Inside Britain's university crisis

As teaching staff face job loss, their bosses have netted pay rises and bought advice from a “vampiric” management consultancy, writes Prof. John Heathershaw of the University of Exeter

By John Heathershaw

A growing number of Britain’s top universities are trapped in a crisis which seems to have no end in sight. As funding shortfalls lead to staff cuts and strike action, morale is low and goodwill exhausted.

Almost half of Britain’s universities are running a financial deficit, according to the Office for Students. Teaching staff — particularly those in the humanities — are losing their jobs across the country and fewer students are choosing to study.

But not everyone on campus is suffering. The salaries of university bosses are rising while management consultants are in high demand. Yet, universities seem to be ever less transparent and accountable. It is confounding — even to an academic such as myself who is experienced at probing secretive governance structures.

My own institution, the University of Exeter, recently announced plans to lay off up to 150 teaching and support staff this summer. Exeter is a very unlikely candidate for such cuts. It boasts growing reserves of over £200 million, declining debt and healthy recruitment of home undergraduate students (which has always been its main source of income). It is the premier university of south-west England.

But Exeter also bears many of the telltale signs of mismanagement now common to universities across the country. Staff members are shocked at the quality of data presented to them as justification for the redundancies, and have been calling it out.

The cuts are targeted on the humanities based on a claim of “excess capacity” among academics, using information which we know is inaccurate. We recently discovered, for example, that a deceased member of staff was included in the modelling data.

To justify the value of our jobs, we have been asked to demonstrate our alignment to “departmental strategies”. Yet these strategies do not exist in many cases, including in my own department of Social and Political Sciences.

Recently, in the process of essentially re-applying for our jobs, staff were sent records of their own publications, projects, and teaching histories. These were later recognised as inaccurate by the university but instead of reissuing them, the university issued supplements which were also error-strewn or incomplete.

Data breaches have occurred. Recently, teaching staff were mistakenly sent the names of all those at risk of redundancy — data they were not supposed to see.

Separately, there are concerns about transparency. Exeter bosses were condemned for “high-level incompetence” in a legal judgement earlier this year. The university was fined £15,000 for contempt of court following an “inexplicable” decision to ignore a court order in a freedom of information case to hand over documents to the local press, as Private Eye Magazine reported.

But those at the top remain handsomely rewarded. Our vice-chancellor recently earned a rise in basic pay for the third year running, taking home a salary of £345,000 and a further £37,000 in benefits. The starting salary for a full academic professor is less than one quarter of this.

The university’s own financial reports show that 16 members of the University Executive Board are paid an average of £241K – a 27% increase over three years while the institution has been going through financial difficulties.

We have also seen the recruitment of highly paid and non-academic “professors of practice”, who are often industry figures without teaching and research experience. New managerial roles with grandiose titles such as “associate pro-vice chancellor for education and student experience” have been created across the institution.

Meanwhile, administrative resources seem increasingly concentrated in support of managers. In my faculty, six administrators support ten managerial roles at faculty level while another six administrators support departments with their 900 FTE academic staff who teach 10,000 students.

Behind the bewildering transformation of British universities you can often find the work of management consultants. In Exeter’s case, a firm called Nous Data Insights advised on a restructuring process in 2023 which created many of the new managerial roles.

The consultancy was dubbed ‘Nousferatu’ in one academic paper for the allegedly “vampiric” way that it is “extracting the lifeblood from universities”. The essay argues that “consultants and universities are engaged in a mutually dependent relationship designed to sustain each other at the expense of the public.”

Nous says its role is to offer independent analysis and strategic advice to university leaders. But the consultancy is one of many that seem to be leading a shift away from traditional measures of scholarly achievement to “key performance indicators” aligned to strategy. It is a lucrative business.

And Exeter is not alone. Top UK universities are making dramatic cuts to faculty while the use of consultants continues to rise.

Cardiff, which has been going through one of the most brutal rounds of cuts, spent more than £10 million on management consultants in less than two years. (£1 million of this was spent with Nous, which also earned £750,000 in fees advising the University of Edinburgh as it sought to make hundreds of staff redundant, according to the Ferret.)

All this may sound familiar to anyone paying attention to the decline of public institutions in the UK. At least five other universities announced fresh job cuts this summer, according to the University College Union branch at Queen Mary. More than 100 universities have announced redundancy programs since 2020.

For me, there is a certain irony. Because of the nature of my research, I occasionally receive threatening letters from angry oligarchs upset with my publications and offering “alternative facts”. While this can be intimidating, it is not quite as serious as receiving a letter from my employer – referring to inaccurate information and non-existent documents – notifying me of my potential redundancy.

When approached by Democracy for Sale, a spokesperson for the University of Exeter said: “We fully understand that this is a worrying time for those who are affected by the ongoing consultation process – however it is important to stress and reiterate that these are proposals at this stage. The University is not proposing to close any departments or disciplines, and under these proposals Exeter would continue to have one of the largest faculties of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences in the UK.

“We hope to achieve these changes through voluntary measures and are committed to working closely with our community and the trade unions to avoid compulsory redundancies wherever possible. All colleagues affected by the proposed changes will receive all the information they need throughout the process, along with every opportunity to ask questions, raise concerns, and participate fully. The University will ensure that this process is fair and consistent throughout.

“While Exeter remains in a strong position, rising costs, the real-terms decline in tuition fee income, underfunded research, and a sustained drop in international student demand mean we must take action now. These changes are intended to secure the University’s long-term sustainability, protect our teaching and research excellence, and ensure our activities remain aligned with future priorities.”