We have not written an email like this to you in some time.
Here at UCU Surrey it often feels like we have seen it all – but we have not quite seen it all like this.
In previous years, we have written lots about the overtly punitive management culture here at UoS, with the institution usually taking one of the harshest lines in the sector, especially at times of crisis. However, within this old school punitive management culture, the forms were essentially respected, Joint Negotiating & Consultative Committees (JNCCs) were still professional JNCCs, disputes were still serious disputes, and consultations (not on the whole meaningful) were still engaged with as formal consultations. Negotiation and any meaningful consultation in the University appear to be minimal from the perspective of the Union and many staff on the ground.
It has taken us about a year to process a transition, a change of culture. Together with high turn-over ‘at the top’, we have reached a rather new manifestation and executive board which is unremittingly dismissive, treats the forms as nothing more than a frustrating chore, and which effectively seeks to de-recognise the unions in deeds if not in words.
As we move forward after our 2023 AGM, we do not deny that these are challenging times for the sector. Tuition fees have not risen with inflation, utility costs are high, and austerity is everywhere. Perhaps the recent staff survey* returned one of the lowest opinions of our current Executive Board that has ever been seen, because of problems outside of any managers’ control. Perhaps though, we may have a management culture at Surrey that has increasingly ignored staff concerns to the point where trust has (again) simply broken down.
A top-down dictatorial approach does not carry staff along. One hopes that behind the closed doors of our university executive board meeting there is not the same astonishment that is sometimes revealed more publicly – that staff may not be entirely embracing the “we’re all in it together” mantra. Rather, the feeling is that we are stuck with current austerity measures through having no choice, while the pressures on us are increased through the executive strategies that are dreamt up in our absence.
We see expensive rebranding projects; investment in software to monitor students’ attendance; endless meetings and slick videos about university strategy, while ordinary staff were told in a meeting about the staff survey results to focus our efforts and expenditure only on what is necessary and were repeatedly asked to ‘be kind’. Researchers are being made to compromise their chances of bidding success by adding increasingly high overheads to their grants – while rational arguments against this practice are shouted down by senior managers. Key staff who leave are not replaced; budgets for professional development and direct teaching activities are cut, and huge resources for research are concentrated on very narrow initiatives. We see all-staff meetings with an incongruous security presence, or, where held online, attendees’ mics muted and questions in the chat ignored. Simultaneous empty tropes about the importance of two-way communication are relayed. The university publishes an Executive Board expenses bill of nearly 200K in one year, and then expects us to understand why we cannot order basic refreshments for our external visitors. We are told repeatedly to shoulder the consequences of the recruitment freeze and the financial deficit as though we had some part in creating it. There is an expectation, whether coming from a place of naivety or arrogance, that if some senior people demand that we accommodate a notional shared sense of responsibility for the financial mess by producing better results than ever, with fewer resources than ever – it will happen, through their will alone. The current ‘deficit’ is not the fault of staff – the executive board need to take responsibility for the financial decisions which they themselves have made.
You will sense our frustration.
Listening, and occasionally compromising with staff and the unions that represent us, fortunately in the current climate, actually comes free. We hope to see clearer assurances that our Executive managers will not continue to ignore and disrespect University of Surrey staff. The previous vote-of-no-confidence in the University’s Executive Board during 2019 is recent enough, even for the newer leaders ‘at the top’, that nobody should need reminding what builds up if staff fail to be recognised as one of the University’s greatest assets.
To end this collation positively, we will be forming opportunities in 2024 to engage with members through in/formal and open meetings in order to build the union and form/strengthen local branch policy. We want everyone to be able to participate in this. We are looking forward to it.
@UCUSurrey
* To add to this point on the institutional staff survey, recent results of our UCU ‘Not The Staff Survey 2023 are added below, where we asked these questions for purposes of distinguishing perception of the University management against leadership at department/faculty level – a distinction which the institutional staff survey had discontinued:
My views are considered when the University makes significant decisions
Disagree: 81%
Neutral: 19%
Agree: 0%
I have the opportunity to feed into my department/faculty when significant decisions are being made
Disagree: 45%
Neutral: 36%
Agree: 19%