Yesterday, the Dundee branch of the Universities and Colleges Union (DUCU) staged a protest outside Bonar hall coinciding with a University Court workshop.
The Court is the highest governing body of Dundee University.
DUCU was originally invited to submit a paper on an alternative strategy to recovery for Court to consider during the workshop. They were subsequently told that the paper was not going to be included in the agenda.
In response, DUCU members stood outside Bonar Hall wearing tape on their mouth handing out copies of the paper.
“The university is not going to collapse; it is not running out of cash, at this point, it’s just greed – surplus over people, over students, and over the charitable mission of this institution, which is to educate the local and wider population.”
Members said they had been silenced in reference to the omission of their recovery proposal from the court’s agenda.
The 7-page proposal begins by saying that the university is:
“Already generating a surplus that is set to increase in the following years, as staff cost savings from the first and second VS scheme are fully realised. Student recruitment for the next academic year looks promising and seems to exceed expectations, adding to a positive financial outlook.”
The union rejects the UEG’s proposal that:
“The University needs to cut further staff through compulsory redundancies to achieve unrealistic and sector-busting financial targets (10% EBITDA). These cuts would risk causing significant long-term harm to the Institution and may materially impair its ability to recover and fulfil its charitable mission”
Throughout the counter proposal, DUCU state that the number for FTE cuts should equate to around £40 million and continues “Thus fully addressing the operating deficit through staff costs reduction alone and rendering any further reductions in staffing levels unnecessary.“
This is based on figures included in the counter proposal:
489 FTE between July 2024 and October 2025. Included in this number are the 240 FTE who left during the Voluntary Severance scheme in Autumn 2025; 90 FTE staff have left between October 2025 and April 2026; 110 FTE staff will leave the University through the most recent VS scheme.
DUCU say (the figures) are estimated to a remarkable degree of precision. The estimated remaining 2400 FTE staff is the lowest staff number observed in at least the last 20 years at UoD.
Dr Melissa D’Ascenzo, Co-president of DUCU said:
“Today, the [University] court is going to make some serious decisions on the future of the university without having access to alternative views.
“The paper did not just include a challenge to some of the financial forecasts, it also included alternative pathways, on one side to save money and on the other side to grow income.”
The alternative plan contains the Scottish Funding Council’s conditions of funding, and how the university is currently in breach of these conditions.
Another vital condition of the SFC funding is meaningful engagement with staff and the student body.
In line with this Dr Taylor Hill, Lecturer in Psychology, responded that:
“I’m not sure they [University Executive Group] know what engagement means.
“One of the conditions of the SFC funding was to engage with proper principles of engagement, asking us [Unions] how we want to be engaged with. During the principal’s question time, we submitted a question on ‘how do you plan on engaging with staff members using these principles?’
“They didn’t even answer the question. They didn’t put it on the agenda, and it doesn’t look like they are going to [engage] in the future.”
When asked about whether the university provided a reason why the paper was not included in the agenda, D’Ascenzo said:
“The first reason was that it wasn’t signed by all three unions; it was only from DUCU, which sounds like a spurious reason, because in our response email to the original dismissal, we cc’d the other unions, and we have tried to capture in our paper the concerns that have been raised by all three campus unions.
“But we feel that it’s just an excuse at this point, because we could have easily gotten permission from other unions to co-subscribe to the paper; it wasn’t clear to us when we were invited to submit a paper that had to be signed by all three campus unions.
“You have to bear in mind that the other two campus unions have lost a lot of their representatives, and at the moment, they can’t put as much effort, and they don’t have the power and capacity to put all of this work and effort into this.”
A spokesperson for University of Dundee said:
“In response to the DUCU request for a paper to be considered we recommended that further discussion take place at the Local Joint Committee, in line with the remit of that committee, which includes representation from all of the campus unions and the University.
“We also offered a meeting with the Chair of Court, and with the Convener of the Finance and Policy Committee, along with the Chief Finance Officer, for further discussion on the content of the DUCU paper.
“The workshop session for Court members today is feeding into a process which has already included widespread engagement across the University.”
“It is also worth noting that today’s session was not a Court meeting (the next one not being until June) but a facilitated workshop for Court to feed into the development of the University’s Strategy to Recovery.”
In line with this, D’Ascenzo continued:
“We have been waiting for six months for answers to the university’s budget, staff cost budgets, and university cash flows. We have put the same questions over and over again to the Director of Finance and to the Interim Principal.
“Every time that we bring them up, they keep saying you have to go back to the local joint committee, and that is a way of putting the unions in their place, like you don’t belong in court, you don’t belong to this discussion, you only belong to this room where we can tell you whatever we want and we can delay the response.”
According to D’Ascenzo, the Director of Finance responded to their paper, saying:
“We note your paper, we disagree with it”
D’Ascenzo continued, “there wasn’t a clear articulation of what was wrong with it, and we only use their [University’s forecast] numbers to produce those analyses, it’s not like we invented our own.”
After 18 months of uncertainty about the university‘s future and their own jobs, staff are left traumatised.
Two of the campus trade unions conducted wellbeing surveys on their members and the results show that:
“Majority of responses mention psychological/physical impacts; Stress consistently spills over into home life, with most struggling to unwind or feeling too tired to enjoy life outside work, and nearly half reporting damage to personal relationships due to work pressures”
“Severe cases included reports of medical interventions due to stress and severe depression; Exhaustion scores extremely high (e.g., 88% tired upon waking). 73-75% struggle to unwind or feel too tired to enjoy home life; 65% of staff report an unacceptable workload; Only 4% would recommend UoD as a workplace”
DUSA President Tánaiste Custance warns that:
“Students need to pay close attention to what’s happening, what’s happening to their modules, what’s happening to their courses, what’s happening to the lecturers… students will really start to see an effect on courses on their academic experience.”
“I’ve not seen a strategy for growth, any alternatives being presented, and I suspect that in the coming couple of months, over the summer, when it’s going to be harder for staff and students to respond, we may see some very disturbing radical proposals coming from the university” he continued.
Despite the negatives, students still have power as it is their education at stake. Custance said:
“Students need to organise to ensure that their rights are respected. DUSA has a role in that, make clear demands on DUSA and the Executives over the coming year and ensure that they perform their role.”
Dr Taylor Hill said:
“I think the main thing is students can do is support strikers.
“Students should be aware that what we are fighting for is the quality of their education.
“We are fighting because our working conditions reflect students’ learning conditions. We are not out here fighting for job security just for us, but we are fighting for the future of education as a public good.”
The DUCU Paper about an alternative strategy to recovery contains the following opportunities for income generation. The Proposals include:
- “Explore expanding its offering of continuing professional development (CPD), where other universities make a significantly larger percentage of income. Dundee could explore working with local partners to join up offerings to improve ease of access for employers and delegates.
- Look at expanding business development links from individual Schools within the University, including the potential for decentralisation of business development resources to provide immediate opportunities for income sources.
- Make full use of real estate and facilities, following appropriate rationalisation.
- The University should look at ending the employment of external contractors, where feasible. Hence, a reduction in outsourcing services we currently provide in-house may result in long-term savings.
- Any major capital expenditure project should be undertaken by securing bank loans, not through job cuts.
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