Dear members of the Education & Young People Committee,

We are writing to thank you all for raising some of the questions we posed in our communication to you earlier this week.
Following up on the interim Principal and Director of Finance’s responses, we would like to clarify a few points:

Financial matters

We were concerned that the Director of Finance could not clarify that, with the intervention of the Scottish Government, the cash position of the University of Dundee will improve in the next two financial years. This is because the deficit figure of £30M for the academic year 2024/25 is mitigated by the £10M grant and £12M loan (?) that the SG has made available last year. At the same time, the VS scheme has yielded £15M in staff cost savings that reduced the operating deficit for 2025/26 to £15M, which is below the £20M per year that the SG is offering. Please bear in mind that the cost of the VS scheme (~£10M), which is a one off cost, is accounted for in the financial year 2025/26.

In their testimony, Prof. Seaton and Mr Hamill stated that the campus unions receive management accounts regularly. This is factually incorrect, since the last management accounts that were shared with us date back to June 2025.

We would like to confirm that the most accurate estimate of staff reduction since August 2024 is 450 FTE (500 colleagues). This includes natural attrition, resignations and staff leaving through VS. It is extremely concerning that Prof. Seaton does not seem to have a clear understanding of staffing levels as UEG ploughs ahead with further staff cuts. If the additional 390 FTE(~450 colleagues) reduction proposed in the August URP goes ahead, by May 2026 UoD would have lost ~30% of its core staff.

Consultation with unions and staff

For the record, since his appointment Prof. Seaton has attended only one formal meeting with the campus unions, which he left after only 20 minutes stating that he “needed to protect his time”.

While Prof. Seaton argued that there have not been compulsory redundancies amongst permanent staff, there currently are permanent members of staff being threatened with compulsory redundancy in the next couple of month as a result of UEG pushing through with the faculties restructuring.

In addition, the University of Dundee classes many long-term serving staff, i.e.staff that have worked at UoD for longer than 4 years, that are funded by research grants as fixed-term. These members of staff are the most vulnerable to situations like the one UoD finds itself in and some of them have been made compulsory redundant as a result of it.

We find it laughable that Prof. Seaton stated that the University of Dundee would go above and beyond in its consultation with the campus trade unions, when they can barely meet legal requirements at the best of times. We have a track record of instances where DUCU had to challenge senior management on the legality of the processes they were following, particularly when it comes to collective consultation.

Prof. Seaton claimed that there was no restructuring of professional services, only a line management change. However, staff in professional services have not only changed direct line manager, but were divided up between different directorates. This act is, in our judgment, what would usually be brought to a collective consultation meeting as an organisational change. In fact, Prof. Seaton stated in his email of 8th October to all staff that the there were “changes in structure and leadership for our Professional Services”.

We are concerned that Prof. Seaton sees strike action as “something that Unions do”, rather than a last resort action taken when unions are not being listened to. We would welcome a more proactive approach with respect to engagement with the unions.

Prof. Seaton stated that he is going to attend a meeting next month with local MSPs and the unions. We would like to make the committee aware that we have no knowledge of such a meeting. While we asked in multiple occasions for a meeting of this sort to take place, we were always told this was not possible by the SG unless it was the University to instigate it, while Prof. Seaton stated that he would not do such thing.

Governance

We are disappointed that the acting Chair of Court was not invited by Prof. Seaton to address governance matters in front of the Education & Young People Committee.

It seems that UEG has prioritised the restructuring of the University, despite the letter from SFC of 18th August, instead of addressing the issues highlighted in the Gillies report.

Prof. Seaton stated that he improved the transparency of Senate by instituting a working group to look at its efficiency. However, the existence of this working group is outside of Statutes, Ordinances and Senate standing orders. In addition, the selection criteria for participation in the working group were arbitrarily drawn up by the interim Principal and he was alone involved in choosing the membership.

We have concerns around Prof. Seaton’s lack of knowledge of fair work principles.

We remain available to speak to members if the committee, if helpful.

Kind regards,

DUCU Branch Committee