Deputy Vice-Chancellor: ‘Financial sustainability is our biggest challenge’

By Abigail Tobias and Isla Mustin

Palatinate spoke to Professor Mike Shipman, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost of Durham University, about postgraduate admissions, the student experience following voluntary severance, and staff pay.

As Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost of Durham University, Shipman is part of the University’s senior leadership team, working alongside the Vice-Chancellor Karen O’Brien to deliver Durham’s strategy and overseeing its strategic and capital planning.

With Durham recently named The Times and Sunday Times University of the Year and ranked in the top five across all major UK league tables, Prof Shipman reflected on what the recognition means for the University. “This accolade is really important to our community,” Prof. Shipman said. “It’s a real morale boost and a rightful recognition of the fantastic work Durham has been doing over many years, not just the education that we provide, but the wider student experience that we offer through our colleges.”

“This accolade is really important to our community,” Prof. Shipman said. “It’s a real morale boost and a rightful recognition of the fantastic work Durham has been doing over many years, not just the education that we provide, but the wider student experience that we offer through our colleges.”

The past year, alongside many universities and higher education institutions, Durham has been under increased financial pressure. In light of this we turn our attention to the international student body whose tuition fees in 2024 were 37.5% higher than domestic and EU students despite international students only making up only 30.9% of Durham’s student population.

We ask Professor Shipman about the University’s most recent application and admissions statistics: that International postgraduate applications are down from the previous application cycle and given how vital international postgraduates are to Durham’s finances is he concerned and how is the University going to improve international postgraduate admissions? 

“Student recruitment is a really complex challenge. We’ve got to balance and we set different targets for both home and international students at all different levels. […] We need to ensure that we’ve got balance across our disciplines so that we recruit students into classics, and we recruit students into computer science to reflect our expertise and ability.”

Professor Shipman also notes the University’s commitment to Durham City noting the University has a duty to balance admissions against “the available accommodation that we have both within our colleges and in the wider city” and that it needs to be ensured the University maintains its commitment to the community to “keep the size of our overall community broadly balanced and below 22,000 so that we don’t cause any anxieties for students in later years of their study.”

Returning to international postgraduates applications he is keen to highlight both sectoral problems and the world economy “Recruitment, as you rightly say, to postgraduate taught international programmes has been challenging this year. That’s a sector wide problem. Students are becoming much more focussed on programmes that improve their prospects of employability. So we have to make sure that our programmes are attractive to those students.” 

In terms of the University’s plan to improve applications Shipman points to new programmes, new markets and scholarship provision “new programmes have been launching over the last couple of years and there are things in the pipeline for next year as well to try and continue to make Durham’s education attractive to those students. We can look at new markets, we’ve put in scholarship provision as well. So we’re working very hard to ensure that we keep those numbers up. But you’re absolutely right. International student fees, effectively cross subsidises the education of our home students. So getting that balance right is really important.”

Last academic year, more than 250 members of staff left Durham University through a voluntary severance scheme, as the institution reported a £7.96 million operating deficit for 2023/24 and a need to save £20 million across academic and professional services. 

According to data obtained through a Freedom of Information request, the departments with the most staff leaving Colleges and Student Experience, followed by Computing and Information Services (CIS). The scale of the departures has raised concerns among students on the potential impact of their quality of student experience and support, particularly in light of recent exam errors and IT failures. 

Prof Shipman explained the reductions were part of wider effort to bring Durham’s staff ratios back in line with other universities. He said, “The reason why we focus primarily on professional services in the broadest sense was because we have a ratio of academic to professional services staff that was a bit out of line with the sector.”

Prof Shipman went on to explain that following these staff departures, which spanned across 17 departments, the University has returned to the number of professional services staff in 2022, and that the University “should be able to provide the same level of service that we did in 2022.”

Prof Shipman went on to explain that following these staff departures, which spanned across 17 departments, the University has returned to the number of professional services staff in 2022, and that the University “should be able to provide the same level of service that we did in 2022.”

He added that the University had turned down some severance applications, and that “many staff that came forward were not accepted because they play an important role in research or student experience.”

