Flawed finances used to justify redundancies, say Northampton University lecturers

The highly-respected department played a major role in gaining university status for the institution and has been highly rewarded in research funding for its work in areas such as British and European social and military history.

The UCU branch of Northampton University warned that the threat of redundancy can only have a negative impact across the whole university and its members unanimously passed a motion calling on the University to rescind the threat of redundancies.

UCU members claimed today that the university had got its sums wrong and changed its rationale for redundancies after they proved that the figures the University provided were inaccurate. In a letter to the vice-chancellor, members of the department say the projection that History will make a loss next academic year was based upon flawed assumptions. They say that:

1. The Dean claimed that history's funding from the Research Assessment Exercise 2001 would cease in July 2008, whereas in fact the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has stated categorically to us that we will continue to receive funding in the academic year 2008-09. We believe that this totals £102,611, putting the history into surplus.
2. External funds that have been raised by history have not been claimed: for example, monies due to us from the Iran Heritage Foundation totalling £15,000 have not been invoiced by the University for three years.
3. £20,000 from the Wellcome Trust went unclaimed since January, despite repeated reminders from the trust and the relevant member of staff. This was a starter grant to develop a larger project with St. Andrew's Group of Hospitals.

The History staff members go on to argue that History is arguably the university's flagship research department and how it played a key role in helping Northampton achieve university status with research degree awarding powers just three years ago.

Northampton University UCU branch secretary, Ron Mendel, said: 'The history department at Northampton is highly-respected throughout the academic community and can be measured by its success in the research funding it is consistently awarded. The threat of redundancies is bad news for the whole institution, based on incorrect figures, and we call on the university to rescind that threat.'

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'Northampton UCU members have the full support of the national union and we hope the university will step back from its misguided threat of compulsory redundancies. If it doesn't, it can rest assured that we will be fighting the decision all the way.'