The Friday email: 11 July 2025

Save Adult Education: watch the online launch, sign our petition, email your MP

Save Adult Education is a new campaign from UCU. It covers staff working in general FE colleges who teach adults ESOL, English and maths, functional skills, or any of the many adult courses offered at colleges across the country. The campaign also includes adult institutes, private and charitable adult education providers, as well as adult and community education (ACE) delivered through local and combined metro authorities.

Our aim is to reverse cuts to the Adult Skills Fund, promote social cohesion, defend members' jobs, and champion professional respect. UCU will fight the cuts to adult education funding, with our members at the heart of the campaign.

You can watch our campaign launch online meeting on YouTube, which explains the different elements of Save Adult Education. It features the important voices of adult educators and UCU reps at City Lit, South and City College Birmingham, and Redbridge Institute of Adult Education.

Yesterday, UCU also launched the Save Adult Education petition calling on the Labour government to reverse its devastating decision to slash funding for adult and community education by 6%. We ask everyone--UCU members in all education sectors, non-members, students, general public, and supporters--to sign this important petition.

We also produced an Email your MP tool; please use this to ask your MP to demand the UK government reverse the cuts to adult education in England and properly invest in adult skills. Please remember to include your full name and postal address at the end of the email as MPs may reject messages missing this information.

Prison education: tell your MP to address the crisis

Prison education provision in England is in a perilous state. We are asking all UCU members to email your MP and request that they sign EDM (early day motion) 1542 on prison education insourcing, which calls on the UK government to explore the options for insourcing all such provision under an effectively resourced, publicly owned national prison education system. We have provided an email tool here. Please remember to include your full name and postal address at the end of the email as MPs may reject messages missing this information.

New Deal for FE: FE England national pay talks update

Following the submission of the joint FE trade union pay claim (2025/26) in April 2025, the first National Joint Forum (NJF) pay talks with the Association of Colleges (AoC) took place on 26 June. The employers' representatives at the AoC failed to make a pay recommendation at the meeting. The AoC also offered nothing of substance on national workload agreements or the need for a new national bargaining framework for the sector.

A joint trade union response can be found here. The NJF will next meet in September; please look out for an update after that meeting.

Higher education: outcome of the 2025/26 pay and working conditions negotiations

UCU's elected higher education officers wrote to branch officers (of branches involved in the 2025/26 higher education negotiation round), and UCU general secretary Jo Grady wrote to members on the next steps of the 2025/26 higher education negotiations which you can read in full here.

The elected representatives of UCU's higher education committee (HEC) met on Friday 4 July and voted to launch a member consultation on the full and final offer from Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA). HEC is recommending that members vote to reject UCEA's offer, and vote in favour of undertaking industrial action. Please look out for further information on the consultation which will be sent out to eligible members shortly.

Stop the Cuts! Disputes at UK universities

We are asking everyone to continue to sign and share UCU's Stop the Cuts petition.

Members at University of Bristol's Centre for Academic and Language Development (CALD) began 21 days of strike action on Wednesday 9 July against unfair compulsory redundancies. Forty-five members of staff are currently under threat of redundancy. The next key date for action is Wednesday 16 July with a picket outside the Richmond Building (10:45-12:45) followed by a rally at the Victoria Rooms (from 13:00). Bristol UCU urge the university to end the dispute by taking compulsory redundancies off the table and focusing on the many viable alternative proposals. Donations, should you wish, can be made to the Bristol UCU local hardship fund and you can also show support by signing and sharing this petition.

University of the West of Scotland UCU opened an industrial action ballot this week in a dispute over job cuts and university senior management's refusal to rule out compulsory redundancies. The ballot will run until 14 August; click here for the full story.

University of Nottingham staff are facing mass redundancies. During the first phase of restructuring, at least 258 professional services staff are under threat. The second phase from September onwards is likely to involve a similar number of academic staff. Notice of industrial action for Thursday 24 July and action short of a strike (ASOS) to begin the same day has been issued.

Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) has outlined plans to cut 300 staff (including 150 academic staff) to plug a £28m budget deficit forecast for 2025/26. This is in addition to the loss of 500 staff (10% of the workforce) in 2024/25. Management have refused to rule out compulsory redundancies and have communicated plans to implement a university-wide restructure. SHU UCU branch have issued a trade dispute to the university and are now undertaking an indicative strike ballot.

