Academic staff in the School of Social Sciences (SoSS) will have received an email about proposed changes in the School of Social Sciences.

In this post we will summarise these proposals and share our concerns about what we anticipate to be a difficult and unsettling time.

What is happening?

On Monday 5 August 2024 all academic staff in SoSS received an email from the Executive Dean (ED) which outlined the University’s plan for ‘reshaping’ the school. The plan includes a voluntary redundancy (VR) scheme together with a range of alternative options ranging from temporary 2-year secondments to Dubai, where there are ongoing recruitment issues, to reducing working hours and unpaid career breaks. All designed to reduce local staff costs.

What are our concerns?

This is a major exercise and while cuts on this scale will be particularly damaging to a school which is still recovering from job losses in 2020 the effects are likely to be felt in other parts of the university too.

We have not been given answers as to why a key academic unit has been singled out again and whether the situation will escalate to compulsory redundancies if not resolved satisfactorily, and whether the current scheme will be escalated to other parts of the university.

Our local UCU representatives met with HR, the ED, and the Deputy ED of SoSS on 29 July for an ‘early consultation meeting’. The email which staff in SoSS subsequently received does not reflect the discussion held or the points of concern we raised. We are very disappointed that the University has pressed ahead with these plans without engaging in meaningful collective consultation, and despite the joint statement on the Scottish Fair Work Agenda which was signed by Heriot-Watt University and the three recognised unions: UCU, Unison, and Unite.

We have informed management their proposed plan is unwise and risks considerable harm to colleagues and the student experience. A critical concern is that the proposals have not been the subject of an Equality Impact Assessment. In 2020 it was women  close to retirement who bore the weight disproportionately. In addition the obvious equalities impacts of secondments to Dubai have not been considered.

Our position

We have made our position clear to the University.

• We will support any eligible¹ members who wish to know more about the voluntary redundancy (VR) scheme or any of the alternatives which have been suggested to ensure that they secure the best possible terms.
• We will not tolerate any attempts to persuade, pressure, or coerce. No-one should consider taking VR or changing their contracted hours or campus location unless they want to and without being fully informed of all their options and reaching a conclusion of their own choosing.
• The university should be meeting regularly with staff and the unions to consult meaningfully on the proposed changes.

1. The proposed VR scheme does not include Professional Services staff, G6, GTAs, or academic staff who are funded externally.

What happens next?

We will be writing to management to reiterate our concerns and to request further consultation meetings.

If you are invited to a meeting, or wish to arrange a meeting, with your line manager we strongly recommend that you be accompanied by a branch rep to ensure that policy and procedures are being followed correctly in relation to your individual circumstances. You have a statutory right to be accompanied by a union rep in any meeting at which redundancy is discussed. If a meeting not initially about redundancy turns to this subject you have the right to halt the meeting and ask for it to be reconvened with a rep present. For meetings about options other than redundancy there is no statutory right to be accompanied but it is recognised as ‘good practice’ to allow staff to be accompanied. Please contact the branch if need the support of a rep.

We will be organising an online SoSS members meeting shortly. Please check your inbox for details and try to attend if at all possible.

Meetings are usually for members but given the significance of the proposed changes non-members will be most welcome too. If you would like an invite please speak to a school rep, anyone who you know is a member, or contact the branch office at ucu@hw.ac.uk.

Update: The online SoSS members meeting will be on Friday 9 August at 1pm. Members have been sent an email with a Zoom link together with the Meeting ID and Passcode. Please attend only if you are in SoSS or a branch committee member.

Join UCU at https://www.ucu.org.uk/join