Redundancy 2025

[Cartwrightandson]

How is your institution doing? I recall last year there was a lot of redundancies and VS...

Ours announced a VS scheme just before Christmas but with absolutely no details about it. This is the first time we've had any sniff of any sort of redundancies in the institution's history.

Assuming that when new term starts next week they'll let us all in on the plans. I wish universities would stop dropping news right at the end of term and leaving everyone to stew and the rumour mill to work overtime for weeks.

I'm professional services. Have been hoping my uni would announce a general voluntary severance scheme since I'd like to get away from the office politics. The redundancy payment could go towards upskilling/additional qualifications.

However, they've been making cuts in specific areas and trying to keep it as quiet as possible. A few squeaks get through though. Academic A has told Person B that their picture needs to be removed from all institutional marketing; someone senior resigns very suddenly and an overheard conversation between two of his colleagues suggests it was in protest at cuts to a particular team. A manager puts up a photo on the internal network of a historic campus building due to be mothballed to save cash.

Jobs advertised are temporary or by the hour. Anything permanent is with Marketing.

Not happy times.

Welcome to a small hint of what life is like in the private sector. No such thing as a guaranteed job. You should consider yourself very fortunate not to be screwed out of redundancy payments.

That’s a helpful addition to the debate

Not a peep out of management about whether the measures are working. VS offers have been made, a colleague announced they are taking it recently. No idea how our dept will fill that role with no replacement. I doubt we'll know until the summer how bad it is. Institution seems to be heavily focused on international recruitment.

This might be my place. Publication of VS conditions is to come tomorrow (Monday 13th). I am not planning to apply at this point, but will try out the calculator.

Apparently the Uni did not plan to announce anything in late November ... but the media had got hold of it, and they had to send out an email to us (before they had the details worked out).

Central professional services team - all central administration teams have a 5% budget cut and 2-3yr recruitment freeze. We are being told that maternity leaves and staff leaving are unlikely to be replaced. And lots of pep talks about doing more with less.

Uni accounts are published annually so not sure why the conspiratorial 'noone knows where it went'... It will have gone on running costs - mainly staff salaries and associated costs, which increase each year, paid out from expenditure which doesn't increase each year. Same as every other institution in deficit - ie most of them.

So one day there was £40m in their NatWest account, the next it had gone? Really? These accounts have been signed off by the auditors? Agreed by OfS/other nations regulator?

Sorry on face value that just sounds like something is being kept from the staff. It is virtually impossible, fraud notwithstanding, to not be able to see where an extra £40m has been spent, or where a £40m loss in income has come from.

Assume UoD?

@hillsiderunner and @damekindness I think we may be at the same institution. And if we are I wouldn't hold your breath for a good VS deal the rumours are that it's not a lot above statutory minimum and capped at a certain number of years service

Do VS deals have to at least match redundancy? Most universities have a decent redundancy package if you've been there for over 10 years - or is VS a completely separate process with different settlement figures?

The minimum anyone will get in a redundancy is statutory minimum which is what, one week per year or something. But going through formal redundancy process is time consuming and complex, particularly in a unionised environment. Therefore most unis would ask for volunteers to go, and offer a voluntary severance package to encourage them. There'd be no point offering VS at statutory, or just above statutory amount because there wouldn't be enticing enough for people to be tempted. So I'd have thought any VS package would be reasonable - not that I know anything other than what mine and colleagues institutions have been through.

Statutory is 1.4 weeks per year of service my institution is offering not a lot more than that and certainly lower than in previous VS rounds.

Our general redundancy package is just statutory minimum

VS was announced in October, the week before term started. Then we had a reminder last Monday, the day most people started back to work.

That made me laugh.

The package is opaque and decided individually with HR.

We've been assured that there won't be any compulsory redundancies or department closures. But I'm sceptical.

I doubt I'd be targeting for redundancy is compulsory did start, which I'm weirdly disappointed about - I'm not actively looking to leave the sector any time soon but wouldn't be gutted if I was pushed.

Our VS deal is so low I think it won't attract enough people so I expect compulsory to start by summer.

And the senior management insist there are no set numbers of posts we have to lose but actually there are - they just aren't being honest.

And if UCU were not so shite they'd be doing something about it but our branch is hopeless

Is a lot of this related to the massive fall in applications from foreign students due to visa changes?

That, and the fact that home undergrad fees haven't gone up since 2012 (other than £250), the fact that salaries - and employer pension contributions (particularly teachers pension that most post 1992 institutions pay) increase each year, increase in NI, increase in estate costs. And no sign of things changing.

At my insitution our student numbers are strong but we are not making the random profit that senior leadership decided upon so VS it is

From the public meeting with Principal (and "Interim Finance Director") in December it did not sound like the VS was likely to be that generous. Which means I won't have any trouble with my decision, unlikely to be tempting! What I'd really like to know is how many staff they want to lose, as that will give an indication of how many Compulsory redundancies will follow.

Are you in Professional services (or Management), Chrysanthemum5? I ask because pre-Christmas our Head of School did not know anything more than the rest of us.