New £23 million cash blow for Cumbria university
Last updated at 12:57, Friday, 30 July 2010
The University of Cumbria has suffered a fresh £23 million cash blow with news that the North West Development Agency is withdrawing its pledge of future support as it tries to save £52m.
But university chiefs today said the revelation would not affect its survival because the money is not core funding to run academic courses or its daily business.
Instead, the pledge was cash set aside to help contribute towards special one-off and development projects that may help the university grow in the coming years.
The news comes as the university’s turbulent third year comes to a close this weekend.
The development agency is being scrapped and it was revealed earlier this week that it was withdrawing funding from all “uncommitted projects” in the region with immediate effect.
They include the city council-led £15m redevelopment of Carlisle’s Sands Centre, which the NWDA was going to help fund to the tune of nearly £5m.
The scheme is still going ahead but with, as it is understood, the university as long-term tenant because it plans to relocate its school of sport to Carlisle from Lancaster.
The £5m from the agency was part of the £23m the regional agency had earmarked for university growth projects.
The university’s chance of bidding for up to a further £18m in the future has now disappeared.
Steven Broomhead, NWDA chief executive, told The Cumberland News: “The NWDA is facing a challenging situation as we have to save £52m from this year’s NWDA budget due to Government-imposed reductions.
“We have made a start by cutting non-contracted projects and reducing our own administration budget.
“As a result of this imposed cut, any north west programme or project that has not had NWDA funding contracted for 2010/11 will not now secure funding from the agency and the agency is essentially closed for any new business.
“Sadly this includes future funding for the University of Cumbria.”
The agency has been a major supporter of the University of Cumbria since its conception.
It helped drive forward the plans to create the institution, initially injecting more than £9m to the costs of creating the university.
Mr Broomhead added: “The NWDA continues to acknowledge that the retention of university graduates in Cumbria is crucial to the growth of the economy and we are disappointed not to be able to approve further funding at this time.
“The NWDA will continue to work with the vice-chancellor and the university to see what other avenues of funding could be available to them going forward and we will help them with this where we can before we close.”
University pro vice-chancellor Professor Liz Beaty said they had worked closely with the agency to secure significant investment to develop the institution and higher education in Cumbria.
“We are disappointed about the news but recognise this reflects the wider cutbacks in public sector spending,” she added.
“The only university project it will directly affect is the Sands Centre and we are happy to confirm our continuing commitment to deliver this exciting development, which will provide state of the art facilities for our students.”
The troubled university has been tackling its own financial crisis over the last academic year, taking drastic steps to cut a £30m deficit that has built up since opening in August 2007.
Three vice-chancellors have been at the helm in little over a year, approximately 280 jobs and nearly 60 courses have been axed, plans for a £70m campus at Caldew Riverside in Carlisle are shelved and the Ambleside campus mothballed. How the Newton Rigg campus near Penrith will be managed in the future is still unclear.
Immediate savings of £10m have had to be found to put an end to overspending in future years but vice-chancellor Professor Graham Upton has said the university was confident the university had turned a corner financially.
The university is being supported by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce).
Last week Hefce agreed to give the university a £5m loan to help meet the costs of its restructuring. It has also been confirmed that the university will receive more money to operate in the next academic year than originally anticipated.
The university’s board of directors is also to change following a critical report into the way the financial crisis was handled. The chairman and six others are to go.
It is hoped replacements can be appointed to start in October.
First published at 12:56, Friday, 30 July 2010
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk
stop paying child tax credits,stop sending money abroad,and make everyone pay towards council tax like maggie wanted [poll tax}
then there would be plenty of cash to go around
Have your say
This money may not of been core funding for the university, however it's single minded pursuit of a trophy campus at the expense of other projects has meant this pledge money has not been received and invested in Carlisle. For example its (nearly) £5m contribution towards the Sands development now has to been found from alternative sources you and me.
Posted by Smith on 31 July 2010 at 16:17