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Memorandum 111
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.
Jon Richards Head of HE UNISON Education Workforce Unit 14th January 2008 |