A gagging clause

I was really surprised to come across an article in the Hearld on Sunday that was titled "University defends gagging clause in redundancy deals". The article goes into how the University is currently under investigation over spending £1 million on gagging orders for outgoing staff. As a former student of the university or even in the thinking of a current student hearing and seeing press coverage about this is not very settling. Makes you wonder if the university is shelling out public money to buy the silence of outgoing staff rather than putting this money back in towards the university and the services/facilities they offer.

The university and many other education systems across the UK is challenged to make efficiency savings, Glasgow's efficiency savings being £10million. After further investigation it has been revealed that over £1million was used to pay off staff, with a reported 230 reducdancy packages being handed out it is rumoured that gagging orders are coming in at £43,000 per person.

Given that Mordechai Vanunu, the famous peace campaigner is the Rector for the university does make this scandel a little ironic. I think this will be interesting to keep a close eye on what happens and the coverage in the media it attracts.