I am writing to get an understanding from you of the issues staff are facing across the university. We are receiving some worrying reports regarding the treatment of our colleagues. Members are reporting issues with flexible working and office access, as well as cultural and managerial issues around bullying, lack of regard for staff expertise, changes to work without consultation or even explanation; and repeated and persistent failures with respect to implementing Occupational Health recommendations. 

The issues we are hearing from members include:

• excessive use of bought-in expertise, systems and expensive consultants causing increases to fixed costs and recurring costs, at a time when there are constraints being imposed on costs.

• experienced staff being discouraged from asking questions and being subjected to arrogant treatment resulting in poor managerial decision-making and adverse long-term consequences for students and staff

• fear arising from news of a possible restructure and whispers / expectations of a “shake-up”, despite no notification to the recognised trade union in this regard. Here, we wish to remind members of the recent Employment Rights Act changes that further increase the protective award when employers fail to engage in meaningful consultation. Please do not hesitate to document any such concerns, and to raise them with Ellen (ellen.ucu@proton.me ), Deepa (deepadriver@protonmail.com ) and Colette (cmaxfield@ucu.org.uk ). Please do include your UCU membership number in your email so we can locate your details more easily. We encourage members to use a non-university email address to communicate such matters.

• colleagues being given inconsistent information and members feeling like some managers are essentially “making stuff up” when responding to staff queries resulting in differential treatment and concerns about unfairness.

To unpack this further, we have a few questions for you. The queries below are not intended as a detailed survey, but our aim is to understand your bigger picture concerns a bit better, and we will then look more closely at targeted areas or topics in a systematic and detailed manner. As the questions below do not form an exhaustive list, please feel free to add further information as you see fit.

Please do not feel you have to include any specific identifying details but it would be useful to us to know which directorate/function or department/ Division you work in.

• ⁠Do you feel your expertise and experience are valued and effectively used by your line manager?

• Do you feel your team’s expertise and experience is valued and effectively used by university senior management?

• Does your manager adequately include you / your colleagues in key decisions that affect your day-to-day work?

• Do you believe university senior management adequately includes you / your colleagues / your UCU reps in key decisions that will affect your day-to-day work?

• Is your area appropriately staffed and do you have adequate resources to do your job?

• Are you experiencing unreasonable levels of stress in your day to day work?

• ⁠⁠Is workplace stress adversely affecting your physical and/or mental health?Is this a more generalised picture of sentiments or concerns in your department, division, function or directorate?

• How do you feel about your future at the university?

• If you had a ‘carte blanche’, what reasonable steps would you ask local management or university senior management to take to improve your working conditions, or that of your team.

Please respond by email with your thoughts to Ellen (ellen.ucu@proton.me ), Deepa (deepadriver@protonmail.com ) and Colette (cmaxfield@ucu.org.uk ). Please copy all three of us, to ensure your email is picked up during leave or non-working days.

We will also arrange an online drop-in for members wishing to discuss such matters.

Now, onto some of the ongoing matters we are working on (for brevity, this is not an exhaustive list) –

• We are still awaiting a confidential report re: the outsourced internal auditors’ review around matters such as the financial challenges. This prolonged delay is something we want members to note for discussion at the next branch meeting. Of course, alongside the substantive issues within the report itself which cannot be discussed yet with members for reasons of confidentiality,are the issues of lack of access preventing us from being able to meaningfully represent member interests. We will continue to press for this report to be made available to us, as we know how these financial issues have a huge bearing on restructuring, resource allocations and redundancies.

• Our next discussion with the Chief Financial Officer is on 10th September. Members and reps who wish to share questions with us based on information gleaned through other sources including Council papers (see below instructions on how to access these – all staff should request access), should please let us know sooner rather than later, so that we can get meaningful answers at the meeting.

• We will meet with the HR Director for a discussion about Academic Probation allied to discussions on progression etc

• We will also meet with the HR Director regarding proposed changes to the professional services staff contract. The senior management position is that the changes they are proposing are intended to make the PS contract consistent with the academic contract. We are yet to finish our own independent reviews and will only enter into negotiations once we are satisfied that we understand the implications of various changes(members can expect to hear more from late October onwards). We remain committed to member-led democracy in our branch. After negotiations, any changes will be shared with members for consideration, before we agree anything.

Best wishes

Deepa

(Branch President, Reading UCU)

Additional Information :

How to access Council and Senate papers and understand the student recruitment position at the University

 If you haven’t already requested access we encourage all members to request access to and regularly scrutinise these papers so we have a good understanding as a branch of senior management plans. The process is linked on this page: Governance zone – policies at the University of Reading under ‘Availability of Council and Senate papers’.

The agenda and supporting papers are available for consultation by any member of staff, with the exception of reserved business and any items that are deemed confidential. The agenda and papers are published online via a portal prior to each Council and Senate meeting. Please email governance@reading.ac.uk if you would like to receive access to these papers.

University Planning and Strategy Office (PSO) – Access to data

The University Planning and Strategy Office (PSO) have made available a new data dashboard hub to all staff. It includes dashboards and reports covering Student admissions and enrolment; Course performance and progression; Research activity; and Diversity and inclusion data. If you don’t yet have access, you can request it  by emailing planningandstrategy@reading.ac.uk.

The PSO Planning & Reporting team will also be giving a series of brief, in-person presentations across their data.

The sessions will be running on Wednesday 16 September and Thursday 17 September from 12-2pm.  Each session will include a brief 10-15 minute presentation followed by a Q&A or you can nip out before the Q&A to catch another presentation! Registration will be required for presentations but there will also be a drop-in clinic available without booking.Please visit the PSO Data Shares Event page for the schedule and to register for sessions. Email planningandstrategy@reading.ac.uk if you have any questions