UCU skeptical of proposed job cuts in Medical School and Life Sciences

Around eight hundred members of staff at the Warwick Medical School and School of Life Sciences have been warned that their departments are under-performing and that the University will be initiating cost efficiency plans.

The University aims to save around £1 million in academic staffing in the Life Sciences School and £1.7 million in the Medical School.

Staff have been told that the University will aim to avoid compulsory redundancies, though the scale of the job losses and the criteria to govern the reduction of staff has not yet been divulged.

If the University plans to make more than 20 people redundant, it has to enter into a formal consultation process with unions though negotiations of this sort has yet to begin.

The Warwick branch of the University and College Union (UCU) expressed skepticism for the University’s plans.

Professor Dennis Leech, president of Warwick UCU, said: “UCU is not prepared to take it on trust there is a need for job losses in a very wealthy university like Warwick when it is spending millions on buildings, landscaping and a range of prestige projects.

“If there are to be job losses, we need to be convinced these do not result from either poor management or flawed governance.”

It was suggested in a Warwick UCU meeting on Thursday 10 July that the financial deficits of the two Warwick schools was contributed by strategic decisions made by senior management, including making expensive unfunded senior appointments in preparation for the Research Excellence Framework (REF).

Mr Leech continued: “Teaching of students’ courses should not be cut as a result of a shortfall in research grant income or overambitious financial plans, nor should staff have to pay with their careers.

“We need to see the detail of the university’s proposals and to enter into a process of meaningful consultation with a view to avoiding the need for compulsory redundancies of staff.”

In response, a spokesperson for the University has clarified that the financial difficulty lay in the individual departments and that all departments had to operate within their financial plans.

They added: “Staff at both Warwick Medical School and the University of Warwick’s School of Life Sciences have been made aware that the University is concerned that both departments are operating significantly below their financial targets.

“The University has been working with both of these departments to help them rebalance their plans to ensure that they have a strong and sustainable future.

“Whilst the University is unclear as to what the impact of the reduction in staffing levels at both Schools will be at present, the University will seek to achieve any such reduction through voluntary means.”

It has also been suggested by Warwick UCU that the announcement of the job losses in the summer vacation was to ensure minimal opportunities for consultation with staff, students and their representatives.

The University have however claimed this to be “simply untrue”. They said: “Staff were first told about the possibility of a need to reduce staffing levels in presentations open to all staff in both departments on June 18.”