plans, complaining that Queen’s was continuing to recruit to non-student-facing and non-research roles while launching the scheme, while also announcing plans for a branch campus in India.

The union questioned why Queen’s, which receives significant funding from the Stormont administration, was “directing taxpayer money into axeing jobs in Northern Ireland while creating them on foreign shores” – and complained that, while the university had been prepared to increase its funding of the Belfast region city deal by “raiding its reserves”, it was “not prepared to take the same action to protect staff jobs”.

Queen’s said it had been forced to act after reporting an operating deficit of £12.7 million for 2023-24, flagging that, unlike universities in England, its domestic recruitment is limited by a numbers cap, and its teaching income does not cover the full cost of tuition.

While in previous years this had been balanced out by international student recruitment, Queen’s was “no exception” to the “sharp decline” in the number of offshore learners enrolling in UK higher education, the university said.

An internal email seen by Times Higher Education indicates that Queen’s has also introduced controls on staff recruitment, including a “recruitment pause for all roles not aligned with our immediate strategic priorities and/or directly linked to current operational needs”, reductions in operating budgets, and “critical evaluation” of investment plans.

Despite these measures, the institution’s funding gap remains “significant”, and the voluntary severance scheme was being launched “as a means to reduce the university’s recurrent costs and to support the return of the annual operating budget to a break-even position”, the email says.

In a statement, Queen’s said that it was “committed to its strategy of investing in the continued development of the university and the future of its staff and the student experience, and its positive impact on Northern Ireland”.

“In the context of the challenging environment widely faced by the higher education sector at present, it is vital that we continue to be proactive and considered in ensuring that the university operates in an effective, efficient and financially sustainable way. In this context, we are announcing the launch of a voluntary severance scheme,” said Alistair Finlay, the interim vice-president and chief people officer.

“The initiative is designed to provide an opportunity for eligible colleagues who may wish to explore new paths or consider a change in their professional journey. Staff can choose to apply or not, without any pressure or obligation.”

UCU said that it was concerned about the impact the redundancy scheme would have on staff workloads, claiming that the severance process required applicants to outline how their duties would be redistributed among remaining colleagues or otherwise curtailed.

“It is scandalous that QUB is putting massive amounts of money into a new campus halfway round the world all the while axeing jobs in Belfast,” said Jo Grady, UCU’s general secretary.

“These decisions by the university management board and senate will inevitably damage the staff experience at QUB by creating unmanageable and unsustainable workloads for those left behind.

“This will adversely impact upon the quality of the student experience and may lead to a further decline in student recruitment.”

The announcement comes after hundreds of job cuts were announced across UK higher education in the last fortnight, with 400 set to go at Cardiff University, 300 at Newcastle University and 200 at Durham University.

chris.havergal@timeshighereducation.com