3 September 2026: Dundee UCU has reviewed the performance of the Scottish Funding Council against its two important governance documents: The Financial Memorandum with Higher Education Institutions, and the Scottish Code of Good HE Governance. We have found multiple significant failures on the part of the SFC in adhering to its own codes of practice and governance. These are particularly noticeable as they repeat the failures identified of the SFC in the Gillies Report of 2025.

Again, we ask the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament, to whom the SFC is legally accountable, to address the governance failures that continue at the University of Dundee.

The failures of the SFC we have highlighted include:

• Not providing evidence that public funds will not be used to fund redundancy payments;
• Failure to question the absence of figures and value and effectiveness of the use of public funds;
• Failure to question the absence of key financial documents;
• Failure to critically investigate claims by University management and barriers to information sharing;
• Failure to investigate problems in financial forecasting;
• Failure to address legal and financial risks to the University;
• Failure to address why Court has not seen necessary documents related to the Strategy to Recovery
• Failure to address multiple violations by University Court of the Scottish Code of Good HE Governance.

2 September 2026: The DUCU Nominee on Court had requested that a paper on staffing at the University of Dundee and the impact of these numbers on staff cuts proposed in the Strategy to Recovery be circulated to Court members in advance of the Court meeting on 8 September 2026. His request was refused. We are publishing the paper here.

DUCU’s Summary of UCU Scotland commissioned financial report on the Strategy to Recovery

1 September 2026

Key points 

The University management (UEG) Strategy to Recovery is not a credible strategic plan. It is a generic financial turnaround plan built around hitting financial targets rather than diagnosing Dundee’s specific structural problem. 

The fundamental issue is Dundee’s unusually high research intensity. Dundee is a relatively small to middle-sized, research-intensive university and has to cross-subsidise research from other activities/areas.  

The SFC has said the problems are not simply financial but involve failures of strategy, governance, leadership, management and financial planning. 

Management are proposing approximately £20m of further recurring savings, largely through staffing reductions, despite the university already having undergone a very substantial reduction in staff 

Staff FTE fell from 3,111 in August 2024 to 2,500 by May 2026  i.e. a reduction of almost 20% in less than two years. 

The recovery plan envisaged reducing the workforce to around 2,300 FTE, meaning further major cuts remain embedded in the strategy. This would represent a cut of over 25% staff FTE. 

The review argues that there has been insufficient assessment of the consequences of these cuts for teaching, research, and institutional stability. Continuing to cut at this pace risks hollowing out the institution rather than recovering it. 

The financial case for further cuts is not transparently demonstrated. Staffing savings are presented largely as unexplained net figures, making it difficult for governors, or outsiders, to independently test the calculations. 

Financial issues 

The June 2026 Strategy appears to rely heavily on old forecasts, including figures dating from January 2026 or earlier. 

Most strikingly, the Strategy showed opening 2026/27 cash of approximately £32m, whereas April management accounts had revised this to over £60m. 

The review therefore questions why the Strategy was approved without being fully updated and whether the proposed scale of cuts is justified by the latest financial position. 

The university remains dependent on substantial Scottish Government/SFC support. Without the 2026/27 support, the underlying forecast deficit is around £10m. 

The university also faces a substantial capital investment backlog, including RAAC, making the assumption that it can simultaneously rebuild cash, fund infrastructure and achieve 8% EBITDA through further cuts particularly problematic. 

Life Sciences needs scrutiny 

Faculty of Life Sciences generates approximately £75m annually or around a quarter of Dundee’s income excluding government support, but contributes only around 18%  to central costs according to the business case. This means other faculties effectively have to subsidise the research-intensive model. 

The review does not conclude that Life Sciences is inherently unsustainable; rather, it says the university has failed to provide sufficient evidence to allow anyone to determine whether the current model is sustainable. 

Stakeholders should therefore demand the underlying Life Sciences income, full economic costing and research cost-recovery calculations, rather than accepting headline figures. 

What the report proposes to happen 

Pause further major cuts long enough to assess the impact of the two VS rounds already implemented. 

Require the university to provide fully updated financial forecasts and the underlying calculations for every proposed staffing saving. 

Require a transparent assessment of the sustainability of Dundee’s research-intensive model, rather than simply imposing sector-wide financial benchmarks. 

Increase external scrutiny of governance and finances involving SFC, Scottish Government, OSCR and independent mediation. The review explicitly recommends greater involvement of external parties. 

