Present: / Roger Walters (Chair), Lesley Kane, David Knowles, Sue Hawthorne, Donia Scott, Chris Bollom, John Bennett, Maria McCrea, Malcolm Jenner, Pauline Collins, Peter Hamilton, June Payne, Alan Carr, Eric Wade, Roger Rees, Jon Pike.
Apologies: / Mike McNulty, Eric Bowers, Cicely Havely, John James, Meridian, Judy Ekins, John Peters.
1
/minutes of last meetings
The minutes of the meeting of 14.01.09 were agreed.2
/CONFIDENTIALITY OF MINUTES
/There were no items in the minutes of 14.01.09 executive meeting that needed to remain confidential.
3
/mATTERS ARISING
3.1
/ It was noted that no action had been taken to follow up the PVC's invitation to look at existing mechanisms for approving partnerships and to formulate proposals for improvement.Clarification was sought about the usefulness of the previous executive decision to accept the invitation of the PVC, Research and Enterprise, to look at the University's mechanism for approving partnerships in the Research area, and the Executive agreed to reaffirm that decision. EECR group to follow up.
4
/president’s report
4.1
/ Congress delegationWe have two spare places on our Congress delegation. The executive is able to fill these places, and branch members will be invited to put themselves forward.
4.2
/ ALRR negotiationsThese have reached a crucial phase, and performance review was going to be a serious issue. The waters have been muddied due to performance review becoming mixed up with CDSA.
4.3
/ Appointment of new office managerWe need to progress the recruitment of an office manager, and we need to agree an appointment panel. After some discussion we agreed that in order to avoid the possibility of deadlock on the appointing panel there would be three voting members, DK, M, and LK with our regional official in an advisory role.
4.4 / Salary sacrifice
This issue has not gone away, and we want members to continue to opt out. AC advised us that the process of extending Salary Sacrifice to AVCs is deadlocked due to disputes at York and the OU.
At the last meeting of the USS Joint Negotiating Committee the position was that the extension of salary sacrifice to AVCs would have to be accompanied by a rule change so that schemes were either opt-in or collective enrolment only by collective agreement.
4.5 / National bargaining
RW thanked those who had supported our motion to the annual national meeting of AR staff. The national negotiators felt that they had reached the end of the line and that they would not be able to secure a separate negotiating sub-committee for Academic and AR staff, and at the national AR meeting the UCU Vice President Higher Education had argued that there was no alternative to the bargaining arrangements on offer.
The role of ACAS was only to facilitate talks, and their role was exhausted. The likelihood of our ending up in dispute was raised, and RW replied that this would not happen this year since any pay rise would be modest this year, regardless of bargaining structures.
5 /
secretary’s report
5.1 / Election of two executive members to bullying and harassment groupIt was agreed that the election would be conducted by ballot and STV. Executive members who were not present would be sent a ballot paper by post. Ballot papers were distributed to all those present. Ballot papers should be returned to the Hon. Sec. who would be responsible for counting the votes.5.2
/The branch website
Our current web master had been unaware that a new branch website was being developed. However he had agreed to us archiving a copy of the site he had built in case we ever had to set up an independent web site quickly. A vote of thanks for his work would be proposed at the general meeting. JB’s article on casework would be published online as soon as the new site is available to members.5.3 /
Office manager
Any appointment we make must be permanent, so we cannot experiment with a part-time post for a year. We have a choice between UCU grade 4 and UCU grade 6, and it was proposed that we need someone with organisational ability, as well as secretarial skills. The job descriptions / person specifications for grade 4 and grade 6 were tabled. It was agreed that we should go for grade 6 if possible.While there may not be enough secretarial work for a full-time appointment, it was agreed that there was full-time work for someone with the organisational / administrative responsibilities in the grade 6 job description, so it was agreed to appoint on a full-time basis. It was also agreed to advertise both internally and externally. /
6 /
treasurer’s report
/6.1
/ In accordance with the executive committee's mandate at the previous meeting, an account at Triodos Bank has been opened and has £25,000 in it. An account at the Cooperative Bank is just about to be opened with £25,000. Another £25,000 to each account will follow when funds are available. /7
/equality officer report
/7.1
/ Nothing new to report.8
/group reports
8.1 / ALs Officer (SH)There was not a great deal to report since the AL reps’ committee had not met since the Awayday. However a query had been received about backdating pension contributions from an AL who earned a considerable proportion of her OU earnings from consultancies. RW replied that it was only the pay rise that was to be backdated.
8.2
/Central Academic Staff Officer (DS)
DS flagged up the new VC’s email and the fact that the new version of RAE would be based on metrics. Some disturbing plans had been put forward in a meeting with a member of management on creating “headroom” by passing some of the work previously done by course managers to secretarial staff. Secretaries were to be detached from disciplines.Falling student numbers were being taken as a sign that we need more courses.
8.3 /
Central Academic Related Staff Officer (CB)
Nothing urgent to report.9
/JNC ISSUES
9.1
/ Issues to be dealt with at the following week’s JNC meeting would include:- the AL negations in relation to CDSA and performance review; declaration on travel and subsistence claims, and the university’s failure to comply with its own procedures with particular reference to grievance and disciplinary procedures, AL employment issues and mileage rates.10 /
editorship of spark
It was agreed that editorial responsibility for Spark would continue to rest with the president and Hon. Secretary.
11 /AOB
11.1 /It was agreed that members active on casualisation issues could ask the general meeting to consider accepting a motion on the use of contracts for services as an emergency motion.
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