Comrades

University of Salford have announced plans to 'save' 17 million pounds in the next year or so. This will 'require' of course the removal of full time academic teaching staff members. Each Head of School has been told to make a 'business plan' for how they plan to save capital towards this overall strategy, which will include a list of programmes to be scrapped, and people to be fired. 

Voluntary redundancies in the library, business school, and community health care have hit in the first 'phase' from October 2008 (staff are being bullied into accepting them in some cases). The second 'phase', which is to begin in January 2009, will require 150 more reduncancies, whether they are voluntary or not. EVERY school will be affected.

I've attached our UCU reply to what the Management are calling Project Headroom.

Anyway please show us your solidarity. In the case that we hold a rally, I'd hope you could show your support and come from your own areas to resist these activities. We are putting a motion to the VC that essentially summarises the information below, and two weeks ago held a sizeable rally with student support. 

Thanks
Phoebe


Salford University Campus Unions 
Formal Reply to Project Headroom.

1.	 Introduction

(i)	We are currently committed to five separate interrelated consultations on Project Headroom.  These are Project Headroom itself, the implementation schedule, and separate consultations in the three areas targeted in Phase 1.  This document only relates to the first of these.

(ii)	We welcome attempts to reverse the long-term decline in Salford's position in the league tables.

(iii)	We also accept that the University needs to continually strive to be more efficient in everything it does and are not opposed to change.

(iv)	We accept that the University needs to invest and, in this sense, we are totally committed to Management's wish to generate sufficient funds for much needed investment.  

However we do have concerns that investment will be for the long term good of the University, given the extent to which previous investments have been wasted (for example on short lived re-organisations and relocation projects, establishing a University of Salford Campus in China, the expensive and problematic introduction of the 'Banner' Student Information System, Identity Management Project (approaching £2m) and the £3.9m cost of an abandoned new building for AMSS).

(v)	Unfortunately, our consultations have led us to have major reservations about both the conception and implementation of Project Headroom and its ability to achieve either a financial surplus for investment, or the more efficient operation of Departments and Schools.




2.	Project Headroom

(i)	We are very concerned about the very high profile of Project Headroom and the speed which it is being implemented.  It is apparent to us that both of these are proving damaging to the University.   

(a)	Firstly, the level of insecurity being generated is causing very low morale and many staff to look for alternative employment. The University is losing some of its most able and marketable staff, and this is likely to continue for a considerable time.



(b)	Secondly, although we do not have access to detailed figures, we have nevertheless carried out our own calculations on the cost of Project Headroom and believe that this is the most expensive way of bringing about change possible. We believe that there are other cheaper and better ways of achieving efficiency savings including reducing staff costs, for example by taking longer and achieving more savings through natural wastage. Indeed, it appears to us that in the first year, the financial costs may well outweigh the savings. Thereafter, there is uncertainty whether financial savings will accrue, dependent on rates of the re-hiring which often follow redundancy exercises and also on the extent by which income streams are reduced as a direct result of this Project.

(ii)	Project Headroom is based on the assumption that there is sufficient slack in Schools to enable them to generate the extra surplus by absorbing an average 6% cut in manpower without fundamentally damaging their 'business'.  

Our consultations in both Schools in Phase 1 have revealed that they have been driven into deficit by the increased charges associated with Project Headroom. More worryingly, it is far from clear that they can absorb the reductions in staffing without serious long term consequences.  Indeed, we have had so much difficulty in getting essential information out of each School, that we are certain that the Budget Review Committee cannot have had the information to take sound decisions when it approved each School's proposals. We will discuss the position of each School below.



(iii)	We are concerned that Project Headroom aims to generate funds for further centralisation of service provision.  Creating and expanding the Student Life Directorate will not improve students' experience if it is funded by reducing the number of lecturers and thereby reducing the quality of teaching.   


3.	Media City. 

(i)	We could see the attraction of being part of the Media City development when it was first mooted. However, Media City is in serious difficulty and appears to be rapidly degenerating into a 'white elephant' as a direct result of the current economic climate.  Its high profile Managing Director - Brian Greasley - has resigned after less than a year.  Unable to sell its London property to fund the move, the BBC is believed to be scaling back its investment.  Other than the BBC and Salford University, no other organisations have yet committed to Media City, presumably being reluctant to commit to very expensive real estate in the current climate.

(ii)	If Media City increases our operating costs by £5m pa, and this is to be funded by commercial contracts, then assuming a profit margin of 10% an extra £50m of contracts will be required.  

(iii)	We have yet to receive any information that one single contract has been signed which will bring any increased income to the University.    It appears that the University simply 'hopes' that if we occupy a building near the BBC, then income will follow. 

(iv)	In the absence of any more detailed financial information, we can only conclude that Media City is the most speculative and high risk investment imaginable.  We cannot see that this justifies the damage Project Headroom is doing to the rest of the University.  

(v)	Finally, we note that Media City does not solve the 'building' problems for AMSS, parts of which will still be left occupying the Adelphi Building. 




