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Dundee University has announced plans to cut more than 600 jobs and reduce its teaching by a fifth to help cope with a £35m deficit in its accounts.
The university’s interim principal, Prof Shane O’Neill, said that nearly 200 academic staff and 435 support staff would be made redundant, with every department hit by the cuts.
O’Neill said on Tuesday that draconian measures, described as devastating by opposition parties and as a “hammer blow” by teachers unions, were needed to help Dundee deal with an immediate £35m shortfall in its day-to-day spending and an underlying deficit of more than £60m.
“The current financial crisis has challenged us to ask some very fundamental questions about the size, shape, balance and structure of the university,” he said.
Urgent action was needed, O’Neill added. “We have adopted an approach of frank realism and honest self-criticism in our assessment of the current situation and the challenges faced,” he said.
The overall job cuts target of 635 posts is roughly equivalent to a fifth of the university’s workforce. Savings would also come from selling its intellectual property and buildings, as well as economising on day-to-day running costs.
The university’s previous leadership is widely blamed for the crisis, but opposition parties said the situation at Dundee also raised serious questions about the parlous finances of many other Scottish universities, nearly half of which ran deficits last year.
Michael Marra, Scottish Labour’s finance spokesman and an MSP for Dundee, said: “While it is clear that profligate spending decisions at the university have set the institution apart from the wider sector, a business model based on a 22% real-terms cut to Scottish student funding since 2013-14 has the potential to endanger the future of many of Scotland’s great universities.
“I urge the Scottish government to take action so that no other city experiences what we are going through.”
Many critics believe Scottish universities are too reliant on foreign students whose fees are needed to cross-subsidise the costs of teaching Scottish students, who pay no tuition fees.
The Scottish government provides £1,820 per capita for home-domiciled undergraduates, well below the cost of teaching them. A fall in European students post-Brexit, higher national insurance costs and wider inflation have contributed to the sector’s much tighter finances.
Earlier this month, Edinburgh University announced it wanted to make savings of £140m in its staffing and running costs, in order to avoid going into deficit in future. Strathclyde University has cuts its costs and also sold off assets.
The scale of the job losses shocked the teachers’ University and College Union (UCU), which is in the midst of 15 days of strike action called after the university’s initial warnings of a £30m deficit last November.
It is now thought likely Dundee’s lecturers and researchers will pursue further strikes in protest.
Jo Grady, the UCU’s general secretary, said: “This is a hammer blow to hard working and committed workers at the university who are being made to pay the price for egregious management failure.
“We are clear that there is an alternative to sacking staff and cutting courses, student support and vital educational provision in this city, and we’ll continue to do all we can to save jobs and to preserve education in Dundee.”
Miles Briggs, the Scottish Conservative’s spokesman for energy and skills, said: “It is now essential to explore options for radical change if we are going to restore Scotland’s reputation for educational excellence.”
