The final item of business today is a debate on motion S7M-00266, in the name of Maggie Chapman, on sustaining jobs and securing the future of Scotland’s universities. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament expresses its deep concern at what it sees as the growing crisis facing Scotland’s higher education sector, including the reported threat of significant job losses at the University of Dundee, the University of Aberdeen and other institutions across Scotland; notes reports that hundreds of jobs have already been lost at Dundee, and that up to 111 academic posts are threatened at Aberdeen as part of ongoing restructuring and cost-reduction programmes; recognises the anxiety, uncertainty and distress that these proposals are causing for staff, students and communities; further recognises the evidence of declining staff morale across the sector, with, it understands, many workers reporting exhaustion, insecurity and a loss of confidence in institutional leadership and governance; believes that those who teach, research, support students, maintain campuses and sustain university life should not be made to pay the price for failures of governance, financial mismanagement or short-term decision making; notes reported concerns regarding increasing casualisation, workload pressures, threats to pensions and job insecurity across the sector; further notes the calls on university leadership teams, governing bodies and the Scottish and UK governments to work collaboratively with staff and students with Fair Work principles as their foundation, to develop long-term solutions that protect jobs, safeguard teaching and research, strengthen transparency and accountability, and secure a sustainable future for what it considers is Scotland’s vital higher education sector.
16:12
I remind members of my entry in the register of members’ interests: I am the rector of the University of Dundee and a member of the university court.
A less than five-minutes-long Teams call with no opportunity to respond is how staff at the University of Dundee heard that their jobs, the courses that they teach and their livelihoods might be at risk. I ask members to think about that for a moment. Years of service, decades of expertise, research programmes, student support, careers and families were all reduced to a one-way broadcast. That tells us something important about the crisis that we are facing. We are not really talking about money; this is a crisis of governance, leadership and accountability.
At Dundee, more than 650 staff have already gone. Now, a further 190 job cuts are planned. At the University of Aberdeen, up to 111 academic posts remain at risk through restructuring and cost-cutting proposals. Behind every one of those numbers is a person—a lecturer, technician, librarian, researcher, cleaner, professional services worker or student wondering whether their course will exist when they are due to graduate.
I hear from staff and students not just concern but exhaustion, anger and a profound sense of betrayal. One member of Dundee staff described what is happening as “wanton vandalism” of the university and the city. Another simply said, “I feel completely betrayed.” Can we blame them? Time and again, the staff have raised concerns, proposed alternatives and been told that they are valued. However, when the biggest decisions are made, they are too often excluded from them.
The tragedy is that none of this should come as a surprise. Over recent years, we have had review after review—the Gillies review, the Gordon report and the work done by SUMS Consulting—all of which identified problems around governance, transparency, oversight and engagement. The problem is not that we do not know what is wrong; it is that the recommendations keep gathering dust while the same mistakes are repeated. The lessons from Dundee should have been learned long ago. Executive power without effective challenge is dangerous. Governance without scrutiny is dangerous. Excluding staff voices is dangerous. Yet, here we are again. Staff, students, senates, general councils and trade unions repeatedly raise concerns while decisions at various institutions continue to be driven from the top down. When people try to raise concerns, some of them are threatened with disciplinary action. That is not partnership, it is not transparency and it is certainly not fair work.
I want to speak a bit about what universities are for. Too often, the debate on this issue is reduced to balance sheets and budgets. Of course, universities matter to our economy—they create jobs, attract investment and drive innovation—but they also matter for a much deeper reason. They help us to understand ourselves and the world around us. They teach us how to think critically, how to question, how to challenge and how to imagine something better. That is why I am so concerned by threats to disciplines such as philosophy and languages. Those subjects are not luxuries—they help us to engage with questions of democracy, ethics, culture, identity and human flourishing. A society that cannot think critically about itself is a society that is poorer in every sense.
I will outline a specific issue in relation to that. At the University of Aberdeen, the savings target—or cuts target—that the school of language, literature, music and visual culture has been told to make would require the loss of 36.7 per cent of its current staff, and that is on top of the 40 jobs that were lost during the modern languages debacle two years ago. The target is more than double that for any other school, yet that school made a £4.1 million surplus last year.
Cutting jobs and courses will not lead magically to financial sustainability. Staff have repeatedly raised alternatives, including continuing professional development, knowledge exchange, entrepreneurship, business partnerships and other forms of genuine income generation. However, institutions appear trapped in a cycle in which cutting staff becomes the default response—the ideological response—to every challenge. That is not strategy; it is managed decline. It is like ordering men on the western front to walk out very slowly at the German machine guns, just hoping that the result will be positive.
To put it another way, it is like the medieval doctor bleeding a patient with leeches, then prescribing more leeches when the patient fails to recover. The patients, in this case, are the people who make our universities what they are—the people who make them successful but who are being made to pay the price. The impact on wellbeing cannot be ignored. Staff speak of stress, burnout, anxiety, uncertainty and real physical and psychological harm. Repeated restructuring exercises, repeated severance schemes and repeated threats of redundancy are acts of harm.
We must also ask serious questions about equality impacts. Many of the disciplines that are facing cuts are disproportionately staffed by women. We need transparency about who is being affected and whether institutions are properly assessing those risks before further decisions are made. There is the wider question of accountability, too. Universities must be accountable. Courts must be accountable. Executive leadership teams must be accountable, and so too must the Scottish Funding Council. Consultations on the issue need to be genuine: they need to consider the full range of options, not just a return to cuts. Public confidence depends on robust scrutiny and meaningful oversight. If institutions are receiving substantial support, the public has a right to expect transparency, engagement and adherence to fair work principles.
