Report from HEC, Friday 10th October 2025
Key takeaways
– Two excellent discussion papers addressing sectoral concerns presented rare opportunities for HEC to engage with what to do about the HE crisis beyond industrial action. These covered union victories in Australian higher education and joining up lobbying efforts in the UK.
– The committee voted to remit discussion of the proposal for an industrial dispute with the Secretary of State to the next HEC, so this avenue is still being explored.
Introduction
This was the second calendared HEC meeting of the union year (not counting the Special HEC held on 1st September to discuss the results of the consultative ballot on national industrial action). The opening of the UK-wide ballot on 20th October set the agenda for much of our discussion. This was also the first meeting since the casual vacancy election over the summer, so the two newly elected members – including Commons’ very own Matt Barnard – were both present.
Overall, this was generally quite a good meeting, the chair was firm and vexatious challenges to the order of the agenda were not taken. However, there was unpleasant behaviour towards two HEC members who had submitted discussion papers for the meeting. All business on the agenda was completed in the time available.
Opening of meeting
No sooner than the meeting had begun, a member of UCU Left challenged the Chair on the order of the agenda, requesting that the motions, which were the last item on the agenda, be moved up. The Chair declined to allow this challenge, on the basis that the ordering of the agenda is the decision not of the Chair alone, but of the Chair and the HE Committee Secretary, and that last-minute changes to the order of the meeting represent an accessibility problem for some committee members. The latter is an established principle adhered to by UCU and the HEC. We were pleased to see the Chair stand firm on this, despite accusations of being ‘fundamentally undemocratic’.
HE Committee Secretary’s Report
The UK-wide ballot on pay and related issues was the most prominent topic in this report. The ballot opened on 20th October and will close on 28th November, with a programme of campaign initiatives in the lead-up to the ballot launch.
As noted in our last report, other HE unions are also balloting for industrial action. Unite, UNISON and EIS have adjusted their ballot timetables to coordinate with that of UCU. Given the rules about ballot timelines, the four unions have agreed that action will take place from January 2026 rather than November as previously planned. GMB did not reach 50% turnout in their consultative ballot in enough of their regions, so they will not be proceeding to ballot.
UCEA has refused to sign up to jointly lobbying the government on funding, unless UCU agrees not to use this as part of any dispute with the Secretary of State (see below). The other unions have suggested undertaking this joint lobbying without UCEA.
There were reports on local disputes over proposed cuts and redundancies continuing apace. Dundee UCU and UCU Edinburgh are both in the process of re-balloting to extend their mandates, while Nottingham UCU have been on strike and UWS UCU and Sheffield Hallam UCU have both returned successful IA ballot results. Lancaster UCU and University of the Highlands and Islands UCU are both currently balloting for IA (in the time between this meeting and the publication of this report, Lancaster UCU and UCU Edinburgh achieved successful ballot results). Imperial College UCU is in a local dispute over pay and conditions (Imperial is outside of national bargaining with UCEA).
As in the previous HEC, questions were raised on the potential of the UK-wide ballot to divert attention and resources away from local ballots. The Committee Secretary’s report stressed that this is not the intention, which is for the scaling up of these disputes to make the attacks on jobs and conditions a UK-wide issue, reflecting a view that this is not a fight that can be conducted branch by branch. There were questions about forums for branches managing both local and national action to facilitate communication between these branches. There will be more discussion between HEC meetings of what an ‘emergency package’ on protecting jobs will involve.
There was some discussion around what happens after the national ballot closes, and how members will be consulted on any specific plans for industrial action. The default position in current policy is to hold a branch delegate meeting (BDM) before a special meeting of HEC. Nothing further was decided, although there are signs that UCU Left is now not interested in BDMs, which it has favoured in the past for such consultations. Watch this space!
On new branches and changes to existing ones, since the signing of a recognition agreement between INTO Newcastle University LLP (a separate employer to Newcastle University) and UCU, a new branch has been proposed for INTO Newcastle members. HEC was asked to support the formation of this new branch, which it did overwhelmingly (36 votes for, none against and two abstentions). A proposed merger between two branches at London Metropolitan University (London Met North UCU and London Met City UCU) was supported by both these branches. HEC voted unanimously to approve the merger (38 votes in favour, none against, no abstentions).
Reports from Devolved Nations
Unsurprisingly, these reports presented a gloomy picture, including far-right political activity, with fears of a Reform government in Cardiff following the 2026 Senedd elections in Wales, and far-right mobilisation in Glasgow, thankfully responded to with an enormous anti-far right demonstration. In Northern Ireland, spending on tertiary education remains disturbingly low, despite a rise in the number of young people in the age cohort. In Scotland, a Tertiary Education and Training Bill is proceeding through the Scottish Parliament, which has the potential to address university governance issues. The Royal Society of Edinburgh recently held a conference on possible funding models for Higher Education. The UK government’s proposal for a 6% international student levy will not be implemented in Wales or Scotland.
Dispute with the Secretary of State
As noted in our report on the last HEC, full discussion of the proposal for an industrial dispute with the SoS for Education did not take place, and was included in the HEC Secretary’s report. This proposal was originally brought by members, and a motion to pursue it passed at the 2025 UCU Congress. HEC members asked whether this has implications for how we should conduct the current UK-wide ballot on pay and pay-related elements, on which there were mixed views. Given that UCU cannot pursue this avenue while balloting for national industrial action with a claim on UCEA, Vivek Thuppil made the sensible proposal to remit discussion of the SoS dispute to the next HEC meeting. Despite a suggestion, against this proposal, that a decision needs to be taken as soon as possible for the benefit of the current ballot campaign, the committee overwhelmingly voted for remission (28 in favour, 9 against, no abstentions).
