September JSNCC Update

Key updates:

Student Recruitment

Simone Davies attended the meeting to provide an encouraging update on the position for student recruitment, with undergraduate recruitment ahead of this year’s target by 23.5, helped by international recruitment. Post Graduate Taught recruitment is under-performing although this is somewhat offset by the recruitment of international PGT students. JSNCC recognised that there had been an incredible effort by colleagues across the university to support student recruitment and they particularly appreciated the work put in by the Marketing, Outreach, Recruitment and Admissions colleagues.

Redundancy Avoidance Agreement

Last year there was a local dispute raised by UCU over the perceived threat of compulsory redundancies and, as part of the joint statement that settled the dispute, the University agreed to develop a redundancy avoidance agreement that would be applied before invoking the organisational change procedure. The intent would be achieving required outcomes (cost saving, for example) with the aim of avoiding the need for compulsory redundancies. Over the summer, a working group of JSNCC members was convened to agree the principles and develop an agreement. This work has now concluded and the agreement is out for signature with all parties.

Voluntary Severance Scheme

The JSNCC discussed the results of the severance scheme that the University offered to staff in Grade 10 or above (later widened to include staff in Grade 9) in the summer, noting that the scheme had generated savings of over £1 million per year and saw 17 colleagues leaving from a number of divisions and departments across the university.

Workload and Wellbeing

This remains an area of great concern to the JSNCC and there was a vigorous discussion about a variety of factors affecting staff across the University. This included process changes, staff turnover, exit interviews, staff morale and burnout. The university will shortly be publishing the results of the workload and wellbeing survey completed earlier this year. As part of this strand, the JSNCC heard about work being undertaken to address the cost of living crisis faced by the country and some of the creative ways that the University could support staff facing difficulties. You can expect to hear more about this in the weeks ahead.