Voluntary Severance Scheme

To help the University secure cost savings and realign and position its workforce for the future through transformation for success the University has decided to launch a voluntary severance scheme, details of which can be found on this page. 

As you will be aware the higher education sector faces many challenges - private providers have entered the marketplace, fees remain static whilst staffing and operational costs increase, some subject areas are experiencing ongoing decline in popularity and our competitors are being increasingly aggressive in their student recruitment tactics.  All this must influence how we shape our strategy for the next few years.   
 
Our hard work so far has ensured that we have fared well in an uncertain environment.  As you will all be aware the University was the first winner of the Global Teaching Excellence Award and recently received a favourable REF outcome.  We also have a number of other accolades to be proud of - the number one university in England for professionally qualified teaching staff; the only university in the UK where 100% of permanent teaching staff are fellows of the Higher Education Academy and the leading university for the receipt of National Teaching Fellowships for over a decade.  
 
To build on this success and to ensure that we maintain and develop our place within the market we have begun a process of closely analysing the provision we offer, and this will continue on an ongoing basis.  Where subjects are less popular we will consider the closure of courses.  We also need to build capacity for new provision – subjects already being explored are dental therapy/hygiene, diagnostic radiotherapy and civil engineering. In addition, there are identified potential inefficiencies with the current organisational structure with work duplicated across schools and services with different processes, procedures and systems implemented in different areas which will need to be removed or minimised to deliver more effective and efficient ways of working.   
 
The University’s research agenda requires research leadership to be significantly more enhanced to enable the delivery of improving outputs, grant income and impact/public engagement.  Across all academic areas, we need to be sure all can contribute to excellent teaching, supervise doctoral students as well as develop effectively and quickly from an early career researcher to deliver and publish internationally recognised and world-leading work.  We must therefore position ourselves for the future to ensure the highest levels of academic authenticity through developing highly qualified and engaged individuals with the desire to continually achieve and deliver outstanding teaching and research - complemented by professional administrative and technical support.  
 
While we are in the fortunate position of building on considerable success there is no doubt that the next few years are going to be more challenging than ever for us and for the wider sector. Please take a look at the voluntary severance scheme and discuss it with your line manager in the first instance if you are considering applying.