ULA News

Colleagues

The University has announced 100 potential redundancies over the next two years.

The University has begun the process of making up to 11 academic staff redundant within the School of Arts & Creative Industries (SACI). The EIS has grave concerns at the way in which that process is being carried out as:

• Recruitment for some SACI courses was stopped at Easter 2010 without any discussion with staff delivering the courses, leading to a deferred closure of these courses.

• Direct entry has also been prohibited to the courses identified for closure, without any discussion or rationale offered.

• There has been no discussion or consultation around the criteria used to identify the courses for closure.

• The University has proposed making redundant the lecturers who teach on courses identified for closure which had their student recruitment halted in Easter 2010.

• The University has not consulted on ways of identifying academic staff within courses identified for closure for redundancy.

• The University has stated that it wishes to change the teaching with SACI to "embed” theoretical aspects of courses within the practical lectures, and therefore it has identified staff who teach the theoretical aspects of courses as those at risk of redundancy.

• The University has stated that there are financial and pedagogic grounds for the decision to target academic staff who teach theory on the SACI course identified for closure.

However no debate or consultation has ever taken place with academic staff regarding pedagogy within SACI, and financial information has not been shared with the EIS regarding these potential redundancies.

The EIS notes the frustrations of many members with the increasing numbers of managers within SACI who are protected from any potential redundancies.

The EIS has further concerns about the perceived role of the Executive Directors of Quality Assurance who seem to be able to sign off course changes without referral to the appropriate committee.

The EIS has further concerns regarding the role of managers within SACI in deciding course changes and consequential redundancies.

The EIS has further concerns at the lack of meaningful consultation around the proposed redundancies in SACI. The EIS fears that the
University, by halting student recruitment for some courses, has a predetermined plan for redundancies that consultation cannot not mitigate or prevent.

The EIS is gravely concerned that the Universityis trialling a method of dealing with redundancies within SACI that it may roll out across the rest of the university. SACI may be the first of many Schools to
make staff redundant relying on arbitrary decisions and rationale.

The University’s approach of closing courses without consultation and then informing staff a few months later that they are at risk of redundancy is totally unacceptable as well as poor management practice.

The EIS is clear that the University has not discussed proposals for the 100 potential redundancies across the university with the EIS prior to Acting Principal Easy’s announcement to staff on 25 June 2010.

The EIS has only been party to discussions regarding the situation at SACI at the ‘Avoidance of Redundancies Committee (ARC)’. At the end of the last ARC meeting (on 24 June 2010), when all the items on the agenda had been covered, the University gave the EIS a sealed letter stating that this was the formal notice of consultation.

The meeting then closed without any attempt by the  university to discuss the contentsof the letter. As the meeting had only covered the SACI redundancies, it therefore came as a complete shock to the EIS that the letter (when opened after the end of the meeting)
gave notice of the 100 potential redundancies across the university.

The EIS has lodged a collective grievance with the University over the consultation process and the University’s actions.

David Belsey, EIS full time official, who attended a SACI staff meeting last week for EIS members said

 "The Universities actions in arbitrarily halting
 recruitment of some programmes at Easter this year
 and the targeting of lecturers who teach theoretical
 aspects of their programmes, makes the consultation
 that the university is carrying out meaningless.
 
 "EIS members across Edinburgh Napier University need
 to support each other now and act decisively to
 ensure that the University simply does not enact a
 series of compulsory redundancies, a School at a
 time, using some arbitrary criteria that it has never
 consulted on nor discussed with its staff.

 "The EIS will do all it can to support the EIS Branch at
 Edinburgh Napier University to fight any compulsory
 redundancies.”