BUCU members are very concerned about two separate (but related) developments at the University of Birmingham – a new performance management regime that the University appears to have introduced and a commitment to ‘redundancies-by-review’ that we are currently witnessing in the IAA.

In each of these cases, we are seeking the following demands, both of which we believe are highly reasonable and that the failure by the University to agree to either of them is a sad indictment of the way that this higher education institution is being run.

Performance management.

We seek an agreement with the University of a ‘memorandum of understanding’ that will bind the University into a commitment to adhere
to its own agreed policies. This includes policies related to the mentoring of staff, the minimum standards of performance that staff must undertake, the grievance procedure, measures to gauge whether staff should be considered ’research active’, a disciplinary procedure that is based on staff’s employment contract, and a commitment to negotiated changes to the contract.

IAA redundancies.

We seek a suspension of the proposals to close the IAA and for the University to engage in meaningful consultation with us, in pursuit of an alternative course of action that would seek to avoid the need for compulsory redundancies.

We believe that each of these demands are reasonable and achievable, and we call on the University of Birmingham to reach agreement with us over these in the interests of staff, students and a quality higher education provision.