4.	The School of Community, Health Sciences and Social Care.

(i)	The business case presented to the Unions on 14th October 2008 lacked financial information, and so we asked for this information. We assumed that this information would have been readily available, and would have been used as a basis for the proposals.  Despite repeated requests, we did not receive any detailed financial information until 13th November (Appendix A). Even then, this information did not include the detail we expected, and we considered it to highly misleading.  Following a meeting to discuss this, we received some further financial information on 21st November (Appendix B).   Given the difficulty we had in obtaining financial information, the programme leader for TCM costed the programme herself (Appendix C) and we presented this to a meeting of CHSSC management on 17th November.

(ii)	Given the financial information available and our own TCM costings, we have reached the conclusion that the business plan for CHSSC is seriously flawed. If implemented, it will leave both the School and the University considerably worse off financially.

The closure of TCM alone will result in 
*	The loss of £581K of income 
*	The loss of £80K contribution to School and Faculty overheads.
*	The loss of £58K pure profit to the School.
*	The loss of £258K of contribution to the University

The overall effect of all the programmes scheduled for closure (excluding Qualifying Social Work, for which no figures are yet available) will result in :-
*	The loss of in excess of £1.3m of income 
*	The loss of in excess of £731K of contribution to the University (also excluding Community Development Work)
*	There is also a substantial loss of contribution to the School, but the figures given to us in Appendix B, do not allow us to calculate it. 

(iii)	The CHSSC closures will result in the loss of over 200 student FTEs.  Given that the University is at the bottom of our contract student range, we cannot see that this is sensible.  This is roughly 1% of our student population and we are at the lower end or our + or - 5% funding tolerance.

(iv)	Traditional Chinese Medicine Programme.  This programme makes a small profit, even after attributing various substantial School and Faculty overheads. This is according to information provided by the School (in its business case and confirmed in subsequent financial information provided by the School). Accordingly, the School argues that it wishes to close this programme for non-financial reasons.  Our submission is that, if the programme does not fit with the vision of the School for the future, it should be transferred to another School.  However, we are worried about the implications of the loss of this programme for the future finances of the School, if this were to happen.

(v)	We also note that this School contributes £850,000 to the Faculty Office and that the Faculty of Health and Social Care Office costs £3.3m - over three times as much as any other Faculty Office (Faculty Budget Reviews 08/09, provided by Simon Attwell dated 6th November).  Our impression is that this seems excessive, but we have no detailed information.

(vi)	We also note that staff losses, especially in the Directorate of Social Work, are not covered by programme closures.  We are therefore concerned about the ability of this Directorate to cover its teaching commitments - especially since it has recently found it necessary to hire part-time cover for sickness absence.



5.	The Salford Business School.

The situation in Salford Business School is the opposite of CHSSC, in that the School does not intend to close any programmes.  The Head of SBS believes that there is sufficient slack to be able to absorb the loss of 16 posts without any effect on programmes.   We have attempted to verify this by asking for a projected workload balancing model taking into account the staff losses, but have yet to receive this.

Our impression to date is that the School will be unable to absorb this level of cuts without a serious detrimental effect on its capacity to deliver its programmes.   

*	The School is already finding it difficult to man its programmes following a number of retirements in the summer of 2008.   Early in the summer, the School terminated a significant number of part-time hourly contracts, but only days before term started had to renew some of these, and in addition also had to engage PhD students to teach on masters programmes.   Indeed, some of these students are themselves overseas students.  We believe this practice will damage future recruitment, when students who are paying £7-9K fees, report back to their agent that 'we have been robbed - we paid for tuition in a British University and were taught by overseas postgraduate students!'

*	Stress related sickness amongst academic staff is already at unacceptable levels.  A 'back of the envelope' calculation suggests it could already be approaching 10%.  

6.	Consultation.

Consultation was not started earlier enough.   Consultation with the Unions should have started when redundancies were first 'contemplated' (TULRCA, 1992).  As it was, Project Headroom was conceived sometime early in 2008, approved by SLT, Heads being given targets to meet which were then approved by a special Budget Review Committee at the end of September. Yet formal consultation with the Unions only commenced on 14th October.  Implementation started immediately (on 15th October with a briefing to staff in the Phase 1 areas).   We do not believe this constitutes meaningful consultation within the meaning of the Act.  


7.	Our Proposals

(i)	We call on the University to put Project Headroom on 'hold' while we jointly examine in detail the business cases of the two Schools in Phase 1.  There is still a lot of work to do both on the finances and also the practical feasibility of implementing the current management proposals.

(ii)	We call on the University to implement carefully costed and thought out efficiency changes over a longer period of time.


(iii)	We call on the University to withdraw from Media City - there is no loss of face in accepting that the world has changed radically since last summer.

(iv)	We request that the proposed closure of TCM be rescinded and that this programme be transferred to another School, it this is what CHSSC still wants.


John Dobson, UCU Salford
Michelle Barnes, UNISON
Glen Hinson, UNITE
Kevin Grogan GMB
23rd November 2008


Dr Phoebe Moore
Lecturer in International Relations
Politics and Contemporary History and
European Studies Research Institute (ESRI)   
Crescent House, Salford
University of Salford, 
Manchester, M54WT
T: 0161 295 6033
F: 0161 295 5077
 
Profile: http://www.espach.salford.ac.uk/politics/staff/moore.php