Swansea Uni vice-chancellor faces no confidence vote over proposed job cuts

The vice-chancellor at Swansea University is facing a vote of no confidence by staff over proposed job cuts.

This comes after an announcement that £25m worth of staff job cuts will be made at the Welsh university this academic year, with a further £5m proposed cuts in other areas.

Despite Swansea University saying it will work hard to ensure the necessary spending cuts do not negatively impact its “core mission”, members of Swansea University and the College Union (UCU) have said it has no confidence in Professor Paul Boyle to uphold this promise.

Estelle Hart, president of the Swansea UCU, told BBC News: “This vote reflects the anger and frustration felt by our members who are facing yet another year with the threat of redundancy hanging over them while they are expected to deliver more and more with less and less.”

Estelle added that these cuts were creating an “impossible working situation for staff”.

As part of a voluntary severance scheme, Swansea UCU has claimed that 400 members of staff have left the university, with 200 job vacancies also removed. It described the situation as a “financial crisis” which will not be resolved through further job reductions.

Swansea University has been anticipating the staff cuts, with its income falling from £412m to £382m since 2023. This follows a trend seen across other universities, where staff jobs are said to be “at risk”.

According to the UCU, universities across the UK have collectively announced more than 12,000 job cuts in the last year.

Swansea University via Google Maps

Additional cost savings announced could lead to a further 3,000 jobs, but universities have not confirmed whether these savings will be staff-related.

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UCU members will be voting on potential UK-wide strike action over a 1.4 per cent pay offer later this month.

A Swansea University spokesperson said: “The UK Higher Education sector is facing a number of challenges, exacerbated by significant changes to the international student recruitment context.

“In common with many other universities, Swansea University needs to make savings to ensure our future financial sustainability and, over the past three years, we have worked hard to secure these essential savings by reducing our overall expenditure, through the careful management of vacancies at all levels and through voluntary staff exits.

“Given the scale of the challenge across the sector, we acknowledge that difficult decisions have been, and will continue to be, taken.

“We are deeply aware of the impact that this may have on our staff community and our priority throughout this process has been to support our colleagues. We also continue to engage meaningfully with our recognised Campus Unions as we explore all available options to meet the financial requirements of the coming year.

“Swansea University remains committed to providing an excellent student experience and high-quality teaching, and to conducting world-leading research. We are working hard to ensure that any essential savings do not adversely affect our core mission.”

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Featured image via Google Maps, Canva and @swansea_ucu_abertawe on Instagram