University redundancies - how long?

[dontrunwithscissors]

I work for a University that is currently considering whether it needs to make redundancies (which I think it will.) I think this initial decision will be made by the end of the month. I'm just wondering roughly how long we can expect it to take from that initial decision until individuals are selected for redundancy? I'd be grateful if anyone with experience of University redundancies would share them. (Hope that makes sense .)

dontrun

PS My reason for asking is that I'm on Maternity Leave until November. I'm wondering if the process is likely to be complete before I return.

I don't think anyone knows . At our university I think it is going to be a long term procedure as they have to cut the budget by so much over the next 4 years - so cuts this year, next year and so on.

We are not getting any straight information. There have been whispers about voluntary redundancy and early retirement, alongside putting people voluntarily or not so on teaching only contracts.

No one knows whether they are planning to target individuals e.g. research staff who didnt make the RAE or whether they will target departments. It seems too late to cull course intakes for september now anyway. All I know is I am frantically writing papers .

Here it seems like the people who would be most obviously at risk are the least aware of the situation.

Management are also coming up with stupid phrases that are meant to sound positive such as 'strategic investment' which generally means if people or departments are not performing then they will go.

I dont know how quickly they move either once the decision has been made e.g. are you told you lose your job in three months or to go next week sort of thing? Am wondering about redundancy too.

You know your materntiy leave wont negatively affect things dont you?

We have just had announced that in our school within the uni we have seen a slight rise in funding, but with inflation that shows a minimal cut. Depends a lot upon whether your Uni is research or teaching led. Ours is teaching and therefore not as affected as the research focused uni's.

I thought it was the other way around - that the teaching led were more at risk because funding was being cut for student places therefore less students coming (and therefore less FTE money)?

We were also told that the 'new' universities (so the old poly's) were being protected and that the main universities would have to take a hit.

Depends where you are really - we are in Wales.

peppapig - my Uni is a step ahead. It had a voluntary redundancy scheme running for a couple of years. It closed about 9 months ago, and we were told it hadn't reached the savings target that had been set. It seems almost certain that jobs are going to be cut - more a question of how the decision will be made. I'm worried as my research has taken a big hit since having DC1 (and I'm now on leave with DC2.) My vulnerability was confirmed in a friendly 'chat' this week. I'm planning on coughing up for childcare for the two of them whilst on maternity leave and writing like mad. I'm just trying to figure out how the redundancy process may progress at work... Goodness, I am so incredibly stressed by all of this (and fear missing out on DC2's babyhood + spending a fortunte on childcare and still losing my job ).

It is awful how things just dont seem to stop when you are pregnant / on maternity leave doesnt it. I have worked so hard through my last mat leave and am going on it again in August and it just doesnt seem fair. I might not be there teaching but still cant escape things.

We had the voluntary redundancies a year ago - I think they are trying to work out whether they will offer more or not.

As much as it goes against everything that should be right and I think is right I think you are doing the best thing by paying out for childcare and writing. Is there anything you can pull together relatively easily? What is your field?

Its a horrible situation. I am just hoping that it will sort itself out like it did years ago. It only takes a few top profs to go and it almost rights itself. We are top heavy in that we have a lot of well paid approaching retirement but they seem to want to stay. Am just trying not to think about it.

Have you seen the thread further down here on academics with kids?

The institution I work in hasn't had to make redundancies yet (thank goodness) but we've had a lot of job freezes - my head of dept was promoted 6 months ago and still hasn't been replaced, meaning her work is shared between me and 2 other colleagues. Her boss retired, and it took 3 rounds of panels to justify replacing him - the uni wanted to get by without filling his post and just sharing his work between lots of other people.

We're academic related (library) rather than research/teaching though so in a way it would be harder to cut our posts without lowering service standards a lot. We already provide a better service (according to user surveys) than our nearest equivalent institution with about 30% fewer staff, but if they cut things any tighter we'll find it very hard to keep going.

Peppapig - My problem is I did stop whilst on maternity leave with DD1 - I had PND and my brain was mush from lack of sleep. (She was - and still is - an absolutely terrible sleeper.) I really wish I had kept going with the research! Thankfully, I've got two articles that are partly/roughly written to work on. I've got a thid planned, but I need to do more research before I can write that up. (I'm in the Humanities.) That should hopefully give me 3 items for REF (with the 4th excused due to mat leave.) But if I'm going to have something actually written/accepted for publication before I go back, I'm going to have to push something out very quickly. Congrats on your pregnancy, by the way - are you planning on using childcare whilst on mat leave, or struggling through with working on an evening/weekend etc?

Thats what is so unfair. Women should not have to work whilst on maternity leave - the clock should stop and we should be exempt from anything such as REF. However to cope it seems the way forward.

I will have to work and my head is spinning as to how I will manage it. Will have DS (4 and starting school), DD (2) and new baby. Luckily my research area is babies, pregnancy and motherhood! I should write something on how unfair this all is.

My current plan is to collect as much data as possible over the next few months (eek weeks am 20 weeks now) and then try and push those papers out. Current plan is to keep DD in childcare 3 days a week so I can 'relax' and write . Last maternity leave DS was kept in full time but I had my PhD to finish so just had to.

It sounds like you will manage those 3 - timescale is until 2012 I think?

Ah now we've had hints of the opposites- the big courses are being told to cut and our course (medium size, 60 ish per year) has been told to keep numbers fairly even.

Saying that they want to invest in the engineering / science type things and not the others.

I'm not sure anyone really knows - and different uni's are going to do different things. Not sure even the top people know what is going on (apart from giving themselves pay rises )

This just randomly popped up on 'I'm on threads'. One year on...not good. Things turned and they shut our course. Redundancies, pay cuts, pensions...not good