Cardiff University job cuts

[LivLL]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0k5n0k101lo

Bear with me here but how does one University manage to employ 5700 people?

[macron]

32000 students meaning circa 1/3 of them need to be recruited and managed each year on a massive,. sprawling estate.

What do you think they need? One classroom for that many and once every 3 years 7 months they can each have an hour in it if it's 24/7.

That's how.

[turbobloke]

Declining international student applications were already making things difficult, then along comes Rachel from Complaints with NI hikes, hitting universities to the tune of £372m
https://wonkhe.com/blogs/everything-in-the-budget-...

[LivLL]

macron said:

32000 students meaning circa 1/3 of them need to be recruited and managed each year on a massive,. sprawling estate.

What do you think they need? One classroom for that many and once every 3 years 7 months they can each have an hour in it if it's 24/7.

That's how.

Not really an explanation of what 5700 people do there

[Earthdweller]

Is this anything to do with unfunded pay rises that's affecting schools ?

[Iamnotkloot]

LivLL said:

macron said:

32000 students meaning circa 1/3 of them need to be recruited and managed each year on a massive,. sprawling estate.

What do you think they need? One classroom for that many and once every 3 years 7 months they can each have an hour in it if it's 24/7.

That's how.

Not really an explanation of what 5700 people do there

A relative of mine works as a lecturer - she says there is massive overstaffing - loads of deadwood in her words. As a lecturer, she teaches classes of over 100 at a time, suggesting Cardiff may be employing a lot of oxygen-stealers.

[CraigyMc]

LivLL said:

macron said:

32000 students meaning circa 1/3 of them need to be recruited and managed each year on a massive,. sprawling estate.

What do you think they need? One classroom for that many and once every 3 years 7 months they can each have an hour in it if it's 24/7.

That's how.

Not really an explanation of what 5700 people do there

It'll include people you think of as staff (professors, lecturers, technicians, support staff, admin staff etc) but also people like postdoc students (who generally also teach), research students (PhD students) and so on, who you may not.

They have a directory online of 6214 people if you fancy scraping it. I won't post the link as that might lead to it being battered, but it's on their main website.

Edited to add:
There are some statistics specific to each UK institution here: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/staff/wor...

Apparently cardiff has about 3000 FTE (full time equivalent) staff, so while they may be cutting jobs it's worth looking into how many are full time and how many are part time.

Edited by CraigyMc on Tuesday 28th January 17:52

[Boom78]

LivLL said:

Not really an explanation of what 5700 people do there

Sounds like a stack of staff but Cardiff uni (like many other unis) has loads and loads of sites, sporting complexes, student accommodation, acres and acres land, facilities, utilities. Think Maintenance, IT, cleaners, security, lecturers, admin, HR, support staff (eg in labs), management, finance, groundsmen, logistics..etc. no different to any other company really. Like a small town but where everyone relies entirely on the council to provide everything.

Edit to add that the issue is with their business model and reliance on foreign students to make the whole thing wash its face. Every uni in the UK will be in the same situation bar oxbridge, St Andrews, UCL etc (all well funded, lots privately).

Edited by Boom78 on Tuesday 28th January 17:53

[LivLL]

Are students staff though?

I just never really imagined there could be so many staff. It's a large business and clearly up to them but I found it surprising.

Oxford Uni has over 16000 employees. Incredible numbers. Not saying its a bad thing, just didn't expect to see a Uni could shed 400 jobs and function perfectly well without them.

[CraigyMc]

LivLL said:

Are students staff though?

Lots of them are.
A friend of mine is a student at Cambridge, and is also staff.

It's how research works.

[LivLL]

Thanks

[pghstochaj]

Iamnotkloot said:

LivLL said:

macron said:

32000 students meaning circa 1/3 of them need to be recruited and managed each year on a massive,. sprawling estate.

What do you think they need? One classroom for that many and once every 3 years 7 months they can each have an hour in it if it's 24/7.

That's how.

Not really an explanation of what 5700 people do there

A relative of mine works as a lecturer - she says there is massive overstaffing - loads of deadwood in her words. As a lecturer, she teaches classes of over 100 at a time, suggesting Cardiff may be employing a lot of oxygen-stealers.

? At a good University, lecturers spend only a small proportion of their time lecturing though. Most of the time they are conducting research, seeking funding, overseeing post-grads, presenting research, writing up research etc. You don't survive if you just lecture, it doesn't bring sufficient money into the university. It's really fierce and competitive.

About 3,410 of the Cardiff University staff are academic according to google.

[InformationSuperHighway]

I'm sure there is some kind of ideal staff to student ratio. I imagine that City Centre campuses are much harder to manage than one self contained one out in the sticks with the real estate needs / complexities.

'Revenue' so to speak is $653m.

