It is been reported that the University of Dundee is looking to cut an additional 190 jobs. Despite already cutting about 675 jobs through voluntary redundancies, the university said it still needed to make annual savings of about £20m – mostly from staff costs. This is after the Scottish government provided £40m in emergency funding last year to help stabilise the university, with ministers expecting at the time that this would limit job losses to about 300. Political pressure is mounting for a complete reimagining of the university and college sector.

Dundee is not the only university in Scotland in dealing with financial challenges, you could argue Dundee’s problems were exacerbated by poor management. GuildHE did publish some lessons learned here.

So, what are the implications of this for higher education in Scotland?

It seems highly unlikely that another university in Scotland would get the same kind of bailout that Dundee had. It will depend on which (if any) university is failing and where it is. The Scottish government could not afford a scale of bailout that Dundee across the whole of the sector.

Another question is can the sector afford the level of redundancy that we are seeing across the sector. Dundee has reduced its staffing by around 25% and 80% of that was through voluntary redundancy. Across the sector as a whole we are seeing more jobs been cut. 

Despite the need for efficiencies, these cuts must be having an impact on the student experience. In the longer term, we may see a restructuring of the Scottish higher education sector. The SFC has been advocating for more collaboration across both HE and FE in Scotland.