Consider additional transitional government support, including low-interest funding for RAAC/capital works and potentially government guarantees for commercial lending. 

Crucially, stakeholders/governors should consider whether Dundee can continue in its current institutional form. The review argues that the issue may now be beyond what can realistically be resolved through institutional autonomy alone. 

Dundee UCU has collected our members’ experiences of the collective consultation on voluntary and compulsory redundancies between 10 August and 21 August 2026. This was after the end of the minimum statutory consultation period and 7-9 weeks after the process began. The information has been published following a review by and permission from our members for the purpose of public scrutiny of the University of Dundee’s ongoing governance failures. This is not an exhaustive list of failures; it only includes information that our members have been willing to reveal at this point in time.

Open Letter to John Swinney: Dundee is now a Test of Your Government’s Leadership 

25 August 2026

Dear First Minister, 

At 6.30 am today, the University of Dundee’s Chief People Officer wrote to staff announcing the start of the voluntary redundancies process, potentially leading to compulsory redundancies, as University management aims to reduce the staffing headcount by an additional 154 FTE. All day today up to 500 members of staff have been called into hastily organised meetings with management, some with just 5 minutes notice, to inform them that they are at risk of redundancy and have less than ten days to apply for voluntary redundancy. This is the culmination of two years of pain, sacrifice, and goodwill from staff to hold together a university whose governance and financial failures they didn’t cause but are paying the price for.  

Most seriously, these proposed cuts do not appear to be required to meet the staffing reduction set out in the university’s own Strategy to Recovery.   

The Strategy to Recovery (StR) was prepared in May 2026 based on approximately 2,500 FTE staffing at the University and proposed reducing this number to 2,313 FTE. As of August 2026, staffing has already fallen to approximately 2,355 FTE. Yet management is now seeking a further reduction of 154 FTE staff. On those figures, the University’s staff numbers would fall to around 2,200 FTE –  more than 100 FTE below the staffing level on which the Strategy to Recovery was approved by Court.  

Notably, the Scottish Government made exceptional public funding available for the University of Dundee’s recovery, while the Scottish Funding Council attached conditions requiring financial safeguards and meaningful staff engagement. It also required the University’s Academic Operating Model to be supported by a detailed workforce plan, linked directly to the Strategy to Recovery, setting out the future size and shape of the institution. The current proposals now appear to depart materially from the staffing assumptions in the approved Strategy to Recovery, yet management has not explained why.  

If the workforce plan on which the recovery was approved has changed so substantially, the Government must establish whether its own funding conditions are still being satisfied.  

The University of Dundee continues to operate without an officially approved budget for the current financial year, which started on 1 August 2026.  Neither the financial issues nor the governance and cultural problems that have caused the initial crisis at Dundee University have been adequately addressed by its leadership. The failures of the consultation process now risk compounding those problems by exposing the University to potentially substantial legal claims, employment tribunal awards and further avoidable financial losses following the extensively documented procedural and substantive failures of the collective consultation process for voluntary redundancy. 

The latest round of redundancies will raise the total jobs lost at the University of Dundee to over 1000 jobs, which will result in roughly £50 million in lost wages being removed from the local economy. This does not account for other indirect losses from course closures leading to fewer students staying in the city and fewer opportunities for a high-quality education for the young people of the city and Scotland. 

Without financial integrity, rigorous scrutiny and effective governance, there is every risk that Dundee will remain in crisis for years to come.  

What will the Scottish Government do then — provide another tranche of public money, allow another round of redundancies, and maintain once again that management decisions and actions are a matter for an autonomous university alone?  

First Minister, you have followed the crisis at the University of Dundee closely. 

You have repetitively met with its leadership. Your Government entrusted this leadership with up to £62 million of public money to deliver a credible recovery. You have also spoken publicly about the University’s future. You have told Parliament that staff and trade unions must be meaningfully consulted and that your Government will ensure that that is the case. When further job cuts were announced on 16 June, you told Parliament that although the Scottish Funding Council believed the University had complied with the conditions attached to public funding, ministers themselves “had not been assured on the details’ and would require to see them — because the funding direction came from ministers.”  

So, today we are asking you personally:  

At what point, does standing at arm’s length become a failure to exercise responsibility?  

Are you satisfied that the significant job cuts are necessary, financially justified, and consistent with the conditions attached to the extraordinary public funding provided by your government?  

Are you confident that they will secure Dundee’s future and not cause further harm to the University, the city and its communities?  

And if you are not, will you intervene before irreversible damage is done? 

