Sixty jobs set to go at Napier

Edinburgh Napier are laying out plans to process up to 60 redundancies by the end of October as part of ongoing restructuring.

A spokesman told The Journal that although the university's focus was on growth and continued success, voluntary redundancies would be necessary.

He said: “We are looking to reduce the overall staffing costs by 4 per cent over time, which may involve reductions of up to 60 posts.”

Due to the optional nature of the job cuts, it is unknown what departments will suffer. The spokesman said: “We do not know the ages and length of service of potential applicants so do not know how many will be accepted in total.”

The Journal understands that 48 redundancies have been agreed at present, with the majority of those being academic staff.

The Education Institute of Scotland (EIS), the country's largest teaching union, said that the university has a duty of care towards their staff and that job cuts may be detrimental to the quality of teaching.

A spokesman said: "Such cuts in academic staff would lead to less teaching capacity, less student choice and less experience and expertise within universities.

"If Edinburgh Napier University needs to adjust its staffing, it should exploit every possible avenue, including retraining, redeployment, recruitment freezes and voluntary severance as alternatives to compulsory redundancy."

Dr Vaughan Ellis, EIS branch convener for Napier, said that although job losses are "always unpalatable" the university had met their obligations and consulted the unions.

Speaking to The Journal, Dr Ellis said:"During this process EIS made it clear to management that we expect significant effort to be expended on reducing non-staff costs whilst the University sought to respond to anticipated reductions in income received from the government."

The Voluntary Severance Scheme, in which staff can apply to depart with a fee, has a final deadline this year of 31 October.

When approached by The Journal, a Napier Student Association rep said that President Kasia Bylinska was “too busy” to comment.

Similar plans are under way at Queen Margaret University. A spokesperson said: “Currently, there are a small number of redundancies being consulted upon in specific project areas. It is not envisioned that these redundancies will have an impact on teaching.”

Edinburgh's other universities have said they have no plans to reduce staffing costs.

Heriot-Watt University has an expansion plan in place, entitled “Focus on the Future”, to increase the 'academic base' by 50 per cent in the next ten years.

At the University of Edinburgh there are no plans to implement any redundancies. A spokesman told The Journal it was “business as usual”.