Open University chiefs are planning significant reductions in the number of courses the institution offers and the number of lecturers it employs, the Guardian has learned.

Last June the OU, established in 1969 and the largest university in the UK, announced it needed to cut £100m from its £420m -a-year annual budget, but specific detail of where the cuts would fall was not made public.

The Guardian has seen confidential documents that spell out proposals for the cuts. Staff have been invited to apply for voluntary redundancy in a programme that launches on 9 April.

Lecturers have said the proposals are so significant they will “destroy the OU as we know it” and reduce it to “a digital content provider”. They have expressed concern about how the changes might affect the quality of degrees offered by the OU.

A document states that the number of courses, qualifications and modules available to students will be reduced by more than a third. It says there will be a smaller workforce, cutting the budget by £15-20m.

“We are sharing this information in strict confidence to give the senior team early sight of the direction of travel,” the document says.

It states that 41 undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses will be axed, leaving 71 degrees available. A range of courses including science, business, music and classics are under threat.

The document includes terms such as “focusing”, “rationalisation” and “consolidation” to describe the fundamental changes being proposed. Of particular concern to lecturers are the plans of how an OU working group hopes to push through the changes.

The Teaching, Excellence and Innovation (TEI) group is driving forward the changes. In January the university senate – the institution’s supreme academic body – declined to give the new vision for the OU the green light before seeing the full implementation plan. The TEI group is exploring alternative ways to get the plans approved if the senate does not approve them at its April meeting.



Lecturers have questioned how the university has been able to spend more than £2.5m on consultancy fees to KPMG at a time when OU chiefs say they are facing severe financial challenges. The information about consultancy fees was disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act.

A spokeswoman for the University and College Union said: “UCU members are hugely concerned at the cuts that are being mooted at the Open University. The proposals under discussion would destroy the OU as we know it, turning it from a world-leading distance education university into a digital content provider. In the process we risk losing the research base that underpins our work with the BBC, and the personal tutorial element that supports our students.

“The branch understands that a very large sum has been set aside which, going by average payments, means voluntary severance is expected for at least 250-300 individuals in the coming year. Staff expect that large-scale compulsory redundancies may follow given the scale of the announced cuts.”

An OU spokesman said: “The Open University must change to deliver its core mission of supporting students from all backgrounds to fulfil their potential through education and to equip them for a fast-evolving world. Our plans will ensure the OU is agile and innovative to meet the needs of students, business and the country for decades to come.”

He added: “We are today announcing a voluntary severance programme. This covers everyone – support staff, professional services teams and much of our academic community (but, to avoid any impact on students, not the tutors who oversee our students’ study).”

The spokesman confirmed there would be a significant reduction in research carried out at the university. “We are sharpening the focus of our research to make sure that it has the maximum value for our students. No decisions on the size of the reduction have been taken. Every aspect of the university’s work – curriculum, teaching, research, back office – is in scope.”

He said no final decision had been taken on the precise reduction in the number of degrees available to students.

Commenting on the consultancy fees paid to KPMG, the spokesman said: “This is a major transformation exercise spanning all the university’s activities. Its breadth and depth required us to draw on the best external expertise as well as skills within the university. We had an existing relationship with KPMG which led to them carrying out the initial phase of work.”

In relation to the senate issue, the spokesman said: “We are not commenting on our internal processes.”

