In the case brought by Neil Davies and Ewan McGaughey the High Court has ruled that beneficiaries of a pension scheme can sue directors for breach of duty, but it did not give permission to go to trial.

Neil, Ewan, and many other believe that the judge’s decision was was based on a wrong reading of the law, and the wrong understanding of the law’s purpose. So, they are appealing.

The latest case updates and new stretch target for funding for the appeal can be found at https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-pensions-and-planet/

The USS trustees and managers have not acted in your interests and they are not going to. They act in their own interests, inflating costs and personal reward while cutting your pension benefits.

We need to take action. Please donate what you can to help finance the appeal.

Update:

Late motion L5 was carried at HESC on Thursday 2 June. It calls for UCU to publicly support the case and provide funding from the £35 million it holds the bank.

The legal claims are that the USS directors breached their statutory duties under the Companies Act 2006 – the nonsense valuation, the discriminatory impact of cuts, wasting member’s money, and failing to divest fossil fuels.

The appeal is necessary because even though it was established in the High Court that beneficiaries can sue for breach of directors’ duty, permission to proceed to trial was not granted. This was based on case law that the judge felt bound by, dating back to 1843. The team are confident that the judge made basic legal errors in putting up procedural hurdles that make enforcement of the statutory directors’ duties impossible.

The current estimate of cost for the appeal is an additional £350k (including covering USS costs), about one single member’s pension cut. Since the appeal was announced USS directors have already shifted their position, admitting that benefits could be restored or contributions reduced. So this case, and keeping the pressure up, matters.

In the meantime, please continue to donate what you can to help finance the appeal.

A recent report by the the USS pension trustee shows assets have soared to over £88bn substantially shrinking the deficit calculated by the 2020 valuation.

The report confirms that the level of contributions required to service the deficit has fallen to 0%. We have asked UUK to revoke the cuts but they say they need a mandate from employers to do so.

Some employers have already joined UCU in calling for a new valuation but so far not @HeriotWatt. As a result, from today members of staff are set to see significant reductions in their retirement income.

If vice-chancellors instead choose to rely on a flawed valuation, conducted in March 2020 whilst markets crashed due to Covid, and use it to slash employee benefits then questions must be asked about why they are ideologically committed to harming their staff, even when doing so harms the university’s own finances. Jo Grady, UCU general secretary

Why @HeriotWatt, we ask?

Please join our call for UUK employers to revoke the cuts by:

1. using our email tool to send a message to your vice chancellor urging them to instruct UUK to revoke their cuts or simply copy the letter text below and send it to principalsoffice@hw.ac.uk
2. sign our emergency petition to the chair of the JNC telling her to back a revocation and support UCU’s counter proposals.
3. Write to your MSPs, constituency and list. The Education, Children and Young People Committee (ECYP) of the Scottish Parliament has the power to call witnesses as part of a committee enquiry into the governance of Scotland’s Universities. Our Principals can be held to account over their claims that UCU pension proposals are unaffordable. Our colleagues at the University of Edinburgh have started a campaign. You can contact our local branch office for a flyer that explains more, and a sample letter template which you can use.

Letter text:

Dear Professor Richard Williams OBE

I am writing and requesting that you urge your representatives Universities UK (UUK) to revoke their cuts to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) in light of the recent USS financial monitoring report, and to instruct USS to implement UCU’s proposals as the most sensible short-term solution ahead of a new valuation.

The strong financial position of the scheme, as reflected in the new FMP, demonstrates that you and other USS institutions will be paying out huge sums of money to redress a deficit that does not exist. Growth in the scheme’s assets of £22bn, soaring from £66.5bn to £88.8bn, has outstripped growth of liabilities, meaning that required deficit recovery contributions now stand at 0%.

If the cuts to guaranteed retirement income in USS come into force on Friday and are not reversed, they will not only entrench deep inequalities in our sector but threaten its future by leading to a mass exodus of staff.

For many of us, a good pension was a saving grace in the face of constant decline in pay and working conditions. Sadly, I was therefore unsurprised that UCU’s recent survey showed 60% of staff planning to leave the sector in the next five years over these cuts to our pensions.

Neither you nor any other institution in USS should be wasting money on a non-existent deficit. By pushing for UCU’s proposals to be tabled and passed — as the best solution while the union and UUK work together to press for a sensible, moderately prudent valuation — you will be protecting the pension of me and my colleagues.

And in helping to stop the devastation of our pensions, you will be protecting the future of your institution and UK higher education more widely.

As a dedicated, hard-working employee, I am already profoundly dejected by the attacks on my pensions and pay. If UUK presses ahead with these cuts after they have been decisively shown to be completely unnecessary, it would be an unforgivable betrayal.

Please do everything in your power to urgently pressure UUK to change course.

Yours sincerely,