Welsh Government accused of ‘dereliction of duty’ over university cuts
The Welsh Government has been accused of “a dereliction of duty” after ruling out making extra cash available to help struggling Welsh universities.
Last week, Cardiff University set out proposals to cut 400 jobs – 7% of the total workforce – and close a number of degree programmes, including nursing, music, ancient history and modern languages.
The move has been blamed on a £31.2 million funding shortfall.
On Friday Swansea University extended its savings programme by £30 million and said more staff could leave on top of the 342 who have departed in the last 18 months.
A voluntary exit scheme which was open to academics as well as professional services staff no longer applies to the former, though, and the University and College Union (UCU) said it has helped negotiate no compulsory academic redundancies as part of the ongoing cost-cutting.
Balance the books
The Welsh Labour Government’s higher education minister Vikki Howells told BBC Wales on Sunday morning it was up to the universities to balance the books, but revealed there were talks at UK level looking at reforming higher education funding.
The minister told BBC Politics Wales that higher education was going through a “challenging” time, but this was mostly beyond Welsh government’s control.
She said: “There wouldn’t be any additional Welsh government funding available, unless we were looking to cut back from other areas such as the NHS, education, or public services that we all rely on”.
Crisis
In response to the minister’s comments, Cefin Campbell MS, Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson on Education said: “The Welsh Labour’s Government’s refusal to step in to assist our universities in crisis is a complete dereliction of duty. They’ve been warned of the financial crisis facing this vital sector in Wales for years and have done nothing about it – Labour is content simply to wave the white flag and watch key courses, such as nursing at Cardiff University disappear while hundreds of staff face redundancy.
“Plaid Cymru will keep pressing on Welsh Government to act – we need an urgent strategy to protect jobs and to place the sector on a sustainable financial footing.”
Speaking during a debate in the Senedd on the Wednesday, Welsh Conservative Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Education, Natasha Asghar Natasha Asghar, accused the Government of “sitting on their hands” and allowing an “act of educational vandalism”.
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Rightly so and not just over this issue, polite people would say ‘asleep at the wheel’…
While the organ grinder and part-time Chancellor of the Exchequer is ultimately to blame for the silly economic model they’ve inherited from the Tories, the monkey and part-time Welsh Government is complicit, especially the Welsh Labour Party. It’s becoming blindingly clear that England/’the UK’ cannot afford to meet the expectations of their own country, let alone ours, their marginalised colony. I don’t expect Reform to do other than join the Tory-labour cabal and deprive us, the people, of a fair share of the wealth of Cymru. Notice how the extraction of the latter has been stepped up in recent times…… Read more »
I work at the University and their communication on the cuts has been abominable. I feel so desperately for our amazing students and academics, whose futures are ins turmoil whilst umpteen overpaid middle managers make these kind of sweeping decisions with carelessness.
Very sorry to hear that,but not surprised. UK public sector is terrible at communicating and managing change.
Would Hefin David making a personal attack on Cardiff vice chancellor on social media recently be seen as a conflict of interest, given his partner is the Minister for Higher Education, or are conflicts of interest only applicable to other Senedd parties not Labour.
It seems Wales Labour are now waiting for UK government party although in past have tried to say there needs to be a Welsh solution for a Welsh problem.
We should look into the reasons for the reduction in overseas students and whether that can be addressed. Academia to many is an escape from the harsh reality of modern life, but these days nobody is exempt.
It’s is incredibly frustrating when WG goes to ground when there’s bad news and waits it to blow over. Not the first time. But not sure what they can do, and opposition aren’t providing any ideas either. Brexit caused a sizeable decrease in students, and that can’t be reversed. The ‘hostile environment’ has played it’s part. They can increase tuition fees but they can’t do it unilaterally as students will just go to England instead. A cash injection would be helpful, but they need to find £80m for all unis across Wales- this year,and more next year as things are… Read more »
Cariff Uni has been financially miss managed and the current deep cuts are unecessary. They 450 mil in reserve. They are not in immediate financial difficulty. Other Unis do have problem which have resulted from the market model, i.e. completion for students, over reliance on unstable sources of funding from foreign students, perpetual growth and resulting monopolies. Under this model, univerosty finances will never be sustainable. WG could help the sector but add caveats to prevent Univerosty executives from making unitlateral decisions that are not in the interest of education or Wales. Demcrarising governence and or implementation of social partnerships… Read more »
I get the drift of your message despite evidence of big thumbs on small keyboard ! Universities have generally been mismanaged. The race for growth while ignoring sound commercial disciplines is a recipe for disaster. 3 main streams seem to have fed the problem.1) Chasing the foreign student market with its inflated fee base 2) greater access for native students who in the past might not have got in i.e lower standards of entry 3) growth of courses that don’t necessarily assist students in achieving their target careers. All these are now in retreat particularly the juicy foreign student market.… Read more »
I think 1) was needed as home tuition fees have been almost frozen since 2012 and inflation eroded the value. And I understand in the UK, for 3) – most engineering, medicine, science degrees are effectively subsidized by the psychology, sociology degrees. Take away the latter and you don’t get engineers and medics!
I though the VC recruitment was peculiar, especially as there were some competent internal staff at the time.
Do you know how those reserves are made up?
How much is the pension funds?
How much is restricted by endowments or bequest?
Any bonds that need to be repaid by what date?
These are amounts that need to be known before you can say how much of those reserves can be used.
It should all be in the annual financial statements.
Exactly! Info is rarely in the financial statements. That’s why I wonder if some more more onerous loans, for example one which might impose how much operating loss university can sustain in a FY are paid off by WG to buy some time for Uni’s as they restructure.
Plus how many years can you dig into reserves for?!
I still haven’t seen a sensible suggestion to what WG can actually do
Our Welsh N H S is short of Nurses this Uni runs courses to train nurses for our the Welsh N H S and they the Uni want to cut the courses has the penny dropped for the Welsh government do people need to SPELL IT OUT TO THEM the word TWP comes to mind like Drakeford wanted to shut our A and E in the Royal Glamorgan hospital and if it had not been for the Rhondda M P Chris Bryant fighting to stop it Drakeford Welsh Labour would have and the same Drakeford saying Welsh N H S… Read more »
Plaid started and maintained the fight to keep the A&E facilities at the Royal Glam hospital. Sir Chris was comparatively late to the campaign.
Yet second largest health board in Wales by population has one overrun A&E, sited in an hospital that was never supposed to have an A&E, it shows with successive scathing reviews by inspectorate, none of the Labour MP’s in area have even criticised the move by Aneurin Bevan Health Board.
It was only granted retrospective planning permission in late 2023 for the A&E that had been in use since 2020.
Rarely have I seen a WG Minister give a worse interview than this morning. There is little point in having higher education devolved if that is the best she can do. At least Plaid appears to have done some serious research.
After seeing how Cardiff university works on the inside, I’m surprised people aren’t shouting at them for dereliction of duty. Their business model relied on so many foreign students with no way to diversify. They also have so many redundant roles with people really not working. For some at the university, it’s just free money. It’s on the the university to make their business model work and considering there are many universities in the UK doing alright why are we not complaining at the vice chancellor? When I was studying there, we had protests for how much the vice chancellor… Read more »
I have two friends at Cardiff University – one who is an academic and one who works in Professional Services. Both have spent the last few days looking for other jobs, mostly outside Wales. We are invariably going to see a brain drain in the coming months and years; not that Welsh Government will worry one jot as they are scared of their own shadows and they are only really interested in attracting ‘green’ micro businesses who want to plant trees across Ceredigion and Powys. We are heading downhill at a rate of knots.