‘At least’ 200 jobs expected to go at University of Canberra

About one in five staff at the University of Canberra (UC) are set to lose their jobs in a sweeping restructure blamed on the troubled institution’s excessive spending.

Interim vice-chancellor Stephen Parker has foreshadowed the loss of “at least” 200 positions by next July as the university endeavours to cut expenditure by about one-eighth.

“The university itself is responsible for this unsustainable position,” said Professor Parker, a longstanding former leader brought back as stand-in vice-chancellor in September.

“There is no point in blaming others,” he said. “We cannot expect any external assistance and must take urgent and significant measures to rebalance the institution.”

Craig Applegate, branch president of the National Tertiary Education Union, said staff were “shocked and anxious” about the university’s future. “In a cost-of-living crisis, many UC staff will head into the Christmas break not knowing whether they’ll have a job to come back to in the new year,” he said.

“Staff feel as though this is a great university which has been let down by poor management decisions over the last couple of years.”

Professor Parker said UC needed to reduce its recurrent expenditure by about A$50 million (£26 million) by the end of 2025.

Its spending increased by about one-third to just under A$400 million between 2019 and 2023. Earnings did not keep pace and a string of surpluses ended with a A$12 million deficit in 2023 – a figure expected to blow out to roughly A$35 million this year.

In a 21 October “town hall” meeting, Professor Parker told staff that student numbers were at the same level as nine years ago, but the institution had the equivalent of over 400 more full-time staff.

Department of Education figures suggest more modest growth. The department says the university had 1,136 full-time staff in 2015, rising to 1,257 in 2023.

While government policies such as the international education crackdown and the Job-Ready Graduates reforms had contributed, Professor Parker said the university was also responsible. He “apologised unreservedly…for needing to take this action [which] should not have been necessary. The university is sustainable on its current funding levels if it is rebalanced and managed prudently.”

While some of the job cuts could involve vacant positions or staff coming off contract, Professor Parker said redundancies were “inevitable” and could affect all five faculties as well as the university’s professional services staff.

He said the institution had already moved to cut the senior executive from five to three positions, with up to nine other senior manager positions likely to go.

The university could face more scrutiny from a likely Australian Capital Territory coalition government of the Labor and Greens parties following an election on 19 October. Both parties had committed to a review of UC governance if they won power.

The university came under the spotlight after revealing that it had paid former vice-chancellor Paddy Nixon, who left abruptly in December, almost A$1.8 million in 2023. It is the largest remuneration ever awarded to an Australian university boss, even though UC has the third smallest enrolment of any public university in the country.

Lachlan Clohesy, secretary of the NTEU’s ACT division, said UC had seen “governance failure after governance failure” in recent years. “Millionaire vice-chancellors strip out wealth to enrich themselves before moving on and leaving a steaming mess behind them,” he said.

“It is time that territory, state and federal governments seriously addressed university governance. Losing so many staff can’t help but have an impact on teaching, research, student support and all the other wonderful things that UC currently does in service of our community.”

Administrators’ cost-cutting efforts include scaling back the university’s “education transformation and growth” programme to boost student recruitment and retention, and the “digital masterplan” to improve UC’s online presence. A$22 million was allocated to the two schemes this year.

The Canberra Times reported that the university’s chief digital officer had already left the institution and the chief information officer would follow at the end of 2024.

The nearby Australian National University has foreshadowed close to 150 job cuts, with hundreds more expected next year.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com