{"id":531278,"date":"2026-04-15T00:57:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T00:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/531278\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T00:57:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T00:57:13","slug":"staff-at-goldsmiths-art-college-plan-industrial-action-ahead-of-redundancies-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/531278\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff at Goldsmiths art college plan industrial action ahead of redundancies – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Staff at Goldsmiths, University of London, one of the UK\u2019s most celebrated art schools, plan to take industrial action following a restructure plan announced by college management. The plan, some academic staff say, amounts to \u201cacademic vandalism\u201d.<\/p>\n

The University and College Union (UCU), which represents academic and professional staff, says in a statement that\u00a0the acting vice-chancellor David Oswell told all staff in an email on 26 March that the college intended to make savings of \u00a322m by the end of the 2026-27 academic year, most of which will likely be actioned by the end of March 2027.<\/p>\n

Goldsmiths has carried out extensive restructuring over the past five years, launching the Recovery programme in 2021 and the Transformation programme in 2024. The Goldsmiths UCU says that the Recovery programme led to \u00a37.6m in recurrent savings while the Transformation programme generated a further \u00a316.1m worth of savings.<\/p>\n

\u201cFuture Goldsmiths [the latest proposed two-year restructure programme] will involve sacking professional services staff in the current academic year, with job cuts for academic staff to follow in September,\u201d the union claims, adding that\u00a0a recent freedom of information request revealed that Goldsmiths has spent more than \u00a314m\u00a0on private consultants\u2014including management consultants<\/a>, law firms and recruitment agencies\u2014since 2019.<\/p>\n

The alleged costs include\u00a0\u00a32.7m for management consulting firm\u00a0KPMG; \u00a3283,390 paid in 2022-23 to the law firm Shoosmiths to provide legal support on redundancies and internal disciplinary matters; and \u00a3191,468 paid in 2024-25 to management consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers for a report on the restructuring of professional services under the Recovery overhaul. Goldsmiths did not comment on these figures.<\/p>\n

Staff in the Goldsmiths UCU have subsequently balloted for industrial action. On a 63% turnout, 81% of members have voted for strike action, with 92% voting in favour of Action Short Of a Strike (ASOS), which would include a marking and assessment boycott.<\/p>\n

A Goldsmiths spokesperson says: “We\u2019re taking action to secure our place as one of the world\u2019s leading creative universities, at a time when many in higher education are facing uncertain futures and are having to make difficult decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an increasingly disrupted world we simply cannot afford to stand still, and our plan will ensure that we are able to continue delivering unique critical education and research while supporting our students to achieve their ambitions.\u201d<\/p>\n

On announcing Future Goldsmiths, Oswell said that without purposeful redesign, the institution will continue to face structural financial deficits and an operating model that is not \u201caligned with future learners, regulatory expectations, or the pressing realities of our sector\u201d. The aim is to transform the \u201cacademic model, operations, digital and estates and financial management by 2028\u201d so that it can \u201cdeliver a portfolio aligned to its critical core\u201d and offer flexible learning access.<\/p>\n

Goldsmiths has produced a number of famous art alumni such as Damien Hirst, Steve McQueen and Sarah Lucas. Nine Goldsmiths graduates have won the Turner prize including Gillian Wearing in 1997 and Laure Prouvost in 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Staff at Goldsmiths, University of London, one of the UK\u2019s most celebrated art schools, plan to take industrial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[183917,6225,6485,6486,1120,96,162502,40680,56,54,55,120577],"class_list":["post-531278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-art-schools","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-goldsmiths","tag-redundancies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-university-of-london"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}