New UEA boss David Maguire admits he has too much staff

On his first day as vice chancellor David Maguire added that work needed to be done to “right-size” the cash-strapped university as it looks to make £45m of savings in the next three years.

He said: “It is well documented that we have been spending more than we have been earning, largely due to having too many staff and not enough students.

“It is also well known we have more staff on our books than we have ever had and we do need to reduce that to right-size the organisation.”

Prof Maguire succeeds David Richardson, who resigned shortly after the university’s perilous financial position was made public earlier this year.

The university recently saved £6m through a voluntary severance scheme, but further redundancies look likely.

He said: “We will do our utmost to make sure this happens by voluntary means.

“There will be academics members of staff who will need to leave and we need to look carefully at the needs of our students.

“We have to explain what we have to do and how we can offer good settlements to anybody who does leave.”

The financial difficulties have led to widespread unrest on campus, with its staff assembly and students union both passing no confidence votes in its executive board -which Prof Maguire will now be heading up.

He added: “I can fully understand that staff are anxious and frustrated and it is not unusual at any organisation for small groups of people to be unhappy with senior management – particularly when difficult decisions are having to be made.

“What I can do is help make sure their views are reflected and be clear about what steps can be taken.”

Prof Maguire also elaborated on comments he previously made about the university not adapting soon enough to the changing climate of higher education.

He said growing rates of inflation against frozen tuition fees had resulted in a real terms decrease in income and that this needed to be offset with more student recruitment.

“I do not think the university adapted its spending or recruited as actively as it needed to and we are not as competitive as we needed to be,” he added.

“There are a lot of universities that are in similar situations – more than 30 universities are having the same difficulties out of 160, so it is not unusual.”

But he said he did not expect the university’s struggles to impact its ability to attract new students.

He said: “I am not sure students coming here will be well-versed in our financial position.

“We need to keep telling people about the beneficial things we have on campus – the great range of courses, our understanding staff and Norwich as well.

“We also need to focus our energy more carefully on some key target markets.

“We need to concentrate our efforts on attracting students from Norwich, Norfolk and East Anglia, but we are also looking at China, India and Nigeria as key international markets that we need to use more.”

And Prof Maguire said he was under no illusions about the magnitude of the job he has taken on.

He added: “The biggest and most obvious challenge will be right-sizing the university and making sure we can become financially sustainable.”