University of Dundee given ?40 million bailout following ‘unprecedented’ crisis

Dundee given ?40 million bailout following ‘unprecedented’ crisis

<网曝门 class="standfirst">Money for ailing institution via Scottish Funding Council comes on top of the ?22 million previously made available

六月 24, 2025

Juliette Rowsell

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Source: iStock/AmandaLewis

Another??40 million is being given to?the University of Dundee by the Scottish government to secure the future of the crisis-ridden institution.

The money will be provided to Dundee over two academic years through the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), and comes on top of a ?22 million government bailout which was already made available in April.

It follows?the publication of a damning report last week, which found that members of the university executive group, including former principal Iain Gillespie, had “failed” to disclose the extent of the financial crisis to other university officials. It further said?that a “hierarchical and over-confident” leadership had compounded its financial crisis,?which?led to a projected??35 million deficit.

Scottish education and skills secretary, Jenny Gilruth, told the Scottish Parliament: “Let me be clear: this is not about rewarding failure. This is about responding to an unprecedented and a unique situation which threatens much of what we hold dear in our university sector.”

While universities are “independent and autonomous institutions” and decisions on the allocation of funding to individual institutions are typically the responsibility of the SFC, ministers have issued a direction to allocate the funding. This “unprecedented set of circumstances” requires “a unique and an unprecedented response”, she said.

Despite the additional funding, a “liquidity gap” at the university remains of between ?45 million and ?60 million across the next two academic years. While “this is not an immediate cash need”, Gilruth said, “it will need to be addressed before the end of this financial year. It is, therefore, vitally important that the university works to secure a plan which will allow for commercial lending to support some, or all, of the liquidity ask”.

But the education secretary said Dundee’s financial crisis is a warning to other Scottish institutions, and “there is a need for a reflection from our universities on the levels of growth that we witnessed in some institutions, particularly during the pandemic”.

Gilruth continued: “Some of the planned job losses being experienced at the current time relate directly to that uncapped expansion – the cost being paid today?is the unsustainable jobs created as a result. And whilst Dundee’s finances may be unique, their approach to investment in the international student economy is not. There is, therefore, a lesson in the experiences at Dundee University, which other institutions should be mindful of.”

Nigel Seaton, interim principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Dundee, said the university was “extremely grateful” to the Scottish government.?

“This is invaluable in helping us reach a more sustainable position and will provide welcome reassurance to staff, students and our wider stakeholders. We will continue to engage with the Funding Council on a full recovery plan, and in pushing forward with our ongoing work to strengthen our management and governance.

“We do not take lightly the responsibilities which come with this level of additional public support. We have to be better as an institution than we have been and I and my colleagues are absolutely determined that we will be.”

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com

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Several UK vice chancellors have resigned following votes of no confidence from staff, but Katie Normington at De Montfort is refusing to go after massive financial mismanagment in a wild west fools gold start up in Dubai costing at least ?42 million in start up costs and losing ?6 million per year despite a unanimous no confidence vote from the professoriate and also UCU members. We cannot comment more as the Office for Students is currently investigating it all. Simone Buitendijk served as Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Leeds from September 2020 until her announced resignation in October 2023, with her official departure occurring on 31 December 2023. Her decision to step down followed significant pressure from staff, including motions of no confidence passed by all three major campus unions (UCU, Unison, and Unite) in June and July 2023. Professor Chris?Higgins, who resigned as Durham University’s VC in 2014 shortly after a university senate vote and governance dispute—widely seen as a pressured departure. David Richardson resigned as Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of East Anglia (UEA) on 27 February 2023, with immediate effect, after serving in the role for nine years and being at the university for over 30 years. His resignation came amid a severe financial crisis at UEA, with the university facing a budget deficit of ?30 million for the 2023–2024 academic year, projected to rise to ?45 million within three years. : Resigned in April 2018 after a vote of no confidence by academic staff, largely in response to proposed cuts and controversial comments about staff teaching duties . Others who did the right thing and resigned after no confidence votes included Peter Horrocks Open Uni, who resigned in February 2023 after staff passed a vote of no confidence in his leadership, particularly in the context of a severe financial crisis at the university. Others pushed out include: Duncan Maskell (University of?Cambridge, 2022) Jill Downie (University of?Edinburgh, 2020) sir Philip Augar (University of?Greenwich, 2018) Left following questions about his dual roles and conflicts of interest—felt pressured by governance concerns Paul Boyle (University of Leicester, 2018): Faced student protests over pension cuts and values; stepped down early—not officially forced, but allegations of pressure were raised. Michael Arthur (University College London, 2013): Controversy around pay and governance led to exit on “healthgrounds,” though signs pointed to pressure campaign. University of Bath Glynis Breakwell Nov 2017 Announced retirement 2018 afrer UCU no confidence vote London Met Brian Roper 2009 Resigned after HEFCE report Katie Normington of De Montfort is in the rare position of having not only a UCU members no confidence vote, but a unanimous professoriate no confidence vote. Mass protests are taking place outside her office at De Montfort tomorrow, but as she lives in London she might not know they are taking place. To set up a dodgy campus in Dubai and bill some of the poorest students in the UK for it and cut their library budget and reduce the provision of professors teaching them is a scandal--all while riding back and forward to Dubai in first class airport lounges and in flatbed business class seats on fancy flights.

