University College London

Report on EGM + Update on Statute 18

Dear UCU colleague,

A brief report follows on the UCU EGM held yesterday, Thursday 10 May, and an update on Statute 18.

After a report on negotiations and a spirited debate, the pre-circulated motion was passed unanimously, with a textual amendment to highlight the problem that so-called 'non-academic' staff are excluded from statutes.

The motion is in APPENDIX 1 below.

Our fundamental objections are that the proposal itself is unacceptable, and that the time-line proposed for "consultation" is too short. See UCL UCU Resolves 1 in APPENDIX 1.

STATUTE 18 UPDATE

Despite your union's objections, UCL management informed us last night that they intend to circulate their proposal to all staff TODAY, care of 'TheWeek@UCL', in advance of the Academic Board Meeting on 23 May.

Please note this date in diaries. We call on all members of Academic Board to attend this meeting to vote down this proposal. What you do can make a difference! Please see APPENDIX 2 for a report from LSE Academic Board.

On the current timetable, this means that this Academic Board meeting will be the only opportunity staff will be given by UCL to collectively voice their opposition to the proposal through official channels before UCL Council seeks to ratify the proposal in October.

The UCU resolution passed yesterday calls on all members of the union to unite to defend academic freedom and campaign against these proposals.

WHAT IS AT STAKE

UCL proposes to replace the 'arduous' Statute 18 procedure for dismissal of academic staff with the Termination Procedure* and other standard procedures for capability and disciplinary. Last year, UCL made over 400 teaching fellows and research staff "redundant" by using the Termination Procedure.

Crucially, redundancy is perceived by UCL management to be a simple process to carry out for many staff, but not (currently) for academic staff. If this change goes through, academic staff will be much more easily dismissed than at present. This will inevitably damage UCL and its ethos of collegiality.

As a union we are acutely aware of the need to defend staff against redundancies, whether actual or threatened. Indeed we continually campaign against redundancies, defend staff in redundancy situations and negotiate improved procedures with UCL.

We have to say from hard-won practical experience, that the current standard procedures do not prevent managers making staff redundant provided that they comply with legal requirements to consult. Employment tribunals typically permit employers to make bad decisions, provided that they don't break a specific civil or criminal law and their solicitors can argue that they believed that they acted reasonably. Tribunals rarely insist on reinstatement - so once a staff member has been dismissed the only argument concerns compensation.

Consequently, what we might call "stringent and restrictive" internal procedures, such as those currently enshrined in Statute 18, remain the best defence against the arbitrary use of management power.

If academic staff are subject to the UCL Termination Procedure* rather than the Statute 18 redundancy procedure, then there is no impediment to the redundancy of academic staff becoming routine. This is exactly what is happening at Queen Mary's University of London, where some departments are at present seeking to dismiss as many as twenty academic staff in one department to boost their REF rating.

EQUALITY - FOR BETTER, NOT WORSE

UCL should be aiming for equality, but by 'levelling up' protection for staff, not 'levelling down' to some of the worst examples of poor treatment. If UCL management was really concerned about improving the position for all staff, then it would propose to apply the more stringent elements of the Statute procedures to general UCL policy and procedures.

The defence of academic freedom consists of the freedom of staff to carry out research and debate its implications without fear of dismissal for voicing unpopular opinions. As such it defines a University, rather than a mere 'research factory'.

In a climate of fear, a verbal commitment to academic freedom is effectively meaningless. Staff who have voiced unpopular opinions in the past or who have been on the 'wrong' end of an internal academic dispute may find themselves targeted for "redundancy" by Heads of Department.

To quote the comparison document to be circulated today,

However, the actual selection and decisionmaking of individual redundancies would be carried out within the academic unit and not by the Council in future.

What this means is that were this change to be implemented, UCL Council's only responsibility for overseeing academic redundancies will be (a) to ensure that a procedure exists and (b) to agree that a business case for organisational change or termination of contract may be put in a particular department.

Once initiated, the process will be in the hands of the Head of Department, Deans, Vice Provosts - and HR. All other safeguards that currently exist which make academic redundancies difficult for UCL to carry out will be removed.
This is why we can only view the current proposal as a major attack on academic staff and the provisions for academic freedom. It provides no additional protection for any staff member, but it removes protections that exist for academic staff.

IT'S NOT ALL BAD NEWS

Finally, UCL is not the only university attempting to undermine its Statute protections for academic staff, but attempts are facing resistance from well-informed staff. We attach, for information (APPENDIX 2), a report from the London School of Economics UCU of a significant reversal at the recent LSE Academic Board.

UCL UCU Executive Committee

[*Note: The UCL comparison document circulated to the UCU today suggests that the removal of Statue 18 procedures will permit the UCL Organisational Change Procedure to be applied to academic staff. This is an error. The application of this procedure is not new and was used in both FLS and CALT in recent years. The proposed change concerns the use of the short-sharp "Termination Procedure" instead of the Statute 18 redundancy consultation process.]

