The following motion was overwhelmingly passed at a quorate branch meeting:

The Brunel UCU Branch Notes:

• That under the new leadership of the university, beginning in January 2022, the University’s own data in their Business Case shows there was an increase in academic staff on the previous year of 61 FTEs and a further huge increase of 129 FTE’s in 2023-4, amidst much talk of expanding PGT provision by the new leadership.
• That in a complete reversal the university’s executive leadership has now presented in the academic year 24-5 a business case for 130 academic FTE posts to go making a cost saving of £10.8 million.
• That the university’s executive leadership has also announced a re-organisation and job cuts programme for professional services, beginning with 79 jobs at risk across information, technology, digital and technical services. A phase two will target substantially higher numbers of professional service staff.
• While claiming that centralisation is the answer to unconstrained growth in labour costs and duplication, the university’s own data in their Business Case shows that the divergence between student numbers and professional staff numbers only occurred between 2023 and 2024, also under the management of the new leadership, when FTEs in Professional Service increased by massive 140.
• Despite 90% of our members supporting this demand in an EGM on the 1st of November 2024, Brunel University failed to agree to our demand of committing to avoiding compulsory redundancies
• That the university executive leadership has proposed a sweeping plan for redundancies on the basis of data that is incomplete (for example its data point for its business case was before the November 1st deadline for counting the full enrolment of students, leading to a undercount of approximately 300); on the basis of erroneous data (for example on SSRs) and on data that lacks transparency (for example the surplus of £57.5 million according to last year’s financial accounts and the lack of information about the terms of the university’s ‘banking covenant’ cited in its business case).

The Brunel UCU Branch Believes:

• That the responsibility for any difficulties that the university is in lies squarely with the new executive leadership of the university which grew the staff payroll costs amongst academic and professional staff irresponsibly from 2022 without a clearly thought out and well researched strategy.
• That the mistakes which the new leadership has made, the failure to properly consult staff and the UCU as to mitigating solutions, the lack of transparency, the erroneous data, the rushed nature of the timescale, the top-down decision making and the attempts to deflect attention with yet another re-organisation and further cuts programme, has haemorrhaged the confidence staff have in the competence of the new leadership team.
• That the new executive leadership have launched an attack on the Brunel community of staff (academic and professional) and students that is unprecedented, massively damaging the ‘human’ capital’ that makes the university a success, and potentially threatening the long-term viability of the institution.

Therefore, the branch committee urges the membership to SUPPORT a Vote of No Confidence in the Vice-Chancellor Andrew Jones and Deputy Vice-Chancellor Jonathan Wastling.