Napier looks at compulsory redundancies to save £4.8m

STAFF at one of the city's biggest universities are facing a wave of compulsory redundancies as the institution looks to save £4.8 million.

Edinburgh Napier said it had begun a consultation with unions against a backdrop of expected reductions in government funding.

Unions said the university was looking to make 100 redundancies over the next two years, with the process already underway to shed 11 staff from the School of Arts and Creative Industries.

It comes after 89 members of staff agreed to take voluntary redundancy as part of a money-saving shake-up.

The university said it aimed to save 4.8m from its 64.5m wages budget. It said it could not put a figure on how many jobs would go, adding current discussions with Unison and the Education Institute of Scotland (EIS) were about how the savings would be made.

A spokesman for the university said: "Like other universities in the UK, we expect to have to make significant savings in staff costs in light of reductions in public funding.

"We are committed to early consultation to avoid redundancies where possible, but as the university could face a financial deficit if action is not taken now, compulsory redundancies cannot be ruled out.

"We anticipate we will have to reduce staff costs by 4.8m during the 2010/11 academic year and are now in a consultation period with our unions about how these are made."

He added: "We are committed to ensuring the university continues to be a successful and sustainable organisation, delivering high quality education and research that meets the needs of the economy."

A spokesman for the EIS said he had "grave" concerns about how the university was carrying out the redundancy process.

He said: "The university's actions in arbitrarily halting recruitment of some programmes at Easter this year and the targeting of lecturers who teach theoretical aspects of their programmes, makes the consultation that the university is carrying out meaningless."

The university has already taken a series of measures to reduce costs. A total of 116 applications for voluntary severance was made by employees, after the university opened the offer to all staff last summer.

Forty-five teaching staff successfully applied to the scheme, while 44 "professional service staff" also left Napier.

Earlier this summer lecturers across Scotland threatened industrial action over planned job cuts. A report from lecturers union the UCU said reducing teacher-training places would cause "major financial problems" for universities.