University of Bradford UCU members were on strike this week over plans to slash hundreds of jobs and close multiple courses. They will resume striking from Monday 21 July and you can click here for the full strike schedule. The dispute is over £16m of cuts that management wants to force through. The university has so far failed to set out precisely where all the cuts will fall, but 230 professional service staff and a further 230 or so academics are already at risk.

Liverpool Hope University intends to axe 39 staff. The threatened cuts will fall on the faculties of education and social sciences, creative arts and humanities, and human and digital sciences. Management claims it needs to make the cuts due to its own predicted deficit, with staff set to go as soon as November 2025. Liverpool Hope University UCU members have been voting in an industrial action ballot which is closing imminently.

Finally, please support many other branches, such as universities of Bournemouth, Derby, Dundee, Edinburgh, Lancaster, Lincoln, Plymouth and Surrey where UCU members in higher education are also defending jobs and education.

FE colleges: Truro and Penwith win and other updates

Truro and Penwith College UCU announced on Thursday 10 July that the branch voted to accept an offer from management that confirmed there would be no further threats of any reductions in staffing levels at the college. In February 2025, the college had proposed cutting up to 100 jobs, the majority of which were academic. UCU members at Truro and Penwith then voted overwhelmingly to take strike action if compulsory redundancies were to go ahead, and though their determination, fought back against these proposals, in lockstep with other education unions, resulting in no compulsory redundancies.

Staff at Cheshire College South and West (CCSW) will take industrial action in a dispute over pay. Staff across the three CCSW campuses in Crewe, Ellesmere Port and Chester downed tools on Monday 7 July and will do so again on Thursday 21, Friday 22 and Tuesday 26 August.

Warrington and Vale Royal College is set to axe 19 staff. Jobs set to go include every IT teacher as well English and maths support workers. The college claims it needs to reduce staff costs even though student numbers are forecast to increase by 10% next year. In meetings with staff and UCU, a senior manager described the support roles as being a 'luxury' the college could no longer afford and admitted their removal was a 'calculated risk' in respect of student outcomes.

UCU members at Myerscough College in Lancashire are campaigning against plans to close the Witton Park campus in Blackburn, which have put 19 jobs at risk. The campaign has already won the support of the local council and the local MP; UCU members are encouraged to sign and share the petition.

Adult education: rallying against job cuts at Working Men's College and Redbridge Institute

Staff, students and supporters of the historic Working Men's College (WMC) in Camden held a rally in protest against sweeping cuts to staffing and the college's vital adult education offer. Nineteen jobs have been placed at risk just weeks before the start of the new academic year as a direct consequence of funding cuts. WMC, one of Europe's oldest adult education institutions, is in the constituency of Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The college plays a critical role in delivering essential education and skills to local communities, where demand for lifelong learning remains high.

Staff, unions, students and supporters rallied today (Friday 11 July) to defend jobs at Redbridge Institute of Adult Education (RIAE) in protest against targeted cuts to staffing and the college's vital adult education offer. RIAE management is trying to slash jobs, cut student service provision and reduce teaching hours. Up to a dozen staff are threatened with the sack, with concerns raised that management are targeting individuals under cover of a shambolic consultation process and a bogus business case. The same employer tried to fire and rehire its staff 18 months ago. We said no then and we say no now. UCU has declared a dispute and is calling on Redbridge Labour Council to urgently intervene to force RIAE back to the negotiating table.

Academic boycott of Brunel University over mass redundancies

UCU declared an academic boycott of Brunel University London in response to the institution's continued pursuit of mass redundancies. The boycott began on Tuesday 15 April; Brunel UCU demands that the university withdraws the threat of compulsory redundancies, provides transparent financial information, enters collective conciliation talks through Acas, and reinstates those already involuntarily dismissed.

UCU is asking members, supporters, and the international academic community to observe the boycott by:

• not applying for jobs at Brunel
• not attending or organising academic or other conferences at the university
• not giving talks or lectures at Brunel
• not accepting visiting appointments at Brunel
• not contributing to academic journals edited at or produced by the university
• not taking on roles as external examiners for Brunel's taught courses.

For the latest developments please see the Brunel University UCU branch website.

