DUNDEE University has announced it will cut 632 jobs to address the £35m deficit predicted for the year 2024/25.
The university announced in November 2024 that it was facing a financial crisis with an estimated £30m deficit.
This was due to external factors including a severe drop in international student recruitment, ongoing structural underfunding of higher education, cost increases, inflationary pressures and a range of other changes, including an increase in the National Insurance contribution.
Internal factors such as inadequate financial discipline and control, poor capital planning and investment decisions, weak compliance with financial control policies, and lack of accountability also contributed to the updated £35m deficit.
The 632 job cuts will come across all different sectors in the university with plans to cut 197 academic roles, 119 school-based professional services posts in schools, and 316 directorate roles-based professional services roles.
Professor Shane O’Neill, interim principal and vice-chancellor, said: “The current financial crisis has challenged us to ask some very fundamental questions about the size, shape, balance and structure of the university.
“The measures we are now proposing would make an essential contribution in our becoming a more appropriately balanced and restructured institution.
“Getting there will not be easy and we are determined to take on board all relevant lessons from the past and the various factors that contributed to the current position.
“We are committed to an external investigation into what went wrong, which will be co-sponsored with the Scottish Funding Council, and we will accept and act on the findings of that investigation.
“Savings in capital and operational expenditure have already delivered more than £17m of savings this year, some of them being recurrent savings.
“We will continue to exercise tight control on all expenditure.
“We need to realise more savings and income from non-pay and operational expenditure associated with our estate and intellectual property.
“The measures we are proposing would make an essential contribution in our becoming a more appropriately balanced and financially sustainable institution.
“Getting there will not be easy and we are determined to take on board all relevant lessons from the past and the various factors that contributed to the current position.
“In setting out our proposals towards a financial recovery and a sustainable future we have adopted an approach of frank realism and honest self-criticism in our assessment of the current situation and the challenges faced.
“There is an urgency for us to act promptly and we will continue to work intensively with the SFC and other stakeholders to ensure delivery of the sustainable and successful future we need for this great University, which is integral to the economic, social and cultural wellbeing of the city, our region and beyond.”
The university has set out a recovery plan that includes a proposed new academic structure from eight academic schools to three faculties, a 20% reduction in module delivery, a restructuring of professional services, and a reorganisation of research into a small number of focused research institutes to minimise institution-funded research.
These new proposals mean the university will need to significantly reduce its staff and is seeking voluntary redundancy, however due to the number of staff cuts needed for the university to progress, compulsary redundancy will be the next step.
Jo Grady, University and College Uninion general secretary, said: “This is a hammer-blow to hard working and committed workers at the university who are being made to pay the price for egregious management failure.
“It’s four months since workers first learned that there was a problem, and it feels that very little has happened in the intervening period to turn the university around.
“We are clear that there is an alternative to sacking staff and cutting courses, student support and vital educational provision in this city, and we’ll continue to do all we can to save jobs and to preserve education in Dundee.”
