Scottish politicians brutally exposed what has been happening at Dundee University.
You can see the carnage here, as former Vice Chancellor Iain Gillespie appeared before the Select Committee at Holyrood.
It’s like watching a tubby, slow-moving sloth trapped in a cage with a pack of wolverines.
Under Gillespie’s leadership, Dundee plunged into a £35 million deficit, shedding approximately 300 jobs, facing possible campus closures — while he repeatedly assured everyone it was all sunshine and surpluses.
Committee convener Douglas Ross, quoting the Pamela Gillies report, blasted Gillespie for “hubris, overbearing behaviour, dangerous over-confidence and arrogance”. Ross then flatly called him a “coward”— accusing him of creating the crisis and walking away with over £150,000 in severance.
Willie Rennie pressed Gillespie on whether any staff had previously raised concerns about his bullying behaviour. Initially, Gillespie claimed no recollection—but under Rennie’s scrutiny, he admitted a complaint had been filed during his time at the Natural Environment Research Council, referencing the staff member’s experience:
I went to another university completely broken… I lost a lot, including my final salary pension.” [Victim of Gillespie]
Rennie then remarked pointedly: “The fact you initially denied this tells us a lot about you.” Further revelations of his time as Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Leicester revealed a pattern of hubristic behaviour, arrogance, bullying and poor management style.
Asked whether he was corrupt or incompetent, Gillespie told MSPs in a moment of shocking candour,
“I’m certainly not corrupt, so I have to choose incompetent.” [Prof Iain Gillespie]
This will be one of the defining quotes of the Great University Scandal of 2025 and 2026
Prof Iain Gillespie repeatedly claimed ignorance—first on a breached banking covenant (“I only found out in the Gillies report”), then on expense policy violations (£87,000 flagged)—and brushed off criticism by blaming culture and delegation.
The questioning by MSPs was repeatedly fact-driven, confrontational and aimed squarely at securing tangible accountability—not just apologies. A text-book example of holding the powerful to account. A credit to Scottish democracy.
Those of us who have watched the moral decline of all our universities over the last decade will not be at all surprised at the revelations of the poor behaviour at the top of Dundee University. It is commonplace in the higher echelons of all UK Universities.
Respect, Holyrood. First Peter Mathieson (VC of Edinburgh) skewered and now Iain Gillespie eviscerated. It’s no more than they deserved.
Over to you at the sleepy Senedd Cymru. And Westminster.
“There Is No Such Thing as Society.”
“Crisis? What Crisis?”
“There’s No Money Left.”
“A Good Day to Bury Bad News.”
Quotes (or misquotes) that stuck and wrecked reputations.
Now, universities are crumbling under financial strain. Staff are shown the door while Vice Chancellors polish their salaries.
One line sums it all up, and it should be hung around the neck of every senior university leader like a dead albatross:
“I’m not corrupt—just incompetent.”
Let’s make it stick
The sooner this begins at Westminster the better.
VCs receive taxpayer money for their lavishes.
They must be held accountable by the elected representatives of the British people.
In our view, this needs to happen urgently at the Senedd
The Welsh universities are in real danger
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/real-danger-university-wales-could-31932376
There needs to be a really tough questioning of Wendy Larner (Cardiff — she’s cutting jobs in a chaotic manner), Edmund Burke (Bangor — he’s just been awarded a pay rise for cutting jobs), Jon Timmis (Aberystwyth) and Elwen Evans (UWTSD — she’s shut the Lampeter campus)
Remember when university sector used to focus on education and research?
Now about business ££s and grossly overpaid and lavish treatment of arrogant leaders.
Indeed, this is an incredible turn of events. In a strange sort of way I actually appreciate the fact that he came clean in this very direct way. Perhaps other VCs and HR Directors will do the same. This would be best, for all concerned.
As already noted by others, I hope this momentum carries into other areas of the UK.
It should also be noted though that a senior member of management at Dundee tried to intervene and asked “uncomfortable” questions, but was “asked to leave” as a result:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyn4pxjwrvo
She also noted in her statement that she felt that she was being “punished for speaking out”.
This is an all-to-familiar story of course, although for the lower ranks it usually results in an a period of brutal abuse then unfair dismissal through corrupt means.
Ye don’t come tae Scotland thinking ye can talk shite or push folk around.
As Gillespie found out.
Dundee University was impacted by the same environmental instability and negative environmental shifts as every other UK university. Risks to university governance had increased there in line with every other UK university, when governance risks increase more governance care has to be taken to ensure stable continuous operation of the organisation, when more governance care has to be taken more work is demanded of those in governance roles & governance workload increases. This is the situational backdrop.
