University of Sydney’s Financial Position in 2023

The University experienced an underlying loss of $9.4 million when factors like quarantined grants and investment funds were taken into account, as they cannot be freely used to cover day-to-day operating costs. This compares to an underlying margin of $216.6 million in 2022.

The University of Sydney’s Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Mark Scott, said the result was still strong given the tough environment.

“The financial environment in which universities operate remains challenging, and there are ongoing uncertainties ahead,” he said.

“At Sydney, we are fortunate to have been able to build a solid future fund to support our research and education, and our staff and students. This is largely thanks to strong investment returns, as well as the generosity of our donors and our international students continuing to want to study with us.

“We don’t take this for granted. We continue to significantly reinvest back into our core teaching and research activities, and our people – this includes our initiatives of strategic priority such as our Sydney Horizon Research Fellowships to support research excellence, our Sydney Horizon Educators Scheme designed to advance the way we teach and improve our student experience, equity scholarships and the development of cutting-edge infrastructure to advance our research discoveries for the benefit of society.”

Update on Employment Payment Review

As part of its ongoing Employee Payments Review, the University is continuing a detailed review of casual academic work to determine underpayments that may be owed arising from practices relating to work allocation and payments. In line with financial reporting obligations for universities, the University’s Annual Report includes a provision of $70.1m as potential underpayment liabilities that is based on a series of extrapolated assumptions while investigations are completed.

“Paying our people correctly and remediating any historical underpayments is our absolute priority and we are devoting considerable resources to making it happen as quickly as possible,” Professor Scott said.

“We deeply regret any underpayments that have occurred and are committed to ensuring all staff are paid according to our enterprise agreement.”

To determine the actual remediation amounts, the University is conducting a line-by-line analysis of work undertaken by casual academic staff in priority Schools across the University over a period of 13 semesters, with around 250,000 individual activities undertaken across the University each year. This process must be done manually as there are multiple sources of information and records to be identified, located and analysed.

A range of measures have also been introduced to ensure that payment practices across the University align with the Enterprise Agreement 2023-2026 and a dedicated team of legal, HR, payroll and operational experts has been established with a focus on ensuring practices and controls are in place so payments going forward are correct and that any historical underpayments are identified and remediated.

A new online teaching allocation tool has also been developed and introduced to integrate existing curriculum, timetabling and staffing information and ensure consistent work allocation processes and reporting for casual academics across the University. This allows the University to maintain a central record of all requested work and improves record-keeping in line with its obligations under the Enterprise Agreement.

The University is in regular contact with the Fair Work Ombudsman and keeping the agency fully informed about the progress of the review since our initial self-disclosure.

These additional funds that may be needed for remediation do not significantly contribute to the University’s small underlying 2023 deficit as adjustments will be retroactively applied to the University’s financial records going back at least six years.