In this Bulletin

There Are No School Workload Models
Incorrect Job Descriptions
TPS Update
Academic Boycott of Sheffield University
Summer Casework Availability

There Are No School Workload Models

The university has official university-wide Academic Workload Guidance (AWG), agreed with UCU, but no official school-specific workload guidance. For any school-specific workload guidance to be official, it must be agreed with UCU, and none so far has been. Some school managements have issued school-specific workload guidance that, in breach of university policy, has not been agreed with UCU. University Management have now agreed with UCU that such school-specific workload guidance documents will not be accorded any authority until they have been revised and agreed with UCU. In the meantime, line managers can still refer to their document for their own purposes but they can’t cite it as an authoritative guiding document.

If you’re in one of the schools affected by this breach of workload policy and you have been compelled to accept a 2026–27 workload plan on the basis of the spurious authority of a school-specific workload guidance document, then it’s likely that your workload plan will need to be revised to remedy the detriment to you. Early in the next academic year UCU can work with you individually to get the necessary rectifications made to the workload plan; we will also try to have Management proactively make the necessary rectifications, but this is always going to be less reliable than you proactively taking responsibility for your own workload plan. Until UCU have had the opportunity to review the school-specific guidance in detail, we won’t know what rectifications are necessary. Anything that ignored or overrode any element of AWG will require rectification; but so will other extraordinary abuses instigated by school managements, such as Nursing & Midwifery’s attempt to include Mandatory Training within the standard allowance for SMRSA (Self-Managed Research & Scholarly Activity)!

UCU often find that members, and their line managers, are keen for there to be official hours-allocation tariffs for common types of duty. This is because it’s much easier to decide on an hours-allocation by plucking it from a tariff list than by calculating it from first principles. But because of the variability across academic disciplines, current university workload policy is to not have official tariffs. Nevertheless, at school level there can be tariff-like default allocations, such that for a given task in your workload plan the default hours-allocation for tasks of that type is given unless, for this particular task, someone (probably your line manager) argues that the default is too large for it or someone (probably you) argues that the default is too small for it. The allocation must be sufficient for the task to be done to at least a minimum acceptable standard; but operational constraints (such as staffing shortage or economic affordability) might necessitate allocating amounts less than what would be necessary to do the task to an optimum standard. A type of workload abuse common across the university is that line managers use default hours-allocations (which is okay) but present them as non-negotiable (which isn’t okay). The line manager should proactively acknowledge their negotiability, but nevertheless the onus is on you to proactively negotiate them when necessary.

Some academic staff negotiate their workload plan in the first instance not with their line manager but rather with a Delegated Appraiser (who acts under the instructions of the line manager, who is the primary appraiser and is responsible for the appraisal). The key principle of delegated appraisal is that whatever you and the Delegated Appraiser agree on is deemed to be agreed with your line manager, but any matter that you and the Delegated Appraiser can’t agree on requires direct discussion between you and your line manager. So if there’s some matter that you can’t agree with your Delegated Appraiser, the next step is to try to agree it with your line manager; and if you can’t agree it with your line manager at first, you can call on UCU to intervene to help reach an agreement.

Incorrect Job Descriptions

Incorrect generic job descriptions for Assistant Lecturer, Lecturer and Senior Lecturer have been published on the intranet by Management and emailed to all staff recently appointed to these roles (including all the SLs recently progressed from L). These will be replaced by correct versions that have been agreed with UCU. When these new versions are available, they will be published on the intranet and notification of this will be sent to staff in those roles.

TPS Update

As you will recall from the last Bulletin (and the May Open Members Meeting if you were there), Management had initiated discussion with UCU over whether to close TPS to new academic staff, as a way of reducing costs. One suggestion was that this could happen this summer, before the new academic year. Subsequently, as you may have seen reported in the THES, universities have been informed by TPS fund managers that they are expecting to be able to make a substantial cut to the employer contribution rate this summer. We are therefore pleased to say that Management have confirmed there will be no immediate change to TPS provision. We hope the new rate will reduce costs enough for Management to abandon their plans, but once we know exactly what the new rate will be, discussions will resume in the new academic year.

Academic Boycott of Sheffield University

If you read the Friday Emails from HQ you will know that all UCU members are being instructed to undertake an academic boycott of Sheffield University, which includes refusing to do any of the following:

• speaking at or organising academic or other conferences at the University of Sheffield
• giving lectures at the University of Sheffield
• accepting positions as visiting professors or researchers at the University of Sheffield
• accepting new contracts as external examiners for taught courses at the University of Sheffield
• accept any honorary degrees/doctorates from the University of Sheffield.

Summer Casework Availability

During the summer break, UCU is not collectively available for negotiations with management, but we will still be offering individual support to members in need. Just write to ucu@lancashire.ac.uk or complete the online form in the normal way, but please be patient as there will be fewer caseworkers on duty. We will endeavour to reply to everyone within five working days.

Have a good summer!

Lancashire UCU Branch Committee