When we think about the word corruption we tend to think of it in relation to an individual i.e. an individual deliberately using their position/power for personal gain is corrupt but corruption is also a term that can also be applied to an organisational information database. An information database can become corrupt i.e. data in the information database can become inaccurate and unreliable. Mistakes can be made while generating organisational data, when mistakes are not being caught data errors are then being introduced, when errors are not being caught or corrected an information data base is then undergoing a corrupting process & the information database is becoming corrupt. If this corrupting process is happening to a key organisational database that the organisation is using to make key organisational governance decisions the organisational decisions will be then be inaccurate & this then increases the probability of an organisational governance failure.
When we think of incompetence we tend to think of it in terms of an individual being inherently incapable of doing a particular role, an individual is incompetent if they cannot perform the role without making mistakes that they are unable to correct and/or learn from to prevent future reoccurrence of the same mistake and/or other mistakes occurring. What we don’t tend to think of is the potential for working conditions to induce a state of individual incompetence in a role. If an organisation were to demand any individual to work 24 hrs per day 7 days per week in any role and increased their workload accordingly, it would not take more than a few days for the individual to become completely incompetent in the role no matter how competent they were in that role before the change in working hours and workload. The competence of even the most competent individual could not withstand such a shift in workload, the individual would quickly descend into a state of complete incompetence, severe mental ill health & death is then a possible outcome in those individual conditions.
If we had an accountancy firm operating a working time policy – all accountants work 24 hours per day 7 days per week – in a couple of days all its accountants would be incompetent & all the firms accountancy data would be completely corrupt. We could strip the whole organisation of its people to root out all the corruption and incompetence and put new people in the firm. If the firm continues to operate the same working time policy – all accountants work 24 hours per day 7 days per week – in a couple of days the firm will again have to root out corruption and incompetence. This is the limiting case where you could populate an entire organisation with individuals of the highest moral fibre who are truly loyal to the organisation and its leader, who truly do want to dedicate themselves to the organisation and for the organisation to succeed and are therefore prepared to go to extreme lengths to comply with any organisational demand made of them – work 24 hours per day 7 days per week – complete organisational incompetence and corruption. The blanket application of an inhuman demand to all the members of an organisation by an organisation can generate an organisational state of complete incompetence and maximum corruption.
I think this then is what this statement – Power corrupts & Absolute power corrupts absolutely – means. If an individual leader has absolute power i.e. an individual leader can unilaterally impose an inhuman demand on everyone in a system and enforce it, the whole system then has the potential to descend into a state of complete incompetence & maximum corruption. If an individual leader sets out with the aim of tackling corruption and incompetence and imposes an inhuman demand on everyone in the system in order to achieve that aim more quickly – everyone work 24 hours per day 7 days per week – irrespective of the intent of the individual leader, the absoluteness of that leaders power, the strength of their will to achieve their aim they won’t achieve their goal, the system will still reach a state of complete incompetence and maximum corruption. In this case its the imposition of the inhuman demand on everyone in the system that determines the eventual outcome not the intent of the leader, the absoluteness of their power, the strength of their will, their tenacity, their perseverance, their ruthlessness and single-minded pursuit of achieving their aim : rooting out corruption & incompetence.
Top-down power with ineffective or non-existent bottom-up feedback mechanisms runs the risk of the system reaching a state where the system is imposing inhuman demands on a significant fraction of people in the system. That risk becomes more apparent when the environment the system is embedded in becomes increasingly challenging i.e. systemic stress is increasing (stress = situation where work demanded per unit time is increasing) & there is a global increase in individual workloads across the system, overall conditions in the system are then becoming more inhuman i.e. moving out of the range where individual humans can comfortably exist. In challenging times if the system is unable to adapt to become more efficient (i.e. get rid of all unnecessary work to enable the more accurate delivery of increasing amounts of critical work), the system will feel cruel to every individual because the increasing demands being placed on every individual whilst no gains are being made and no improvements are to be seen – systemic or individual. Top-down power with effective bottom-up feedback mechanisms facilitates continuous negotiation processes between the system and individuals in the system to limit individual descent into increasingly inhuman conditions and bring the overall conditions in the system back into a range where all humans in the system can more comfortably exist. It forces the system to continuously face the reality of individual conditions, to identify & prioritise critical work and to develop efficient processes to enable the accurate completion of essential system tasks and maintain the system in a stable functioning state.
It’s not enough to accurately model financial data when making financial savings in times of organisational crisis, it also necessary to model individual conditions in the organisation and to look at the human impact of changes to find the optimal set of organisational changes that will lead to increased organisational stability that is robust to further external shocks. It’s time to identify and monitor the absolutes in organisations, is it absolutely necessary to spend this money, is it absolutely necessary to do this work, could these individual conditions breach an absolute human right (inhuman conditions). It’s only when the absolutes are under control that an organisation can turn its attention to the qualifieds, is it worth spending this money, is it worth doing this work, could these individual conditions breach a qualified human right.