Finally, I want to say something to the Scottish Government. The warning signs have been visible for years. This crisis is not confined to one university, nor is it confined to the universities of Dundee and Aberdeen—it is sector wide. There are warnings that demand a serious response. We cannot continue to lose expertise, damage morale and undermine institutions that have taken generations—centuries, in some cases—to build. On the crisis at the University of Dundee specifically, the Scottish Government has already provided substantial support to the institution and we need to see a return on that investment, not just a knee-jerk return to job cuts and course cuts.
I will end by speaking directly to staff and students. You are not responsible for this crisis and this decision making. You should not be made to pay the price for the failures of governance, financial mismanagement or short-term decision making. I hear your concerns, I hear your anger and I stand in solidarity with you. I stand with the staff fighting for their jobs, the students fighting for their education and the trade unions demanding transparency, accountability and fair work. If staff decide that they must take industrial action to defend their institutions, as I think University of Dundee staff have decided today, they will have my support and solidarity, because staff and students are not the problem—they are the future of Scotland’s universities and they deserve far better than what they are getting today.
We move to the open debate. A large number of members wish to take part, so it would be very helpful if people could stick to four minutes.
16:21
I congratulate Maggie Chapman on securing this members’ business debate on such an important area of Scottish life: our universities and, more broadly, our higher education sector. Her final words were very powerful—I thank her for them—and I note that, in my constituency, there have been some issues around redundancies at the University of the Highlands and Islands.
I was interested in the way in which Maggie Chapman started her speech, because it was the way in which my thought process has gone, too. If I may, I will take us back to the roots of the word “university”. It comes from the medieval Latin word “universitas”—I never did Latin, so apologies for my pronunciation—meaning a number of persons associated into one body. Historically, the term referred not to a physical place of learning but to the people who made it, and that came through powerfully in Maggie Chapman’s speech.
The origins of “university” made me wonder whether we have forgotten why we have universities and what their value is to our wider communities. I have two vital higher education establishments in my constituency: the University of the Highlands and Islands and the Scottish Association for Marine Science. SAMS’s strategy for 2025 to 2030 sets out a plan for
“World-leading science for a healthy ocean and thriving people”
and, perhaps, blue-sea thinking. For the reader, the words that jump out from the strategy are “together”, “discovery”, “educate”, “innovate”, “action” and, importantly, “people”.
UHI is in 48 locations, seven of which are in my constituency, and it provides flexible learning opportunities. It is also embedded in our secondary schools. For example, Oban high school students developed their own fish farm sites for their end-of-year projects as part of the into aquaculture course that was designed by Scottish Sea Farms in conjunction with UHI Argyll.
I am pleased to see that there is collaboration between SAMS and UHI in a range of academic opportunities, from a BSc in marine science to PhDs in high-impact marine science fields. Those give opportunities to students who do not wish to move from the area to further their education, and they bring students from around the world to stem the brain drain and depopulation that Argyll and Bute faces.
Industries such as finfish aquaculture, seaweed farming, fishing and offshore renewables increasingly rely on research data to innovate and inform sustainable development and best practice in their respective sectors. Scotland’s future growth depends on activity in those areas, and the research and available data must keep pace with industrial and commercial development. As well as ensuring that development is as environmentally sensitive as possible, it allows policy makers to make informed decisions.
SAMS won the collaboration category at the UK Aquaculture Awards, having worked alongside the salmon farming industry and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. SAMS scientists are examining the life cycle and behaviours of sea lice to help to tackle one of the main issues in finfish aquaculture, using underwater robotic vehicles to identify entanglement risks to marine mammals. There is so much going on, with great examples of further education and research tailoring their offerings to what their community needs, both locally and globally.
I do not know whether anybody noticed the article in The Guardian today about the Biodiversity Heritage Library, an online archive of historical texts on species living and lost. The withdrawal of funding from that area of work will impact on our knowledge around biodiversity. As Maggie Chapman noted, this is not just a Scottish crisis; it is a worldwide one. We must ensure that we continue that education.
SAMS hosts a rare algae library—leabharlann feamainn. The 100-year-old Culture Collection of Algae and Protozoa supplies and supports science around the world.
Be it local or global, Scotland’s vital higher education sector must remain at the heart of world learning, and I support Maggie Chapman’s calls for connection and collaboration with everybody involved in our universities. We have far too much to lose if we do not do that.
16:25
Colleagues, my entry in the register of members’ interests shows that I was employed at the University of Glasgow until 18 May this year. In addition, although it is not a registrable interest, it is important to mention that I am still a student at the University of Glasgow. I remain a proud member of Unison.
Given that experience, I can say that I am not sure that we have emphasised enough the crisis that stands at our door. A key service in a service-based economy may be on the brink of collapse. What is, and has been, happening in Dundee cannot once again be treated as the canary in the coal mine when we have known for years that the rafters have been rotting and the cave has been collapsing.
In my region, the sight of a higher education picket line has become all too familiar—often joined by boycotts on marking and by the bitter aftertaste of burnout, while pastoral teams juggle as many students as they can handle and academics are forced to step in to support them. A failure to set a long-term vision, alongside negligence towards the growing issues, has left our sector in crisis. In some cases it is forced to rely on the financial stimulation of oversubscribing international students or, in others, on cutting courses. In each case, more stress is put on the lives of staff. As one of my constituents who works in higher education put it:
“We are so reliant on international students, we are one bad Al Jazeera headline from being unemployed.”
That is no environment for anyone to work in.
Today, members of the Educational Institute of Scotland at Glasgow Caledonian University, which is in my region, announced their intention to go on strike, with a 95.9 per cent mandate, to stop the compulsory redundancies. That follows a University and College Union strike that commenced only two weeks ago. We cannot sit by and let that process happen.
Higher education institutions are supposed to be a hotbed of research and innovation that helps to drive us forward and gives many their start in their specified field. Although the Parliament is proud to boast about Scotland’s successful university alumni, such as Adam Smith and Lord Kelvin, we find ourselves in a place where we may be active barriers to the success of their contemporary equivalents.
