We’re writing with an update regarding our previous email about our survey on pay deferral. We had stated that members noted that a closure day was taken away from Easter allowance. We discussed this with the University Secretary during the previous Joint University UCU Committee (JUUC) meeting. We were advised that members were mistaken and the University Secretary subsequently emailed this information:
The six days are spread across the Christmas and Easter periods. In each year they are either split four and two, or five and one. This is often driven by the day of the week that Christmas Day falls.
So in this academic year, five closure days were allocated to the Christmas period (set before the additional two were granted). These covered Monday 23rd, Tuesday 24th, Friday 27th, Monday 30th and Tuesday 31st December. Had we selected only four at Christmas, the University would either have been open Monday 23rd (and it seems unhelpful to be open only on the Monday of Christmas week), or Tuesday 31st, meaning reopening on that day, but immediately followed by statutory closure on Wednesday 1st January.
However, on a now 404 missing page on the university website system we had previously seen the below, indicating that there had been a change in closure days.
The University is also normally closed on 6 Closure Days, which is 4 days around Christmas and 2 days around Easter for 2024/25 and 5 days around Christmas, 1 day before Good Friday for 2025/26.
If members still finding this an issue of concern should let us know, so that we can pass this on to the University Secretary.