Dundee redundancies

[Chesticles]

632 redundancies is a lot. Poor staff at Dundee. The article I read said about 200 academic posts going, 120 school based professional services and 300ish other professional services. Approximately 1/5 of staff. It will have such an effect on the city. I wonder when they’ll find out exactly what positions will go. Must be horrible to wait.

I wonder if they should have done more before, such as voluntary redundancies and natural wastage/combining departments rather than having held on for so long as they were.

This is awful - as pp said this will really impact the city. Poor staff and students

I know the whole University sector is under financial strain, but it does seem that Dundee as been poorly managed or advised over the last decade, and therefore their situation is worse than others. Hopefully a lot of the redundancies will come through people taking early retirements and there won't be much need for compulsary redundancies. Still will have a huge impact on the town though.

Good luck with whatever happens @Bobthecob2

Golden age of higher education is over. My HEI has been through this once a year ago and word on the street is there will be a further round soon. To more with less is the motto

It's 600 ish redundancies, plus about 200 empty posts they won't fill. The senior management team ( many of whom have now swanned off into the sunset) are absolutely culpable.
It will affect the city very badly indeed, when the city is already struggling.

Another Dundee person here, appreciate the post and thoughts. We got restructured in our department a couple of years ago and since then we've not had people replaced who've retired or left. Apparently the wage bill is only 40% of turnover. What on earth they're been spending on is beyond me.

i wonder if the full story of the Principal’s mismanagement will ever come out. The business class flights were bad enough.
sending solidarity to you all, and wishing I had something more useful to offer.

I work in Dundee. This is a nightmare all round

I'm Dundee too, both DH and I work there so we're hugely stressed. I've been there 17 years this year. It's shocking when only a year ago the former Principal stood up and said we were in a relatively good position compared to other unis. Even if we survive the axe now it's obviously had a huge effect on our reputation amongst prospective students so I can't see things improving for a long time.

This is happening all over the sector. The reasons given by universities for reduncancies (high staff costs, no rise in fees, lower than expected student numbers) are not borne out by the available figures in the public accounts of the universities. Has someone analysed whether Dundee is being remotely truthful here? It is as if they have collectively decided to cut staff whatever.

If staff costs are only 40%, then cutting staff won't help much.

Very sorry to all at Dundee. Wonderful university and very sad if this is all down to mismanagement. Wishing everyone the best.

I left Dundee more than a decade ago. Back then they were looking for voluntary severance to "ensure the long term future of the University". Incompetent over paid idiots in charge then. Names and faces have changed a bit, but by and large, the same group of people in charge and they're still saying exactly the same thing.

I think that the huge salaries paid to senior management are the cause of this problem. Always told you need to pay these sort of salaries to attract "talent". I think this is nonsense. Offer £250,000 plus and you have immediately made the job attractive to someone with huge self confidence who thinks they're worth serious money.

In truth - David Brent makes these people look competent.

Edit.... should read "these people make David Brent look competent".

Did anyone else see the Parliament committee debate with interim VC? Painful but quite gratifying to see the dressing down. Does anyone know whether he was an internal appointment after the other left?

I hear Huddersfield have told their staff if they can’t find 25% more students then they’re going to make 25% of staff redundant. They had redundancies just under a year ago already. I’m not 100% sure if it’s specific courses or university wide.

Not seen it. He was the depute principal and stepped up when the last principal resigned. So all this happened on his watch.

I saw that Bedfordshire University are to lose 240 staff. These are huge numbers of staff to lose from a team & it will put more pressure on those left behind. So difficult.

I see Gillespie is refusing to be interviewed.

I'm not surprised. A perfect example of the high quality "talent" that you will attract one you start paying people £250,000 plus to run a university.

on the bbc tonight they are saying it may be as many as 700 redundancies. On top of the 200 posts that are currently unfilled. Of a current staff of 3200 that is huge. I really feel for them uni staff, students and locals who are going to be devastated by this. I know a number of people who work there 😢

I cannot get my head around how a university can operate with so many job losses. It’s all going to collapse around them.

It’s already affecting the city badly. House prices are stagnating or dropping, unlike most of the rest of Scotland.

There are lots of vacancies in the rental sector, when usually it’s chock a block with students from Dundee, Abertay and St Andrews.

West park halls ( near Harris academy ) and one section of Parker House ( at Dudhope roundabout ) are empty.

Yes of course it’s going to put off the applicants for some courses- the smaller or less prestigious ones that are more likely to struggle. I think that the high profile courses that are at the top of the Uk rankings ( medicine, dentistry, life sciences etc ) will be ok as well as the more niche ones like forensics and the dual qualifying law courses .

But yes it’s shocking news for everyone in the city.

Such a shame. I am just in the middle of organising a 40th reunion of the 86 year medics and have been shocked to hear the stories. My son graduated there in 2018 and his late father in 1983 so a bit of a family university.