Even though some blame can be placed on Westminster, part of the failure to forward plan and support our institutions still falls to this Parliament. That has left our institutions scared and cautious. Some constituents have told me that they have felt as though austerity has been imposed on them pre-emptively, that they fear for their jobs and that downsizing can only be inevitable.
That in itself is worrying, and we already know what it looks like when jobs are ripped away from our communities. However, we must also remember what it will mean for our future: students with less support, exploration in academia becoming atrophied, a loss of opportunity for many, and a limitation on innovations and breakthroughs that we could have made years earlier. We can do better than that. We need movement and we need it now. We need cross-party consensus that there must be change, advanced financial planning for our universities, a recognition of the massive struggles in the sector, and support for the staff and students who are being failed.
The Government must not be an ouroboros that, on one hand, lauds the amazing policy of providing free tuition—which, although it is fantastic, creates an obligation towards our young people—but, on the other hand, fails to support the institutions that we expect to implement it. In the crudest terms, we cannot return to this chamber God knows how many years down the line and watch this very same disaster unfold elsewhere.
The definition of insanity is said to be doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. I hope that the Government will cure itself of that insanity and give the higher education sector the foresight and the support that it deserves.
I call Michael Marra, who joins us online.
16:29
I apologise for the fact that I am having to take part in the debate online. I thank Maggie Chapman for securing the debate—
Will you switch your camera on, please, Mr Marra?
Yes—my apologies, Presiding Officer.
I thank Maggie Chapman for securing the debate, which is very timely for my constituents in Dundee. This week has been yet another shocking one for people who are employed at the University of Dundee, as I was for some 15 years prior to my election to Parliament in 2021. A significant number of people have reached out to me, which reflects the huge anger among the staff population and their bewilderment about a situation that they have been caught up in for far too long.
Significant questions need to be asked about the situation at the University of Dundee and the issues that my constituents are raising. Frankly, I am astounded that the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Culture and Gaelic did not make a visit to Dundee university the first appointment in her diary when she was appointed on 20 May 2026. The Government knew that a raft of cuts was on the way, in one form or another, or was to be proposed. That was written about in the press, and the issue was a matter of continued dialogue with the Scottish Funding Council. Therefore, on one level, I find the Government’s reaction somewhat bewildering.
I share some of the previous speaker’s concerns about the use in the Dundee situation of too narrow a definition of what a university is. The fact that the current process is cutting the university to the absolute core and removing some of the broader missions of a university represents a very big challenge not only for the community, but for the staff who are directly impacted. We must ask why that is happening.
Maggie Chapman said that we are not really talking about a crisis of money. I fundamentally disagree with her on that—we are talking about a crisis of money at the University of Dundee. That is why people are about to lose their jobs. The university claims that, unless it acts now—immediately—to make the savings that it has set out, the institution will be bankrupt by 2028. I have spoken on many occasions to the trade unions at the university, which are rightly querying the scale of the EBITDA—earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation—target, which is an outlier in the sector. The university management must provide clear justification for the position that they are taking on that, because that is one of the key factors in relation to the putting in place of the cuts.
The job losses that we are looking at now are significantly larger than those that had previously been described. Given that the previous target was described by the First Minister as “entirely unacceptable”, the Government needs to tell us why it thinks that the job losses that are now proposed are acceptable.
I recognise that the university is an independent institution, which means that it has its own legal status. Although the Scottish Funding Council has looked at the documentation that the university has presented and seems to have approved it, in recent days we have heard some words from the Government that suggest that it thinks that that is open to question. I ask the minister, in his summing up, to reflect on the university’s relationship with the Scottish Funding Council in that regard and to set out what can be done to explore those issues further.
We must not lose sight of the broader causes of the current situation. It is true that the university’s management were absolutely appalling. In the previous session of Parliament, MSPs saw with their own eyes how dreadful they were when members of the previous senior management team appeared before committees. However, there are questions to ask about the broad financial issues that are at play here. I have been raising the crisis in the university sector in the Parliament for years—I was doing that well before the crisis at the University of Dundee, the institution that is close to my heart.
The issue is one of systemic underfunding of the university sector. The primary driver of the current crisis, which goes beyond Dundee university, is that in Scotland, since 2014-15, funding per student has fallen by 39 per cent in real terms. The Scottish Funding Council research excellence grant has fallen by 43 per cent. That has had consequences. There has been a comparative lack of improvement in relation to the rest of the UK in the research excellence framework. That represented clear evidence of a chilling in the Scottish research sector. It was one of the early signs—
You must come to a conclusion, Mr Marra.
I will, Presiding Officer.
I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to the debate. It is right that we get some answers from the minister on what steps will be taken next. I look forward to hearing the rest of the contributions.
16:34
I thank Maggie Chapman for bringing this debate to the chamber: she and I have communicated a lot this week about issues in Dundee. It has, understandably, been a rough week for staff and students at the University of Dundee in my constituency. I have been in regular contact with the trade unions and my inbox is full of personal letters about the impact.
In the past 18 months, more than 300 staff at the university have taken voluntary severance and a further 300 people have retired without being replaced. Tuesday’s announcement that a further 190 jobs are being cut was not the news that the university’s hard-working staff expected or deserved. There is a family and community impact behind that statistic, because the university is right at the heart of Dundee’s ecosystem. I have heard from many members of university staff in the past week. There are those who are concerned about their own jobs and others who are concerned about the impact on students and the future of the university as they know it. There are dedicated, hard-working academics, lecturers and researchers, but also librarians, administrators, student support staff, gardeners and artists, all of whom are part of that ecosystem. Those staff have contributed to the university’s many successes and have helped to build its global reputation as a place of excellence. Those are the staff who have stepped up to mitigate the 700 job losses so far, only to find that they, too, are now at risk.
