Dear colleagues
Thanks to those who joined the Open Session yesterday, asked questions and provided feedback at what continues to be a very difficult time for all of us. If you missed the session, you can see the discussion in full in a recording which will be shared in this week’s Staff News.
As outlined at the meeting, the University is projecting a deficit of up to £12m for the current academic year. That is why we have developed and received Court approval for a robust financial recovery plan to get us back on a much stronger, more sustainable financial footing, with a deficit of up to £6m in 2024/25 and a return to break even in 2025/26.
Managing change is difficult even at the best of times. Our efforts to reposition and adapt to the challenging sector circumstances include the progress being made with our Enhanced Retirement and Voluntary Severance offer, which we hope will enable us to achieve the savings required.
In order to have the best possible chance of achieving the savings in this way, we have extended to Tuesday 2 April the deadline for those who may have missed the initial February cut off for submission of expression of interest. The final deadline for formal applications remains 30 April, but colleagues are encouraged to make a formal application when ready to do so.
Please note, all expressions of interest and applications will be carefully considered but we must protect our key strengths and areas of strategic importance so there may be some applications that we have to turn down.
In addition to this, Directors in Professional Services are looking at how they can reorganise and reshape areas to better support our ambitions for education and research.
With some parts of our University Estate used less intensively post Covid, we are also looking at releasing some assets. This would raise revenue and reduce spending on energy and maintenance.
Whatever your area, management of workloads is something we are very conscious of and actively looking to address. While work is underway to further improve our wellbeing and mental health support, if you are concerned, please make sure to reach out to your line manager or HR colleagues.
Times of uncertainty are always testing but we will keep you updated on key developments as soon as we can. I am grateful for your commitment to the University and all the work you have been doing to ensure we get through this to get to 2025/26 and beyond and see revenue growing again. In the meantime, we are working our way through questions raised at the open session to prepare FAQs – and we will share a page shortly where these will be posted.
Please get in touch with me if you have ideas about how to address our current circumstances, especially about revenue growth.
Best wishes George |
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