University staff were informed on 17th April that the university needs to take “immediate steps” to address rising costs.
The Gaudie understands that the university is hoping to maintain their £6.5m deficit this financial year, as this is the deficit it is allowed to run with.
According to the University, costs are set to increase by at least £4.7m – approximately 2% of that being projected spending for 2025/26. Rising costs have allegedly accumulated throughout a wide range of different areas including external contracts and services such as digital maintenance contracts and software licences. The university says they are working to develop a three-year plan to close the deficit.
A number of cost cutting measures have been proposed. The university is reportedly looking at voluntary redundancies, pausing recruitment and freezing staff promotions.
Staff were informed through an email of the steps the university will take to address the increasing costs. Among them was the pausing of 2025 academic promotions (until student recruitment numbers for autumn 2025 are known), the revisiting of voluntary severance and enhanced retirement applications that were previously declined last year, and the pausing of nearly all staff recruitment, with the exception of posts that are externally funded or a critical requirement for the post to be filled.
A university spokesperson said:
“We’ve made good progress on stabilising and improving our financial position by managing our costs, setting tough savings targets, and pausing recruitment for many rules.”
The steps are regrettable but necessary to help us offset some of our rising costs and continue to navigate unprecedented times for our sector.”
This comes just a year after threats of cuts to modern languages at the University, with the planned strike action in March of last year after the threat of compulsory redundancy across the department.
The University and College Union said its members were already being forced to work beyond their contractual hours and fear workloads will skyrocket.
AUSA Vice-President for Welfare Karim Hurtig issued his response to the financial update:
“Scottish universities are at a breaking point. Yesterday’s announcement is just the latest in a series of deeply troubling decisions that institutions are being forced to make as the funding crisis in higher education spirals further out of control.”
He warned of students already feeling the consequences of the recent actions:
“Even before this latest round of measures, the damage was evident with over 200 staff lost from the University last year alone. The cracks in the system can no longer be ignored.
Without urgent and meaningful investment, the future is bleak. Courses will disappear, jobs will be lost, and students will continue to pay the price for a system in crisis.”
The Vice-President for Welfare called on the Scottish Government, saying that it must protect students and commit to putting public investment at the heart of our universities’ future.
