August 21, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Management is asking staff to accept another round of irreversible job cuts based on outdated and inaccurate financial projections, in the name of financial discipline while the institution continues to operate without an approved budget for the current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 \u2014 not to finance a programme of cuts that leave the University, the city and Scotland poorer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Management has publicly emphasised the\u202fnumber\u202fof 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Scottish Government has chosen to remain at arm’s length as this crisis unfolds, repeatedly invoking the principle of institutional \u201cautonomy\u201d. But institutional autonomy cannot mean an absence of public accountability \u2014 particularly when millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money have been committed to Dundee’s recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before more jobs are lost, staff, students, taxpayers and the people of Dundee deserve evidence that these cuts will secure the University’s future\u202fand that tax payers money is used to benefit the community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":718,"featured_media":0,"parent":949,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1546","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/ducu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/ducu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/ducu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/ducu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/718"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/ducu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/ducu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1547,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/ducu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1546\/revisions\/1547"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/ducu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/ducu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}