BUCU reps were summoned for a consultation meeting with staff from Biosciences on Friday morning, 24 October with less than 24 hours notice. The consultation will run 60 days and will involve restructuring and  redundancies. The Head of College, Bill Bloss, stated that there was no financial case for these redundancies, there was no plan to reduce overall staff numbers in Biosciences and there was no issue with the commitment or performance of the staff selected for the pool.  The explicit reason for redundancies was to sack some people and hire others as part of the University’s attempt to reach the Global Top 50 (the management terms are ‘disinvest’ and ‘reinvest’, which are terms for money, not people) . All of the affected staff are permanent Academic staff: three are on Research and Education contracts and ten are on Education contracts.  The consultation ends on December 22.  Merry Christmas.

The BUCU view is that offering Voluntary Severance alongside the restructuring proposal is a form of bullying, as members will now feel pressured to leave their jobs. This will also lead to greater casualisation because the teaching that these full time and permanent staff currently undertake will still need to be done, and there was no mention of curriculum and module reform planned to take place.

We encourage staff to take note.  This will not be an isolated example.

Correction: 10 October 2025: All of the affected staff are permanent Academic staff: three are on Research and Education contracts and ten are on Education contracts