The recent AGM of the UCU discussed its work in the coming year, as the university moves to more on-campus delivery.

Towering above the other issues was the need for university action on workload. Despite amazing efforts by all staff throughout the pandemic to keep the university going workload pressure is still far too high. Court figures the last time this was discussed revealed that GCU had the second highest student staff ratio in all of the Scottish post-92 universities. This is not for anyone’s ‘common good’ – neither the staff, the students, or indeed the university.

The university ‘new blood’ campaign to bring on more staff has had an impact in some areas, but there are still too many bottlenecks where staff are going off unwell due to the stress of their workload.

And we still do not have a functioning Work Allocation Model. 

The UCU believe it is a priority for university management to take the issue of work allocation seriously. They believe they need to sit down now and come up with an agreed system.

Meanwhile they are calling an on-line meeting for their members particularly interested in this issue, and will be working with other campus unions to explore future options regarding this, perhaps also involving the lodging of a local claim on workload.