|

Important Academic Board meeting – Extending Statute18 to Teaching and Research Staff – Weds 30 Oct

Byadmin

This is a message that is primarily for members of UCL’s Academic Board (AB), but the issues below affect everyone.

All UCL Professors are entitled to attend Academic Board as of right. Other staff may be elected as ‘non-Professorial’ members.

If you are a member of AB, please do your best to attend the forthcoming meeting on Wednesday 30 October.

Members of AB will be sent information about how to join the meeting.

Very important issues of employment rights for academic staff (including Teaching staff and Research staff) and, by extension, to other staff have been tabled for discussion. It is important to the future of all staff that, as an AB member, you attend and vote.

Statute 18 is the University Statute that protects academic freedom by protecting ‘academic’ jobs through a series of procedural rights: notably in disciplinary cases (tribunal with Council and AB panel members, legal representation, appeals heard by senior lawyer) and redundancy cases (that a special Redundancy Committee must be set up by Council with AB representation to consider making redundancies).

But Statute 18 does not currently protect Teaching staff and Research staff. Nonetheless, extension is clearly possible. Prior to merger, the Institute of Education (IoE) included Research staff in its equivalent Statute, and employed few if any ‘Teaching-only’ lecturers.

The AB Working Group on Statute 18 has put forward two motions to Wednesday’s meeting.

The first of these motions (under item 6 of the AB agenda, see APPENDIX below), demands information, costings, and a public explanation from management as to why Teaching staff and Research staff have been excluded from the protections afforded by UCL Statute 18.

It also charges the Working Group on Statute 18 to bring a proposal to a future meeting for a recommendation to Council to address this inequality.

  • The first motion seeks to advance equality in our academic workforce, ending the two-tier system.


The second motion formally requests that UCL Council do not discuss proposals to change disciplinary procedures in a manner that bypasses AB.

The Task and Finish Group set up by management is considering a set of proposals that UCL adopt the ‘Warwick Model’ for its disciplinary processes. This would allow UCL to bypass the Statute 18 disciplinary process in the majority of cases, and where HR/management would get to decide what counts as an ‘academic freedom case’ which justifies the full procedure.

The AB Working Group on Statute 18 is asking that any such proposals first be discussed at Academic Board and only then proceed for discussion at Council, as without AB’s prior advice, Council will not be fully informed on these proposals. This is a constitutional requirement of UCL’s Charter and Statutes.

  • The second motion seeks to protect AB’s right and duty to comment on the proposals and advise Council accordingly.

BREAKING NEWS: Management have now told UCU they will not take the Task and Finish Group’s proposal straight to Council on 1 November. This is very welcome news. However, this statement does not invalidate the vote on this motion, as there is a clear principle at stake! Please attend the meeting and vote.


We believe both motions are of huge importance and should be supported. If you are a member of AB, please do attend Academic Board on Wednesday 30 October and, on behalf of your colleagues, cast your precious vote.

UCL UCU Executive Committee
ucl-ucu.org.uk 

—

APPENDIX: Motions in front of Academic Board from the AB Working Group on Statute 18


Motion 1: Equality of Rights of Different Staff Groups: Proposal for adoption by the Academic Board
Submitted by the Working Group on Statute 18

In 2014, UCL’s Senior Management Team and Council were presented with a recommendation from AB to extend Statute 18 rights to all staff that undertake academic work (including Teaching staff and Research staff), as a matter of employment fairness. This proposal was rejected on the grounds that this would be ‘too expensive’. The basis for this claim has never been established publicly by the university, nor a detailed evaluation of the proposal publicly produced.

The HESA statistical report for 2022/23 shows that at that point, UCL had 9,910 staff that carry out academic work. These include:

  1. 3,020 (490 of whom are part time) who are listed as doing both teaching and research (this is the group covered by Statute 18 rights at UCL),
  2. 3,110 (2,315 Part Time), listed as doing teaching only,
  3. 3,770 (640 PT) listed as doing research only.

As a matter of governance rules, to bring staff groups B and C under Statute 18 rights coverage would only require a decision of the UCL Council (Statute 18, 3. (1)):

This Statute shall apply (a) to Professors, Readers, Senior Lecturers, Senior Clinical Lecturers, Lecturers, Clinical Lecturers or persons holding any other appointment (other than an honorary appointment) designated as an appointment on the Academic Staff of the University by the Council).

The Working Group on Statute 18, in line with its Terms of Reference (see Appendix) therefore proposes the following for adoption by Academic Board:

AB requests the following information from the University Management Committee/HR:

  1. An audit of bringing all staff that carry out academic work (including Teaching and Research staff) under the scope of Statute 18 rights. This should detail the current gains to the university of unequal treatment of these staff groups and benefits of including them. It should also include an Equality Impact Assessment providing the distribution of protected characteristic groups (e.g., gender and race) across Statute 18 and non- Statute 18 protected academic groups.
  2. An explanation provided to the Academic Board as to why these colleagues are on these reduced rights regimes.

In addition, Academic Board: 

  1. Charges the Working Group on Statute 18 to increase its membership by 2 additional seats to include a further member of the Teaching staff and a member of the Research staff (in cooperation with the Governance Committee of AB working as the AB nominations Cttee).
  2. Charges the WG on Statute 18, so constituted (as in 3 above) and in line with its terms of reference to evaluate the evidence presented by UMC/HR on bringing all staff that do academic work at UCL under the scope of Statute 18 rights.
  3. Charges the WG on Statute 18 (in line with its terms of reference 2 and 3) to develop a proposal to bring to the Academic Board for recommendation to Council that all staff that carry out academic work and are not covered by Statute 18, should have their job titles changed so that they are then covered by the Statute.

To be put to a vote at the Academic Board.

Motion 2: on Recommendations to Council on the Task and Finish Group (Disciplinary Policies) Recommendations re Statute 18 that have not come to the Academic Board
Submitted by the Academic Board Working Group on Statute 18

This Academic Board notes:

  1. That the Task and Finish group created by UMC to consider disciplinary policies has produced a proposal on Statute 18 reform.
  2. That the Academic Board representatives on the Task and Finish group and the Trade Unions opposed this proposal, but were outnumbered by the representatives from management.
  3. That only the Academic Board is charged (constitutionally, by the Charter and Statutes) with advising on academic matters, including the terms and conditions of the academic staff (Statute 7(20)) at UCL.
  4. That the Working Group on Statute 18 is charged by its Terms of Reference with monitoring and scrutinising any proposed changes to Statute 18 (ToRs 5 and 6) and was not informed of or shown these proposals.
  5. That the proposals appear to create a gatekeeper role for management/HR in deciding who is allowed to use Statute 18 procedures on the grounds of what management/HR believe to be an ‘Academic Freedom’ issue.
  6. That these proposals are being sent directly to Council without notifying this Academic Board, for discussion and without consultation with this Academic Board on their potential drawbacks and problems. Thus, the Council is being asked to discuss these proposals without full information needed to understand their ramifications.

This Academic Board therefore:

  1. Recommends to Council to postpone discussing these proposals from the Task and Finish Group until the Academic Board has had an opportunity to discuss and provide clear information and advice on their content to fully inform Council’s discussion.

Similar Posts