VC speaks on University Finances

Eddie Atkinson (He/Him) and Audrey Lawler (She/Her)

On 9th September, representatives from York Vision, Nouse and YSTV (York
Student Television) were invited to sit at a press conference with the Vice-Chancellor Charlie Jeffery, as well as Pro-Vice Chancellor
for Teaching, Learning and Students Tracy Lightfoot, to question these members of the University Executive Board (UEB) on the University’s financial situation.

A primary area of discussion was regarding the targeted redundancy schemes, where Jeffery named the scheme as a “compulsory redundancy scheme”, following on from their previous voluntary severance scheme: “we’ve had a voluntary severance scheme open for two rounds, and in those two rounds we met the the objective that we set around professional services colleagues, we didn’t meet it with academic staff.”

In reference to the amount of academic staff set to leave, Jeffery said “what we’re talking about in this process is 30 posts which is…2% of the academic
staff…in six areas of the University.” 

The plan is not to be set definitively into motion until around “May next year.”

The process the University has adopted is one that will
use consultations with affected individuals and trade unions,
Jeffery stating that “we tend to go beyond what’s set out in law.” Vision followed up on this claim, to which the University replied: “We started formal collective consultation in June 2024 with recognised Trade Unions (still
ongoing), the redundancies will not take effect until May/June
2025. We have therefore allowed for a full year of consultation when the law requires a minimum of 90 days.”

The University went on to emphasise its strong academic
departments and the importance of maintaining research funding. When Vision asked about the academic impacts these changes will have, Jeffery replied: “No courses are going to cease because of this, so no degree programs will cease because of this. So it is quite
narrow in target.”

Vision went on to question the impact that these changes will have on the wider student body, and how the University is to go about communicating this. Lightfoot assured that “there’s a complete interactive set of communications going out to students all the way through.

“[O]ne of the areas we’ve been looking at is reducing assessment burden. We know that that’s a cause of concern for students, both in terms of the bunching of assessments, the impact of mental health, [and] exceptional circumstances.

“There were some concerns about modules being cut, but
again…we’re not cutting core modules for programs. We’re cutting optional modules where there might have only been two or three students on the module, there now being two or three students in the module. It isn’t a
good student experience.”

When asked whether the University planned on returning to a growth mindset, Jeffery said ‘this University doesn’t lack ambition. If you take those two measures that I set out in gold TEF and top 10 ref [awards in teaching and
research]. There are only four universities which have both of those markers of success: Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and York; we have no intention of leaving that space. 

“While areas may have seen some of the research funding interests fall away, or some of the student demand fall away, we’re not ending those areas, we’re reducing them, but giving them the opportunity to grow again. And of course, there are other areas in the University which are not subject to these measures at all, which are really thriving.

“So we have no intention of becoming smaller in the medium
term. This is an adjustment to respond to two things. One is that we’ve had inflation at rates that we haven’t seen for 40 years, and that’s added about 20% to our running costs, £45 million ish, and we saw under the last
government a number of measures which have impacted… international student recruitment, which means now that we’re anticipating about £40 million or less of international student income than we were two or three years ago. And those two things together are the things that we’re
trying to deal with now, but we’re not going back on our ambitions
for our future.”