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25th November 2013

Students’ Union to cut staff in face of deficit

Students’ Union bosses look to staff for ‘cost-saving’ and ‘income-generating’ ideas
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TLDR

With over a half a million pound deficit, the Students’ Union is set to implement cuts, including to staff and society funding, as part of a last ditch savings plan.

After an emergency meeting of the Trustee Board on 8 November, £400,821 of budget cuts, and £68,000 of additional income generation was agreed. But, this still left £130,000 of savings needed, for which the Trustees have turned to staff for income-generating and cost-saving ideas, or to ultimately make redundancies.

“There is still an extra £130,000 worth of savings to be made and this can only come from any further ideas that staff may present to us that could assist to bridge the gap,” said General Secretary of the Union Grace Skelton. “Short of that, we will have to concede that job losses will be an eventuality and the Union will be in the regrettable position of initially having to implement a voluntary redundancy programme.”

She added, “We are also currently giving all staff members the option of requesting voluntary redundancy, however the Union reserves the right to decide whether or not to accept the request.”

The University of Manchester Students’ Union conducted a review of its commercial performance in October and found they faced around a £619,000 deficit. Previously, the Union’s Trustee Board received an internal financial report in August, which showed they would end the 2012-13 financial year with a deficit of a similar amount.

A document sent to staff, seen by The Mancunion, showed, among other things, savings of £32,000 were made by reducing staff training and travel budgets, £17,000 by cutting the campaign budget and society grants budget – existing grants will not be affected – £11,500 from not replacing existing minibuses, and £4,500 by replacing student staff from the Activities reception with existing permanent staff or interns.

Other cutbacks include the closure of Biko’s North Cafe on North Campus, which has been running at a loss.

“The closure of Biko’s North Café would have been inevitable at some point in the next few years due to the University of Manchester’s decision to vacant North Campus as part of the Campus Masterplan,” said Skelton. “This process has been brought forward by the Students’ Union as it has been indentified that Biko’s North Café was operating at a significant loss.”

It is not yet clear what caused the significant deficit, but an investigation is underway.

“The Trustee Board is in the process of investigating the causes of the financial situation however at this stage our priority is to deal with the ongoing consultation process,” said Skelton.

Staff with cost-saving or income-generating ideas can go to their Head of Department or a member of the Senior Leadership Team.


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