Student opera goes £100,000 over its budget

The Glasgow-based academy, which staged the opera, said last night the typical budget for a student opera was in the region of £18,000, but that a contingency fund had been set up to deal with an estimated cost over-run of £100,000.

Although the RSAMD will claw back a significant portion of that overspend in ticket sales, which topped £46,000, the fact it comes at a time when the institution is seeking job cuts will be galling to staff.

Last month, the academy offered a voluntary severance scheme to its 300 full-time staff to make savings of £600,000 which, given the average salary is £30,000-£36,000, could see the loss of up to 20 posts.

John Wallace, the academy's principal, said at the time the job cuts were, in part, initiated by the signing of a pay award for lecturers in the UK in 2006 worth 13.1% over three years.

He said longer-term financial problems had been caused by the under-funding of teaching at RSAMD by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC).

For every music student taught by the academy it receives £13,000 a year from the funding council, but gets just £7000 a year for drama students. Academies in England such as RADA get £12,000 a year for drama students.

However, the revelation that a student production has been allowed to go so far over its budget at a time of financial hardship will fuel discontent from some staff that the academy is not being run effectively.

RSAMD will be concerned privately that such an unwelcome public revelation will damage the prospects of it being given funding from the SFC to set up a new ballet school - even though officials there are satisfied RSAMD is a well-run institution.

A spokeswoman for RSAMD said yesterday the expansive nature of the production, which was overseen by London-based freelance director Will Kerley, and the greater-than-planned use of professional technicians from Scottish Opera, were responsible for cost over-runs.

Work on costumes and set design that is normally done by students was also contracted to Scottish Opera.

"The academy generates substantial income in its own right from, for example, box office takings, trusts and philanthropic individuals and this income is used to support operatic and other productions which would not otherwise be viable. It would thus be factually incorrect to suggest any deficit was at the expense of the public purse," added the spokeswoman.

"This opera was a great success with students from across the academy gaining valuable skills and experience and the educational benefits cannot be overestimated. The number one priority for us is to provide excellence in education and that is what we have achieved."

She also insisted the Eugene Onegin production had no bearing on the restructuring and savings RSAMD plan to make in the coming year because the cost over-run was funded from the current budget while staff savings will be made in the next financial year.

But Ken Wimbor, assistant secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), the union which represents some of the staff, said there was "significant irony" in the fact the deficit had come to light when jobs were under threat.

"We have now met with the management and hope RSAMD will do everything in its power to consult meaningfully to seek the necessary savings elsewhere and therefore to avoid job losses," he said.

One member of staff, who asked not to be named, told The Herald there was concern the workforce was being made to suffer as a result of the management's pursuit of over-ambitious plans.

"This news has come as a shock to many staff members in fear of losing their jobs and further raises suspicions that it is poor financial management at the top which has caused the need for redundancies in the first place," the source said.

"Many wonder what the academy is turning into by endorsing exorbitant overspends in opera while it is announcing job cuts and cuts to other courses."