What is Kingston UCU’s Ballot About?

What’s the problem?

In October 2024, Kingston University (KU) announced that the ‘challenging national context’ necessitated £20 million in savings over two years. These savings were announced despite KU’s £7 million surplus for 2023/24 and its reserves of more than £100 million (including over a £100 million cash balance and reserves in excess of £400 million). These savings, the University explained, would be met through four ‘projects’: demand-led reviews of course portfolios, PEERs (purpose, effectiveness and efficiency reviews), benchmark analyses of University spend, and reviews of Faculty budgets driven by RAM (resource allocation methodology). Since this announcement, Kingston UCU has been demanding transparency and meaningful consultation from the Senior Leadership Team (SLT).

 

How did the University arrive at £20M for its wished-for savings? When did SLT arrive at this target? What was the rationale for the four cost-saving ‘projects’ and How would they work? These unanswered questions prompted us to ask members what further questions they had. Following our gathering of concerns in a Google Doc in October and November and the discussion of these at an in-person event on Tuesday 10 December 2024, we published a Statement about Voluntary Exits and Job Cuts and formally questioned SLT on the issues raised by members. 

 

The SLT’s responses, many of which failed to answer our initial overarching questions, were provided on 17 February. Some of the information demonstrated a dangerous disregard for equality and transparency: of the 43 so-called Voluntary Exits, for instance, 22% were disabled and 16% were involved in formal disciplinary or performance management procedures. Ten days later, we were faced with collective consultations (which ran from 26 February to 28 March) to close the Department of Humanities and shrink the provision of Criminology, Politics and Sociology, with the possibility of 30 compulsory redundancies.

 

We issued the University with a Failure to Agree letter on 6 March, with demands to satisfy a list of 13 demands by 10 March. These demands, which followed those in the second of the following emergency motions passed unanimously in February, centred around the university’s continued failure to follow agreed procedures as well as employment and trade union law in relation to, but by no means limited to, the avoidance of redundancies and the carrying out of job cuts.

 

In the light of the University’s continued failure to follow agreed procedures as well as employment and trade union law in relation to the proposals to close two Departments, we sought collective conciliation with ACAS in an attempt to resolve our dispute. SLT agreed on 27 March to engage in this to resolve our dispute, only to unilaterally withdraw from collective conciliation on 3 April (only 4 days before the first scheduled meeting). We emailed the Board of Governors on 8 April to request a response to the issues we’ve been facing: the Provost responded on their behalf and a formal confirmation of this being an acceptable response was provided on 9 May.

 

Now, as we start voting in this ballot for industrial action, including action short of a strike (ASOS), we are facing yet another collective consultation to augment and shrink the Student Directorate, which is staffed by our members as well as members in our sister-union UNISON. We are seeing repeated mistakes: unclear rationales, errors in dates and calculations, unclear protections of student provision, missing Equalities Impact Assessments, and a devaluing of the work undertaken by academic and professional staff.

 

We cannot allow KU’s cost-saving measures to be used in this way without transparent and meaningful consultation. We will not approve of compulsory redundancies and the senior management team urgently needs to consider other options. We must hold this University and its Senior Leadership Team to account.

 

What are we demanding?

We want to protect jobs, preserve the quality of education and research, and secure a sustainable future for Kingston University.

 

Our demands (which summarise those in our Failure to Agree letter) are:

 

  • No compulsory redundancies
  • A reversal and mitigation of the rationale underpinning the staff and course review measures introduced to date and a halt on implementing further measures designed to reduce staff numbers, including Hourly Paid Lecturers
  • No further increases to workload for all staff
  • Urgent action to eliminate existing systemic inequalities at Kingston University, in particular, those revealed by past and present voluntary exits/severances and recent organisational changes
  • In-housing of all teaching provisions including Future Skills and immediate stop to the use of external contractors (such as Gradcore) for any curricular delivery and/or assessment
  • Transparency: Senior Management must ensure ongoing clarity and accountability regarding the University’s financial situation and projections
  • Meaningful negotiation and consultation: Staff and their union must have a genuine voice in shaping the institution’s future

 

This ballot responds to the university’s failure to commit to avoid compulsory redundancies and the termination of employment of one or more workers. Our dispute is about more. We are standing up for staff, defending education and protecting KU’s long-term future by upholding our rights and agreements, by saving jobs, departments and courses and by preserving degree structures that benefit our students. Kingston UCU is committed to opposing job cuts that will harm individuals and families, increase already intolerable workloads and damage the quality of education and research.

 

Members cannot just keep their heads down and hope that their own jobs will be saved. We know that the RAM model predicts another 9 additional department closures. This represents around 30% of our Departments (and – as the current consultation proves – Directorates), putting us in the company of many other institutions across the country also facing cuts. 

We have no choice but to resist the University’s course of action (including taking industrial action if necessary) to ensure management prioritises growth, sustainability and investment in people and in education, rather than job cuts and the destruction of departments and degree courses without proper consultation with staff.

 

What’s the Solution?

Kingston staff and students have had enough. Poor working conditions mean poor learning conditions. The conditions we face are unsustainable and threaten the future of our institution. It is in the hands of our SLT to prevent disruption by negotiating with us meaningfully and committing to real actions to address these issues.

 

It’s not too late for the SLT to reconsider their stance and seek a sustainable resolution to our dispute. Our UCU general secretary Jo Grady said:

 

‘Our Kingston University members are being balloted to defend education and save the departments, courses and jobs students rely upon to get their degrees. Management has a window of opportunity to rule out compulsory redundancies, return to talks and avoid any disruption on campus. If it refuses to do so, our members will not hesitate to take action to protect jobs and courses.’

 

UCU is built on collective action. A strong ballot result, and possible industrial action, will protect jobs now and it will protect jobs in the future.

 

Every member has a role to play in showing management that we will not accept unnecessary job cuts. A strong turnout and a decisive YES vote in the ballot will send a clear message: staff and students deserve better than this.