The University of Dundee is a living, breathing example of what happens when there are failures of governance and a severe lack of transparency in the decisions taken by senior management. As the Gillies report for the Scottish Funding Council recognised last year, although the lack of transparency about financial matters was not the primary cause of the university’s collapse, it certainly contributed to the scale of the problem.
However, the University of Dundee is a victim not only of its own governance approach but of financial shocks that have affected the whole sector. The UK Government’s increasingly hostile immigration policies have hamstrung universities at a time when costs were already spiralling, and that Government’s decision to increase employer national insurance contributions last year also dealt a mighty blow to university finances by significantly increasing wage bills. As Universities Scotland said, those funding pressures create a “perfect storm”.
I am glad that the Scottish Government is taking the University of Dundee’s current situation so seriously, and I point out that, this week, the cabinet secretary intervened to try to put a halt to the announcement and is working behind the scenes and talking to the Scottish Funding Council.
Without world-class universities here, Scotland would not be the country that it is. I am glad that the Scottish Government has also identified the significant issues facing the wider sector and is aiming to address those. The Scottish Government and Universities Scotland are working jointly on a future framework for the sustainability and success of Scotland’s universities. That work brings together senior management, staff, trade unions and students to recognise and offer solutions to the problems faced by the sector, and a report is due in the autumn. I very much hope that it will echo the sentiments expressed in the debate about what universities are and about their importance to the future of our country and our economic ecosystem.
The immediate priority must be to minimise job losses during the current crisis in Dundee. There is ongoing work to try to do that and to support the staff and students affected by the recent announcements. Although it will be of little consolation to those affected, we all know that things could have been so much worse without the significant and extraordinary support provided by the Scottish Government.
I stress that I am in regular contact with the trade unions and will be meeting them tomorrow and again on Monday. We are trying to get the best possible support for all the people affected at this really difficult time. We must ensure that all future governance models are far more accountable and totally robust.
16:39
I, too, thank Maggie Chapman for bringing the really important issue of our universities to the chamber.
I want to cast members’ minds back to March 2025, when Douglas Ross, as the convener of the Education, Children and Young People Committee, challenged the former principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Dundee, Professor Iain Gillespie, on the financial crisis at the university and the public funding that was being used to support the institution at that time, when it faced a £35 million deficit. Serious questions were raised about the management decisions that had contributed to the crisis. If I remember the responses correctly, I do not think that the committee session shone the best light on those who gave evidence.
If we fast forward a year, we see that the University of Dundee has sadly found itself in the headlines for all the wrong reasons again. As Maggie Chapman said, that is not down to the lecturers or the students; it is down to the university’s governance and structures, as well as the financial situation that our universities and colleges face.
Does Meghan Gallacher agree that, as Heather Anderson noted, the UK’s regressive immigration policies are at least partly to blame for the challenges that our university sector now faces? Driving out fee-paying international students has compounded the financial struggles of our universities. I am a proud graduate of the University of Dundee, and that is one of the messages that I have been given by staff who still work there. Are they wrong?
That was a well-read intervention from Mr Barrett. I thank him very much for that. If I may pick up on the point—[Interruption.] Hold on. I accepted the intervention, so please let me respond.
I will set out the reasons why I think that our universities and colleges are in the financial situation that they are in. It is not about immigration issues but about the current funding model, which does not work for universities.
In relation to the proposed further job losses and the additional £20 million-worth of savings, I am interested in finding out a bit more about the correspondence between the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Culture and Gaelic, the Scottish Funding Council and the university on pausing the redundancies, because we do not seem to be moving in the direction that we would expect. I do not know whether the minister has any more information in front of him that he could provide to members today.
When so many of our leading universities face a financial crisis, senior management should lead by example, as has been reiterated by other members. The reality of the situation is that institutions—this applies to universities other than the University of Dundee—cannot continue to spend money that they do not have. Difficult decisions are never welcome, particularly when they affect staff and students, but university leaders have a responsibility to ensure that their institutions remain financially viable. The alternative is a continued cycle of crisis management, which serves nobody.
The University of Dundee is not alone in sounding the alarm. I appreciate that Forth Valley College, which operates in my region, is not a university, but it has announced that its Alloa campus could close in order to secure the future of the wider college. To answer the question that Mr Barratt put to me, I believe that institutions continuing to receive flat cash is one of the reasons why a lot of colleges and universities face funding pressures at present. If we continue in this way, services will be reduced, campuses will come under threat and opportunities for learners will be diminished. Those challenges are not, in all cases, simply the result of individual management failures; they raise questions about the long-term sustainability of Scotland’s higher and further education system.
I am well pushing it, aren’t I, Deputy Presiding Officer?
The Scottish Conservatives are arguing for a more integrated and economically focused approach from the Scottish Funding Council. Funding decisions should be linked more closely to workforce planning, regional economic needs and the skills shortages that employers have identified. We would like to see that from the Scottish Government, and I would be interested to know whether the minister agrees.
16:44
I start by expressing my full support for the strike actions that are being taken by University of Edinburgh staff and University and College Union members across the country.
As I raised with the First Minister last week, the University of Edinburgh’s academic staff are currently participating in a marking and assessment boycott. Even though marking and assessment are rarely a staff member’s entire workload, the university is removing all pay from striking staff. Further, the university is now requiring those not striking to take on the workload of those who are, which is adding to their huge workloads. That is a wildly punitive approach and a totally unacceptable attempt to undermine solidarity between academic staff.
University of Edinburgh management are not alone in their aggressive strike-breaking action. Many universities have ignored academic regulations by awarding degrees without the necessary marks, which hugely undermines legitimate strike action and academic standards. It has led to a massive and likely long-lasting decline in staff good will.
