'Outraged' Leeds Conservatoire students stage protest outside music school over 'mass redundancies' fears

The students expressed their grievances at the plans – which came to light in recent weeks from a leaked PowerPoint presentation – by blowing trombones, smashing cymbals and chanting “Save our tutors” outside of the specialist music and performing arts school.

The “restructuring” proposals outlined in the PowerPoint presentation – which has been seen by the Yorkshire Evening Post – state that “increased financial pressures” mean that 24 jobs have been put at risk and that a minimum of nine will be made redundant. The staff at risk include course leaders, curriculum managers, and other management roles.

The Conservatoire previously responded saying that changes to the staff structure are being “proposed”, following a review of its management structure.

It confirmed the school was currently “in consultation with affected staff”.

Speaking at the protest, which took place outside of the school on St Peter’s Square, the student union’s president elect Duncan Abrahart said: “It's huge. It's going to affect everyone’s education here and understandably the students are outraged.

"The staff aren’t just tutors and our course managers; they’re very much our friends in many cases and to say that 24 of them are at risk of losing their job is heart breaking.”

He said that the staff were given two weeks to express interest in other job roles when the update about the restructure was issued. He said that as a result of the restructure staff would have to take on more responsibilities and be unable to give the same amount of attention to individual students.

He said: “There’s a lot of strong feeling about it. Because we’re a specialist school we need these specialist courses.”

He also said that the students were not consulted about the proposals, adding: “It seems they have deliberately waited until students are on holiday and it is harder to have their before the plans came to light.”

Mr Abrahart also said that he was “proud” of the response from students in light of the news. A petition titled ‘Stop Leeds Conservatoire’s proposed staff restructure’ was set up and has received over 700 signatures and the protest outside of the school was also organised.

He said: “The students immediately went into outrage and the petition went straight up.”

Leeds Conservatoire was approached for a response about the protest but did respond.

In response to the leaked plans, a spokesperson for the school previously said: ““A number of changes are being proposed to the staff structure at Leeds Conservatoire. The staff affected are managers in our curriculum areas and support services.

“We are proposing these changes following a review of our management structure. The proposals aim to create an efficient and effective management structure that allows for growth in the future and protects the fundamental building blocks of our conservatoire identity.

“There are always financial challenges around delivering Higher Education in the UK, the most significant being that home student tuition fees have remained almost static for 10 years, having not kept pace with inflation.

“We are currently in consultation with affected staff and so cannot comment further.”