The infographic shows the number of staff employed in the Human Resources division in Cambridge University over time, together with simple parabolic fit to the data. We can see a very steep rise since 2021 that still is continuing apace (despite budget cuts for everyone else!)
We highlight the contribution from poster Human Resource here.
“I think if management consultants took a look at how the university is run they’d be in total despair. Our goals are supposed to be to helping scholars to maximise delivery on teaching, research, impact and grant income. Instead of resolving minor squabbles HR ignore then worsen them, then outsource cost on to other academics via committees and panels as well as lawyers and eventually health services once the whole circus takes staff to breakdown. Any company run like that would be set on a fast track to bankruptcy.” (Human Resource)
This is true.
The HR Division is responsible for a substantial part of Cambridge University’s deficit. It’s not just the growth in HR personnel, it’s the concomitant increase in referrals to Occupational Health and Staff Counselling, the increased number of Freedom of Information and Data Subject Access Requests and the burgeoning number of legal cases. A huge amount of academic staff time is consumed by panels and appeals as the hyper-aggressive HR business partners go about their jobs.
There is also an enormous cost in human distress.
The HR division not fit for purpose. It needs to be re-organised if Cambridge University is ever to return to health.
Cambridge is not atypical. A large part of the collapse of Universities in the UK has been driven by the disproportionate rise in HR departments over the last 10 years. It’s unproductive social welfare for the middle classes and a huge burden on teaching, mentoring, development and research staff.
21 Comments
SPARTACUS · 27 November 2025 at 18:49
The only way to sort this gigantic mess is with a complete renewal! VC and all the top team must go! Chancellor needs to do something!
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 22:07
The current VC is in the buffer zone. If the organisation gets rid of the current VC then the buffer zone collapses and the organisation is dealing with all its external regulators. If the organisation wants close to infinite organisational pain then that is the way to do it.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 22:09
Lessons in organisational autonomy – being kind (accepting some abuse), being even kinder, being even kinder still – out of the kindness regime – getting the external regulators in.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 22:25
The organisation needs to bear in mind that I recognise a strong legal obligation to national regulators, to not do anything that is not in the interest of national regulators.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 22:35
The organisation is isolated for the purposes of restoring self-regulation.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 22:38
If organisational self-regulation cannot be restored a series of legal processes is available to trigger an intervention from national regulators.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 22:41
Personally I don’t think than an external intervention will be necessary but nonetheless that option needs to be there to safeguard people in the organisation.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 22:47
It’s up the organisation to move itself forward now. I am on stand by for an external regulatory intervention. I will work on optimal organisational handling of different types of work-related stress cases.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 23:00
People in Cambridge won’t give up when faced with a difficult and complex challenge, they might move more slowly and with more care in that situation and it might sometimes look like they have given up, but they have not given up, they are just in the process of getting everything right.
TigerWhoCametoET · 27 November 2025 at 18:55
Does the board of scrutiny have data on spending by category (eg HR, legal) in total and then as percent of total? Also when is the 2025 figure available?
21percent.org · 27 November 2025 at 21:14
@Tiger, The BoS can ask for this data, it would be interesting.
TheResearcher · 27 November 2025 at 19:15
I suppose these figures do not include departmental HR, who essentially do what central HR tell them to do in reports of misconduct? Regardless, please let’s not forget this post (https://21percent.org/?p=1239):
“The HR Director openly blusters that she’s untouchable. If the Vice Chancellor or senior management receives a complaint against the HR Director, it is passed to the HR Director to write the response. She exonerates herself. The HR Director’s exculpatory text is sent to the complainant under the VC’s name.
It is usual for letters written by the HR Director or other high-ranking HR personnel to be sent under the names of others. These are other senior academics who are in on the scam like the Heads of School. Or they are well-minded but ineffectual academics who can be easily manipulated and are happy to act as a ‘postbox’ for HR. For example, the HR Director knows that those looking for promotion won’t rock any boats.
It means that the responsibility for many of the misdeeds of the HR department cannot be traced to the perpetrators. The signatures on the letters are those of others. There’s a charmed circle of senior management and Heads of School. They’re untouchable as well. Don’t bother complaining about behaviour of members of the charmed circle. It is you who will be investigated.
The HR Director doesn’t believe in evidence. She thinks that it’s not needed for an HR investigation into you. Normally, she appoints a patsy or ‘tame academic’ to conduct the investigation. The ‘right conclusion’ is whispered into the patsy’s ear. If the HR Director has really got it in for you, then she has access to a battery of external HR consultants, lawyers and barristers who can respond to a knowing hint. They can ruin your life while reaching the conclusion she wants.
The entire Grievance system is corrupt. The HR Director and other powerful members of the HR department have their favourites who will always be exonerated. And they have a blacklist of those who have crossed them. If you’re on the blacklist, heaven help you.”
IMAGINARY · 27 November 2025 at 19:21
“The entire Grievance system is corrupt. The HR Director and other powerful members of the HR department have their favourites who will always be exonerated. And they have a blacklist of those who have crossed them. If you’re on the blacklist, heaven help you.”
At UCam HR favourites include: Prof ViciousWoman, Prof Drinkalot, Prof Teflon, Prof Crookery, Prof Bullshitmore (who has now left), and of course Prof Smallman.
