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SLASHED: £35 million Cut From KU Budget
Submitted by Sinead Noble on Fri, 05/02/2010 - 14:37
![The government is putting the squeeze on universities [Rex]](http://riveronline.co.uk/09/sites/default/files/images/brown_uni.jpg "The government is putting the squeeze on universities [Rex]")
KU chiefs are drawing up plans to cut £35m from budgets as UK universities prepare to make thousands of teaching jobs redundant.
The Deans of Faculty have been asked to draft plans to cut costs by 10 to 15 per cent at a scenario planning meeting. Proposals could include freezing pay and recruitment and expanding existing early retirement plans.
The moves are part of KU's reaction to government's decision to cut funding for higher education by £315m in 2010-11.
The University and College Union (UCU) believes that up to 15,000 jobs could be axed over the next few years across the UK. London universities are already planning drastic savings. Kings College London plans to shed up to 500 jobs. The University of Westminster also expects to lose 150 staff.
Mike Roberts, vice-chair of Kingston’s University and College Union branch, has said that he is confident lecturers will resist any steps that will lower the quality of education at the university. He said: “ The Kingston UCU branch deplore any redundancies, cuts in student intakes, moves to more `cost-effective teaching methods', for example larger class sizes or reduced class contact hours, which might result from the scenario planning currently being carried out by the University's management.”
HEFCE will confirm Kingston University’s grant for 2010/11 in early March. Vice Chancellor Sir Peter Scott said: “The University is in a healthy financial position and does not anticipate having to make any immediate reductions in staff numbers or services to students. However, if funding continues to be cut, reductions cannot be ruled out in the future.
“The University is currently looking at a number of potential funding scenarios and developing a range of solutions to address any future financial challenges. The aim of this exercise is to provide reassurance that the University could absorb potential funding cuts while remaining a viable – and, crucially, a vital – institution.”
This work on scenario planning is being led by Neil Latham, Pro Vice-Chancellor for employer engagement, on behalf of the Senior Management Group and Executive Board.
Comments
What will they cut £35 million from? That's nearly 50% of the £75 million HEFCE grant budget (based on 2007/08 figs). Overall spending on Staff (including academic and non-academic) was £90 million (2007/08).
If early retirements take place, and there is a hiring freeze, then the number of academic staff goes down and the staff to student ratio must, therefore, decline, making for ever larger class sizes. And what of the offerings in such resource intensive subjects as Music, where individual tuition has already been cut to the bone? Will this still even be offered?
Will the university cut management positions rather than front line teaching? For example, will the university revert to its previous structure, whereby they had a single University Secretary and a Director of HR, instead of the current expanded roster that includes the Head of the Secretariat position (effectively, the deputy to the University Secretary)?
How much will the University continue to spend defending and launching legal actions against staff members, such as the ill-fated action with the World Intellectual Property Organisation against a former member of staff? Will they continue to score poorly in UCU sponsored bullying surveys (2nd worst institution in the UK), which tend to lead to greater numbers of Employment Tribunal actions against the University and/or compromise agreement payouts?
These are but a few of the many important questions that students might wish to ask of the University when they are faced with the opportunity of having face-to-face meetings with administration representatives.