MSP Heather Anderson asks Ed Sec to intervene

Dundee West MSP Heather Anderson has asked the Education Secretary Mairi McAllan to urgently intervene at the University of Dundee. Courier Article.

DUCU warns: Dundee could be left poorer and millions in emergency funding squandered as interim Principal pushes ahead with more wide-reaching and devastating job cuts 

Fundamental financial questions remain unresolved as serious governance failures continue 

August 21, 2026

Today, after more than two months without direct communication to staff on the redundancy process from Interim Principal Nigel Seaton, colleagues received an email announcing the closure of collective consultation, as management presses ahead with a further devastating job cuts.

The latest redundancy process was launched by the interim Principal in the week before graduation, overshadowing what should have been a celebration of students and staff. What followed was a gruelling summer of uncertainty, with hundreds left in limbo while management pursued a consultation process that failed to provide the clarity or evidence colleagues needed.

Management is asking staff to accept another round of irreversible job cuts based on outdated and inaccurate financial projections, in the name of financial discipline while the institution continues to operate without an approved budget for the current financial year. Large parts of the institution are being reshaped while the basic financial framework against which income and expenditure should be controlled has not been formally approved. With taxpayers now underwriting the institution’s recovery, the Scottish Government has a clear moral responsibility to ensure that public money is being used to secure a sustainable future for Dundee — not to finance a programme of cuts that leave the University, the city and Scotland poorer.

Management has publicly emphasised the number of engagements undertaken during consultation and the changes it says were made to its proposals. But consultation cannot be measured by counting meetings. Consultation has been reduced to a box-ticking exercise: staff and unions have been invited to participate, while there has been little evidence that management was prepared to reconsider the fundamental direction of travel.

Cutting staff will diminish teaching and research capacity and undermine the University’s ability to recruit students and generate future income. A recovery strategy which counts the savings from job losses without adequately accounting for the income and capacity that may be lost with them risks making the institution weaker rather than more sustainable.

These are irreversible decisions whose consequences will extend for a generation – far beyond the term of the people currently making them. They are being taken by an interim leadership which has shown little or no willingness to address fundamental questions about financial planning, governance and accountability.

The interim Principal will not be responsible for leading Dundee through the long-term consequences of these decisions. Staff, students and communities across Dundee and the wider region will be.

The Scottish Government has chosen to remain at arm’s length as this crisis unfolds, repeatedly invoking the principle of institutional “autonomy”. But institutional autonomy cannot mean an absence of public accountability — particularly when millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money have been committed to Dundee’s recovery.

The problems at Dundee have never been simply financial. It is therefore increasingly difficult to understand how ministers can provide substantial emergency support while treating the decisions governing how that recovery is delivered as matters in which they have little responsibility.

DUCU is calling on University Court and the Scottish Government to insist on independent scrutiny of the financial case before any further irreversible redundancies are authorised.

Management should be required to provide an up-to-date and approved financial baseline, explain transparently how the claimed staffing savings have been calculated, demonstrate how the effects of further cuts on income and institutional capacity have been assessed, and show how the use of millions of pounds of emergency public funding will result in a stronger and sustainable University.

Before more jobs are lost, staff, students, taxpayers and the people of Dundee deserve evidence that these cuts will secure the University’s future and that tax payers money is used to benefit the community.

5 weeks of strike action start in September

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) at Dundee University will strike for 25 days over five weeks at the start of the new academic year in a long running dispute over cuts and job losses including compulsory redundancies.

Staff at the university will be on strike each weekday from Monday 21 September through to Friday 23 October, meaning the strike will last for the first five weeks of the new term.  As well as taking strike action, staff will also be taking part in action short of strike which will include action such as not covering for colleagues or undertaking voluntary activities. 

The dispute began back in November 2024 when the then university principal announced an unforeseen deficit of £30million and the possibility of compulsory redundancies.  Since then 815 jobs have been lost but, despite the largest reduction in head count at any Scottish university in recent history, senior management announced in June this year further plans to cut another 200 jobs.  These additional job cuts have been criticised by the Scottish Government over the lack of engagement with staff and trade unions citing the stress and uncertainty the announcement has caused.

As well as the planned strike action, UCU members will also be lobbying court – the governing body of the university – from 12.30pm today (Thursday) outside the Bonar Hall* on the university campus.  Staff will be lobbying court members over university management’s plans to cut jobs and calling for senior management to rule out using compulsory redundancies. 

