Cardiff University academics ‘have considered suicide and abortion because of cruel cuts programme’

Martin Shipton

Academic staff working at Cardiff University have been so traumatised by the management of a hugely controversial cuts programme that some have contemplated suicide or having an abortion.

As a result, the lecturers’ union UCU has reported the university’s Executive Board (UEB) to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) over a severe and urgent mental health crisis among staff.

According to the UCU, evidence gathered by the union revealed a “comprehensive breakdown of trust and morale”, and a “total health and safety crisis”, which included the risk of staff taking their own lives or fearing for their pregnancies due to the effect of stress and job insecurity.

Despite having had more than a month to consider the results of the survey, the union claims that the university’s management had so far failed to respond beyond offering “mainly cosmetic” remedies.

According to the union, the survey results demonstrate that the Academic Futures process, whose ratification will be considered by the University Council on June 17, is “an unfolding and comprehensive disaster for staff health, university workload, day to day operations, and the academic community”.

The survey received 197 responses from staff of whom 78% were at risk of redundancy. Some 88% of respondents said the Academic Futures cuts exercise “negatively affected their health and wellbeing”, with the same percentage saying that “the university has not offered adequate wellbeing and mental health support during this process”.

Anxiety

Survey respondents reported widespread and severe manifestations of stress, anxiety and depression, including crying every day, not sleeping or eating properly, nausea, panic attacks, weight loss, stomach problems, lack of clear thinking and concentration, exhaustion, tachycardia, increased blood pressure, struggling with caring duties, drinking, taking medication, taking sick leave, and feeling suicidal.

Among the 1104, often very alarming and concerning, free text comments left in the survey were the following:

“I considered having an abortion as a result of the panic.”

“I have felt suicidal more than once over the last few weeks.”

“As a result of Academic Futures, I am now receiving additional medical treatment – both physical related to blood pressure and in relation to mental health. I find many days a struggle.”

“The resources supplied to us for mental health support services are woeful.”

In light of these results UCU shared its findings with the UEB, urging its members to bring the remaining 400+ staff out of scope for redundancy; write an all-staff communication acknowledging the crisis and taking full responsibility for the consequences of choices made during the cuts process; co-design a staff survey with the unions addressing staff mental health as a matter of urgency; and to invest considerably more resources in mental health and wellbeing support.

Since making these demands the union says it notes some goodwill and understanding from the university’s overstretched wellbeing team, as well as an acknowledgement from senior staff of the mental health effects of its management of the cuts.

Responsibility

However, the UCU says there have been no signs that these will be addressed in a concrete way, and no responsibility has been taken for mistakes made. The UEB has also refused to take people out of scope for redundancy. In a recent “town hall” meeting with staff it was stated that staff would remain in scope “as long as it takes”, and the Academic Futures plan presented to University Council allows management to place staff in any school, and not just those already slated for cuts, to be taken in or out of scope at will according to short-term fluctuations in staff-student ratios.

In its submission to the HSE, the UCU states: “At the end of January 2025, Cardiff University, under the leadership of its new Vice Chancellor, Professor Wendy Larner, notified 2000 members of staff – a third of the workforce –that they were at risk of / in scope for redundancy.

“Some members of staff were notified of this proposed course of action by the media or by students who had been invited to share their thoughts on the news by reporters. Journalists approached students on the way to classes led by staff still in the dark about the proposed closure of Nursing, Modern Languages, Music and of a range of programmes in Medicine, Chemistry, Geography, Maths, English and Communication, Archaeology, Ancient History, and Religious Studies / Theology.

“This already points to the practice being adopted in the management of communications, with staff being informed by their own students, during teaching hours, of potential redundancies. At meetings with affected staff on the same day, when asked by staff members how they should continue with their duties in light of the devastating context she had announced, the Vice Chancellor’s reaction was to laugh. We single out this detail not to personalise the issue but because it is illustrative of the poor practice when communicating with staff.

“[Prof Larner’s] behaviour raises serious concerns about her professionalism. Her jokes and overall demeanour during webinars and town halls are inappropriate, especially given the severity of this news for staff. Additionally, her veiled threats and contradictory talk of ‘dignity at work’ stand in stark contrast to her disregard for the dignity of the affected staff and schools.

“Prior to the pronouncements in January 2025, Prof Larner launched something called ‘The Big Conversation’ where, in theory, staff were invited to contribute ideas about the future direction of the university. It is the considered view of Cardiff UCU that this conversation lacked integrity. While staff were obliged to take part in many all day meetings to contribute to this putative conversation, little if anything of what they said was reflected in the conclusions announced by Prof Larner and members of her senior management cohort .

“As one respondent to UCU Cardiff’s survey on the impact of the programme of change, bizarrely called Academic Futures, notes with respect to the ‘Big Conversation’: ‘[We are told] we have contributed to the new vision without demonstrating how – eg when did Uni staff suggest it was a good idea to wipe out Humanities provision?’

“Scrutiny of the survey responses … demonstrates that this bewilderment is widespread. This underscores that the university has gone through the motions of holding a conversation rather than meaningfully engaging with and listening to the employees of the university, a factor contributing to elevated levels of the stressor gauges used by HSE.

