Notice of Shared Services Seminar in FE and HE

A one day seminar on shared services in Further and Higher Education is being held on 10 February 2012 at SOAS (The School of Oriental and African Studies) Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG. The venue is close to Kings Cross, Euston and Russell Square.

Pay Consultation in Higher Education Result

16/12/2011)Further to circular HE 27/11 the result of the pay consultation was that a significant majority of branches agreed to note the offer. UNISON will be writing to the university employers to confirm our position.

 

We expect that all HE unions will be in a position to accept or note the offer early in the new year and that universities will be able to pay the award in the January pay roll. Details of the full settlement will be sent in the new year.

 

We are aware that members will be disappointed with the pay award this year, particularly in light of the continued increases in the cost of living.

 

We will be shortly be working with other unions to draft a claim for the 2012/13 and are determined to campaign for a decent increase for staff in universities that recognises their contribution and matches the increases in the cost of living

30 November 2011

UNISON members in universities that were balloted will be taking action on 30 November to defend their pensions, after they voted overwhelmingly to join the TUC co-ordinated day of action.  They will be joined by over 1 million other UNISON members and hundreds of thousands of members of fellow trade unions that have also balloted over pensions.  In universities this includes UCU, GMB and EIS

Higher Education Conference Deadline Reminder

The Higher Education Service Group Conference will be held at The Brighton Centre from 9.30am until 4pm on Friday 2 March 2012. There are NO paper forms for motion or delegation submission.  You must use the Online Conference System (OCS) instead.   Details of this and how to register are in the Conference Bulletin.

Pay Latest

Following the conclusion of the Higher Education Negotiations in July, The UNISON Higher Education Service Group wrote to the HE employers to say that we did not accept their final offer of £150 on all pay points.

Programme for Higher Education Branch Seminar

The branch seminar will be held at the Liverpool Hilton Hotel on 20 - 22 October 2011.  Registration will take place on Thursday evening from 4.45pm and the event will finish on Saturday 22 October at 12.30pm.

Middlesex University UNISON Branch Prepares to Ballot over University Cuts

(05/09/2011)Middlesex University UNISON Branch has given notice to Middlesex University of their intention to ballot for strike action over the threat of 200 compulsory redundancies at the University. The use of compulsory redundancies will potentially bring the total number of job losses at the University to 300, and represents a loss of 15% of the University workforce.

Higher Education Pay 2011

(03/08/2011)Following the national pay negotiations meeting on 11 July the Higher Education Service Group Executive (HESGE) met last week to consider their response to the consolidated offer of a £150 lump sum increase on all pay points made by the higher education employers.The view of the HESGE was that the offer failed to meet the reasonable expectations of staff to receive an increase in line with inflation. This is the third year of minimal increases in higher education and members are suffering real cuts in their standards of living.The HESGE therefore decided not to accept the offer and to notify the employers that they wished to invoke the dispute resolution process within the national agreement. This means that UNISON will have a further series of meeting with the higher education employers to try and resolve our differences.<

UNISON Slams UCEA Final Pay Offer

Commenting on The University and Colleges Employer's Association's (UCEA) final offer of a one-off £150 payment.

Higher Education White Paper (England) – Students at the Heart of the System

Much of the content of this White paper has already been signalled by the government: more competition between Universities, opening up the market to private providers and a greater focus on student information. However the paper itself is still fairly woolly in a number of areas – not least in what HE institutions will need to offer in additional student support. However there are a few areas where more specific and potentially dangerous policy is being developed: Opening up the market to other providers by changing the regulatory framework allowing changes to the criteria for granting and renewing degree awarding posers – eg taking into account “overseas track record” . also loosening the definition of what is a ‘University’. Consulting on removing the VAT threshold which applies to education establishments. This which would allow for more shared services and privatisationFreeing up 85,000 student place for competition – 65,000 of which would be those with top grades - this could de-stabilise some HEis if others ‘poach’ their higher graded students. The other 20,000 would be for those HEIs that offer courses at £7,500. UNISON’s Higher Education Service Group executive will be looking at the White paper in a bit more detail at its meeting in early July and preparing our response to the consultation.