University staff asked if they want to leave

Staff at the University of Bradford are being asked to consider if they want to leave voluntarily with a pay-off.

The university confirmed to the BBC that it had launched a Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme (MARS).

It allows employees, in agreement with their employer, to choose to give up their job in return for a severance payment.

Last month the university said it planned to make £10m of savings in the next year.

A university spokesperson said: "The University of Bradford has launched a mutually agreed resignation scheme (MARS) for staff who wish to leave the organisation.

"As this process is ongoing, we are unable to comment further at this time."

The MARS scheme is used throughout the public sector and particularly in the NHS.

Although it is not a redundancy scheme, unions are concerned that once staff leave they are not always replaced and their work is shared out among those who remain.

In April, the university said it had been "forced" to deal with "the harsh realties of balancing rising costs against a fall in income."

A spokesperson said at the time the university planned to make savings to its underlying cost base of about £10m in the next financial year, through reducing staff cost using as well cutting operational expenses.

The university has 1,755 employees - 645 academic and 1,110 professional.