TheResearcher · 27 November 2025 at 19:27
It would be good to know who the people in their blacklist are, those who have “crossed them,” both past and current members. I can safely say that I am there and that I will continue to cross them.
Eileen Nugent · 27 November 2025 at 23:56
I don’t know who Professor Bullshitmore is, if it’s Prof Ed Bullmore I read a subset of his research papers and one of his books and interacted with group leaders who came out of his group. That was part of my learning.
Eileen Nugent · 28 November 2025 at 00:13
I’d hate to see the productivity of his group drop – how would I get my next research paper fix?
Eileen Nugent · 28 November 2025 at 00:19
Is it not possible to find solutions to these situations where everyone is treated fairly and reasonably and where whole groups of people working under a PI are not unnecessarily impacted by the fallout of one of them.
GoonSquad · 27 November 2025 at 20:50
I could be a corporal into corporal punishment
Or the general manager of a large establishment
They pat some good boys on the back and put some to the rod
But I never thought they’d put me in the
Goon squad
They’ve come to look you over and they’re giving you the eye
Goon squad
They want you to come out to play, you’d better say goodbye
AC · 29 November 2025 at 09:00
HR has spread through the University like metastatic cancer, disabling academic work, interfering with the order of a normally functioning organism, weakening and then killing off those who fight for a return to a healthier organisation.
Dysfunctional malicious individuals have steadily infected the functioning of others with their lies, their set-ups, their corrupt advice, at every level of the organisation.
A single individual left to roam freely, can cause enormous damage, depending on the number, the status, the function of those they have access to and can contaminate, poison and soil with their depravity: the rogue academics they advise, whose emails they compose, whose defamatory lies they “take very seriously”, the Heads of School they misinform, the investigators they mislead and whose Terms of Reference they write, the Responsible People they maliciously brief, whose reports they draft, and whose outcome letters they write, and even their own HR colleagues, and those who should be line-managing them.
Individual responsibility is replaced by “collegiality” for the good of “the University”, which buys the confidence of those maliciously roped in that they are doing the right thing.
Confidentiality ensures the dots are never joined, the source of the infection is never isolated, and the poisoning can continue.
Terminal Justice · 29 November 2025 at 11:20
The analogy between corruption and cancer is longstanding, and good. Hat tip here to https://tarashannon.substack.com/p/cut-it-out-why-cancer-and-corruption:
“The thing about cancer—at least for me, facing it for a second time… it works quietly, invisibly, often without symptoms until it’s established its ground. This is where vigilance becomes not just important, but vital. The outside eye of a doctor, routine scans and bloodwork, the honest gaze of someone trained to notice what we cannot—all these are necessary. We have to monitor, to establish baselines, to catch even the faintest ripple of something wrong. We build on what we know, refining our understanding, always staying one step ahead, because cancer thrives in secrecy. It creeps in, taking over from within, quietly, methodically—until, sometimes, it’s too late…
It occurs to me, as I witness the turmoil in our world—social, political, and otherwise—that cancer isn’t just a disease of the body. It’s a metaphor for what happens in our communities, our politics, our institutions, when we allow corruption, hatred, apathy, or authoritarianism to take root. These forces often begin quietly, festering in the shadows, ignored or minimized—until, suddenly, they’ve grown into something much harder to eradicate.”
We have all these problems at our university. Problems aren’t dealt with when the symptoms arise but are left to fester. HR don’t mediate, don’t propose solutions, don’t resolve the matters. Victims are never asked one single time for their reports of events. A year, two years in, tens of people are implicated in something that wasn’t even their matter to deal with. Staff become unproductive, sick, in mental breakdown. The best people leave and the organisation weakens from within. Eventually it reaches a point where intervention becomes impossible and a form of psychological resignation sets in as everyone awaits the worst.
It doesn’t have to be this way. To continue quoting from Tara’s piece:
“Vigilance is necessary here, too. Early detection, open conversation, honest appraisal—these are our societal scans and blood tests. When we notice something wrong, we can’t afford to look away or pretend it isn’t there. The cost of silence is far too high.”
Denial Phase · 29 November 2025 at 15:44
HR think of us as the cancer. I really think in their minds it is as if they could somehow remove all the harassment victims, whistleblowers and active bystanders then that would solve the issue.
We call this the denial phase… when the patient is attacking the symptom instead of the cause. It is a leading cause of preventable death.
The tragedy is that the patient gets it back to front. For the university it is we and not they who are the body. We are the students who make the grades, the future alumni who will give donations, the scholars who produce the research, the applicants preparing the grant bids, the teaching assistants educating parents kids. We are the ones who keep the body functioning. It is we this organism needs to survive while the malignant cells only drain on resources.
What they maybe are slowly coming to terms with is that, in their denial phase, they were confusing the disease with the immune response. Groups like this are antibodies against the tumour, not the source of the problem. An immune responses typically leads to adverse symptoms (tribunal cases, appeals or growing public interest) but those are unavoidable side effects from trying to keep the university alive.
We do our best to slow the spread but the patient themself must come to terms with their situation so that they get their biopsies and can commence curative therapy. Otherwise it will be the death of us all… HR, faculty and student body alike.