The cuts that are being proposed by the University of Edinburgh, the University of Aberdeen, the University of Dundee, Glasgow Caledonian University, Heriot-Watt University, the University of Strathclyde and others will be disastrous for both staff and students. They are already making people insecure and anxious about their futures.
When staff numbers are cut, workloads rise, courses disappear and students lose out. Management often make a show of fair work, but they continue to replace secure contracts with insecure, short-term, underpaid work. As workloads become unsustainable, more staff are taking sick leave.
The devastating cuts that are proposed by the University of Edinburgh are from one of the richest universities in the United Kingdom, and its finances are far healthier than is being made out. The university has around £2.7 billion in assets, its endowment is the third largest in the UK and its 2025 accounts showed an annual surplus of £96 million. It certainly has enough funds to continue to invest in Israel and the genocide in Gaza.
During close to 18 months of meetings with the unions on the cuts, management have been unwilling to negotiate even one penny of reduction to the cuts targets, and they have been relying heavily on advice from management consultancies and paying large sums for that advice.
Earlier this year, I joined the Heriot-Watt UCU picket line, where staff of the languages and intercultural studies department and the team at Scholar face the threat of compulsory redundancies. Those redundancies would basically be equivalent to dismantling those incredibly important programmes. Scholar would be a huge loss, given the incredible work that it has done through its online learning platform to help more than a million young people with their school studies, and losing language and cultural courses at a time of world crisis in which the nation needs to be as outward looking as it can be seems incredibly short sighted.
I also pay tribute to the staff at Edinburgh Napier University, who have been striking against compulsory redundancies and for job security at a university that has been notorious for using zero-hours contracts.
Higher education is transformative for the individuals participating and for society more widely. As UCU members tell us, learning and education broadens horizons, improves wellbeing and increases opportunities.
In order to support our higher education sector, our whole approach needs to change. We need to stop treating staff and students like commodities for making profit and actively oppose the marketisation of higher education. We need universities that are democratic, transparent and accountable, with staff and students at their heart, where we are not paying the bosses inappropriately high salaries, where fair work and decent working conditions for staff mean good outcomes for students and where professional autonomy and academic freedom are respected and promoted. We need to work together to find a sustainable model that considers the wider social good that education provides.
16:48
For the past 10 days, I have received regular emails from my constituents who work at the University of Dundee. Those emails are full of pain and frustration about the uncertainty that has lasted for almost two years. The cloud has been hanging over their heads for far too long, and it has been intolerable. I have been working with them to find solutions.
This week’s announcement was wholly predictable. I knew well in advance that £20 million-worth of cuts was coming; it was reported by the media. I was therefore surprised by the shock and horror that the Government ranks expressed when the announcement was made.
Although I welcomed the Government stepping in at the beginning to make sure that the institution survived, that funding was only ever short term. I heard no one setting out new sources of income with margin that would allow for cross-subsidy for the areas that required extra support. This situation was therefore wholly predictable.
Instead of complaining, the Government should come up with solutions. So far, though, I have heard a lot of heat but no solutions. None of that helps staff at the University of Dundee who are about to be made redundant and lose their jobs. I will always stand with them to make sure that they have a future. I was at the evidence sessions at the Education, Children and Young People Committee. Just for the record, I do not think that Professor Gillespie has ever paid back any of his severance payment. I do not think that he was due that payment, because his leadership was shocking and led, in large part, to this circumstance.
The situation at Dundee—although it is unique, it is not that unique—is a sign of a wider broken system. I accept that inflation and the war in Ukraine, which has driven up energy prices, have had an impact on universities, just as they have impacted many other businesses. I also accept that employer national insurance contributions have played a part. However, it is also a fact that the funding that the Government provides to pay for the tuition of domestic students at Scottish universities has fallen way behind the cost of providing that education. As Michael Marra said, that funding has been cut in real terms, which has, in effect, incentivised universities to take ever-riskier routes to find a source of income with margin—for example, international students from what are, sometimes, very risky markets.
When the Nigerian currency fell overnight, the Nigerian students stopped coming. Dundee was overexposed to the Nigerian market. We could have seen that coming; I had been warning for a long time about ever-riskier behaviour by universities. It was not helped by the UK Government. I accept David Barratt’s point that the UK Government exacerbated the problem, but overexposure to international students from riskier markets is not the future for our universities.
I give the Scottish Government credit. The minister’s predecessor acknowledged that the funding system was broken. We now have the framework for the future of our universities, which no one has mentioned today. That is the way ahead for our universities. A cross-party and cross-sector approach is the solution. A lot of work has been done by those involved in the framework. I hope that that work results in a sustainable future for our universities, because one thing is for sure: we cannot afford to repeat what has happened at Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and many other institutions throughout the country. Our staff deserve better.
Before I call Mr Adam, I am minded to accept a motion without notice, under rule 8.14.3 of standing orders, to extend the debate by up to 30 minutes. I invite Maggie Chapman to move such a motion.
Motion moved,
That, under Rule 8.14.3, the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes.—[Maggie Chapman]
Motion agreed to.
16:53
I will try not to use all 30 minutes, Presiding Officer.
I thank Maggie Chapman for bringing this important debate to the chamber. I have been on the education committee in its various guises for most of the time that I have been a member. It is a bit like Al Pacino in “The Godfather Part III”—I keep trying to get out, but they keep dragging me back in again. I have seen everything.
We all seem to agree that the biggest problem at Dundee university was the lack of leadership and governance. Presiding Officer, I think that you were on the Education and Skills Committee with me when Parliament passed the Higher Education Governance (Scotland) Act 2016. We pushed for transparency and scrutiny but were told by the university that bodies such as the unions could not be involved in the university court. It is ironic that one of the key issues for the university is that what it had just collapsed. On top of that, there was a lack of leadership and trust.
