In this Bulletin:
Reminder – Open Member Meeting Next Week
Learning Support Hours
New & Ongoing Local Disputes:
- Security of Employment
- L-SL Progression
- Recording of Teaching
- Grade G Teaching Roles
- Block Teaching & Sprints
New Lanyard Policy
Please Check Your Details & Update Your Email Address
Reminder – Open Member Meeting Next Week
The first Open Member Meeting of the year will take place next Wednesday, 10 September, at 1.00-2.00pm. For logistical reasons, this one will be on Teams only. Please check your email for the link.
These are informal, no-agenda meetings for members to bring any concerns or ideas to the Branch Committee. Come and tell us what is happening in your schools/services.
Learning Support Hours
Learning support hours should be undertaken if and only if they are itemized in your workload plan. This is in accordance with the university’s new Learning Support Hours policy, which has been negotiated with UCU but the University’s Academic Workload Guidance has not yet been updated to reflect the change.
New & Ongoing Local Disputes:
UCU are about to declare three new local collective disputes to go alongside two ongoing local collective disputes. These disputes are as follows.
1. Security of Employment (New)
UCU demands:
- Academic teams and UCU must be fully involved in decision making about potential course/subject closures.
- Emergency cost saving measures must ensure UCU members have livelihood-preserving options.
We are hopeful of securing binding agreements that achieve these demands. The dispute is not because any impasse has been reached but because the issue is urgent and may require escalation if not resolved swiftly.
2. L-SL Progression (New)
UCU demands:
- L–SL progression must be unsuspended and backdated to 1 September 2025.
- Any future Management proposals for reducing costs by suspending L–SL progression must be accompanied by alternative cost-reduction proposals and negotiated with UCU.
3. Recording of Teaching (New)
UCU demand:
Any Recording of Teaching policy must be negotiated, not merely consulted upon, with UCU.
Management have published online an alleged ‘Recording of Teaching’ policy that impudently & disingenuously is labelled ‘consulted with UCU’, without acknowledging that it has not been negotiated with UCU, and UCU strongly oppose the policy as it stands. For UCU, the main issues are:
- Management’s failure to negotiate.
- Duties for academic staff must be determined by what is itemized on their workload plans, not by documents that Managers happen to publish on the Intranet. Workload plans must be informed by the University’s Academic Workload Guidance, and UCU are open to negotiating updates to the Academic Workload Guidance in the light of new properly negotiated policies.
- Academics must have the right to separate a performance for live audience from a performance for recording.
- Ultimate responsibility for ensuring intellectual property law is followed rests with Management. So does ultimate responsibility for ensuring the various deadlines are met. Academic staff cooperate with Management, but Management cannot offload their proper responsibilities onto academic staff.
- The gratuitous mention of potential disciplinary ramifications for noncompliance is merely intended to bully and intimidate. A so-called ‘policy’ in which Managers seek to manage through bullying and intimidation of academic staff has no place in a university.
4. Grade G Teaching Roles (Ongoing)
The crux of this very long-running dispute concerns the conditions under which academics in Grade G teaching roles may be denied progression to Grade H. After many years of Management inaction, we managed to make some headway late last academic year, and we hope to bring it to a conclusion this academic year. (If this issue affects you, we encourage you to write to us about it.)
5. Block Teaching & Sprints (Ongoing)
As you will know from previous Bulletins, UCU have lodged a formal Resolution Request over the failure of management to consult course teams over whether block delivery is right for their courses, and we have had several meetings as a result. These discussions resumed this week, following the summer hiatus, and management appear to be making significant concessions. Firstly, they say they have made the process of opting out easier: courses will still all be expected to move to a 30-credit structure, but teams should be able to choose the “short fat” model (seven-week blocks, running sequentially) or the “long thin” model (fourteen-week blocks, running two at a time), through a fairly straightforward approval process. This has already happened for many courses, including all of Humanities. Secondly, they say that the Sprint process to develop the new courses is also optional: teams can choose to follow the normal course review process and timetable if they prefer.
Our discussions with management have not concluded, and we are still far from persuaded that the move to block is a good idea, but it is beginning to look as if those teams who feel railroaded into block and/or sprints should complain to their local managers. UCU will be happy to support any teams that wish to do this. We will update further after our next meeting with management.
Thank you to all the members who completed our survey about attitudes to block teaching & the sprints, and thank you especially to the members who came to the meeting with management this week. UCU’s response to management’s proposals (including details of the survey results, interviews with staff from other universities, and an analysis of the relevant literature) can be seen on our website here: https://lancashire.web.ucu.org.uk/2025/09/04/ucu-response-to-block-teaching-proposal/
New Lanyard Policy
We are aware that many members are upset by management’s recent announcement that blue lanyards are mandatory and rainbow lanyards will no longer be provided. We would like to assure members that UCU was not consulted or even informed about this policy. We encourage you to contact the Branch Committee if you would like further support on this issue.
Please Check Your Details & Update Your Email Address
Following the university name change, we need every member to log in to MyUCU (www.ucu.org.uk/myucu) and update your email details as soon as your new “Lancashire” address goes live. While you are in MyUCU, please also check that the details in the “Employment” tab are correct, particularly the name of your school/service and the building you are primarily based in. If your particular school/building combo is not in the drop-down list, please email membership secretary Cath Sullivan (csullivan@uclan.ac.uk) so it can be added.
UCU Lancashire Branch Committee
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