Redundancy 2025

[Cartwrightandson]

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

PS and the University is a very leaky environment so I think the rumours I hear are true. Before Christmas I'd only heard that VS was likely to not be great not I know it's definitely not!

Are you academic?

My husband took VS last year; it was barely above the statutory redundancy pay. He only took it because he was near retirement age and he'd been planning to go part-time leading up to that, rather than massively increase his teaching load, which is what the university had in mind for those left on the ground.

What did you think of that town hall @hillsiderunner I thought it was a PR disaster and again a time when a decent union would have been useful

I am academic, yes, Chrys. My own School achieved its targets this year. All the same it's a very big School and optimisations could be made.
Have been looking on the Sharepoint site but nothing up there yet this am, will come soon I guess.

My main impression from the Town Hall was the look on the face of the "Interim Director" throughout! He has "form" from previous roles at other Unis.

If the VS is not generous, then hardly anyone will apply for it I think. They will need to sack some of us! Quite a nuisance as I finally bought a flat this summer after many years of renting.

We are going through this at my institution, but I wouldn't be eligible as my department is popular and expanding.
However we were told with a week to go that there will be no promotions this round. I was in the middle of applying - colleagues were spitting feathers.

Yes @hillsiderunner I think the finance person is an expert is dealing with university finance. I wonder what his view of this 7% random target court set? I can't get an answer as to why they decided on 7% when it's been 3-5% for years now.

I think the SMT have been completely useless and not worth the £2.5 million they apparently cost us!

We’ve had one round of VS and the savings aren’t nearly enough. It’s grim.

@blackpear what happens in that situation? Do they change the VS deal or just rerun it? Or is it straight to compulsory? My worry is that our VS is so rubbish it won't raise enough and we will head to compulsory fairly quickly

The details are now up on the Sharepoint site, Chrys (I just looked).

I would get 9 months salary for my 21 years.
I think it would take longer than 9 months to get a new job....

I would suspect Compulsory will be fairly likely. There won't be many people wanting to take this VS offer. Wish the Union could help us find out which % of people (and whether academic/professional) they need to cut.

Yes I wish we had a decent union that hadn't wasted everyone's resources and good will on endless strikes that were never going to work. The 4 fights was doomed from day 1 - I'm from a working class family with a strong union history and I could see that the 4 areas were actively in conflict.

VS has discounted 5 years of my service and is 9 months for me which just isn't long enough to tempt me

UCU sealed its fate, and ours, when it allowed PhD students to join (and for free). It's now effectively turned into the NUS, both in terms of its interests and its juvenile politics.

Agree completely. It's so frustrating. A decent union would be asking questions

I thought my opinion of UCU couldn't get much lower. But I was wrong.

My branch of UCU has been almost completely silent on the university's financial situation and the opaqueness of our VS. Branch action has consisted solely of a few loud-mouths re-posting VC-bashing articles on Twitter and Bluesky.

Yet there were emergency meetings called and protests organised when the Gaza situation started. And in 2022, UCU set up a 'talk cafe' for staff/students in distress after a controversial speaker was invited and said some hurt-y words.

Pathetic.

Two days into the new term and nothing about how the VS will work here and what terms are going to be. The vacuum has inevitably created fevered speculation

I don't know. Possibly we will have to go to compulsory. It's pretty bloody bleak all round, isn't it.

Sounds a familiar story
Last year in November 2023, our university said we were doing great. By January we were 20 million in the hole and the VS programme started. In our case it was fewer international students, inflation, and some poor investments in property.

Well, at least you got 9 months. We got 6 at a maximum.

Last year in November 2023, our university said we were doing great. By January we were 20 million in the hole and the VS programme started. In our case it was fewer international students, inflation, and some poor investments in property

That timeline does make sense - you have x number of acceptances after clearing, and have offered y number of CASs to international students. It's not till October/November that you know whether they have a) enrolled and b) actually physically turned up as required.

So you tell the bank who are breathing down your neck that Autumn recruitment wasn't quite as buoyant as you had told them in August and they give you a few months. So you run a massive marketing campaign to attract PG students to start in January. Again you don't quite manage to get as many as you need so you cut costs instead.

We're all experiencing it

This was interesting about the current situation. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0025kyp?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Thanks for this. I saw in the news today that Newcastle is contemplating massive redundancies today.

Thanks for this. I saw in the news today that Newcastle is contemplating massive redundancies today.

Do you have a link for that story please?

Sure: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3d5ekmp8xeo

It looks like management are contemplating voluntary redundancies and there will be a VS scheme. UCU are voting whether to strike.

One thing I don't understand is where is UCU? Our branch has said nothing since the VS was announced this week. Why aren't they asking questions or offering advice/support? They are totally useless

I don’t know which institution you are working, but ours had a very good branch chair. He did get some workload mitigations, and I was a rep…offered some courses on assertion to say no to overwork. We spent quite a few months before I retired working as reps in redundancy meetings, and I think that the members appreciated our support.

I do acknowledge that some branches aren’t very active or effective, and that’s not great.