Those who had been involved in that process appeared at the education committee in the previous parliamentary session. We had a rather highly strung convener at the time, who constantly took around half an hour to ask questions, but Mr Rennie and I managed to get some questions in, and we were shocked by the level of incompetence from those people. Nobody seemed to know what went wrong or when and how it went wrong.
Dundee university is not an inevitable sector squeeze story—it was a Dundee university problem that meant that Dundee university ended up in a situation where there was absolutely nowhere for it to go.
David Barratt made a valid point in his intervention earlier. He referred to people no longer having the opportunity to come into the country and go to university. The university kept recruiting people all the time, which became part of its financial downfall.
I largely accept what Mr Adam says, but does he accept my point that although the situation at Dundee university is unique, these issues affect many other institutions, which is why we need reform of the funding system as a whole?
There are many challenges and problems with universities trying to balance the books while delivering what they have to do. That has been an ongoing issue, but never to this extent. Mr Rennie and I heard about Dundee university’s Exscientia windfall. A perfect example is the programme whereby the university created an artificial intelligence drug company that was spun out into the real world to make some money. We all keep talking about how universities need to continue to do such things. The university got £40 million in the pay-off from the sale of its shares, but that was not ring fenced to improve the university in any way. That £40 million is an example of money that could have been used for the university to prosper and move forward.
We are talking about the University of Dundee, but I also referenced Forth Valley College, where alarm bells are ringing. We need to look at the funding model, otherwise the college will be in a precarious situation, not in a couple of years’ time but in as soon as a couple of months’ time, by the looks of it.
I could talk about the University of the West of Scotland, which I do regularly, but I am running out of time quickly. That university has managed to balance the books and make sure that it can deliver what it wants to deliver for people, particularly in my constituency of Paisley. As previous speakers have said, universities are not only about academic achievement but are a key part of our communities. UWS is a major contributor to the community in Paisley and is extremely important to us, and not only from a jobs point of view. It is also going down the route of trying to spin out small businesses from the university in order to move forward. That is the future.
The situation at Dundee university has shown us that we perhaps need to look at governance, so that such a situation cannot happen in a university again. For too long, there has been a certain arrogance. Our previous convener was a bit highly strung, but he called out some of the arrogance of many of the principals of those institutions. We need to get beyond that and we must work with them because the universities are an important part of our economic life in Scotland, and they are important to the education of our younger people and people going back into education. They can change lives in many ways, but they need to work with us. We must get to a stage where we make sure that such a situation cannot happen again. One person had too much power and that led to another couple of people coming with him. Such situations cannot be allowed to continue to happen.
16:59
I thank Maggie Chapman for refusing to let this crisis slip from view.
A few years ago, before I was elected to this Parliament, I was a postgraduate teacher, union organiser and international student at the University of St Andrews. I taught there and I volunteered as an anti-casualisation officer with the University and College Union, and alongside colleagues I campaigned against insecure contracts and for an end to the normalisation of zero-hours employment in our universities. I was also completing my PhD at the time, with support from the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science. Yet, even with that support, there was a year of my doctorate where I, as an international student, paid £18,800 in tuition fees. That was at the lower end of the spectrum, and the domestic fee status amount would have been a fraction of that.
Amid that, I worked in casualised roles. During my second year at the university, I and other staff on short-term contracts were informed that there would be salary cuts which, to many of us, were direct existential threats. We did what people who are in that position do: we organised, approached our department and signed petitions. Until we made it public, there was limited to no response from our institution. Eventually, a provost got in touch and asked to meet us. When we told him that if we were not paid for the one hour a week of preparation time that we were given for lectures and workshops that we delivered to hundreds of students, it would affect teaching quality, he said, “That’s okay. Teach worse.” Eventually, the university gave way and allowed us to retain our paid prep time, but the next year, that time was reduced across all departments, with the university quoting standardisation.
All that happened while we heard rumours of our neighbour, the University of Dundee, making staff cuts. We heard stories that it allegedly released a list of redundancies in an encrypted document with a password that included the number of staff who would be made redundant. That is the broken model in which Scotland’s universities are functioning, which Meghan Gallacher has rightly spoken about. I agree with her that it is not about international students and immigrant students and they should not have to bear the brunt or be exploited to balance the books and then be treated like vermin.
The same broken system has cut 700 posts in Dundee, with more than 100 at risk in Aberdeen, and the university rejects any attempts at public intervention whatsoever. The University of Edinburgh in my region continues to be complicit in investing in genocide, which Kate Nevens mentioned, while 350 staff have already left through voluntary severance schemes that are linked to a programme of £150 million in projected savings. I have heard about such savings all through my time at university and after it—no one knows the details of them.
At Edinburgh Napier University, staff have undertaken industrial action because of proposed redundancies and cuts. At Heriot-Watt University, staff have raised concerns about course closures and job losses. As Willie Rennie and many other members have said, those are not isolated events; they are the sign of a sector that is under profound stress.
During the industrial action at the University of St Andrews, I found some of the most meaningful university spaces that I have ever known and some of the most exceptional teaching that I have ever experienced outside classrooms during staff and student-organised teach-outs. We discussed the purpose of higher education, what casualisation means, what academic freedom means, and what universities owe the communities that sustain them. During the strikes, students were not treated as consumers; they were treated as participants in a shared intellectual exercise. Universities are communities. As many members have mentioned, communities are damaged when the people who sustain them are treated as costs that need to be reduced. Every redundancy means expertise lost.