#3 Submitted by ... on June 24, 2025 - 9:57pm

https://nation.cymru/news/cardiff-university-chief-accused-again-of-misleading-senedd-members/ This probably needs some scrutiny

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#4 Submitted by ... on June 25, 2025 - 7:53am

It is fraud under the Fraud Act 2006 section 2 for Vice Chancellors to make false representations and also fraud for them not to disclose profit and loss statements for schools where they are making redundancies as section 3 of the Fraud Act 2006 makes such non-disclosures a serious criminal offence carrying a prison sentence of 10 years. At De Montfort the Vice Chancellor has refused to reveal the profit and loss statements to schools and it is believed this is due to schools like Law and Accounting and perhaps also Economics producing millions in surplus and the claim they are in deficit due to SSR's is a false representation. Clearly a police matter and the police ought to be investigating these fraudulent claims by VC's since it is a crime to try to expose another to a risk of loss. It is enough that they were exposed to the financial risk of redundancy as the fraud offence is inchoate--it need not be shown anyone was in fact fooled into taking redundancy due to the lack of disclosure of proper financial positions of the relevant schools or due to the false representations, it is enough that the non disclosure took place and that the false representations about the fianancial position of individual schools was misrepresented as being in deficit when in massive surplus like as been the case with respect to the De Montfort University Law School and other BAL Schools.

#5 Submitted by ... on June 25, 2025 - 3:03pm

Watching from afar the DMU slow motion car crash over the last 6 years has been both depressing and highly instructive. The issue is what happens even if Normington goes? She was recruited by the Board of Governors who had a least one eye (if not both) on covering up the "mess" left by the Shellard regime (doing their best impression Frank Drebin standing in front of the exploding fireworks factory shouting "nothing to see here") Like most BoGs for the majority their background is not in HE. Do they honestly have anything other than a pretty superficial understanding of the core activities of a university: research and teaching? Recruiting VCs who speak the corporate language they are comfortable with rather than the academic language that they are not, is seemingly their default. Once the VCs and their courts are in post, as has been proved in this case and so so many others, the BoGs provide a weak check on the activities of the VC, presumably because they are both unable, and more to the point, unwilling to do so, and the VCs and their senior "management" teams end up effectively unaccountable to anyone. This is the crux for the problem for DMU, Dundee, Bolton and pretty much every other UK University. As has been pointed out before its the entire structure and composition of governance mechanisms that are a huge part of the issue, particularly the perspectives of the BoGs and their seeming unwillingness to make VCs - who are, after all, their own handpicked appointments - accountable ("cliquey governing bodies rely corporate boardroom ideology", THE, Jan 2024) Without root and branch reform of these structures nothing will change, the BoGs will continue to recruit a certain type of individual for VC - spouting corporate jargon, from an incredibly narrow pool of almost identikit existing VCs, PVCs, DVCs etc., who think and act in exactly the same way. The VC will surround themselves with a court of "yes" men and women, the BoG, unable/unwilling to act as a check on the VC, and presumably unwilling to admit they made a mistake, will effectively offer no oversight of their decisions and actions, and the cycle of mis-governance just continues ad infinitum . . . So if Normington goes, what will the BoG give you? Norminghton 2.0, or maybe even Shellard 2.0 . . . what changes?

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#6 Submitted by ... on June 25, 2025 - 4:31pm

Yes they do tend to recruit from the same pool as themselves. These days they try an bring on someone in from outside, from some New Zealand or Canadian University and claim it is a great international appointment but it's often even worse. I remember a scene from that rather fine Sergio Leone western, the Good the Bad and the Ugly in which the Eli Wallach character (the Ugly I believe) is hauled up outside the sheriffs office and comments on the comings and goings in this manner: "One bastard goes in, another bastard comes out."