Dear Professor Williams,

You will have seen that the University and College Union (UCU) issued a set of new proposals for the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) on 26 January 2022 which are aimed at averting widespread industrial action across UK campuses in February and beyond.

These new proposals would see retirement benefits protected in return for a small increase in contributions for both members and employers ahead of a new evidence-based valuation of the scheme.

A USS consultation of scheme members concluded on 17 January 2022, and UCU understands that a significant majority preferred increasing contributions of members and employers in order to protect benefits over the alternatives, including benefit cuts.

Retaining members’ benefits until April 2023 would result in a saving of £240,000 for HWU over the current and coming financial year compared to the increases that were scheduled for Oct’ 21 that employers committed to as part of the 2018 valuation. In addition, staff would be protected from having their pensions eroded by high inflation.

This request for a new valuation is bolstered by the announcement that USS assets have jumped to over £92bn, more than £25bn higher than the previous valuation.

Given this and the above consultation, which we assume was undertaken in good faith, then we would expect HWU to consider the UCU proposal very seriously.
UCU’s proposals are as follows:

• that UUK call on USS to issue a moderately prudent, evidence-based valuation of the financial health of the scheme as at 31 March 2022, to be issued for consultation in June (at the latest)
• that employers agree to provide the same level of covenant support as for their own proposals to facilitate a cost-sharing of current benefits throughout the 2022/23 scheme year, starting 1 April 2022 at 11% member/23.7% employer until 1 October 2022, and 11.8%/25.2% thereafter
• that employers agree to pay a maximum of 25.2% and members a maximum of 9.8% from 1 April 2023 to secure current benefits or, if not possible, the best achievable as a result of the call on USS to issue a moderately prudent, evidence-based valuation.

We are writing to ask you to support UCU’s proposals instead of UUK’s plan. Under UUK’s plan university staff would see an approximate 35% cut to their guaranteed retirement income based on a flawed USS valuation conducted in March 2020.

We would appreciate a response from you before Friday 11 February.

We believe this represents the best and fairest means to avoid disruptive strikes, as well as ongoing action short of strike action, by staff determined to defend their pensions for the third time in just four years.

Yours sincerely

The undersigned

This letter has been signed by 119 members of staff at Heriot-Watt University. The names have been omitted for brevity in this news article but a full copy can be supplied on request.