The interim principal of crisis-hit Dundee University has warned of further job losses at the institution – but denied suggestions it is on a “suicide mission”.
Professor Nigel Seaton told MSPs of efforts to turn around the university, which is expected to have a deficit of “something in the order of £30 million” for this current academic year.
Taking on the job of interim principal in June, Prof Seaton said he had come in “at very short notice to a university in the deepest crisis to affect any British university at least since the Second World War”.
In what he described as a “very deep crisis”, the Scottish Government has already been forced to step in and bail out the university with £40 million of emergency cash, with ministers said to have the expectation this would help keep job losses at Dundee to a maximum of 300.
However, Prof Seaton said the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) – the body which funds universities in Scotland – now “accepts that further reductions in the workforce will have to take place”.
He said he has not discussed this matter with higher and further education minister Ben Macpherson, having not spoken to him since the minister took on the post in September.
Prof Seaton also confirmed had not spoken to education secretary Jenny Gilruth since “sometime in the middle of August”.
University bosses had hoped they could reduce workforce numbers by about 300 through a voluntary severance scheme, which in the end will result in 245 full-time equivalent staff leaving.
When asked what ministers are getting for the public cash they are providing, Prof Seaton responded: “They’re getting something very simple, they’re getting the continued survival and then thriving of the University of Dundee.”
He described the university as being “the absolute cornerstone of life in the city of Dundee” and said it was “deeply regrettable we have to ask for this money”.
While job losses at the university have already sparked protests by unions, Prof Seaton told Holyrood’s Education Committee that financial forecasts “clearly show we either have to reduce the level of expenditure”.
He added: “We don’t know quite how many jobs will be lost, but it will clearly have to be substantial.
“There is a need to have a substantial reduction in costs.”
Labour education spokeswoman Pam Duncan-Glancy pressed him on whether the scale of job losses is about “managed decline, not recovery”.
She told the university boss that staff and the local community “feel like things are in managed decline, that the university is on a bit of a suicide mission”.
However, Prof Seaton told her: “We’re not a suicide mission.
“We will return the university to financial health, and will continue to do great things for our staff, our students.”
He told MSPs the university was “traumatised” when he became interim principal.
But he added: “We’re confident we can operate the university on a reduced staffing level.
“We know that other universities that are like us, similar size, similar sort of subjects, similar kinds of research, can operate effectively on the kind of income we have and they do that by having fewer staff.”
Lee Hamill, the interim finance director at the university, told MSPs about its “unsustainable” financial situation, saying for this current academic year, “the university is forecasting to lose something in the order of £30 million”.
The following year, the deficit is forecast to reduce to “about £14 million”, but he stressed: “That’s not sustainable and it will limit the choices the university has going forward.”
Staff wages alone cost the university “about £15 million” each month, he added.
Mr Hamill was appointed to his role after the university’s chief finance officer quit after just over a week in the post this summer.
Chris Reilly, who had also had the role on an interim basis, stepped down at the start of July.
Prof Seaton said: “He was at the beginning of his second week when he left.
“But I can’t say anything more than that; there is a legal matter we’re engaged with. Because of that, I can’t say anything now.”
Mr Hamill similarly said he could not comment on what happened with Mr Reilly.
When asked if he was excited about joining Dundee University, he said: “I think excited is probably the wrong word.
“I was very committed to doing all I can to help the University of Dundee come through this very difficult time, recognising the huge impact it has had on staff and students and the community.
“I was very mindful of the seriousness of the situation, and committed to do all I can to help.”
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