Posted by Up to 250 jobs could go at Bristol University in the next three years as it attempts to deal with an expected £4million loss for the current financial year.
In a statement to staff, the Vice-Chancellor Professor Eric Thomas said the university faced uncertain financial times and needed to cut its annual costs by about £15m.
Cuts in overall government funding, thanks to the recession, would place increased pressure on government funding through the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and Research Councils. And Prof Thomas added that costs would increase through pay and the building programme already underway.
The university, now in its centenery year, budgeted for a £6m profit this year, but now expects to be £10m adrift of that target. It has now set a target of an £8m profit for 2009/10.
While costs have been controlled through a voluntary severance and early retirement programme, which led to more than 100 people leaving the university in July saving about £3m, Prof Thomas said another £12m needed to be found through savings.
“Regrettably,” he said, “since staff costs account for about two-thirds of all our expenditure, it will not be possible to avoid a further reduction in the number of jobs. We estimate that we will have to shed about 250 more posts by 2011/12.
“This represents about 5% of the total number of jobs at the University. We are keen to make the reduction through voluntary means as far as possible, and through improvements to organisational structures and ways of working.”
Faculties have been told to review their performance, operations and structures in an attempt to reduce individual department costs, and the ‘Support Process Review’ restructuring programme for departmental supprt services is underway. Prof Thomas said he anticipated that, next year, the university we hold talks with staff and trade unions over proposals emerging from the review.
“I won’t pretend this is a comfortable time for any of us,” he said, “any more than it is for colleagues up and down the country. Some of the decisions we will have to take will be painful, but we cannot shy away from them if the university is to thrive in these tougher times.
“Rest assured that we will miss no opportunity to achieve or maintain the academic and administrative excellence, combined with financial viability, that will enable the University to keep its place among the leaders in UK higher education and to remain a major player internationally.”
A spokesman for the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) said that cutting jobs would add to the workload of remaining staff, leaving less time to spend with individual students.
“We sincerely hope that any redundancies will be on a voluntary basis, but at present we do not see how that can be achieved,” he said.
“Furthermore, axing staff does not axe the workload. So those who do remain in post will have more work to pick up and less time to spend with individual students.
“UCU always tries to maintain a decent working relationship with the university and we will continue to attempt to do just that. We have done a great job locally campaigning and will now be sitting down with the members to discuss what response needs to be taken here.”
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