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APPENDIX 1: Resolution passed unanimously, UCU EGM Thursday 10 May

UCL UCU notes:

1. That Statute 18 of UCL's Charter and Statutes enshrines academic freedom, and the posts of academic staff who exercise it, as an integral part of the core principles of University College London. Statute 18 was created as a means of creating 'effective tenure' after Tenure was formally abolished by the Education Act 1986. The statute provides procedural safeguards against academic staff redundancy at the highest level of UCL and as such is not easily changed.
2. That UCL has proposed a wholesale revision of UCL Statute 18 which removes these protections. UCL was poised to initiate a "public consultation" with staff on Friday 27 April before even meeting with the unions on Tuesday 1 May. The original timetable for consultation had UCL Council making a formal decision to go ahead on 1 October 2012, following consultation with staff in the current 7-week Summer term.
3. The current Statute 18 contains a number of procedures which permit the dismissal of academic staff including by reasons of redundancy, discipline and ill-health in very limited circumstances. These procedures are more difficult for UCL to apply than corresponding procedures for other UCL staff, requiring, e.g. UCL Council to vote to set up a Redundancy Committee where redundancies are sought, and for the Provost to hear appeals against dismissal. Moreover the current Capability Policy triggers a Statute 18 procedure should a member of staff become near dismissal.

UCL UCU further notes:

1. That in recent years UCL has faced a number of redundancy programmes where the setting up of a Redundancy Committee has provided a basis for resisting those redundancies. On each of these occasions UCL has opted to offer voluntary severance and early retirement to staff, and to seek volunteers more widely, rather than risk a public fight over compulsory redundancies.
2. That a number of universities have diluted equivalent statutes to Statute 18 and then engaged in wholesale redundancy programmes. These universities include Imperial College London, King's College London and Queen Mary's University of London.
3. That UCL has justified its proposal partly on generic claims of improving academic staff performance, and has trialled an unagreed 'performance enhancement scheme' in FBS despite UCL UCU's unequivocal opposition to this and similar 'Rank and Yank' schemes.
4. That there is a longstanding recognition agreement between UCL and UCU on negotiating changes to terms and conditions, and that UCL's attempt to "consult" staff over our heads and impose a timetable for making changes effective breaches this agreement.

UCL UCU believes:

1. That the current proposed changes to Statute 18 (deleting procedures from Statute) represent a fundamental assault on the University as a collegial body, and on this basis must be opposed by every member of staff who cares about the university.
2. That notwithstanding our defence of the Statute, some elements of Statute 18 should be updated and improved, and that UCU is prepared to negotiate over these areas:
   • broadening the definition of 'academic staff' covered by the Statute;
   • ensuring procedures are compliant with current legislation, and
   • providing a clearer definition of academic freedom of inquiry and research independence.
3. That removing academic protections would mean that academic staff would increasingly be placed in the position of research staff continually having to justify their position through gaining grant income.

UCL UCU resolves:

1. To formally initiate a trades dispute should management fail to engage in meaningful negotiations over changes to Statute 18, recognising that
• the current timetable (with UCL Council voting on changes on October 1) is too short, and
• the current proposal (deleting procedures from Statute) is unacceptable.
2. To mandate UCU officers to negotiate with UCL management to preserve protections against dismissal in Statute 18, while being prepared to agree other changes on the basis outlined above.
3. To launch a broad-based campaign in UCL to defend Statute 18 which can draw in the maximum number of staff in a debate about the importance of (i) extending academics’ job security to all staff, and (ii) defending academic freedom and the purpose of a University; and engage with students, alumni and the wider UCL community, to explain the issues at stake and to organise opposition to Management's proposals.

ENDS

APPENDIX 2: REPORT FROM LSE ACADEMIC BOARD

Management at LSE tried to set us on the road to US style academic review procedures at yesterday’s Academic Board (all academic and research staff are members of academic board here) but UCU mobilised against it.

They included the proposals as one short part of a long document on research quality. The proposal was that to increase the review period to 7/8 years and get a permanent contract new staff would have to produce three 3* paper including one published in a select list of journals. This proposal had been discussed among the senior managers of the School but nevr brought to JNCC and most of us only saw the proposal a week ago.

As soon as we saw the paper the branch started alerting members to the existence of these proposals (2 pages in a 160 page set of Board papers and inside a 34 page on wider issues) and their implications. These included:

American style tenure requirements but not US tenure style security of employment or US salaries – why would people want to come here? [simultaneously they trying to weaken our statutes – called Academic Annex here]
Relying on REF metrics and ‘leading’ journals means a threat to academic freedom as heterodox, critical and inter-disciplinary social science research are under-valued in these domains.
There was neither negotiation with the union nor any equality impact statement on a measure that posed serious risks to the careers of women who want to have children.

Our mobilisation was extremely effective there was a long queue to get into the meeting, after the deputy director introduced the paper there was one contribution supporting him then a string of hostile comments – some of the best from UCU committee members – from right across the school and at the end one offering equivocal support.

The director had hoped to get the board’s in principal approval of what they called ‘a direction of travel’ but they did not risk putting any of the paper to a vote.

At the same meeting the REF code of practice was approved. Following an earlier UCU intervention this included:

Training will be provided to all members of staff responsible for the implementation of this Code of Practice. Members of REFSC and those responsible for making an initial assessment of individual staff circumstances will receive equality and diversity training plus training specific to the REF which will be based on case studies. Academic colleagues in Departments tasked with reviewing REF outputs will receive equality and diversity training and will be briefed on the contents of this Code and on their responsibilities. Members of the Appeals Panel will receive equality and diversity training.

Training will be designed:
i) to ensure that those responsible for implementing the Code are well informed about their own and the School’s legal obligations regarding equalities; and
ii) to enable them to attain a sufficient understanding of equalities issues in order to implement the Code fairly and effectively.

Previous drafts suggested that only appeals panel members would receive equalities and diversity training.

(Mike Cushman, London School of Economics UCU)

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