Published: 2nd September, 2025
Leicester University executive has announced a first compulsory redundancy programme for the new academic year—targeting a group of academic-related professional services staff in the Division of Biomedical Services (DBS).
Staff from the DBS were invited to a first collective consultation meeting on 18 August. This begins a 90-day consultation period for those staff placed at risk of redundancy. This announcement was preceded by a pre-change engagement process which was initiated in March 2025. DBS staff, as well as the many academics, research staff and PGRs who rely on the facility for their research, provided extensive feedback and constructive cost-saving suggestions as part of this process.
Response to this extensive feedback consisted of a brief summary of key themes and the suggestion that further information is being sought but, as far as we are aware, no further engagement with affected staff, apart from one meeting to explore some of the cost-saving suggestions. That one meeting gave staff hope that there was a genuine attempt to engage with the proposals and to work together to find solutions that could prevent the closure of the service and associated redundancies. Alas, two months later, during which there were no further attempts or opportunities for staff to engage in further discussions to identify or modify proposals which could prevent the closure of the facility, staff were informed that they are now at risk of redundancy.
During the first collective consultation meeting it became apparent that, while senior management are aware that there are many postgraduate researchers and grant holders who rely on the DBS service for their projects, they are yet to ascertain the extent of this reliance and remaining time commitment of these projects. Hence, they are commencing collective consultation over the closure of a service which may still be required for several months or even years!
DBS staff have been invited to apply for VSS which is conditional on them continuing to fulfil their roles until the DBS is closed, but they are expected to make this commitment without knowing how many months or even years they are committing to.
Our experience with the way in which the proposed DBS closure has been handled does not bode well for the outcome of the subsequent pre-change engagements in other areas of the university. The summary of themes from pre-change engagement for the six academic areas threatened with redundancy reinforce this fear. Engagement is in many cases cursory and in some cases the summaries appear to have been written by AI.
UCU, together with the other campus unions, Unite and Unison, will be doing all we can to support DBS staff. However, we believe we are most likely to save jobs and prevent redundancies if we combine this with threatening, and if necessary, taking, extensive strike action. UCU now has a strong mandate for industrial action, following its successful ballot of members. Our position remains the same: we do not accept that cutting staff is the path to ensuring the sustainability of our university and we will fight for every single job!
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