A UEA spokesperson said:
Following the financial impact of a sector-wide drop in student recruitment and ongoing inflationary cost pressures, we announced earlier this year that we needed to identify an additional £11m of savings to stay on track with our financial plan and secure the longer-term future of UEA.
Having already made significant savings across all areas of non-pay spend, we needed to address the shortfall through a proposed reduction of roles across the University.
A significant amount of work has gone into mitigating the impact for individuals as far as possible through redeployment into vacancies being held in areas not impacted by the proposals, suitable alternative employment, and through voluntary redundancy. It means that of the proposed reduction of 163 roles across the University, we are in a final position of needing to make eight compulsory redundancies. We will continue to support those affected.
Following this work, we do expect to meet the required savings, which means we are back on track with our financial plans.
These have been challenging decisions but have been made in the interest of the long-term sustainability of UEA. Extensive consultation has been undertaken with our Campus Trade Unions and individuals affected by the proposals.”
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