Save the Skills Academy: protect UCU members' jobs, protect vulnerable learners

The Education Training Collective (ETC) must urgently reverse its decision to close the Skills Academy in Billingham. UCU is calling on ETC to protect this vital provision for vulnerable learners and guarantee the jobs of the dedicated staff who support them. Please see here for UCU's press release and sign and share this vital petition.

BIMM Music Institute Bristol recognition

UCU's South West regional office is pleased to announce another recognition win at the BIMM Music Institute in the Bristol campus, with members and staff in the bargaining unit voting unanimously YES for UCU recognition on a turnout of 87.5%. Coming hot on the heels of a win at BIMM Brighton, the activist team at the Bristol site did a brilliant job of organising in the workplace, and with the regional team, to land this clear signal that members want bargaining rights.

USS pensions webinar: Conditional Indexation interim report, 4 August 

Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) has recently released its Conditional Indexation interim report. You can read UCU's update here.

To provide more information to USS scheme members, a webinar on Conditional Indexation will take place on Monday 4 August on Zoom. Click here to register. The webinar will discuss what Conditional Indexation is and why scheme members should be sceptical regarding its introduction. This webinar is open to all USS scheme members including UCU staff.

New FE anti-casualisation working group

In accordance with motion FE16 passed at the further education sector conference (FESC) in May, we are seeking to set up a member group to explore how to increase UCU membership and activity from casualised members across further education (FE).

If you are on any form of casualised contract working in FE, adult education or prison education please consider putting yourself forward for the group. The only requirement is to be working on some form of casualised contract (fixed term, hourly paid, variable hours, zero hours) and have an interest in improving UCU's anti-casualisation work in the sector. The group will meet online, with timings set in consultation with participants. The group is intended to be time-limited until Congress 2026 initially.

If you are interested, please send the following information to Jane Thompson by 18 August: name / employer / short statement about why you would like to be involved (this is not compulsory but will help us in choosing members if we have more applicants than places).

Artificial Intelligence reports

As part of UCU's Future of Work in Post-16 Education project, the working group undertook a survey of members over summer and autumn 2024 to understand members' experiences of AI systems and the impact on their working lives. Thanks to everyone who completed the survey. The survey report has been released and can be read here.

CDBU draft code of ethical university governance

The Council for the Defence of British Universities (CDBU) is currently consulting over its draft code of ethical university governance. It is intended to sit alongside the Committee of University Chairs' (CUC) code and aims to provide more relevant help to current and future governors as they enact their role within the institution. CDBU is interested in views on their draft code and their consultation is open until Thursday 31 July.

Support firefighters and rescue workers in Ukraine

Since May 2024, UK trade union and labour movement activists have been raising funds to support workers in the 10th Rescue Squad, based in Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, near the frontline. In response to a new request from the Independent Trade Union of Mineworkers of Ukraine (NGPU), the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign are now raising funds for drones to help protect the Squad's teams from attack and aid their firefighting and rescue work. Click here for further information about the latest Crowdfunder.

International conference on academic freedom

UCU, with the support of Education International (EI), is hosting an international conference on academic freedom on Wednesday 15 October. The conference will hear from international trade unions and experts about global and national challenges to academic freedom and will discuss how to build effective union responses, including in the UK. The confirmed keynote speaker is Robert Quinn, executive director of the Scholars at Risk Network.

The conference will be run as a hybrid event. UCU members can either attend online or in person at the Hamilton House Meeting Rooms, Mabledon Place, London WC1H 9BD. We expect spaces for the in-person event to fill up quickly so register as soon as possible to secure your place; the conference is free to attend.

UCU's LGBT+ work

UCU is organising for presence at a number of LGBT+ Pride 2025 events. If you are interested in volunteering to help, please complete this form.

In addition, Northern Pride takes place in Newcastle next weekend. TUC is organising a Northern Pride union brunch and pre-march meeting on Saturday 19 July. This is the perfect opportunity to highlight the role trade unions play in achieving positive change for LGBT+ communities and show just how much support there is within the movement.

Finally, TUC LGBT+ committee has opened nominations for co-option into some specific vacancies. Please click here for more information and to express interest if you self-identify as LGBT+. The closing date for expression of interest is Monday 14 July.