Students Against Cuts (SAC) have suggested the University did not meaningfully engage with students or Dundee University Students’ Association (DUSA during the consultation period for the Strategy to Recovery.
The Strategy to Recovery plans to make changes to the University to reduce £20 million of annual spending. The changes set out will change current student support systems, cut courses and reduce the staffing at the University by 154 FTE on top of the over 800 staff that have left through Voluntary Redundancy Schemes or their positions not being replaced.
SAC claim that the University didn’t comply with the Conditions of Funding as “neither students nor DUSA were meaningfully involved in the creation of the ‘Strategy to Recovery’.” They said that the University often made decisions without consulting students first, or not consulting them at all.
SAC question the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and claim it is “uninterested in its own Conditions of Funding being ignored by the university.”
Furthermore, SAC questioned Court saying “how can any member of our community can have confidence in the Court to exercise basic governance? The governing body did not know or ask for details of cuts when it approved them in June.”
“The UEG implied in an all student email that: ‘There will be no reductions in … disability services advisor resources’, failing to mention that disability services will effectively be losing two members of staff.”
“The same email told students ‘the Global Room space will also be retained’, leaving out that, while the building will stay open, the staff who make the Global Room what it is will all be made redundant.”
A spokesperson from the University responded to the statement from SAC by referencing a statement put out by Prof. Martindale. The statement is that:
“Most of the engagement with students was carried out through the established representation framework. Over the past few months, meetings have taken place with the DUSA Executive and President and with the Student Presidents Forum.”
“Collective consultation was discussed in these forums and this feedback helped inform the changes from the original proposals that we will now be progressing. Student engagement takes place all the way up to, and including, Court.”
From this, a lot of emphasis has been placed on the consultations that DUSA had with the University Executive Group (UEG) over the summer. However, some elected representatives from DUSA who attended these meetings feel that it lacked the level of consultation that would qualify them as ‘Consultation Meetings’.
One source told TJJ citing DUSA as student engagement is ‘a bit of a cop-out’. “We are representees, but we are not representative of the entire student body. We are made to feel like the entirety of the student portion of the consultation process, which is not fair on either party.”
“Most of the Exec have not used some of the services that are proposed to be cut. Maybe one or two of us have, but a poll of two is nothing.”
On these claims, one student said that:
“The established representation frameworks, that are cited as points of student consultation, represent significant barriers to engage with for many students.”
“Less than 10% of students voted in the 2026 student elections so using the exec as a go-through ignores the vast majority of students. Multiple exec roles were won uncontested.”
They refer to the consultation with UEG, DUSA and the Student Presidents Forum as a ‘box ticking exercise’.
Another cited point of student consultation was the ‘Collective Consultation Inbox’. However, in some cases students did not know it existed and in others they were not made aware that this inbox was for their input and not exclusively staff or those in VR pools.
In contrast, DUSA’s own feedback inbox had received many ‘significant’ emails and student responses.
Education Secretary Mairi McAllan told local newspaper, The Courier, that:
“The Scottish Funding Council must obtain more concrete evidence of meaningful engagement between staff, students and the University.” She also thought that the University has failed to meet conditions of engagement laid out by the SFC that would qualify them for an additional £20 million funding package.
Tom Christison, DUSA President, said the following about student engagement:
“We submitted a framework to the University setting out what we believed meaningful student consultation should look like. While that did result in greater engagement with DUSA and your elected representatives, we do not believe that same level of meaningful engagement was extended to the wider student body.”
“In terms of Court specifically, we are continuing to discuss as an Executive how best to ensure the student voice is represented as strongly as possible before the Court meeting. As President, I have been examining the Court papers thoroughly and preparing responses to the discussions that will unfold.”
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