University of Essex freezes pay amid £14m shortfall

University staff are said to be "worried" as their institution addresses a forecasted shortfall of nearly £14m in next year's budget.

The University of Essex (UoE) has plans to introduce a freeze on staff pay.

In an email to all staff, the university's vice chancellor Prof Anthony Forster said a 38% drop in international postgraduate applications was to blame.

Union representatives have told the BBC the email came "out of the blue".

In it, Prof Forster, said the drop in applications from international postgraduate students was "a sector-wide issue and not just an Essex trend."

He added that, as a result, "it is possible we may have a shortfall [in next year's budget] of £13.8m with £6.4m of this sum covered by our contingencies, leaving £7.4m to find".

The email revealed that promotions and pay reviews would be delayed with immediate effect.

The nationally-agreed pay award for staff could be postponed for as long as 11 months.

Lorcan Whitehead, co-president of the University and College Union at UoE, said: "It's going to come out of the blue for the staff to suddenly have this email with these quite drastic measures.

"We want more information about what the rationale is for these decisions [and] whether there might be some alternatives."

He believes the drop in international students may be due to a combination of government visa policies and the university's recruitment strategy.

Claudia Bradley, a third-year journalism student, said: "The university is always welcoming to international students [but] a few of the international friends I've made have always struggled with some aspects of their visas, such as costs."

In a statement, UoE said: "Like all UK universities, we are seeing a lot of uncertainty around international recruitment at postgraduate taught level.

"If student enrolments are higher than we are currently predicting, we will be able to reverse a number of our financial decisions.

"We are not opening voluntary severance or compulsory redundancy schemes - and our three-year forecast indicates it is likely we will return to a growth trajectory."

The Department for Education told the BBC: "We continue to provide significant financial support of nearly £6bn per year to the higher education sector.

"We are clear that domestic students should be the priority. We are clear that the purpose of student visas is education rather than immigration."

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