Thanks to everyone who has completed the BU UCU Wellbeing Survey—it’s still open, and we encourage all staff (members and non-members alike) to take part.

Consultation Process: What’s (Not) Happening

The formal consultation process continues to generate confusion, stress, and frustration. While at-risk staff are now receiving formal letters and being invited to individual consultation meetings, these meetings often lack any meaningful content or clarity. Common problems include:

• Generic Templates and Inaccurate Notes: HR and line managers are using pre-written templates that include misleading claims (e.g., stating redeployment has been explained when it hasn’t) or that misrepresent what was actually discussed. Members should keep their own notes and submit corrections where needed. (See Useful Documents for templates.)
• Conflicts of Interest: In multiple cases, consultation meetings are being led by staff who are themselves in the same redundancy pool, or even competing for the same roles. Despite repeated union complaints, the university has not addressed this blatant breach of fairness with formal, documented instructions and protocols for these meetings.
• Lack of Timelines and Clarity: Members are not being told when scoring, interviews, redeployment, or voluntary redundancy (VR) closure will happen. HR reps routinely cannot confirm basic details, including whether scores will be shared or appealable.
• Policy vs Practice Contradictions: Interim postholders (staff doing additional leadership duties) are now being told they are at risk, even though they were not listed in official outcome documents. The university has failed so far to clarify or correct this on a collective level.
• Access Barriers: Some members have requested accessible versions of scoring documents and criteria, only to be met with delays or silence. Others report difficulty interpreting critical documents they’re expected to respond to.
• Pressure and Misinformation: Staff are being pressured to cancel leave or make urgent decisions based on unclear or contradictory information. Some have even been told that “you can be made redundant even if you’re not here.” Please note that the employer is legally obligated to grant you reasonable requests for leave, and you cannot be disadvantaged in your role or at-risk pool as a result of taking leave.

The university continues to insist these are isolated incidents. They are not. BU UCU is collecting evidence of systemic failures and escalating our demands for transparency, fairness, and compliance with legal obligations. If you’re affected, please contact us.

VC Forums and UCU Response

Your UCU reps attended both sessions of the Vice-Chancellor’s all-staff forums on 10 July last week. Key takeaways:

• Voluntary Redundancy remains open to an at-risk member of staff until your redundancy interview begins (that’s interview for your post, NOT the individual consultation meetings to inform you you are at-risk and to advise you of your options).
• Dean appointments are underway; remaining posts will be advertised internally and externally at the same time. The VC justified the simultaneous advertisement as ensuring BU has “competitive” leadership (implying internal candidates are insufficient).
• Compulsory redundancies have not been ruled out for this year, next year, or when closed/suspended programmes have been taught out. BU remains in active trade dispute with UCU.
• A Change Implementation Group has been formed—without union involvement.
• The VC refused to commit to Pay Progression & Promotions for 2025–26, clearly linking PP&P to a budget surplus, which by her own plans will not happen until 2028. The VC also clearly linked PP&P reinstatement to staff volunteering for Clearing. BU UCU strongly advise against volunteering while ASOS continues.
• The 2025–26 national pay award will not be implemented unless BU “can afford it.”
• The university has hired an external branding agency to “refresh its image.”
• The VC did not rule out further CRs following teach-out of suspended courses.

Despite frequent claims of a “collegial relationship,” management’s actions suggest otherwise:

• The 26 June eJCNC was cancelled due to scheduling conflicts with consultation meetings.
• On 2 July, neither the VC nor DVC attended; the COO left before key items were discussed.
• The 9 July eJCNC failed to address urgent agenda items. Promised follow-up remains undelivered.

We’ve followed up in writing to the VC, demanding transparency, action on staff questions, and compliance with statutory obligations. A summary of the forum and our full written response have been communicated to BU UCU members via email, 10 July 2025.

JCNC Update

No progress has been made on core issues from last week’s JCNC:

• Management failed to deliver on their commitment to provide documentation and timelines by 12 July.
• No published VR timeline, no conflict of interest procedures, and no clarity on ring-fencing for interim or internationalisation roles.

Once again, management dismisses collective issues by pointing to isolated case resolutions. We’ve been clear: these are systemic problems requiring systemic solutions.

On the trade dispute, management claims they’ve resolved most issues, and has to date scheduled no further resolution meetings. That is not how trade disputes work. BU has a formal duty to engage in resolution, especially while restructuring continues.

On wellbeing, management continues to promote internal services. We stressed that this is not about service visibility; it’s about staff confidence in the employer, which remains deeply damaged. No plan has yet been offered to rebuild that trust.

We’ve submitted a formal response to the VC documenting these failures. We will keep members updated.

Workload Planning Update

Workload negotiations are ongoing. Your UCU reps are pushing hard to defend a model that is fair, transparent, and humane.

• Refusing Overload: Under WLP2019, workloads must be agreed, not imposed. We’re holding firm on that. Pushing staff to 95%+ of their time allocation ignores the unpredictable reality of academic life.
• Pushback on 25–26 WLPs: BU is circulating 2025–26 teaching timetables based on unagreed draft workloads. We’ve demanded these be paused or marked clearly as provisional until the WLP group finishes its work.
• Fixing the Framework: We’re challenging narrow Terms of Reference that ignore admin, leadership, and service.
• Building a Better Model: We’re developing a new framework using national comparisons and member input. This includes built-in unallocated time, range-based tariffs, and staff-written draft plans, not top-down impositions.

The next WLP working group meeting is this Friday, 18 July 2025.

Strike/ASOS

We will be emailing an update shortly to BU UCU members on our continued Strike/ASOS action. Keep an eye on your inbox.

Solidarity and Support

As always, if you’re affected by any of the issues above, or if you just need a confidential chat, please get in touch. BU UCU is here to support members every step of the way.

If you need to request support for an individual case, please submit a casework proforma. If you’d like to anonymously report items of concern around the consultation, you can use this form.

You can also make suggestions around workload planning, or for our developing workload planning survey.

And a final reminder to take the wellbeing survey, and to share it far and wide!

Keep fighting the good fight, and don’t let the bastards grind you down.

Your BU UCU Executive Team