Course Rep Assembly Thursday 4th December 2014

Matt Sadlers, Vice-President for Education welcomed the Course Reps and introduced the theme of

‘Industrial Action’, decided on following the recent proposed Action Short of a Strike (A.S.O.S) that

was called off.

Matt handed over to Alan Sutherland, Chief Executive Officer of the Students Union to explain to

reps the background behind the dispute between the UCU Union and the University which had led

to the UCU deciding to take Action Short of a Strike (A.S.O.S).

As Alan explained, the dispute is really between UCU and Universities UK, which is the group that

represents Universities.

The current pension scheme for many staff at pre-1994 Universities is called USS. At the moment the

scheme has a deficit and Universities UK believe it is therefore not sustainable. They are proposing

that alternatives be considered but UCU members feel this will reduce their pension benefits so are

opposed to this change.

Matt opened the floor up for questions and Course Reps were also invited to submit questions by

text.

Q. Why should students care about pensions?

A. Students should care because the dispute affects them. A.S.O.S would have affected marking so

would have delayed some results - even with a contingency plan.

Matt explained that the Students Union Executive Committee had decided not to take a stance over

the dispute as they agreed to hear both sides of the argument. A debate had been arranged but was

cancelled when the A.S.O.S was called off.

Q. Are we just caring because students are affected? Can’t we morally object to e.g. University

deciding to with-hold 100% pay for staff who were participating in the A.S.O.S?

A. Yes, we can take a moral stance although USSU decided to gather opinion first. The University’s

decision to withhold pay could have ended one of 3 ways:

1) The University could have back-tracked and decided not to with-hold 100% pay

2) The amount of pay with-held could have been reduced

3) UCU could come back to the negotiating table

Number 3) has actually happened. It does not mean that there will not be action in the future.

Q. Did staff end up losing pay?

A. No – as detailed in the email sent to students by Dr David Ashton no-one has had any pay

withheld as there was no A.S.O.S

Q. Who was threatened with having their pay docked? There was an email that went round asking

which staff planned to participate in the action – would it be any member of staff who did not

respond to this email?

A. The University did not know how many staff would be participating as they do not know how

many staff are in the UCU. Union membership is private although members are usually advised that

they don’t have to declare themselves a member, but in regards to taking action they should say

they are if asked and only after the date of the start of the action period

Q. Can the Students Union abstain from having a stance?

A. Yes, but it will depend on what the students represented by the Union want however If the Union

were to abstain they will still be involved e.g. discussions of contingency plans.

Q. Does the University have a plan to minimise any impact on students?

A. Yes, the University had come up with a contingency plan e.g. if one module mark was missing

students in their final year would still be able to graduate on time, although not if more than one

module mark was missing. The Students Union was involved in discussions about the contingency

plan.

Q. What have the NUS said?

A. NUS have a stance that was agreed at National Conference and it is to support whatever the UCU

choose to do.

Q. What happens to our relationship with NUS if we take a different stance from them?

A. USSU’s job is to represent Surrey Students so if the students want we can take a different stance

from NUS. There is no impact to our relationship.

Q. Matt as an individual must have an opinion on the matter, so how can he really stay neutral?

A. Matt’s feels that his job is to represent the views of students. His priority is to make sure that

students have the best experience they can and that they get all the opportunities to get the best

degree they can. It’s not his job to present his own individual opinion on this matter.

Q. Don’t the University need to know who is in the Union in order to make a properly effective

contingency plan?

A. The University can’t know exactly who is involved without knowing how many members of staff

are in UCU and as previously discussed, Union membership is private. The University may already

know some members from regular meetings with the UCU. The contingency plan was based on as

many outcomes as could be predicted and ensuring there was a plan for each one of these, the

university can look at the numbers of staff who had previously taken action to predict the numbers

of people who may be involved this time. As some people did respond to the email to confirm they

will be taking action the university now has a better idea of the rough numbers if it were to happen

again.

Q. How are the University funding the increased employer contributions to the USS pension scheme

(these will go up from 16 to 18%, as explained in Alan’s presentation)?

