Top uni plans job cuts to save money

Umist expects to have a deficit of £3.8m and rising

One of the UK's best universities is making staff redundant because of a lack of money.

Annual so-called 'efficiency gains' demanded by central government have meant that UK universities' unit of funding per student has fallen some 38% since 1989

Umist

A £1bn shortfall in university funding across the UK has been identified in a report commissioned by the government.

Problems at Umist in Manchester illustrate the reality of the issue.

BBC News Online has seen extracts from a briefing sent to staff by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor John Garside, which predicts a deficit of £3.8m this year rising to £5.2m the year after if nothing is done.

The university's ruling council has made tackling the deficit its top priority.

Redundancies

So all areas are being asked to make cuts of 2.5% in their non-pay budgets. This is expected to save £3.1m.

But the scale of the expected deficit means there will also have to be "payroll savings".

"A voluntary severance and early retirement package will be introduced and it is hoped that the required savings can be made in this way," Prof Garside said.

The intention is cut the pay budget by 6% in 2002-03 and 2% in each of the following two years, to save a total of £4.2m.

Negotiations

The Association of University Teachers said that last week it had persuaded the university not to impose redundancies, but instead to negotiate them.

But about 120 jobs were expected to go - half academic and half other posts.

Umist also says it has a surplus of student accommodation and is "looking at the possibility of selling", but says no decision has been taken and the issue is still being investigated.

A spokesperson said that even if it were eventually decided to sell a hall of residence this was unlikely to happen for at least 12 months and therefore had no bearing on the university's current financial difficulties which needed immediate action.

He denied that a decision had been made already to sell two of its halls of residence.

Funding cuts

As to the cause of the financial difficulties, staff are being told that - like other UK universities - Umist "has seen its income from central government reduced in real terms year after year".

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) has given it a 1.7% increase for teaching for next year - when it expects 5% increase in staffing costs alone.

"Annual so-called 'efficiency gains' demanded by central government have meant that UK universities' unit of funding per student has fallen some 38% since 1989."

Umist is in talks to merge with the University of Manchester, to form one of the biggest universities in Europe.

In the recent UK-wide assessment exercise, almost two-thirds of the research staff at Umist were judged to be carrying out work of "international excellence".