More than 350 jobs at risk at London university

More than 350 employees at the University of East London have been warned that their jobs are at risk, as the institution reels from the impact of coronavirus.

The university is in the middle of a consultation on a restructuring regime and letters have been sent to 367 members of staff, warning them that their post could be made redundant. The letter says that the institution is “examining a range of ways to reduce its costs, but it is unlikely to achieve the savings required without staff redundancies”. It offers those at risk severance pay if they opt for voluntary redundancy.

The cuts are expected to include academics, technical staff and professional services workers. 

A petition launched by a group of postgraduate research students, signed by nearly 1,500 people at the time of writing, said that the redundancies and restructuring that the university proposed “can only be detrimental to the academic experience and quality of teaching and supervision”.

Aura Lounasmaa, a lecturer in the School of Social Sciences foundation programme, said staff, students and unions understood that “there is a lot of uncertainty in the sector, but we don’t feel consulted at all. We haven’t been shown what other savings are being made, surely staff cuts should be a last resort?”

She added: “The proposals will not only result in people losing their jobs at this hugely uncertain time but will damage the university, not only in teaching and support but [they also] will hit its research capacity particularly hard, as many of the research supervisors are the ones in the line of fire.”

The campaigners claimed that in its response to Covid-19 UEL had not furloughed any staff or cut the pay of senior management.

University management have warned that the university was currently forecasting an approximate fall in revenue of £31 million in 2020-21 and as a result would need to save £16 million during the 2020-21 financial year to maintain solvency.

In a statement, the university explained that the revenue loss was directly attributable to Covid-19. It added that it remained “cautious” over student recruitment this year.

Many in the sector have warned that the A-level debacle, which resulted in students being given their centre-assessed grades and therefore boosted overall results, would result in higher-tariff institutions hoovering up recruits at the expense of less selective providers.

Amanda Broderick, UEL’s vice-chancellor, said it was “prudent that we take immediate action to ensure the university is in a strong and sustainable position to educate future generations in the years to come”.

“This, unfortunately, means consideration of potential redundancies in some areas of the university where there are longer-term changing student and employer needs, in addition to a range of other measures to address the changing skills and competencies required to deliver high-quality education and research for the fourth industrial revolution.”

“By taking this difficult action now, with the unanimous support of our board of governors, we believe we will emerge from this situation not only safeguarding the university’s future, but also ensure that the role and value of the university continues to increase for the communities it serves.”

anna.mckie@timeshighereducation.com