Some of you know that the UK education sector is in crisis. The blame is often placed on Chinese students, who have stopped coming to the UK for increasingly expensive education. Personally, I believe the real cause of the crisis is that incompetent senior managers adopted an unsustainable strategy of extracting as much money as possible from students. This now has serious repercussions that will affect many people involved in education.
More than seven years ago, some warned university leadership that this strategy wasn’t sustainable — but nobody listened. Now that many universities are facing the consequences and are looking to cut costs, Lancaster University has announced plans to remove approximately 212 academic (15%) and 205 professional services (20%) staff to save money. According to recent internal updates, this would mean cutting 23.5% of academic staff in Lancaster University Management School and a staggering 37.5% in our Management Science department (roughly 16 out of 42 FTEs). If this happens, our department will be on the verge of extinction. No one is being fired just yet, but the university aims to get rid of people by October 2026.
What worries me most is that Lancaster’s senior management seems to lack any sensible strategy or vision for the university’s future. The “LU Future” plan contains only one remotely viable idea — increasing online teaching. There’s no clear plan to attract more students (how about strengthening the marketing/recruitment teams?), no defined marketing strategy, and no innovative thinking around generating alternative income streams. In times of crisis, you need leadership that can think outside of the box and find non-standard solutions. Instead, our management (lead by the vice chancellor Andy Schofield, whose photo I attach in the post, and who is to leave the university in August for a better place) is focused purely on cutting costs.
The likely consequences of such a short-sighted approach are clear to most staff:
- Decline in teaching quality
- Drop in research output
- Weaker engagement and fewer REF-worthy research cases (LUMS previously performed well here — how will we manage with 23.5% fewer academics?)
- Increased administrative burden (if professional staff are cut)
- A potential death spiral of declining quality leading to falling student numbers and even deeper cuts.
Let’s also not forget that while Vice-Chancellors continue to earn huge salaries, it’s unlikely that any senior manager will lose their job. Lancaster University is simultaneously investing £115 million in new buildings (figure cited by Lancaster UCU), while telling staff that sacrifices are necessary. Hypocrisy at its finest.
So why am I writing this post? Because people outside Lancaster University need to understand what’s happening here. The situation is unprecedented and highlights a troubling level of mismanagement. I hope this gets resolved in a better way, but we’re all demotivated, and many of my colleagues are already looking for jobs.