A CONCERNING email has been sent to staff at the University of Edinburgh offering an extended voluntary severance scheme and warning of an “urgent” finance gap.
The email was sent to all staff by principal Peter Mathieson yesterday warning of an urgent problem with the university’s finances.
It warned of impending closures of programmes and even schools if the finance gap was not addressed.
Staff were offered an extension on a voluntary severance scheme to 28 February – which allows staff to leave the university in exchange for cash.
The email warns staff of a serious gap in the university’s finances and seems to suggest drastic action is being taken to address it.
Solutions mentioned in the letter include restructuring, outsourcing, closing programmes and even closing schools.
The letter ominously reads that “nothing is off the table” with senior management seemingly desperate to close the finance gap.
The university’s finance gap is expected to be discussed by executives on 18 February with Mathieson promising to write to staff again after this discussion has been had.
Mathieson is on a salary of £418,000pa after awarding himself a pay rise in November last year that made him the highest paid university principal in Scotland.
He also benefits from a generous expenses package, pension scheme and a variety of other perks.
Some staff at the University of Edinburgh earn as little as £22,000pa with administrative assistants and receptionists pulling in just above minimum wage.
In the letter to staff he said: “I fully understand the anxiety and uncertainty that this message will induce but my senior colleagues and I feel that it is best to be honest and open about the scale and urgency of the measures likely to be needed.
“I genuinely believe that there is much to be optimistic about for the University of Edinburgh and that with swift and decisive action now, we can put the University back onto a secure footing for the future.
“Inaction would leave us heading rapidly towards the deficit position in which many other universities already find themselves.
“We owe it to our predecessors and to our successors to do everything we can to ensure that the university has a distinguished future to go with its distinguished past.”
