Universities are drafting in management consultants to help them cut jobs, sell land and merge amid fears some could be heading for collapse.
The UK’s largest accounting firms and consultancies have seen a slowdown in other corporate contracts and are increasingly offering their services to help universities get their finances in order. EY has been hired to advise on financial sustainability for universities including Kent and Middlesex.
Its “big four” rival PwC, the UK’s largest professional services firm, has been brought in to draw up cost-cutting initiatives at the University of Dundee, which shed more than 600 jobs last month after revealing a £35 million deficit.
Meanwhile, ministers and regulators are drawing up plans for the first ever insolvency regime for universities that would