Despite the reduction in professional services and academic staff, Prof Shipman said he was “fairly confident that these cuts would have no negative impact on the frontline student experience.” 

Suggestions that staff cuts in CIS and Student Experience contributed to last term’s exam errors and IT failures were rejected by Prof Shipman, saying “these issues would have arisen irrespective of the Voluntary Severance Scheme.” He described them as “the day-to-day challenges of maintaining complex IT systems.” 

Prof Shipman also argued that while the Colleges and Student Experience division saw the largest number of departures, this was partly a reflection of its size.

“In the colleges, a very large number of staff are employed supporting students – and rightly so,” he said. “But the inevitability of that, of course, is that if they’ve got large numbers of staff, a small percentage cut equates to quite a large number of people.”

When considering staff cuts and their effect we also want to take account of those at the other end of the University’s pay scale. In February Palatinate revealed that Vice Chancellor Karen O’Briens total pay was 10.7 times the amount of the average Durham University staff member: with a salary of £303,000 on top of a further £18,000 in housing provision and a remuneration allowance of £33,000. 

DUCU has previously called for all staff salaries to be capped at £100k. If implemented Palatinate has calculated that Durham would save £1,444,978 on the 24 highest paid staff members alone. Given 250 voluntary severances, and effects to the students such as the Bill Bryson Library closures does Professor Shipman understand the rationale behind this argument?

“Our spend on staff is about between 55 and 60% of our total expenditure, and it equates to about $300 million a year on staff.” Shipman offers, keen to put the above 100k pay of the top 24 staff members in context of  overall staff pay  “[The 1,444,978] is actually quite a small fraction of our total expenditure on staff.”

“The other thing that I would say is that we are competing for talent globally, we are a global university, and we recruit students from all over the world, but we also recruit staff from all over the world and we have to offer competitive summaries to attract those staff here.” Stating that whilst to some it may feel as though “high paid staff are simply people sitting around the management table” there are actually significant numbers of Professors that would be affected by such a cap. “We need to retain that talent so that we can be a top research-led university, and we can give the best experience to our students.” before adding “In my mind, I don’t feel that that’s really a credible solution to the problems that we face.”

Looking ahead, Prof Shipman affirmed that the biggest challenge the University faces institutionally is financial sustainability. 

“We can all agree that the Durham we have is very special. In spite of the financial pressures we fight, we have to keep Durham in the special category; a place where students can get great experiences outside of class that will help students in terms of employability,” he said. 

He stressed that preparing students for life beyond university is a key priority. “We’re in a globally competitive job market,” he said. “Our graduates need more than just a strong degree, they need to be able to demonstrate other skills and experiences on their CVs. That’s why the wider student experience is so important, and why we have to protect and develop it even in times of financial stress.”

Prof Shipman explained that Durham must ensure its courses continue to evolve to help students adapt to emerging industries, such as Artificial Intelligence and align itself with both “regional priorities and government priorities.”

“We need to ensure that our students are equipped for the jobs and futures tomorrow, so our curricula needs to evolve and keep pace with what’s going on in the wider world,” he said. 

Prof Shipman also emphasised the University’s responsibility to contribute to tackling global challenges. “We have a role to play in addressing major issues such as climate change, healthcare, poverty and ageing populations,” he said. “We may be based in the North East of England, but we can still play a significant part in finding solutions to global problems.” 

Prof Shipman felt that maintaining the balance between a local commitment to the North East and a global outlook remains one of Durham’s biggest challenges. 

“We’ve got to stay connected to the North East,” he said. “It’s not the most affluent region, and we want to attract students from local communities to study here. Our partnerships with local colleges and our work on access and participation are key to embedding ourselves locally.”

“We’ve got to stay connected to the North East,” he said. “It’s not the most affluent region, and we want to attract students from local communities to study here. Our partnerships with local colleges and our work on access and participation are key to embedding ourselves locally.”

“At the same time, we have to remain visible nationally and internationally to stay a top 100 university and attract world-class staff and students,” Shipman continued. “League table rankings play a role in that.”

“There’s a constant challenging tension for us is how much effort do we put into engaging locally, how much effort do we engage with work do we put into engaging globally? This is something we need to continually be working on.”

Image Credit: Isla Mustin