Earlier this month, Sir Philip Augur (former city banker and author of the 2019 Post-18 Education and Funding Review) commented publicly on university governance. In an interview reflecting on the past, present and future of UK Higher Education, he stated “I think there should be dedicated union representation on [university] governing bodies.” When asked to elaborate, Augur noted a long history of governance failures across the sector, arguing that, “boards and trustees tend to get swept along by executive management’s enthusiasm [and that] there needs to be a much more challenging mindset…You’ve got to introduce some grit into the oyster.”
In recent months we can also see evidence of a different approach to HE Leadership– for example, in the likes of Professor Damien Page, Vice Chancellor at Buckinghamshire New University. Professor Page challenges university leaders on their lack of collaboration and co-creation with staff and students, noting that Universities are organisations of learning but not always learning organisations.
While there may be external ‘sector wide’ problems for HE, there is also a lot we can do internally to respond better and more constructively to the crisis the sector is facing.
So, as an opening question, we want to know how UEA can be seen as a learning organisation in this context? What exactly will you do differently as UEA staff are left to pick up the pieces of a second round of large-scale job losses?
It is the function of UEA UCU, and our sister trade unions, to work for the best interests of our members and our collective bargaining units, to question and seek to improve decision-making, to challenge, to bring scrutiny, and to improve governance. We are part of the democratic structures of the university. We are, perhaps, that grit in the oyster. We make our criticisms because we care about UEA and the people who work for it. Far from being confected, the challenges we articulate are rooted in the genuine concerns of our members and are always designed to ensure management decisions are well-thought through and stand up to scrutiny. We represent almost a third of the staff community at UEA. Staff are UEA’s greatest asset, and their voices and expertise should not be ignored.
The decision to issue compulsory redundancy notices to staff this year puts all of this at risk. It has negatively affected industrial relations and severely damaged staff trust in senior management at UEA. In collective consultation and throughout our dispute, we demonstrated that pursuing compulsory redundancies at this time – after the initial uptake of VR applications – was neither financially nor ethically justifiable. Yet, this decision was made. Now that this line has been crossed, it is incumbent on you to show your workings, and to clearly communicate to all staff why you think the reputational, operational, and human costs of this decision are justifiable.
When we presented here in 2023, and 2024, we urged you to recognise these risks and costs and account for them in your decision making. We do not see clear evidence that you yet fully understand what compulsory redundancies mean for colleagues who sit outside of the senior leadership team. Without seriously reckoning with how people now see and understand their relationship with their employer, there is little hope in rebuilding UEA in future years.
Our dispute with the university is ongoing. The dispute has produced some constructive negotiation in relation to financial transparency and governance review, which we welcome. But we do not yet know what the decision to issue CR notices means for industrial relations at UEA and the how the branch interacts with management in future. How we operate in this rolling reality of cuts and compulsory redundancies, with the university being so close to breaching its banking covenants, is a critical question for our committee and branch.
It has become clear to us that “rightsizing” (to use this unfortunate phrase) is fundamentally embedded within the university’s financial plan. If this is correct, then you need to be honest with staff. We need to understand exactly what is the ‘right size’ for UEA? The current approach of reactive crisis management is failing the institution and its workforce. To return to our opening points – what are UEA leaders learning, and how are you using that learning to avoid repeating the same mistakes?
The most recent case in point is the plan to cut jobs in Clinical Psychology – presented to us, without warning, on the same day the FSP concluded, and CR notices were issued. The current approach of cutting off important functions of the university that could serve broader strategic purposes, reduces the university’s capacity for growth and diversification, ignores how student numbers on smaller courses quickly add up, and undermines the comprehensive nature of what we do. The university cannot continue to act as if these are merely technical adjustments rather than fundamental changes to our educational mission and to people’s working conditions.
So, for all of these reasons, we want to use this opportunity to again call for a change in mindset. This is far from being a business-as-usual situation, and we all need to work and think differently if UEA is to survive in any meaningful way.
A clear and radical step Council could take immediately, would be to try and learn from the past. We believe there is a valuable opportunity for UEA to demonstrate sector leadership by proactively commissioning an independent review like the recent investigation at the University of Dundee. The Gillies report found that Dundee’s leadership “did not cultivate openness and challenge” – a finding that resonates deeply given our own experience at UEA, where 10-15 years of financial mismanagement have created the conditions for successive deficits of over £30 million. Rather than waiting for crisis to force such scrutiny, we call on Council to establish a sub-committee – with meaningful trade union representation and independent external expertise – to conduct a comprehensive review of governance, financial accountability, and decision-making processes at UEA. This would not be an admission of failure by the current leadership, but rather a demonstration of institutional maturity and commitment to continuous improvement. The Dundee investigation has shown the value of transparent, independent assessment in identifying systemic issues before they become insurmountable. By commissioning such a review now, UEA could learn from both its own experiences and those of other institutions, strengthening governance structures and rebuilding trust with staff. This proactive approach would position UEA as a learning organisation that genuinely values accountability and is willing to embrace the “challenging mindset” that sector leaders like Augur advocate.
Next, in terms of the here and now, instead of coming to us when the targets have been missed and there’s another ‘unexpected’ deficit, why not commit to proactive collaboration to explore alternative approaches to workforce management? For example, creative restructuring that preserves expertise; redeployment and retraining opportunities that retain institutional knowledge? What was clear from this year’s round of collective and individual consultation meetings is that staff across the university have innovative ideas for growing their areas and generating revenue yet often find themselves blocked from rather than supported to pursue these. The need to harness the expertise and creativity of our whole workforce is essential to UEA’s survival, and failure to do this is a fundamental error in leadership and governance.
We are also calling call for a renewed commitment to governance reform. As you will know, in 2022 we had the external review of governance by the Halpin partnership, with an impact review in 2023, noting areas of improvement and stating that the next effectiveness review would be due in April 2025. To our knowledge this effectiveness review has not happened, and there are no updates or information for staff on the Governance webpages about exactly how the recommendations from Halpin have been implemented. Related to this, while we welcome the agreement to work with the university on reforming mechanisms such as Staff Assembly, some of the initial suggestions you are considering today in relation to frequency, amendments and chairing are concerning. If the intention here is to restrict staff voice and remove opportunities to engage senior management, then we challenge that in the strongest possible terms. Staff Assembly should be strengthened in its democratic function; convened more regularly with meaningful agendas, empowered with decision-making authority, and expanded to include a wider range of voices from across the university.
In addition, we must protect all the mechanisms for staff voice, and you must demonstrate a clear commitment to this. For instance, since changes were announced to the EDI Committee, there has been no clear information about how this forum will continue to operate in a meaningful way. We ask that the university reconsider the decision to remove staff groups and TUs from this significant forum. The commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion becomes much more, not less, important during such financially and politically challenging times.
Ultimately, we believe that the Executive Team and Council need to clarify its position on what you think the function of this university is. This requires deep reflection and acknowledgement of what has already been lost or damaged – including our academic and pedagogical offer, expertise and institutional knowledge, student experience, staff morale and faith in the institution’s mission, as well as wider community confidence in the university’s direction.
The staff of this university – represented by UEA UCU and our sister trade unions – want UEA to succeed. But success cannot be built on a foundation of compulsory redundancies and the erosion of collaborative governance structures. We call on Council to change mindset and approach, to stop repeating the same actions hoping that the outcome will be different. Council, the Vice Chancellor, and Executive Team need to work with us, and with all staff, as genuine partners in transforming UEA.