University bailouts needed as 5,000 jobs axed, UCU tells Labour

The UK’s biggest higher education union has called on the Westminster government to launch an emergency fund to protect university jobs, warning that 5,000 posts have already been axed this academic year and more are set to follow.

Launching a national campaign demanding urgent action from Labour ministers, the University and College Union said that more than 30 universities had announced redundancies since September, and another five had opened voluntary severance schemes without saying how many roles they wanted to shed.

The job cuts tallied by UCU come to 5,361, with the pain greatest at Cardiff University, where the union expects 500 roles to go, followed by the University of York (434), Brunel, University of London (423), and Canterbury Christ Church University (400).

Other institutions have announced savings targets in excess of £238 million, led by the University of Edinburgh, which says it needs to save £140 million. If these institutions sought to make savings through staff cuts alone, another 5,000 jobs could go before the end of the academic year, said UCU – in line with vice-chancellors’ prediction that 10,000 roles would go this year.

Jo Grady, UCU’s general secretary, said that UK higher education was “on its knees” and called on the Westminster government to provide financial support to universities while a more sustainable funding model was developed.

The union highlighted that the Welsh government had handed its universities £19 million in extra funding in “recognition of the significant financial challenges facing higher education”, while the Scottish government had provided a £15 million emergency loan to the University of Dundee, plus £5.8 million of support across the sector to help meet increased pension costs.

“The cuts university bosses are trying to force through threaten provision across the country, and with it the sector’s world-leading position,” Grady said.

“Unless the UK government steps in, as the Welsh and Scottish governments have, this may just be the tip of the iceberg. We need an emergency fund to protect jobs and courses in the short term.

“Then the government must begin looking at a new public model to fund and regulate the sector.”

UCU said courses that were vital to regional economies were among those threatened with closure, including nursing at Cardiff and chemistry at the University of Hull.

Strike action is already under way at Brunel, Dundee and Newcastle, and is set to follow at the University of East Anglia and Sheffield Hallam University.

Institutions have blamed their predicament on inflation pushing up staffing and other costs, a collapse in international student recruitment, and unpredictable domestic enrolments.

But, launching the “Stop the Cuts, Fund Higher Education Now” campaign, Grady said that sector leaders should bear their share of the blame, pointing to vice-chancellor salaries, which now average £340,000.

“When times were good, they failed to invest properly and now they are asking staff and students to pay for the price of their mismanagement,” Grady said.

“Bodies tasked with overseeing university governance have been hollowed out and are all too often asleep at the wheel, allowing vice-chancellors to act like reckless CEOs.

“Labour should launch a root and branch review of the sector’s governing structures while putting an end to university leaders being rewarded for failure with gigantic pay packets.”

Last week it emerged that UCU’s higher education committee had stepped back from plans to ballot for nationwide industrial action over this year’s pay offer, amid fears that pushing for a bigger increase seemed out of touch amid an accelerating wave of job-cutting across academia.

Instead, members agreed to demand “emergency job protection measures” in negotiations with the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (Ucea) over next year’s pay claim, warning that failure to agree to this could lead to strikes at the start of the 2025-26 academic year.

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com

University job cuts announced or taking place since September 2024

Source: UCU