Uni Melbourne management must have found some change under the couch – it’s not enough

The “break-even” budget surplus for last year has increased from $8m (CMM February 26) to $9m, yesterday. However it appears the $250m savings target for this year stands.

What’s happened: Management told staff yesterday there has already been a 22 per cent reduction in use of casual labour.

Of continuing staff, 56 academics and 142 professional staff members were accepted for voluntary redundancy and 107 more were made redundant.

But this did not save as much as might seem, the university created 76 new positions.

What’s going to: As required by the Enterprise Agreement, management proposes a second stage of savings.

Stage Two academic workforce savings will include,

* Increased teaching loads (as permitted by the Enterprise Agreement)

* “reduced reliance on high cost casual employment in circumstances where workloads are not inappropriately increased elsewhere”

* curriculum re-design and ending “low-performing” and “low enrolment” programmes

* more VRs and early retirements

* “where unavoidable, involuntary redundancies”

For professional staff, the Professional Services Redesign rolls-on to “reduce some of the duplication and cost of professional services across the institution.”