My university has made headlines yet again - they've failed to apply for a GBP 25 MILLION grant, as the News & Star wrote today:

Cumbria university failed to apply for £25 million grant
Exclusive By Phil Coleman
Last updated at 16:59, Friday, 02 April 2010

Bosses at the debt-hit University of Cumbria never applied to the Learning and Skills Council for a £25 million grant as has previously been suggested, The Cumberland News can reveal.

The LSC’s failure to hand over the cash has been cited by managers as one of the key reasons for the financial crisis at the university, which is likely to have a deficit of around £30m by the end of this academic year.
But on its last day in existence this week, LSC officials confirmed that no grant was applied for nor was funding promised, even tentatively.

The LSC’s statement provoked a shocked reaction from politicians and union officials.
Deborah Newell, the LSC’s regional press officer, told The Cumberland News that previous claims that it had failed to provide a £25m grant were wrong. She said: “Although there were initial meetings and discussions, the university did not submit an application to the LSC for capital funding support of further education facilities. Nor was any sum for grant support agreed, even tentatively.”

The statement came just a week after The Cumberland News revealed a catalogue of problems which helped trigger the current crisis, including a promise to not tackle overstaffing for two years after the university’s creation in August 2007.

That helped push staffing costs up to 71 per cent of the annual budget – the highest in the country.
Managers have suggested that another key cause of financial woes has been the continued provision of further education at Newton Rigg, which they say has contributed £5.1m to the debt.
Vice-chancellor Prof Peter McCaffery has refused to rule out selling farmland used by students at the Penrith campus.

Last week, the university’s communications boss Lynn Clark said managers must look at all areas of business “in the light of reduced student number growth and lack of expected capital funding from the LSC”.
Reacting to the LSC’s statement, David Maclean, MP for Penrith and the Border, said Mr McCaffery had “inherited a pig in a poke” if the LSC was right. He said: “It’s extraordinary. We were led to believe they had applied for capital funding to the LSC, and told that the LSC had reneged on that promise. The professor is clearly not at fault but his predecessors need to give an explanation.”

Carlisle MP Eric Martlew said: “If somebody has been saying that they put in for a grant and they hadn’t, then we need an explanation. But we need to move forward.”

Wanda Armstrong, whose union Unison represents support staff, said: “I’m really shocked and quite disgusted. The lack of LSC funding was always given to us as one of main reasons that we are now in this mess.”
A university spokeswoman said: “The University of Cumbria was in close liaison with the LSC while it was preparing to submit its application to the LSC for funding.

“Unfortunately, this happened at the same time as the LSC was being forced to revisit its capital budget.
“Once the LSC had revisited its budget the vast majority of the projects that they were considering at that time were simply not fundable.

“Unfortunately, the university’s application was one of these. The very few projects that the LSC were able to fund were ready to start construction immediately. Unfortunately the UoC was not in that position.”


Why doesn't any of this come as a surprise anymore?