“The lack of any control over what is happening, coupled with what has been understood by staff as a pretence of a conversation, has elevated the stressor that measures the sense of incapacity.

“Cardiff UCU was informed by members of the teaching union at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand,where Professor Larner led a previous cull of academic departments, that the template employed by the senior management cohort at Cardiff University appears to be pasted across from a previous programme of eliminating employees.

“[Name Redacted] says, for example, that: ‘The proposals for ‘global’ studies that gut languages at Cardiff happened here, almost word-for-word, in 2023. The initial talk of the funding model being ‘in crisis’ too, leading then to internally-focused cuts’.”

‘Alarming’

The submission continues: “Cardiff UCU undertook the survey of its membership to assess employees’ experience of the so-called Academic Futures exercise.

“The results are alarming. They suggest that a health and safety emergency is unfolding at Cardiff University, under Professor Wendy Larner’s leadership of the senior management cohort.

“Among the circa 1200 discursive responses to the survey, Cardiff UCU learned that many colleagues are suicidal. Pregnant people have been considering the termination of their pregnancies due to fears about the effect of stress on their foetuses and/or concerns about their ability to raise a family.

“Other colleagues have been driven to take prescription and / or non-prescription drugs and anxiolytics. Many respondents report ill health, as a result of the mismanagement of the ‘Academic Futures’ programme. Some are signed off sick; others are persevering with the effects of stress and sleep deprivation.

“Of concern to those monitoring workplace safety would be, additionally, the evidence from survey respondents of the impairment of their ability to properly and safely carry out their work.

“Professor Leighton Andrews, a member of Cardiff University academic staff, and former Minister for Public Services in the National Assembly for Wales, describes the Academic Futures project as ‘macho’ and as a ‘big bang’ designed to produce ‘shock and awe’.

“There is a widely shared sense among university employees that the climate of fear, stress, and panic has been created by design and by this macho shock and awe approach to the mismanagement of change. “Scrutiny of the … results of Cardiff UCU’s survey demonstrates the broadly shared sentiment that the senior management cohort have engineered a toxic environment designed to drive people to ‘opt’ in to the voluntary redundancy scheme and to drop out as a result of stress-related sickness and disease.

“For example, a colleague in one department shared with his/her peers that he/she had decided to leave the university because the alternative was death by suicide.

“The HSE will no doubt note the effect on those members of Cardiff UCU’s wellbeing team tasked with analysing and reporting the results of the survey. We have been caught in a quandary created by the responsibility to negotiate with management and the ethical imperative to notify the appropriate authorities of a serious risk to health, safety, and wellbeing.

“The climate of fear has been ramped up by threats made against Cardiff UCU for commenting on a Nation Cymru article about an academic publication in which the Vice Chancellor discusses the genesis of the poor. In an admonitory email addressed to all University staff, Prof Larner borrowed a favourite term of Donald Trump to describe the Nation Cymru article that cited her published views as ‘fake news’. In this climate, dissent is not only discouraged but is seen as risky and punishable. Conversation is not encouraged.”

‘Recipe for disaster’

A Cardiff UCU spokesperson said: “Given what we have found about the impacts of Academic Futures on staff health, we are very concerned that over 400 people are still in scope for redundancy. Management’s current plan, up for consideration by University Council next week, allows for them to be left at risk for years to come. It also allows UEB to move staff in all schools in and out of scope for redundancy depending on short-term student recruitment and changes to staff-student ratios.

“This is a recipe for disaster that could mean the nightmarish findings of our survey may become the new normal. We continue to urge that all remaining staff be brought out of scope for redundancy and that the University does better than offering mainly cosmetic remedies and invests adequately in mental health and wellbeing support.

“We also urge University Council to pause the toxic Academic Futures plan and to recommend a longer, more reasonable period of reform, reducing risks to staff mental and physical health as a priority but also avoiding harm to the University’s reputation, finances, academic sustainability, and student satisfaction.

“Quite frankly, this could be a matter of life and death.”

‘Difficult reading’

A Cardiff University spokesperson responded: “We understand the impact that the last few months have had on all colleagues. As with all Welsh and UK universities, we face significant challenges to our sustainability, and this has necessitated some very difficult decisions.

“The results of UCU’s survey, and the comments, make for difficult reading. The report has already been discussed by our University Executive Board. Following further meetings with UCU, a draft action plan has been developed at pace, in collaboration with our trade unions. The final plan will be confirmed shortly, but a number of the actions are already being put in place, including monthly meetings between management and trade unions, focused entirely on wellbeing.

“We are listening and are committed to working in partnership with the trade unions on actions to address specific points, to improve wellbeing for all members of our community and to ensure we continue to provide timely communication.

“It is important to stress that support is available to all staff. If staff need advice, help and immediate support, we urge them to reach out immediately. We continue to seek opportunities to enhance this support offer, in partnership with trade unions.

“We note UCU’s decision to refer the University to the HSE. We are surprised by this development because we thought we were working in partnership with the trade unions on the development of a wellbeing action plan, and we thought we had agreed the draft plan was to be finalised at the first of the new joint wellbeing meetings, which will take place next week and then monthly.

“Like other universities facing similar referrals, we will provide any information required by the HSE.”