A. The University has a long-term budget and over time more detail gets added to this. A lot of

income is set as fees for home students are set. Fees for international students are not set. Like any

organisation the University have to budget so they would need to e.g. make cuts if they needed to

find more money for a particular area.

Q. If A.S.O.S does actually happen won’t there be a back-log of marking?

A. The idea of the contingency plan was to re-allocate work so marking would still be done k. The

aim of this part of the plan was to prevent such a build-up from happening. There was a chance

however that the feedback given on some assessments would extend past the 3-4 week time limit to

accommodate for the extra work load.

Q. Does the fact that the Vice-Chancellor is President of Universities UK affect the University’s stance

towards the A.S.O.S?

A. The Vice-Chancellor, in his email to all students addressed this issue and explained why it does

not. All students should have received that email, if not contact Matt and he will forward it.

Q. If A.S.O.S were to happen can students retaliate by taking their own action in response e.g. not

turning up for lectures?

A. Students could do that but in Matt’s opinion it seems counter intuitive and could then impact on

their chances of achieving a degree.

Q. What does Matt think of the University’s decision to withhold 100% pay?

A. The contingency plan took up a lot of resource which could have been used elsewhere the

resource required to reduce pay by any percentage other than 100% is very high and this is time that

cannot be spent on something else. Matt has been told that a decision to withdraw labour can be

met with a strong response.

Rep comment – feel that students can’t support action that affects their studies but at the same

time they want to support staff – does not feel that students can therefore really take a view on the

situation.

Q. What could staff have done other than propose A.S.O.S?

A. A range of things e.g. A day’s strike rather than a long-term A.S.O.S would still have an impact but

would have a much lower chance of affecting students’ assessments.

Q. Why has the Students Union taken so long to have a meeting about the A.S.O.S?

A. The debate that had been due to take place was arranged to be as soon as possible after the

A.S.O.S was decided, it was only called off when the A.S.O.S was called off. It was decided that as the

Course Rep assembly had been arranged anyway it would make an interesting topic of discussion.

Rep comment – Alan’s presentation on its own would have been really useful for students to see.

Q. Why was this meeting only for Course Reps and not open to all?

A. This meeting had already been arranged for this date, it was felt that this would be an interesting

topic because of Course Reps’ representative role and in order to get the information out to the

other students. The Students Union can arrange a similar meeting to be open to other students.

Q. The Students Union web-site says that the Students Union is ‘the guardian angel for students at

Surrey’ – how does that work with not having opinion on the dispute between UCU and the

University?

A. The role of the sabbatical officers is to represent the views of students not give their own views.

Q. Is Matt not elected because students want and trust him to give an opinion?

A. Matt feels it is his role to empower students and help them have the best experience, not to have

his own opinion.

Rep comment – grateful that Matt is asking for opinions from the students he represents rather than

just giving his own opinion.

Matt asked for a show of hands – how many reps support the UCU, how many support the

University, how many would like to abstain from the question? Most reps put their hands up as

abstaining.

Q. How are the negotiations going and how likely is a strike (or A.S.O.S!)?

A. We have no idea because we are not part of the discussions. If no agreement is made there could

be action in the future and if that happens we will hold information events and debates as we had

planned to this time.

Further topics for discussion:

1. Personalised timetables - Were reps happy with these?

Individual reps said that yes, these had been useful.

2. Staff Student Liaison Committees – had people attended? How did these go

Individual reps said that yes, those they’d attended had gone well.

3. MEQs – Matt reminded the reps and their cohorts that these are very important and they

should fill them in.

4. Priority Library space for final years – should the University arrange this again this year?

Final year reps said yes please.

5. Postgraduate rep commented that the 5th floor area for Postgraduate students should only

be for Postgraduate students e.g. have special swipe card access. She knows students who

will not use the space because it is not kept for them and some students have even advised

their sponsors not to send students to Surrey in the future due to this issue.

Matt said that he is aware of this issue and has raised this with the Head of the Library. It is

acknowledged to be a problem and there may be a swipe card or similar solution.

Matt thanked the Course Reps for attending and the meeting was closed.