We write as students, staff and stakeholders of Kingston University to express our profound concern and alarm regarding the impact, reputational damage, and questionable legality of the job cuts and course suspensions currently being hastily imposed on the institution which local MP Ed Davey has described as the jewel in his constituency’s crown.

In February, Kingston University announced plans for cuts across faculties, including proposals to close the entire Humanities department and to cut courses in

• Criminal Justice

• Criminology

• Criminology & Sociology

• English

• Humanities Foundation

• International Relations

• Modern European Philosophy

• Philosophy and Contemporary Critical Theory

• Sociology

It is additionally planned to close the Kingston Language Scheme which provides language courses to students, staff and the wider community.

Impact

A formal 30-day consultation has been launched, with 30 staff at risk of redundancy. All recruitment to these courses has been suspended without prior warning or consultation, and current students have been informed they are earmarked for closure. This pre-emptive move means staff have been presented with fait accompli rather than an opportunity to meaningfully consult over proposals in their formative stage as required by law.

These are high quality courses, including those provided by the world-renowned Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, and staff who are nationally and internationally recognised for research and pedagogy. As already set out in open letters written by threatened students studying Philosophy and Creative Writing, current BA, MA, MPhil and PhD students have been treated with contempt. Despite claims their courses will not be disrupted, they face losing the very teachers, supervisors and modules that made them want to come to Kingston to study. It is estimated that c. 70 PhD students are at risk of losing their supervisors, and yet provision for postgraduate researchers has not even been considered within the proposals put forward.

Reputational Damage

These cuts constitute irreparable damage to the University’s reputation. Already, prestigious professional bodies such as the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs have denounced this move. As many have pointed out, following on from previous cuts to History, Politics, Media & Communications, Film, Linguistics, Geology, Music, this restricts student choice and access to these critical subject areas, undermining Kingston’s commitment to widening participation and making all disciplines of higher education accessible to students from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds. Contravening these commitments, these cuts imply that Kingston University believes these subjects should only be available to those who attend Russell Group institutions.

Moreover, as the latest in a series of shortsighted attacks on the arts, humanities and social sciences across the UK higher education sector, these cuts fail to recognise the social, cultural and economic value of these subjects.  As the @stop_kingston_cuts campaign emphasises, ‘Humanities foster critical thinking, empathy, and cultural awareness – essential for informed, engaged societies, they equip people to challenge misinformation, debate constructively, and uphold democratic values’.

Questionable Legality

The position of the University & Colleges Union (UCU) is that the current consultation is unreasonable and unlawful. The University leadership claim £20 million savings need to be made by the end of the 2025-6 financial year. These savings, which are not motivated by a budget deficit but a “projected shortfall” calculated by the University, are intended to produce a budget surplus of c3% of turnover, which will “enable investment in its infrastructure” – showing a willingness to sacrifice staff livelihoods, student learning, and teaching and research quality for shiny new buildings. Even with half that amount apparently recouped, it is clear the current proposals mark only the start of a larger swathe of course closures and job cuts.

These proposals have been hastily drawn up and the University is pushing ahead without due regard for their statutory obligations, or staff and student wellbeing. The desire to accumulate funds for capital expenditure is not legitimate grounds for making redundancies. Sacrificing programmes, modules and teaching staff in the service of building works is an abdication of the University’s responsibilities to avoid redundancies and uphold a high-quality and comprehensive education offering for students.

Furthermore, the University has failed to issue the UCU with a Section 188 notice required by law. Staff have been called to 1-to-1 consultation meetings at short notice, without adequate time or information on which to respond. Senior leaders have failed to provide the financial data behind the £20 million figure, or other data requested by the union (such as the costs associated with the much-vaunted and deeply unpopular outsourced ‘Future Skills’ programme), required in order to provide counter proposals and ways to mitigate the need for redundancies. They have failed to share the calculations and criteria behind the obscure mechanism called the Resource Allocation Model that has been used to identify courses for closure, according to which at least nine further departments may be at risk in the near future. Running alongside the consultation, a Voluntary Severance (VS) scheme has been launched for affected staff, and another for all professors and associate professors in the Faculty of Business & Social Sciences. Cast as an effort to “minimise the risk of compulsory redundancy”, despite the fact that headcount reductions have been predetermined and consultation and VS application deadlines coincide, this is coercive. Staff feel pressured into applying for VS for fear of compulsory redundancy, which could constitute grounds for unfair dismissal claims.

We call upon Kingston University to halt with immediate effect these cuts and closures, reinstate all suspended courses, rescind the current consultation, meaningfully and transparently consult with the recognised trade unions over financial sustainability, abide by its statutory obligations under Trade Union and Employment law, ACAS code of practice, and its Managing Organisational Restructures policy, and commit to avoiding compulsory redundancies.

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