A “complete breakdown in cash management” and a “lack of expenditure control” at the top of the University of Dundee contributed to its perilous financial state, according to long-awaited accounts.
As the 145-year-old university prepares to slash nearly 200 more jobs, it has finally released its figures for the financial year 2023-24, a period that saw it come close to bankruptcy, before it was bailed out by the Scottish government.
Posted 1 July, the accounts offer further insight into the institution’s deteriorating financial stability in recent years.
In 2023, a year ahead of Dundee recording a £35 million deficit, some 99 members of staff were making more than £100,000 a year. By July 2024, that number was 111.
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Combined with the decline in international student numbers after Brexit and “other external factors”, the university saw staff costs “spiral” and operating costs grow by 43 per cent.
“There was a complete breakdown in cash management and expenditure control at the senior level of the organisation,” it states.
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“The situation was exacerbated by a lack of independent challenge around strategic financial decisions. Furthermore, members of the university executive group were focused on their own portfolios, with limited cross-functional financial accountability.”
The final lump sum awarded to ex-principal and vice-chancellor Iain Gillespie has also been revealed.
Gillespie, who resigned in December 2024 shortly after the extent of the financial crisis facing the university became clear, was earning £298,000 a year by the time of his departure.
Because of his contractual entitlement to six months’ notice, he left with a £152,421 payout.
The accounts describe a “failure of action” by the university’s executive and court in 2024, “following a breakdown of governance and leadership in 2023”.
Gillespie was not the only senior figure to leave, with chair of court Amanda Millar resigning in February last year.
Interim principal and vice-chancellor Shane O’Neill took over between December 2024 and June 2025, stepping down following the publication of the Gillies report.
The professor was also paid £11,335 as payment in lieu of notice, and £30,218 for untaken annual leave he had accrued.
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The accounts confirm the findings of the Gillies report, commissioned by the Scottish Funding Council, which in June last year found failings in financial monitoring, leadership and governance at the university.
In comments to the Scottish Parliament last year, O’Neill admitted: “There were gaps in the competence that you would expect in the leadership, yes.”
³ himself on whether he was “incompetent or corrupt” in his leadership of Dundee, Gillespie said he “was certainly not corrupt”, so would “have to choose incompetent”.
Beyond disruption to leadership and rounds of redundancies, the accounts detail other impacts the financial catastrophe has had on the university’s work.
The crisis had a “major impact on [Dundee’s] capacity to deliver the Net Zero strategy, with reductions in both human and financial resource detracting attention from this critical area,” the documents reveal.
Overall, the Gillies report “highlighted clear failings in financial monitoring, management and governance at the university, which had not been identified because both the executive and court were operating suboptimally,” the accounts note.
Since its publication, Dundee has reported monthly to the Scottish Funding Council on its progress.
Last month, current interim principal and vice-chancellor Nigel Seaton told staff “we still have some way to go to become financially sustainable”.
The university is trying to make savings of £20 million, with 190 jobs set to go at an institution that has lost more than 600 roles since August 2024.
The accounts for 2024-25 are still to be published.
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