Memorandum 110
Submission from UNISON
1. UNISON is the UK's largest public services
union with over 1.3 million members. We are also the largest education
union with over 300,000 members working for children, young people
and adult learners. Of these 50,000 work in Higher Education Institutions
(HEIs), representing all grades of staff from manual workers through
administrative and clerical, professional and technical to senior
managers. UNISON has members in HEIs directly affected by the
change, but also has a wider interest as an organisation that
actively promotes "lifelong learning" across the whole
workforce and amongst their families.
2. Our evidence is in two parts: covering
both the general effects on institutions but also specific issues
affecting support staff and HE staff in particular.
3. UNISON acknowledges that the government
is not cutting funding to the sector and recognises their desire
to increase funding to deliver additional access to first degrees.
We also note that they have sought to introduce a number of exemptions
and some supportive transitional payments to try to ameliorate
the changes. Notwithstanding this we still have concerns that
the effect of these changes will be detrimental to a number of
HEIs, staff and students, and will conflict with other parts of
the Government agenda. The government has labeled this as a small
but important change. We believe that it would be better to increase
the general funding in HE by £100 million to increase access
to first degrees rather than see money taken out of one valuable
area and transferred to another equally valuable area.
GENERAL EFFECTS
ON STUDENTS
AND INSTITUTIONS
4. Our first concern is the disproportionate
effect on part time workers. HEFCE data suggests that around a
fifth of part time students will be affected by the change—compared
to around 2% fulltime students. This does not sit well with the
Government's aim to increase participation in life long learning
for part time workers. This will disproportionately affect women
and particularly returners to the workforce who may not have access
to funding resources but need the qualifications to get back into
employment—again another government goal. The government
is suggesting that HEFCE will utilise some of the money released
to maintain part time courses—we would hope that this would
be equivalent and that it would be preferentially offered to those
institutions that lose out the most.
5. Two institutions in particular are likely
to lose out: Birkbeck and the Open University. They will no doubt
submit their own evidence, however without seeking to replicate
their case we would add our voices to their campaigns to protect
their funding. HEFCE modeling has indicated a quarter of OU students
would become un-funded from 2008-9 which would reduce their teaching
funding by between £12 to £31 million (depending on
whether you accept the government or OU's figures). Should a significant
number of the near 30,000 students affected drop out in future
this will prove very difficult to manage. The suggested three
years transitional funding is unlikely to cover all costs for
these two institutions and is not long enough for them to set
up other longer term income streams via alternative courses. Any
transitional funding needs to be over a much longer period (see
also section 2).
6. It is doubtful that employers will be
prepared to step in to fund students to take second degrees. General
evidence on employer support for training is very patchy add the
fact that a number of workers are seeking to re-train and will
be seeking alternative work and it is easy to see that employers
will be reticent to support them.
7. The government has indicated that certain
strategic or vulnerable courses such as STEM, nursing and social
work will be exempt. However the danger of picking courses is
inevitably that others might have a good case as well. For example
around 10% of pharmacy students at Brighton University would be
affected. Yet pharmacy is an area that plays a vital support role
in primary care and pharmacists are increasingly being asked to
take on a greater share of work to support GPs.
EFFECTS ON
HE SUPPORT STAFF
8. Inevitably we have serious concerns about
the skills base and potential job losses amongst staff working
in HE and the knock on effects in particular institutions already
highlighted. The comparatively short term protection money for
Birkbeck and the Open University will mean the need to rapidly
re-structure. Not only will they look at fee levels, marketing
of courses but inevitably changes to the business model. This
will affect the roles responsibilities and indeed the employment
of staff in these institutions. One of our local branches has
already been approached by their Director of Human Resources to
discuss the re-negotiation of their Redundancy and Re-deployment
Policy because of the changes. Uncertainty and the short time
span will mean insecurity and valuable staff with transferable
skills will choose to leave or be made redundant.
9. Inevitably support staff in the HE sector
at the middle and higher grades have comparatively higher qualifications
compared to many other sectors, in particular the numbers who
have degrees. Unfortunately historically many HEIs have been slow
in recognising the advantages of further training up such staff.
However UNISON has recently been successful in promoting personal
development agreements for support staff. We have concerns therefore
that the policy change could affect this, disproportionately affecting
professional and technical staff that need to do higher level
courses or professional development certificates—which will
be increasingly necessary to ensure that they are fully able to
support students and their academic colleagues. For instance this
could affect HE support staff involved in EU wide research as
part of the 7th EU Research Framework who will need additional
and higher levels of skills to administer and support bids for
funding for cross border institutional research bids.
10. In general the policy has the potential
to prove a barrier to upskilling middle level workers across the
public services and reduce the flexibility of pathways and careers.
This at a time of increasing focus on lifelong learning and recognition
of the need to improve the UK skills base. Consequently we would
like the government to reconsider the proposal and identify additional
funding or at least defer the decision until the review of fees
and funding for 2009.
January 2008
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