Today, 21 October, the Vice Chancellor wrote to all staff. You can read the full email below:
Forecasting is difficult, especially when it concerns the future. This old adage has particularly resonated with me in recent times, as I’m sure it has for many of you.
It is in sharper focus for me at the moment as we prepare to move the University into a new and sustained period of reflection and design over our future sustainability.
Over the past year, we have done incredibly well to weather the storm, which began with falling student applications and was then exacerbated by Covid-19.
To reiterate, we are not in any immediate trouble and remain in a sound financial position – which, sadly, cannot be said of every university in the UK.
However, the outlook remains cloudy for us and there is no evidence that an upturn in fortunes is on the horizon.
One of the hardest hit operations on campus has been the catering services provided by Chartwells. Sales are down 90 per cent on last year and I regret to report that Chartwells has begun a redundancy consultation with some of its staff who work in campus outlets. This is clearly a difficult time for everybody involved and I want to thank the catering staff who work with such professionalism to provide these valuable services for our community.
In order to respond to the new financial environment we find ourselves, in the most immediate challenge has been to attract enough students to Sussex this year. We are still at least a month away from knowing how successful we have been in this but I want to be frank that, even in the most optimistic scenario, we will see a fall in students. The big unknown is by how much.
This, alone, is a challenge but not insurmountable. The bigger risk is the knock-on effects for future years. If we have fewer Foundation Year students this year, for example, our Year One cohort next year is diminished.
Factor such as these, alongside others, including the impact of Brexit and a demographic dip in 18-year-olds in the UK, make it clear that we cannot rely on a v-shaped recovery, where we immediately bounce back after a single difficult year.
The scale of the challenge very much depends on the detail of the numbers but I hope you can see how issues can quickly compound to form a more fundamental threat to the University.
It is in this context that we are now moving into a new phase of financial planning and decision making. This will be a key topic of discussion at our meetings of Senate and Council in November.
I want to be clear that we do not have any predesigned outcome in mind but Council, which is responsible for the governance of the University’s financial sustainability, will expect us to look under every stone.
On a fundamental level, this means revisiting our Sussex 2025 vision, looking at whether we have the right arrangements and structures in place to deliver on our priorities.
We all have a stake in this so I want to commit again here that we will continue to be open and transparent with you as this conversation evolves.
In fact, we have already had several potentially viable, cost-saving ideas which have come from within the community and, later today, we will be emailing all staff to ask for your feedback on how you view these measures. I want to be clear that we are not about to push the button on any of these ideas, and this exercise will be incredibly valuable to get a sense of how you feel about these.
I also want to be up front that the academic promotions and discretionary pay review processes remain on hold for now. This is by no means a reflection on performance – I am acutely aware of just how hard everybody has been working – but a disappointing consequence of where we find ourselves. We will have a wider conversation in the coming weeks and months about how we continue to recognise and reward colleagues within these restraints.
I fully appreciate that you may be left with unanswered questions after reading this. I want to be able to give you more details and substance and you’ll hear a lot more from me and other members of UEG over the coming weeks.
I will share with you in late November detail of our current financial position based on our student intake for this year. We’ll also then be in a position to publish the results of the poll. It’s very likely that we’ll then move into a period of major planning and proposal development that will aim to address our immediate shortfall and also what is forecast.
I predict these phases will take us up to early Spring – by which time we’ll need to start making some decisions and taking action on our plans.
So there is a lot to do – and we do need to kick off these phases of work in earnest.
In the meantime, please do complete the poll once you receive it this afternoon. Your feedback will help to guide our next steps.
Sussex is not the only University that is witnessing such an impact to its services and community, however I want to say at this point that I remain optimistic about the future for the University of Sussex. I believe we have shown remarkable resilience in recent months and we have many excellent individuals and teams who, collectively, give us every opportunity to get through this period in a healthy shape.
That being said, we must be proactive. If we only react, we risk losing control.
With best wishes,
Adam