On Monday 25 March the University of Exeter (UoE) announced a new voluntary severance scheme, The Exeter Release Scheme (TERS), which will be open between May and June 2024. The following statement was issued to Exeter UCU members immediately afterwards, setting out the response of the Branch Committee.

Summary
The Exeter UCU (EUCU) was not involved in the creation of TERS. We are calling on UoE management to be transparent about their plans and work collaboratively with trade unions and all staff if and when any financial challenges are identified. We note that UoE’s finances are currently strong, and that targeting staff costs may well have serious detrimental effects that go well beyond the university’s balance sheet. No member of staff should be (or feel) coerced into submitting a TERS application.

EUCU involvement 
As TERS is a voluntary severance scheme, its terms did not need to be negotiated with trade unions. Members of the UCU were briefed on it during a meeting on 13 March and we and other trade unions asked questions about it at another meeting on 19 March.  We were not consulted in any proper sense of the term; this in the sense of being able to meaningfully shape whether and what kind of TERS scheme was introduced.    

The need for a shared financial vision for the future
TERS does not exist in isolation.  As you will have no doubt experienced, at the level of senior management as well as within faculties and departments, much emphasis has been placed on the financial precarity across Higher Education as well as at the University of Exeter specifically.  This discussion of precarity is now mobilising various efficiency saving drives and other initiatives, including TERS.

As we have discussed in past EUCU meetings, Higher Education in the UK is in a troubled state. There are stark inequalities between universities. The government seems almost indifferent to the structural problems it has created through a quasi-marketisation of HE.

However, not least through the work of our academic and professional services staff – so all of you! – our University has continued to generate an operating surplus amongst the highest in the sector and we have significant reserves. The latest annual financial report from 2022/23 is worth reading if you have not done so. More recent figures shared within all-staff talks indicate the surplus is down, but there still is a surplus.  

How then to make sense of TERS? The Branch has asked what savings the University hopes to achieve from the initiation of TERS and were told there are no financial or applicant targets. This makes it difficult to evaluate its merits; including how it might affect existing inequalities (e.g. gender pay disparities, pay ratios), how much it will reduce expertise and experience from both academic and PS job families, or whether TERS will be a prelude to additional restructuring/redundancy.  We find this lack of specificity concerning.

We have been clear with senior management that the introduction of a voluntary severance scheme against a backdrop of its messaging on financial precarity means that it is incumbent on management to openly share with staff the details of future strategic and financial planning; not least so that staff have a sense of and can influence our shared future direction.  It is not sufficient that staff (and the trade unions) are briefed about predetermined plans.  We consider any concentration of top-down decision-making to be detrimental for the University, as decisions are not reflecting or benefitting from the diversity of our community and what all staff have to offer.

That vision should also include a statement of principles.  The UCU’s position is that the employer should make all attempts to reduce costs through other means before any reduction in staffing is considered.  Reducing staffing risks undermining our teaching and research goals. Where financial concerns are convincingly demonstrated to staff, we expect that all staff are engaged in contributing ideas to a University-wide non-pay review, to support the identification of savings that could be made in-year and over the medium-term.

That vision should also include transparency of financial details so that staff individually and collectively can judge assessments made by UEB regarding what should be done now and into the future.  For instance, there is a big difference between making staff savings because of medium term concerns over financial viability versus making staff savings because there are plans to spend that money on other matters. 

In short, whether immediate or far term, certain or feared, etc., to the extent there is a concern about precarity there should be efforts to first transform how we as a University operate.  

It is also incumbent on senior management here and elsewhere to press for national level action to redress the funding issues associated with HE.  Nationally, the leaders of HE appear to be fatalistic about the prospects for continuing government inaction, unlike other sectors – the health service, defence, the police, etc.

Future engagement 
The EUCU will continue to engage with management about TERS.  Here are some things we members can do together as well:

– No coercion: No one should be pressured into submitting a TERS application.  If you experience any explicit or implicit pressure to apply, please contact the Branch.

– Workload implications: The University has given assurances that the ongoing workload and wellbeing of colleagues will be a key consideration in the decisions taken.  If you have concerns about the potential or later realised workload implication of any severances, please raise them with the Branch.  If you are considering applying, it is for you to decide if you want to share that decision.  However, raising any concerns you might have around this with other colleagues or the Branch might help to identify workload implications. 

– Stay involved: Looking into the future, we as members of a trade union need to keep sharing experiences and working together to shape the direction of the University.  Toward this end, we will hold a branch meeting about TERS and wider employment issues on 2 April [details shared with EUCU members via direct email].

In solidarity,

The EUCU Branch Committee