Ian Ellis, co-president of the Dundee University UCU branch, said: “Five weeks of strikes at the start of the new term will have a real impact for the students starting their studies here.  Absolutely no-one wants to take strike action, and the impact on students is hugely regretful but the fact is that another 200 staff members facing redundancy, on top of the over 800 who have already gone, will have a bigger impact on the university and on our students and their education than anything else imaginable.  The deficit that started this catalogue of failure was the fault of the university executive and court, and the inability to find a solution to this crisis that doesn’t wholly impact on staff, who have done absolutely nothing wrong, simply signifies yet another failure of management. Government ministers are right to call out the lack of engagement with trade unions and staff.  We want to be part of the solution to this crisis, but willingness to open and genuine engagement is a prerequisite for that.”

Jo Grady, UCU general secretary, said: “When the ballot for strike action was last renewed, almost 80% of members backed the action.  Staff have shown time after time that they’re prepared to defend jobs.  The Scottish Government has rightly been critical of the lack of engagement from the university.  Senior management at Dundee need to listen to their staff and students, and find a solution to this crisis that saves jobs and guarantees the university’s future.”

Support the public campaign to stop redundancies and closures at the University of Dundee

Sign the petitions against staff cuts and closures, and view our campaign posters.

Press release – Students and Dundee community stand to lose as University management plan to privatise English for International Students Team

9 July 2026

Students are deeply concerned by proposals to privatise the English for International Students activities, which support students from before they arrive at university through to postgraduate and PhD study. EIS helps students develop the language and academic skills they need to succeed throughout their academic journey.  The proposed changes would remove a long-established source of specialist academic English language support for students and transfer parts of this work to a private provider. 

“For many international students like me, the EIS team is not just a support service; it is the reason we feel we belong here. Their work quietly but powerfully shapes our confidence, our wellbeing and our ability to succeed. Behind every service are real students whose experiences depend on them.’ (Dundee University students open up on impact of proposed cuts)” 

The proposed dissolution of EIS is not simply a restructuring exercise. It represents a significant step towards the privatisation of higher education services. Under the current proposals, pre-entry English provision would be transferred to a private provider. Dundee UCU is concerned that discussions with an external provider are already taking place and being finalised despite claims that no final decision has been made.

These plans run counter to the university’s commitments to fair work and redundancy avoidance. They also risk the loss of specialist expertise built up over many years. Years of public investment have helped create a successful, professionally accredited in-house service that contributes significantly to student retention, attainment and progression. Replacing that expertise with outsourced provision risks squandering that investment rather than building upon it.

The impact would extend beyond the university. EIS serves the wider community through the ESOL programme which helps people from diverse backgrounds access education, employment and social opportunities. ESOL students themselves are vocal supporters of EIS:

 “ESOL lessons not only help me to learn the language better but also provide a deeper understanding of Scotland’s tradition and culture.“

“The ESOL class is not just a language course. The classes give us the tools to thrive, communicate effectively, and contribute to local society. I strongly encourage the university management to reconsider any proposals for redundancies and instead invest in preserving this indispensable service.”

Dundee UCU is calling on the Scottish Government to halt these plans and for the University to honour its commitments to fair work and redundancy avoidance.  The University needs to a work with staff and students to protect student services, which are central to student success and community engagement.

This is about more than a team. It’s about protecting a service that helps students succeed, strengthens the local community and delivers lasting value to the university.

Press release – DUCU responds to SFC letter of 26 June 2026

30 June 2026

In light of the publication of the letter from the Scottish Funding Council dated 26 June 2026 to the Chair of Court of the University of Dundee (on the SFC website – available here), Dundee UCU welcomes the Scottish Funding Council and Scottish Government’s intention to address the ongoing and serious failings of governance at the University of Dundee, including but not limited to the adherence to the Conditions of Funding under Section 25 of the Further and Higher Education Act 2005.

Dundee UCU repeatedly raised concerns and evidenced the serious failures in decision-making, financial oversight, transparency, accountability, and the credibility of the University’s recovery process in the last twelve months. In June 2025, the Gillies Report highlighted how failures in leadership, governance, and financial management threatened the survival of the institution. In our view, these problems have significantly worsened since the report’s publication. As a consequence, DUCU unanimously voted no confidence in the Interim Principal and Finance Director in February 2026.