Right before I was elected, I got through stage 1 of the application for an Economic and Social Research Council postdoctoral job. Later, I was informed that it had been shrunk to a mere nine-month post. That is a signal that early-career researchers might need to leave Scotland to build a better future, which is particularly true in the arts, humanities and social sciences. My research was possible because public institutions such as the universities that I was involved with invested in it. Today, many staff, including casualised doctoral researchers and postdoctoral scholars, face a far more uncertain future. Funding opportunities are narrowing and career pathways are becoming more and more precarious.
So, as Willie Rennie asked, what should we do now? First, when public money is given to universities, a university recovery plan needs to be underwritten. There must be transparent and independent oversight of any funding that is given. Michael Marra noted that this is a funding story, but the public record shows that the University of Dundee was not starved of money; we know that the Scottish Funding Council gave it £22 million and then it got a further £40 million, taking the total emergency support to more than £60 million. That is not a cut; it is one of the largest bailouts that any Scottish institution has ever been provided with, but failures in financial monitoring that were repeated at multiple levels of leadership caused the crisis.
At the end of the day, I believe that we need specific protection for our universities, not only because of the broken funding model that we keep citing as a spectre in our past but knowing that international students are the backbone of that economy. There is a broken immigration system with a lack of transparent leadership. Universities cannot continue functioning as if they are consumer models—they are communities and we must treat them as such.
17:04
As this is my first opportunity to speak in the chamber since the election, I put on record how proud and grateful I was to represent Edinburgh Northern and Leith for 10 years and how grateful I am to have been re-elected to represent Edinburgh North Eastern and Leith, which has a strong history of standing up for working people and social justice, which are relevant to the debate.
I also pay tribute to Maggie Chapman, not just for bringing this important issue to the chamber today but for all that she has done over many years to champion the issues in the sector and for being a fair and proactive parliamentarian in this space. I look forward to working with her and colleagues on these really important issues.
There have been some meaningful contributions from across the chamber. I will not be able to reply to all the points that have been made, but I will try to. I say to colleagues that what they have said in today’s debate has been heard and that not only is my door open but my mind is open to working with them on the issues that we face now, and on other issues—the challenges that are the subject of today’s debate will be some of the most pertinent and difficult that, collectively, we will need to wrestle with in this parliamentary session.
As others have rightly emphasised, this is an anxious and unsettling time for many across the university sector in all 19 of our institutions. I recognise that and I understand those concerns. Since being reappointed as minister with responsibility for tertiary education, I have welcomed the opportunity to meet again our national trade union bodies, Universities Scotland and principals, and to listen to their concerns, particularly the concerns of staff. I look forward to continuing that engagement during my tenure.
There is no question but that universities across the United Kingdom and, indeed, more widely, are experiencing financial challenges for a range of reasons and, as a consequence, are having to consider the costs that are before them. In addition to the universities here in Scotland cited by members, cost reduction measures have also been announced at institutions including Ulster University, the University of South Wales, the University of Sussex and the University of Nottingham, in recent weeks, and, in recent days, the University of Sheffield.
Universities are responding to a range of factors, including Brexit, high energy costs, inflationary pressures, the UK Government’s increase in national insurance contributions and the UK Government’s hostile environment policies, which are affecting student numbers. Those policies include those set out in the immigration white paper and the major changes to the UK Government’s international visa compliance regime that have come into force this month, which are already causing difficulty and will confront us further as we go into the autumn.
I hear what the minister says about the wider financial constraints that the sector is facing. If universities decide that job cuts are the answer—I do not believe that they should be—surely the Government would expect them to do the appropriate assessments on the impacts of those cuts. However, I am hearing from staff at the University of Dundee and the University of Aberdeen that there has been no stress risk assessment or suicide risk assessment, and that staff have been put into discriminatory and non-voluntary redundancy pools. Does the minister agree that that is not how our sector should be operating? Will he outline what he is going to do about it?
I thank Maggie Chapman for those additional points, on top of what she said in her opening remarks. I am aware that she has written directly to the Government on many of the points that she has raised. I advise her that there will be a written response from the Government to her letter—that is the most appropriate way in which to respond in detail to the substance of those important issues.
As I was saying, the pressures are wide and complex. Those factors have been set out in our parliamentary committees, as members such as George Adam and Willie Rennie have referenced, and in the House of Commons Education Committee’s recent report on the financial crisis faced by English higher education providers. In that context, we in the Scottish Government know that we need to take action to support our universities and help to ensure that they are financially sustainable in the medium and long term.
Ministers have listened closely to the sector in the development of this year’s budget, which is why we are investing £1.4 billion in the sector. That is a combined increase of more than £55 million in resource and capital funding via the Scottish Funding Council, which is equivalent to a 5 per cent uplift on last year’s budget.
Every university has been allocated a combined increase in teaching, research and innovation grant funding of at least 3.2 per cent for this academic year. Of course, we saw an increase of 10 per cent in the budget for our college sector as well.
I visited Forth Valley College recently and I have seen the spreadsheets and the figures. It does not appear to be an increase—it looks more like flat cash.
Can the minister give me more information on that?
That is not my understanding. Since my appointment in September, I have engaged extensively with Forth Valley College and I have a good working relationship with both the principal and the chair. We are working together proactively to seek solutions around the future of Alloa campus and more widely. Indeed, last week, I attended the college sector conference that Colleges Scotland organised, and we had a great discussion in the room about how we are working together. I appreciate that colleges, which are very important to me, are a pressing issue, but this is a debate on universities, so I will use my time to respond to the points being made on that issue.
The budget settlement demonstrates our strong commitment to free tuition and widening access for those from the most deprived backgrounds. We have seen positive improvement there. Indeed, figures released today show the stark difference between the loans debt accrued by Scottish students and that of students in the rest of the UK. That investment makes a difference for the majority of young people who are studying.
