A message from the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Glynis Breakwell:
In February, I wrote to you all explaining that we would need to take steps to ensure the future financial sustainability of the University.
Heads of professional/support services were asked to look creatively at how they might best make savings without having a negative impact on the core academic activity.
They came back with proposals for making savings of over £2.5 million.
The formal consultation on these proposals is now coming to an end.
Every effort has been made to achieve reorganisation and savings without resorting to redundancies. Regrettably, around 19 posts, including posts in the Department of Sports Development & Recreation, could be made redundant but with a staff establishment of over 2,700 we are confident that we can re-deploy most of the current postholders to different roles in the University.
The bulk of the savings will be made by not filling vacant posts. Other savings will be made from operating budgets, and by accepting requests from around a dozen staff to reduce their working hours.
On this final point I think it is important to stress that contrary to what you may have read or heard in some media, reductions in contractual working hours only affect individuals who have indicated a desire to reduce their hours for individual reasons.
All staff affected by the changes will already have been briefed by their line managers.