While it may seem that the SoS dispute has dropped off the union’s agenda entirely, this is not the case. Remission means that HEC will be able to discuss it again in a few months’ time with the benefit of the knowledge acquired during that time period (e.g. the ballot result, the UK budget, government interventions and other factors).
Pensions update
All is not well in some areas of Planet Pensions. Employers seem to be doing whatever reduces their payroll-related liabilities, and this in some cases leads to proposals to shift staff off established pension schemes (especially TPS) and onto inferior alternatives either via subsidiary companies or offering low-cost and inferior schemes. The TPS valuation is also due this year, which will have implications for members and institutions where TPS is in operation.
USS is also gearing up for a valuation year, although signs there are more positive, with many of UCU’s recommendations for positive changes to valuation methodology being taken seriously and the prospect of USS being in surplus at the next valuation point. Branches should receive guidance soon regarding how to engage employers as we head into this valuation cycle.
Discussion papers (Lessons from Australia and lobbying)
When HEC reached the point in its agenda at which two papers prepared by HEC members were to be discussed, to the disgust and dismay of many in the room, including all UCU Commons HEC members, a member of UCU Left proposed a procedural motion to move to the next item of business. While the provision to move to the next item of business is in the standing orders, as the meeting was, unusually, ahead of schedule, there was no need for such a procedural move. Moving to the next item of business would mean that neither of the discussion papers, to which the writers had devoted significant time and effort, would not be discussed by HEC. UCU Commons member Matilda Fitzmaurice spoke against the procedural motion, pointing to what had been said earlier about how motions are not the most ‘important item of business’ on the committee’s agenda, and that the standing orders explicitly permit members to submit discussion papers. However, fortunately the vote on the procedural motion was lost (17 in favour; 19 against; 1 abstention), and the committee was able to discuss both papers.
UCU Commons member Mark Pendleton (UK-elected) gave the committee a hopeful and instructive overview of recent achievements of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) in Australian Higher Education. Given the regulatory parallels, similarities and linkages between the UK and Australian sectors, these victories constitute a set of useful lessons for UCU. In the legal arena, the NTEU has transformed practice by articulating systemic underpayment of casualised workers as ‘wage theft’, winning enormous back payments to those underpaid while also setting standards for employment in the sector. The NTEU has also succeeded in putting higher education onto the public agenda in Australia, building up to an inquiry by the Senate on the HE crisis. Read the full paper here.
A second discussion paper by J. Michelle Coghlan (University of Manchester, North West rep) was linked to a motion later debated, see below. The paper argued for UCU to undertake joined-up lobbying on the HE crisis through co-ordinating lobbying and campaigning with learned societies and other relevant stakeholders, including Universities UK (UUK), the British Academy, the Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF), the Council for the Defence of British Universities (CDBU) and the various think tanks. The paper pointed out that by bringing together sets of arguments, drawing on data produced by these other actors, and seeking joint lobbying where areas of common ground exist, UCU can helpfully augment its own efforts in this field.
Motions proposed by HEC members
In the event, there was adequate meeting time to debate and vote on all the motions submitted by HEC members.
Motion 1 was proposed by Bijan Parsia and J. Michelle Coghlan on co-ordinating campaigning and lobbying efforts with other entities, along the lines proposed in Michelle’s paper noted above. Several UCU Commons members made constructive contributions to this debate and in favour of the motion, including Ben Pope, Matt Barnard and Matilda Fitzmaurice. Despite some bad faith opposition, this motion carried (For: 33; against: 1; abstain: 4).
Motion 2 proposed by Chris Pritchard was on treating the current dispute at the University of Leicester as a ‘dispute of national significance’, and carried with no opposition and one abstention. There were questions about what this designation meant; while it used to imply a degree of concentration of UCU resources on such a dispute, according to UCU staffers, currently there are no distinctions among branches in dispute in the allocation of resources. It was noted that the Leicester VC, Nishan Canagarajah, who has a dreadful record of trashing the university, is now chair of UCEA. This motion passed overwhelmingly (For: 38; against: 0; abstain: 1).
The third motion, proposed by Richard Wild, was on the Greenwich-Kent ‘merger’ (whether it is actually such a thing is still in question), on which it was proposed that UCU commission an external report on the financial implications, insist on transparency from employers while pushing strongly against redundancies. The motion commits UCU to opposing the merger trend that has, as Mark Pendleton pointed out, massively reduced the number of universities in Australia. The motion passed unanimously.
A fourth motion insisted, once again, that campaigning against casualisation be at the forefront of UCU’s agenda for the pay ballot communications. Ben Pope moved a helpful amendment to identify how much collective consultation is undertaken in universities around dismissal of casualised workers at the end of fixed-term contracts, aimed at identifying better practice and exposing unacceptable behaviour among employers. This motion, as amended, carried unanimously.
The final motion was from Matt Perry, calling for a laundry list of activities to support ongoing local disputes, more ‘sharing’ among branches, as well as monthly national demonstrations. (The motion mover agreed to change the date for the first of these as in the submitted text it was scheduled for the week after the HEC meeting.) Mark Pendleton, noting specificities of the dispute at Sheffield, emphasised the importance of thinking locally and of seeing each jobs dispute within its own context. Why should we assume that the lessons from one dispute should apply everywhere else? There is no one-size-fits-all approach to winning disputes, and there are also issues related to devolved nations. Others pointed out that the union actually already does much of what is called for in the motion, and that the motion asked too much, putting limited resources under strain. The motion passed five minutes before the scheduled end of the meeting (For: 26; against: 11; abstain: 2).
Conclusion
Despite vexatious and unnecessary challenges to the Chair and order of business, this was a productive meeting in which we got through all business in time. We hope to see more discussion papers at future meetings, as we favour a model of thoughtful consensus-building over one of polarising motions.