The University has lost 272 members of staff through the voluntary severance scheme which was announced in April 2024 and aimed to reduce University finances as part of a wider effort to save £34 million.
The voluntary scheme was aimed at covering a £24 million deficit in the University’s finances and met its redundancy targets for professional services but targets for academic staff were not met.
In an email sent to staff, Vice Chancellor Charlie Jeffrey said: “The conversations of the last few months and especially those of the last few weeks have been difficult and painful.
“We will miss them both personally and as we adjust to different ways of working without them.”
The scheme covered all academic departments and was part of the wider aim of saving £34 million.
It involved staff voluntarily putting themselves forward for redundancy and a financial settlement for staff who accept the arrangements proposed by the University.
The University has focused its voluntary severance scheme on staff looking to retire early or move on from York.
The University announced a compulsory redundancy scheme in September 2024 requiring 30 academic staff redundancies over six years, however, it announced on 30 October 2024 that the compulsory scheme would be ending.
This comes as a result of the University accepting an alternative proposal to achieve savings on staff and other costs by voluntary support.
Jeffrey said: “Unfortunately, [the] budget is unlikely to be favourable to universities and will not address the deep-seated problems of Higher Education funding.
“Some of the measures may even make university finances more difficult in the short term.”
The University employs around 6,100 staff and has an annual turnover of £520 million.
York Vision interviewed the Vice Chancellor, Charlie Jeffrey and Pro-Vice Chancellor for Teaching, Learning and Students, Tracy Lightfoot from the University’s Executive Board in September 2024.
When Vision asked if there is a recovery plan for staff redundancies, Jeffrey said: “we aren’t ending these areas, we are reducing them.”
Jeffrey said that the schemes are necessary due to inflation rates which have increased the University’s running costs by around 20%, approximately £45 million and a decrease in international student applications reducing University income by around £40 million.
Jeffrey explained that these reasons are behind the postponement of the £35 million Student Centre for at least three years.
Jeffrey said: “We will get back to that as soon as we are in a stronger position.”
Lightfoot acknowledged the impact of the delays on student societies who were planning to use the space.
To address the gap in financial revenue, the University has 24 new degree programmes launching September 2025 and is working on building agreements with international partners in India, China and the United States to bring more international students to York.
A University of York spokesperson said: “We have been tackling savings targets in several ways: postponing planned capital projects, extensive savings from how we are using our estate, energy-saving changes, and reducing other non-staff operating costs where we can.
We have had a strong focus on comprehensive voluntary options to reduce staffing costs.”
The University and College Union (UCU) at the University has strongly criticised the University Executive Board’s decision to implement the voluntary redundancy scheme and implement structural changes to the University.
A statement published on the University and College Union’s website stated that the scheme will force hundreds of staff to leave during semester one in October, severely impacting teaching quality, increasing workloads and harming the wellbeing of remaining staff.
There is a clear and articulated attempt to make the future look as bleak as possible so as many people as possible will leave.
The UCU
The UCU said: “What an appalling way to operate and it is this type of deliberate harm to our members that we cannot stand for.”
The UCU also heavily criticised structural changes being made to the University through the “Changing the Way We Work” initiative which involves centralising administrative services, getting rid of double-blind marking and removing the Board of Studies which are academic departmental committees that help run departments.
The UCU said: “What we cannot accept is a top-down mish mash of ideas that will make the working conditions of our members demonstrably and irreversibly worse.
“Some are obvious empire building changes, like getting rid of the Board of Studies, which would act to centralise power.
“Others, like the removal of double-blind marking, speak to a race to the bottom and ditching proper academic standards in the pursuit of ‘efficiency’”
The UCU encouraged students, staff, alumni and local leaders to resist the changes which they argue will irreversibly damage the reputation and value of a University of York degree.
Vice-President for the UCU’s York branch’s Jonathan Fanning, said: “Although we are pleased that the institution-wide compulsory redundancy scheme has been withdrawn some staff remain at risk.
“It is unfortunately true that making staff redundant at the university is all too common.
“We believe that there should be better opportunities to transfer people between projects.
On compulsory redundancy, Fanning said: “The University management never demonstrated beyond doubt that reductions to payroll are the only possible solution to its financial problems.
“[Without] sound financial data it may even be the case that the university overshoots its surplus targets in the coming years, meaning that many job losses, and their impacts upon student experience, would in fact have been unnecessary.
“We will be looking very closely at all aspects of the University spending and finances over the coming years to see if this is the case.”
On the voluntary severance scheme, Fanning said: “We have to take some issue that the schemes entered into to avoid compulsory redundancy are truly voluntary with a number of staff feeling that they had no choice but to accept hours cuts that will reduce their availability to students.”
York SU Union Affairs Officer Lewis Parrey said: “The University’s approach to get its finances back on track has resulted in a pretty extreme course of cuts and redundancies.
“The speed of University actions has resulted in the student experience being neglected, which should never be the case.
“It’s clear that students are in need of more support and staff are often wanting to provide this, but simply unable to because of reduced resources and staff.”
Lewis Parrey
“The University’s focus needs to be investment back into student support and avoiding a mentality of stagnation which would be detrimental to students.
“The Students Union will of course play our part in holding the University to prioritise students going forward.”
York SU Academic Officer Fenella Johnson said: “It’s not going to be evenly spread across the University. Some students will notice it, and some might not notice anything at all.”