We have also committed strongly, both socially and economically, to the contribution of our universities in teaching and research, not just in technical skills but in the necessity for critical thinking. As a philosophy graduate, I very much appreciate the importance of preserving investment in our humanities as well as skilling for our economic needs in order to meet our full potential. Universities are engines for unlocking collective and individual potential and opportunities, and they should not be underestimated in that regard. This gets to something that is important to consider—
[Made a request to intervene.]
Do I get the time back in this debate as well?
You can get the time back, minister.
I will take the intervention.
A year ago, 632 job losses were not acceptable. If we admit that staff are the bedrock of all the topics that we are talking about, why are 900 job losses at Dundee now okay? Will the minister agree that that must not be treated as a precedent, and that there is now an incredible crisis that one must urgently address?
No Scottish Government minister has been anything but concerned about the situation in Dundee in recent days and years. If colleagues show a little patience, I will get to those issues shortly in my remarks.
I have been determined since September that we do all that we can to get ahead of this challenge. Dundee is a bit of an outlier, but colleagues have been right to emphasise that there are challenges across the sector. Willie Rennie, Iris Duane, Meghan Gallacher, Heather Anderson and other members talked about the need to think ahead and ensure that we sustain our sector, invest in it and future proof it. That is exactly what the framework, which Willie Rennie was right to emphasise, is all about. It is a collective endeavour to ensure that we are considering what bold and strategic decisions and proactive steps we need to take to ensure that our world-class universities are successful and sustainable for coming decades. The review will report at the end of the year.
In 2027, as a Parliament, in the budget process that lies ahead, we will need to think collectively and come to decisions together about how we support this vital sector during a period in which there are complex student needs, rising costs, increasing global competition, shifting demographics, fast-paced changes in technology, and uncertain global markets and conditions. We need to consider all of that and ensure that we are not complacent. I am grateful for the insight and ideas that have been provided so far by student and staff representatives, as well as experts in the steering group. That is all good work that is ongoing in the future framework for the sustainability and success of Scotland’s universities. I reach across the chamber for collaboration in that work, as we had in the previous Parliament, and I look forward to engaging with colleagues on that.
As many members have mentioned, the Government is very clear that universities cannot meet the challenges that are in front of us right now unless decisions are made in consultation with staff and students. Although our 19 universities are, rightly, autonomous and responsible for their own operational decisions, the Scottish Government fully expects meaningful engagement as cost-reduction measures are considered and progressed.
Universities must make every effort to protect jobs and consider compulsory redundancies only as a last resort, after all other cost-reduction measures have been fully explored. In my recent discussions with trade unions, I heard examples in which agreements were reached with university employers to end disputes through positive engagement. We want more of that, and I expect other universities to continue to work with their recognised trade unions in the same spirit.
Although employment law is reserved, we as a Government will continue to do what we can to ensure that workers are treated fairly and that their voices are heard. Fair work principles should be at the forefront of universities’ decision making, and the Scottish Funding Council will continue to monitor the implementation of fair work principles as part of its outcome framework and assurance model, taking action to support compliance where necessary. Because of the legislation that we passed in the early part of the year, from April 2027, universities will be expected to adopt all fair work criteria, and the SFC will look to include them as a condition of grant—an announcement that trade unions and I have spoken about in recent weeks. They welcome that, and we will continue to work together on it.
I thank the minister for taking an intervention—he has been generous with his time. Although universities are already obliged to comply with two elements of the fair work agenda, it is clear that that is not happening and that that has no consequences. Either the Scottish Government or the Scottish Funding Council needs to take action. I still have not heard what action the Scottish Government or the Scottish Funding Council plans to take, even though there have been proven failures to abide by the fair work principles, which universities are contractually obliged to do.
Ministers, including me, and the SFC regularly engage on that matter. I also encourage the member to seek their own engagement with the SFC. I give a commitment to the Parliament and to the member in particular, as they have raised the question, to continue dialogue with the SFC about ensuring that we see proper implementation of the conditions, whether under the Higher Education Governance (Scotland) Act 2016 or the Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Act 2026.
I am conscious that I need to touch on the situation at Dundee before we conclude, so I ask the member to allow me to continue.
Like many others, I was concerned about the University of Dundee’s announcement of further job cuts, which undoubtedly and understandably are deeply upsetting to staff, whose voices, along with those of campus unions, must be central to any decisions about the future of the institution. I reiterated that to the principal in writing and to the SFC in a meeting last week.
The Cabinet Secretary for Education, Culture and Gaelic met the principal of the University of Dundee on 16 June to request that the university’s leadership pause the consultation process on staff reductions to give ministers reasonable time to consider the SFC’s evidence regarding compliance with conditions of funding. Evidently—and disappointingly—the university did not agree to that and pressed ahead with Tuesday’s announcement.
Although the Scottish Government absolutely recognises the autonomy of the university, ministers must also be assured that the university has complied with the SFC’s conditions of funding. The education secretary, other ministers and I have engaged with the SFC in recent days, and we will consider the detail of the SFC’s evidence. I also refer to what the First Minister said in the chamber on Tuesday at back-bench members’ First Minister’s question time. The SFC will continue to monitor the university’s compliance with its conditions of funding through to July 2027. That includes meaningful engagement with staff and students and adherence to the fair work principles.
Minister, you must come to a conclusion now.
Implementing the Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Act 2026 and addressing the other immediate issues before us are important measures, along with the framework, on which I look forward to engaging with colleagues.
I have sought to reassure members on the points that they raised and to understand the real challenges that universities face, many of which are also being experienced across the UK.
As I set out, we will continue to take action to ensure that our world-class universities deliver outstanding teaching, research and innovation and meet the needs of learners, the economy and society. I look forward to engaging with colleagues. I appreciate that I have not been able to address every point, but let us keep up the engagement. It is a collective challenge. I look forward to working across the chamber and with universities, staff and students on our shared ambition to ensure that our world-class university sector continues to thrive.
Meeting closed at 17:20.
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