Edited by InformationSuperHighway on Tuesday 28th January 19:02

[pghstochaj]

CraigyMc said:

LivLL said:

macron said:

32000 students meaning circa 1/3 of them need to be recruited and managed each year on a massive,. sprawling estate.

What do you think they need? One classroom for that many and once every 3 years 7 months they can each have an hour in it if it's 24/7.

That's how.

Not really an explanation of what 5700 people do there

It'll include people you think of as staff (professors, lecturers, technicians, support staff, admin staff etc) but also people like postdoc students (who generally also teach), research students (PhD students) and so on, who you may not.

They have a directory online of 6214 people if you fancy scraping it. I won't post the link as that might lead to it being battered, but it's on their main website.

Edited to add:
There are some statistics specific to each UK institution here: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/staff/wor...

Apparently cardiff has about 3000 FTE (full time equivalent) staff, so while they may be cutting jobs it's worth looking into how many are full time and how many are part time.

Edited by CraigyMc on Tuesday 28th January 17:52

PhD students are almost universally not employees. Obviously that doesn't stop them getting lumped into "headline" type numbers, but they shouldn't be when talking about employees. They get paid stipends (tax-free) and do not have employment rights.

[Chimune]

Boom78 said:

Sounds like a stack of staff but Cardiff uni (like many other unis) has loads and loads of sites, sporting complexes, student accommodation, acres and acres land, facilities, utilities. Think Maintenance, IT, cleaners, security, lecturers, admin, HR, support staff (eg in labs), management, finance, groundsmen, logistics..etc. no different to any other company really. Like a small town but where everyone relies entirely on the council to provide everything.

Edit to add that the issue is with their business model and reliance on foreign students to make the whole thing wash its face. Every uni in the UK will be in the same situation bar oxbridge, St Andrews, UCL etc (all well funded, lots privately).

Edited by Boom78 on Tuesday 28th January 17:53

This is correct.

[OutInTheShed]

LivLL said:

Not really an explanation of what 5700 people do there

They need twice as many people to do everything in English and Welsh.

[CraigyMc]

OutInTheShed said:

LivLL said:

Not really an explanation of what 5700 people do there

They need twice as many people to do everything in English and Welsh.

if you look at the actual staff, it'd be English, Welsh and Chinese.

[Diderot]

Chimune said:

Boom78 said:

Sounds like a stack of staff but Cardiff uni (like many other unis) has loads and loads of sites, sporting complexes, student accommodation, acres and acres land, facilities, utilities. Think Maintenance, IT, cleaners, security, lecturers, admin, HR, support staff (eg in labs), management, finance, groundsmen, logistics..etc. no different to any other company really. Like a small town but where everyone relies entirely on the council to provide everything.

Edit to add that the issue is with their business model and reliance on foreign students to make the whole thing wash its face. Every uni in the UK will be in the same situation bar oxbridge, St Andrews, UCL etc (all well funded, lots privately).

Edited by Boom78 on Tuesday 28th January 17:53

This is correct.

Added to which is the fact that tuition fees have not risen in line with inflation, and Universities have had to cope with the huge increases in energy costs like everyone else. Now they’re being hit with Rachel from accounts’ NI hike. As I have mentioned before, if a typical Russell Group University were to go under the impact to its local economy would be enormous.

[John145]

pghstochaj said:

? At a good University, lecturers spend only a small proportion of their time lecturing though. Most of the time they are conducting research, seeking funding, overseeing post-grads, presenting research, writing up research etc. You don't survive if you just lecture, it doesn't bring sufficient money into the university. It's really fierce and competitive.

About 3,410 of the Cardiff University staff are academic according to google.

And this is why universities are not worth £9k per year..

[EC2]

Boom78 said:

Sounds like a stack of staff but Cardiff uni (like many other unis) has loads and loads of sites, sporting complexes, student accommodation, acres and acres land, facilities, utilities. Think Maintenance, IT, cleaners, security, lecturers, admin, HR, support staff (eg in labs), management, finance, groundsmen, logistics..etc. no different to any other company really. Like a small town but where everyone relies entirely on the council to provide everything.

Edit to add that the issue is with their business model and reliance on foreign students to make the whole thing wash its face. Every uni in the UK will be in the same situation bar oxbridge, St Andrews, UCL etc (all well funded, lots privately).

Edited by Boom78 on Tuesday 28th January 17:53

Agree. All universities have used high fee rate overseas students (often taught postgrad) to balance the books. Whether they are overstaffed/inefficient or whether the home fee rate is too low can be debated. The PH collective will assume it is all the former but it is more likely a mix of the two. The one thing that is clear is that we still pay too little for undergraduate degrees in the UK.

Also agree with the Oxbridge/St Andrews/UCL/Imperial/LSE/Edinburgh (that would be my full list) point and I do wonder if any of these universities are modelling going private with bursaries for a limited number of home students but scored with proper metrics rather than the current school meals/parents' educational achievements/home postcode data.