While we believe that a serious and structured intervention by the Scottish Funding Council could improve trust and working relationships, DUCU fails to understand how acts of co-creation of services and policies, development of a shared framework of values, and open engagement can happen within the legal constraints of a collective consultation on hundreds of redundancies. In accordance with the Conditions of Funding, these actions should have informed the Strategy to Recovery, rather than being an afterthought. The shape and future of the University has been, once again, decided behind closed doors by a limited number of individuals, while staff and students are being forced through a top-down, highly orchestrated process, where governance structures are bent to the will of senior management.

To prevent a further deterioration of the University’s recovery, and to avoid any misuse of Scottish taxpayer money, Dundee UCU calls on the Scottish Funding Council and the Scottish Government to:

• Institute a forensic audit of the University’s finance systems and finances to ensure that financial decision-making is transparent and credible,

• Ensure full publication of key financial information, accounts, recovery planning assumptions, and governance decisions, subject to legal requirements,

• Initiate a comprehensive review of University governance structures and their functioning so that the structures are genuinely accountable to staff, students, and the wider university community.

• Undertake a judicial review of the processes followed to instigate the restructuring of the University and the current proposal of course and services reduction or closure.

• Initiate a financial and procedural review, including procurement processes, of the University’s plans to outsource core services.

Scottish taxpayer money must not be used to fund redundancies, outsource essential services, or expand the University’s investment in foreign ventures while divesting from local provision, whether directly or by stealth. This approach will have severe negative implications on the economy of the city of Dundee and the Tayside region, as well as destroying the livelihoods of hundreds of staff and reducing opportunities for future students.

The University community and the city of Dundee deserve leadership that is cognisant of its impact on the people, economy, and culture of the city. Dundee UCU calls for a University leadership that is accountable, transparent, and willing to work in partnership with staff, students and campus unions to develop a financially robust Strategy to Recovery that delivers for the University and the city.

Press release – Dundee UCU Finds University’s Strategy for Recovery Lacking

Warns that Millions of Public Money will be Used to Devastate Dundee University and City

16 June 2026

The University of Dundee is planning to cut more than 200 jobs without any meaningful engagement with its community – meaning it has not met the conditions of its funding from the Scottish Funding Council. Dundee University and College Union (DUCU) have released a detailed evaluation of the University of Dundee’s Strategy to Recovery, which highlights serious failures in complying with the conditions of funding. While the SNP’s Education Secretary reportedly asked university leadership not to push ahead with plans today, the Scottish Funding Council have – despite giving Dundee University millions of pounds of extra funding – failed to get the University to reconsider their flawed strategy.  

The University’s Strategy to Recovery has been developed without the credible and meaningful engagement required by the SFC’s own framework. DUCU’s analysis confirms that staff and students were not involved in shaping the Strategy to Recovery, workforce plan, academic operating model, or longer-term strategy. The union’s evaluation shows that key documents required under the SFC’s Conditions of Grant have not been shared with staff or campus unions, making independent evaluation impossible and raising serious concerns about transparency, governance, and accountability. 

The University’s financial recovery plans are not evidence-based. Nearly 1000 jobs are expected to be lost through voluntary severance, recruitment freezes, and planned redundancies over an 18-month period, but University leadership have failed to show that these measures will let the University achieve its financial or other goals. 

The University’s actions have also undermined trust within the institution. The union’s evaluation highlights concerns over management restructuring, the creation of new senior leadership positions during a period of significant job losses, and the impact of staffing reductions on academic administration, examination processes, and support for income-generating activities. 

The union is calling for the cuts at Dundee University to be paused until the Scottish Funding Council and Dundee University can demonstrate that the conditions of SFC funding have been met. This could involve commissioning an independent expert review, as provided for under the conditions of the grant SFC and Scottish Government need to insist that Dundee University does additional work to meet the conditions of the SFC funding, and of good employment and Higher Education practice more broadly. If SFC and Scottish Government allow these cuts to proceed without additional independent scrutiny, they will be allowing tens of millions of pounds of public money to be used to impose devastating cuts on Dundee University and the wider city. Now is the last chance for the Scottish Government to act to ensure that conditions are being followed.  

Industrial Action Renewed until June 2027

On 9 June 2026, Dundee UCU secured a successful mandate for strike action and Action Short of a Strike (ASOS) for the next 12 months. Our UCU Scotland Official informed the University of Dundee the same day.

78% of our members voted that they would take strike action. 88% of members voted for Action Short of a Strike (ASOS).

Campaign Materials

You can find the petitions to save various parts of the university from cuts as well as campaign and poster materials on our webpage here.