Core information
What you need to know: the background, context, what we’ve done so far and plans for the future
Background
UK funding for higher education continues to be very challenging and, like many other universities, we continue to face increasing costs.
UK universities do not make a profit and any income is spent on running the university or reinvesting for the future. You can see how we spend your fees, but even though tuition fees play a significant role in university finances, it's now widely reported that universities across the country lose £1 billion each year on teaching domestic students and £5 billion on undertaking research.
We are also still facing cost of living and inflationary pressures, with more expensive fuel, energy, maintenance and equipment. For example, a microscope that used to cost £100 at the beginning of 2021, now costs more than £120. We are having to absorb these increased costs.
All of this means we need to find different ways to manage our finances so that we can reinvest in teaching and learning, our student experience and in our research.
The need for change
Charlie Jeffery, our Vice-Chancellor, wrote a comment piece for the media about why universities need to act now to manage their finances and the need to rethink how the UK helps fund its universities.
He stresses how we must protect high quality teaching and research, and he sets out a ten-point plan for a more resilient sector.
On the national scene, we are playing our part in discussions with the new government on how to address the challenges facing the sector. With a strong presence at the recent Labour Party Conference, one key objective was to position universities in general - York in particular - as vital players in both regional and national economic strategies, working alongside elected Mayors. Another was to promote the long-term benefits the UK gets from attracting talented international students to study here.
But whilst the new government has talked about universities in much more positive ways, we are yet to see substantive policy changes and it seems doubtful that there will be any significant financial boost to the sector in the Autumn budget. As such, we remain ‘on our own’ and we need to find our own ways to the more sustainable finances that will enable us to protect our strengths and invest in our academic ambitions.
What York is doing about it
York has moved quickly to put in place a series of measures to control what we can.
As well as finding new ways to increase our income, we also need to lower how much it costs to run the University.
Estates costs
A big part of this is looking at our estate costs. We want to focus on using our buildings more effectively, by spending time in the better buildings and moving out of our older ones that are expensive to maintain and run.
We have a limited physical campus footprint within the University, and yet our need for certain types of buildings - such as increased student residences - continues to grow.
We continue to see high demand from both staff and students to work and study online, in a hybrid fashion. Footfall patterns on our campus are significantly different to what they were just a few years ago.
These factors, coupled with ageing and inaccessible buildings, and growing pressures on costs and carbon usage, mean it’s vital we take an active approach to managing our campus development.
This will mean repurposing buildings, and closing or mothballing old ones, and flexibly utilising buildings with shared spaces, as part of our plans for our campus of the future.
Changes to staffing
For our staff, we need to reduce costs by removing duplication and we want to protect our staff's time on the activities that bring the most benefit for our students and our research.
At the beginning of 2024, we identified a need for about a 7-8% reduction in total staffing levels, to return us to what we had in September 2022.
When making decisions about staffing levels, it’s been really important to us that any decisions staff make about leaving the University have been voluntary, wherever possible.
York has acted sooner than most to build our financial resilience and, in May 2024, we opened a voluntary severance scheme for colleagues who wished to retire early or expressed an interest in leaving the University.
We received a strong number of applications and all staff have now been advised of their outcomes, with colleagues leaving us on a staggered basis from September 2024 onwards.
The rate of applications fell slightly short of where we needed it to be for academics, so a very limited, targeted redundancy scheme has now been launched: initially this involved about 30 full time equivalent (FTE) posts but thanks to alternative solutions being identified to address savings targets, this is now reduced to about 20 FTE posts in total. This is smaller than we might have initially feared, but is still an extremely difficult prospect for those staff involved.
The areas in the University that are still included in the scheme are parts of Education, Health Sciences, the International Pathway College and Language and Linguistic Science, but please note that because we are only seeking a very limited reduction of posts in total, not all staff in these areas will be at potential risk of redundancy. Mathematics and Social Policy and Social Work (part of the School for Business and Society) were initially part of this scheme, but because these areas have been able to identify alternative solutions, they are no longer affected.
We are determined to remain focused on voluntary options, and any redundancy scheme will include a voluntary redundancy option for those at risk, which is an option to leave with an enhanced exit package.
We understand that this is an unsettling time for staff and students, and we will continue to provide regular updates to those impacted.