Unite to Defend Statute 18
• Say NO to UCL ripping up academic ‘tenure’ Statute
• Increased risk of restructuring + redundancy from fees and cuts:
Imperial, King’s, Queen Mary cut departments after axing
statutes
REDUNDANCY – what is at stake:
CURRENT PROCESS
MANAGEMENT PROPOSAL
UCL Council oversees redundancy
process from start to finish.
UCL Council decides to make
redundancies. Managers make all
subsequent decisions.
The process is difficult, costly and timeconsuming to carry out. The burden of proof is on
Council to show redundancies are necessary.
Deans and Heads of Department make
recommendations to Redundancy Committee –
not decisions to fire individuals.
Redundancy process is streamlined. Deans and
Heads of Department issue redundancy notices.
Redundancy in danger of being the weapon of
“first resort” – to balance department finances or
boost REF ratings.
Staff have additional rights not listed below.
Minimum legal procedure followed.
UCL Council decides to
reduce academic staff in a
Department/Faculty.
UCL Council decides to
reduce academic staff in a
Department/Faculty.
UCL Council sets up a
Redundancy Committee of 2
Council members, 2 members
of Academic Board and Chair.
Department/Faculty
Management carries out
redundancy consultation and
selection process with staff
(Organisational Change
Procedure).
Department/Faculty
Management carries out
redundancy consultation and
selection process with staff
(Organisational Change
Procedure).
Redundancy Committee
carries out Termination
meeting of selected staff.
Department/Faculty
Management carries out
Termination meeting.
UCL Council organises
separate Appeal (new
Redundancy Committee or
Council meeting).
Senior Management hears
Redundancy Appeal.
You’re fired!
You’re fired!
NOTE: Similar changes proposed to other dismissal procedures (discipline, capability, ill-health, etc).
UCU (ucu@ucl.ac.uk) represents academics, researchers and senior library, IT and administrative staff.
For more information see www.ucl.ac.uk/unions/UCU/campaigns/statute
Unite to Defend Statute 18
What is at stake?
UCL proposes to replace the ‘arduous’ Statute 18
procedure for dismissal of academic staff with the
Termination Procedure and other standard
procedures for capability and disciplinary. Last
year, UCL made over 400 teaching fellows and
research staff ‘redundant’ by using this procedure.
Crucially, redundancy is perceived by UCL
management to be a simple process to carry out for
many staff, but not (currently) for academic staff. If this
change goes through, academic staff will be much more
easily dismissed than at present. This will inevitably
damage UCL and its ethos of collegiality.
As a union we are acutely aware of the need to
defend staff against redundancies, whether actual or
threatened. Indeed we continually campaign against
redundancies, defend staff in redundancy situations and
negotiate improved procedures with UCL.
We have to say from hard-won practical
experience, that current standard procedures do not
prevent managers making staff redundant provided that
they comply with legal requirements to consult.
Employment tribunals typically permit employers to
make bad decisions, provided that they don’t break a
specific civil or criminal law and their solicitors can
argue that they believed that they acted reasonably.
Tribunals rarely insist on reinstatement – so once a staff
member has been dismissed the only argument
concerns compensation.
Consequently, “stringent and restrictive”
internal procedures, such as those currently
enshrined in Statute 18, remain the best defence
against the arbitrary use of management power.
If academic staff are subject to the UCL
Termination Procedure rather than the Statute 18
redundancy procedure, then there will be no
impediment to the redundancy of academic staff
becoming routine.
This is exactly what is happening at Queen Mary’s
University of London, where some departments are at
present seeking to dismiss as many as twenty academic
staff in one department to boost their REF rating.
Academic freedom - a dead letter?
If the current proposal is implemented, once Council
decides to reduce staff in a certain area, or a Head of
Department wishes to call for the dismissal of a staff
member on grounds of gross misconduct, there is no
mechanism for Council to carry out its
responsibility to protect academic freedom. The
procedures are compared side by side overleaf.
There is thus
• no procedure for Council to formally hear an
objection to any process on the grounds of
academic freedom,
• no requirement for Council or a delegated
Committee to review a proposal naming specific
individuals.
The most likely scenario where academic freedom
would be tested is when an academic is selected for
dismissal by a Dean or Head of Department who has an
academic dispute with that staff member. Departments
pride themselves in including practitioners of plural and
competing academic paradigms. UCL encourages
competition for grants, prizes and funding. The clear
danger is that academic differences become a
factor in selecting staff for redundancy.
For this reason alone we believe that UCL’s
proposal is not fit for purpose.
Are academic redundancies a realistic
threat?
To-date UCL has never set up a Redundancy
Committee for a permanent member of academic staff
and made them compulsorily redundant. Academic staff
are protected by the perception of political disrepute
that a redundancy process would entail.
However, UCL’s White Paper 2012 says that UCL
faces a very uncertain future due to changes in
University funding, increased problems with
recruitment of overseas students, and the global
economic crisis. The principal conclusion must be that
UCL wishes to make the process of making
academic redundancies easier.
If academic staff are dismissed, it will become
easier to shrink and close departments. Research staff
and research-related staff (such as administrators and
technical staff) will be undermined by research-active
academics (Principal Investigators) losing posts.
What should AB do?
At minimum, Academic Board must:
• Demand a separate AB meeting to review the
proposals in detail.
• Insist on an adequate consultation period
extending into the Autumn term.
UCU (ucu@ucl.ac.uk) represents academics, researchers and senior library, IT and administrative staff.
For more information see www.ucl.ac.uk/unions/UCU/campaigns/statute