Last updated at 14:27, Friday, 29 January 2010

There's no escaping the troubling truth that the University of Cumbria’s problems are huge, complex and threatening to its future.

Vice chancellor Professor Peter McCaffery is insistent the university won’t fold but he’s realistic about the severe difficulties ahead.

An even sparser funding environment looms.

The Government wants higher education as a whole to save upwards of £900m – and what this university needs is more cash and lots of it.

But money – or the lack of it – is just part of the current threatening scenario.

Structures are awry; wage bills are disproportionate to performance; identification and development of specialist courses, appropriate to the region’s economic needs, have been tardy – even though locally relevant specialisms were the main drivers for creating the university in the first place.

The University spends more of its income on wages than any other university in England – more than 70 per cent compared to a national average of 56 per cent.

Cuts have been made. The last voluntary severance scheme paid redundancy of almost £2m to 70 staff in August.

But although plans are in place for more cuts, amounting to about £10m, university chiefs are having to put a lot of their eggs into a begging basket for £25m from the national higher education funding council to bail them out of crisis.

Even should that funding be granted, it won’t save some 200 jobs due to be axed.

Courses will be lost. Part of the loss-making Newton Rigg campus may be sold with further education provision contracted out.

It may even become a technical college or a students outreach centre.

Shrinking radically now to grow in the longer term is a plan – but it’s a risky one.

The pity is that more pain seems likely before relief can be found.

Here is an institution in need of a lot more than good luck on its side.

First published at 14:12, Friday, 29 January 2010
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk