Friday 6th March HEC Report

This is a summary of key discussions from the Higher Education Committee (HEC) held on March 6th 2026. You can also view the official draft minutes on the UCU Website.

New Branch

HEC unanimously approved the creation of a new branch, BiMM Bristol UCU, following their successful recognition ballot.

USS Update

HEC were updated about ongoing discussions with USS and UCEA about the pension scheme including proposals for the valuation methodology including discussion of Conditional Indexation. There was a lot of discussion, in which members of the committee emphasised the need to keep our members informed and whether a conference might be necessary to fully engage members.

Teaching-only contracts

UCU Commons’ own Matilda Fitzmaurice presented a paper considering the challenges faced by those on teaching-only contracts and their intersection with casualised, fixed-term contracts. Matilda’s presentation drew out the injustice of failing to support career progression for what are typically positioned as junior posts, meaning that those who do wish to also develop research struggle to do so. She also made practical suggestions on data gathering and potential solutions, such as better workforce planning by our employers (since if teaching-only posts are always needed, there is no reason they should also be fixed-term) and career development fellowships. The full paper was published on our website ahead of the meeting and can be read here.

The paper was received positively from across the spectrum of HEC members. Responses raised specific examples from around the sector. One member highlighted that this is still important for post-1992 universities, even though research is perceived to be deprioritised in many of those institutions, and another emphasised that teaching-only contracts are ‘not bad’, but must be fair and supported. In terms of Commoners, Vivek Thuppil highlighted that teaching-only contracts and pathways are often deprioritised, in spite of claims by employers that they ought to be considered equal, with teaching-only posts being more targeted for redundancies than teaching-and-research posts. Matthew Barnard suggested that work be done to capture the experiences of those involved in hiring panels, who are often pressured to prioritise research portfolios in selecting candidates for teaching-only roles, which is detrimental to those with teaching-focused careers. Bijan Parsia asked if data could be gathered on perceived esteem of teaching vs research. Ben Pope pointed to the overlap with FE practices in terms of term-time-only contracts and the shared interests with permanent staff to improve conditions for these workers.

This discussion fed into a motion to the Higher Education Sector Congress (HESC) to undertake the data collection suggested in the paper. This motion carried, and HESC will be able to vote on it in May.

Secretary of State Dispute Exploration

HEC continued discussion of the congress proposal to open a dispute with the Secretary of State for Education (SoS). The essential question debated was between two subtly different proposals for how to proceed. Both proposals wished for the next stage to found a working group that would offer briefings to ordinary members. The differences concerned the makeup of that working group. The original proposal, in the name of President-Elect Dyfrig Jones, had a more open selection process for the working group, whereas a motion proposed by Grant Buttars specified the working group consist of HE Officers, the Head of HE and the representatives of devolved nations. The latter point was a point of contention since legal advice indicates that an SoS Dispute would only be able to apply to England due to it concerning devolved matters (not that this means it would have no impact outside England). After long discussion, the motion passed.

Motions

In addition to the two motions above, the following motions were tabled and discussed. All motions passed.

• A motion proposed by Ariane Bogain, seconded by Andrew Feeney, to recognise the ongoing dispute over pay and pension injustice in Northumbria University as having ‘significant national implications’ and endorse a rally. The rally was covered in our Newsletter #14.
• A motion calling for continued action over TPS pensions and those institutions seeking to undermine it, proposed by Chris Pritchard.
• A motion calling for the ‘condemnation’ of Bridget Phillipson, the Secretary of State for Education. The actions called for were networking meetings, an open letter, a workshop and a rally against the Higher Education White Paper. This was proposed by Matt Perry.
• A proposal to declare the ongoing dispute at London Met over redundancies, academic provision, research capacity and student support a dispute of national significance.
• A late motion from Mark Pendleton, seconded by Bijan Parsia, noting the aggressive tactics of the University of Sheffield, including withholding pay due to ASOS. The motion asked to pave the way for further support to the branch and the possibility of an official censure and academic boycott of the University.