What’s going on at the University of West Scotland?

It’s a drizzly Wednesday morning in Paisley and just off the High Street, a coffin is propped nonchalantly against a statue. The statue, looming over the main entrance to the University of the West of Scotland (UWS), is of 18th century minister, John Witherspoon. The coffin, on second glance, is a guitar case. Three strips of laminated paper are tacked to its front; together they read ‘SOCIAL SCIENCE RIP’. 

We are gathered here today not for a funeral, but for a union rally. Witherspoon’s plinth is adorned with placards and banners, and a small but lively crowd of university staff, students and union organisers wave flags, blow whistles and ring bells. Chants bellow out over a loudhailer and a passing car honks cheerfully in support. Unison rep Mary McCusker implores the crowd to “keep the noise up so they can hear us.”

The ‘they’ she refers to is a second group of staff, congregated just yards away inside the university building. This morning’s rally is timed to coincide with the latest in a string of all-staff meetings, arranged to provide updates about the university’s euphemistically-named ‘Organisational Change Project’, which has most recently proposed making around 75 staff redundant. Particularly affected — hence the coffin — are the School of Education and Social Science, and the School of Business and Creative Industries.

Inside the meeting, attendees later say, senior managers “trot out buzzwords” about altering the shape and size of the organisation, managing change, and ensuring positive outcomes, while anxious staff try to get clarity about their futures. 

Outside, McCusker addresses the crowd through a hot pink megaphone. “It doesn’t really matter what words they use, they’re talking about cuts to jobs,” she shouts, to whoops and cheers of approval. “And those cuts are a choice driven by years of mismanagement, a failed business model, and a senior leadership team that treats education as a commodity and not as a public good.”

These are points I hear echoed again in conversations with other UWS employees. A number of staff agreed to speak with me, but all insisted on total anonymity; as one said, they had “been told in no uncertain terms not to discuss this with anyone.”

Cuts begin

It was late last year when unions were first invited to conversations about what would become the Organisational Change Project (OCP), designed to “put our university finances on a more sustainable footing”. UWS had posted a deficit of £14.4m in the financial year 2023/24, and approved a further shortage of £8.4m for 2024/25.