As we’ve seen, the financial crisis at Nottingham is not merely a consequence of external pressures—it stems from reckless mismanagement and misplaced priorities. Without genuine change now, the cycle of crises and cuts will continue, jeopardizing the university’s long-term future.
It’s time for a complete overhaul of Nottingham’s financial strategy. The university must abandon its fixation on grand capital projects and instead focus on sustainable financial management that prioritizes students and staff. This means:
- Halting all unnecessary capital investments, including many outlined in the £570m spending plan.
- Prioritizing core academic functions—staffing, teaching, and research—over vanity projects.
- Increasing financial transparency, with full disclosure of consultant costs and external contracts.
- Reforming governance to ensure that those responsible for past mistakes aren’t the ones shaping the future.
In recent years, UoN UCU has collaborated with experts within and beyond its membership to develop a new alternative financial strategy, AFS2.0. The full document can be found here.
AFS 2.0
The University of Nottingham (UoN) has twice in recent years faced severe financial crises—first in 2020/21 and again in 2023/24—due to a financial model that prioritizes ambitious infrastructure investments funded by annual surpluses, while maintaining dangerously low cash reserves. This strategy, initially exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, led to drastic cost-cutting measures, faculty-wide budget reductions, and the loss of hundreds of staff. Despite warnings from the local UCU branch in 2021 that this approach was unsustainable, university management persisted, leading to another crisis in 2023. The latest financial shortfall was driven by lower-than-expected international student recruitment, mounting emergency maintenance costs, high post-COVID inflation, and the overcommitment of resources to large-scale capital projects like the Castle Meadow Campus (CMC). These financial pressures have led to reactive measures such as hiring freezes, further redundancies, and widespread cuts, undermining the university’s core academic mission.
AFS 2.0 proposes a fundamental shift in financial management to ensure long-term stability. Instead of relying solely on primary surpluses to fund capital projects, the university should adopt a balanced approach that includes responsible borrowing, targeted philanthropic funding, and a reallocation of resources toward maintaining and upgrading existing infrastructure rather than pursuing unnecessary new developments. A key recommendation is to halt or significantly scale back the current £570 million capital spending plan and conduct a thorough reassessment of investment priorities. Financial accountability must also be strengthened, with university leadership required to justify major expenditures through rigorous business cases and risk assessments before committing to long-term projects.
Additionally, the document calls for greater transparency and democratic decision-making in financial planning. Rather than top-down directives, major financial decisions should involve input from academic staff, schools, and faculties, with oversight from the Senate—the only partially elected body within the university governance structure. This would help prevent costly missteps such as the CMC purchase, which was made without a clear purpose and is now being reconsidered for sale. Finally, AFS 2.0 argues for restoring a contribution-based funding model that allows schools more control over their budgets, incentivizing efficiency while maintaining financial stability. By adopting these measures, UoN can move away from crisis-driven financial management and create a more resilient, sustainable future for its staff, students, and research endeavours.