In this Bulletin:

Branch General Meeting – Reminder
Becoming a UCU Branch Officer
Recording of Teaching: Still 100% Optional
Appraisal Form: Do Not Use

Branch General Meeting – Reminder

The first Branch General Meeting of the new academic year will be held via Teams on 14 October, 1.30-3.00.

Agenda Items: TBC. Do let us know if there is anything you would like to put on the agenda.

Members for whom we have a Lancashire email address have been sent a calendar appointment. Others please join via the link we have emailed.

Remember that BGMs and AGMs are official union meetings and you are legally entitled to time off to attend them. Senior mgmt have promised that no teaching sessions or other staff meetings will be scheduled to clash, but some managers do seem to forget this, so please let us know if you encounter any difficulties.

Might you be interested in becoming a UCU branch officer?

To ensure continuity and a healthy future for the branch, we are looking to recruit new branch officers who expect to remain at the university for a good few years. The role initially involves being a caseworker and can be expanded from that if wished. Training and mentoring are provided; nobody gets thrown in at the deep end, and every branch officer is supported by all the others. The time commitment required is included in your workload plan and the university will make any necessary logistical adjustments to your timetable and working pattern. Ideally you’d undertake initial training in 2026–27 and join Branch Committee for 2027–28, building up to a full role from 2028–29; but timescales quicker or slower than that are also feasible. If you’re at all interested, write to us (ucu@lancashire.ac.uk), and a fuller discussion can follow.

Writing to us to express interest puts you under no commitment. You won’t get pressured, arm-twisted or emotionally blackmailed. But we do need to be developing the next generation of branch officers, though: many of the current branch officers’ time at the university is drawing to an end over the coming years, and the benefit of their cumulative many decades of experience will be lost to the branch if there are no successors alongside them to whom the fruits of this experience can be passed.

Recording of Teaching: Still 100% optional

It remains the case that there is an agreement between UCU and Management that nobody will be compelled to comply with the current interim Recording of Teaching policy. This is because the eventual valid policy must be agreed with UCU and the current interim policy has not been agreed with UCU and in fact is opposed by UCU. If your line manager violates this agreement and pressures you to comply with the Recording of Teaching policy, contact UCU for support.

Appraisal Form: Do not allow its use

UCU encourage you not to use the current Academic Appraisal Form and to insist that your appraisal disregard the contents of the Form. It remains the case that there is an agreement between UCU and Management that nobody will be compelled to have the appraisal form (or any of the bogus information within it) play any sort of role in their appraisal. This is because Management unilaterally binned the appraisal form that had carefully been negotiated with UCU and replaced it with one that for numerous reasons UCU strongly object to. If your line manager violates this agreement and tries to insist on making use of the appraisal form or its contents in your appraisal, contact UCU for support. (If your Delegated Appraiser tries to insist on making use of the appraisal form or its contents in your appraisal, adjourn the appraisal until it can be convened with your line manager, who is your appraiser proper.)

Lancashire UCU Branch Committee