What do management's plans mean for you?
Management’s plans haven’t changed. They still intensify inequality and deprive you of dignity in work and after. They still shamefully steal your money to fund their ‘strategy’ (either by paying you less salary or lower pension contributions). These plans still mean uncertainty and precarity for you and everyone, now and in future. The only ‘choice’ they give you is ‘pay cut now (and indefinitely) and/or worse pension later (and forever)’. The only way to do this is by taking the university out of national pay bargaining. This is bad for everyone’s terms and conditions, whatever grade or pension you have. These plans force you into making decisions you should not have to make, and cannot make easily.
If you are in TPS an indefinite pay cut is unwarranted and terrible, and nothing you should have to accept – it hits you in the pocket now and indefinitely, and in your pension later. Changing to USS, where your employer pays less in and you get less out, is no better: when it comes to working out the value of your pension there are so many variables (how long will you live, when will you retire, what will inflation do, will there be pay rises, will you be promoted, will your pension keep its value – a big issue for USS).
Management are creating an unequal three-tier workforce, with staff paid differently for doing the same work: TPS staff starting at Northumbria University at G7.6 in August 2026 will be paid 10% less than a current TPS staff member at the same grade, and 12% less than a USS colleague. TPS staff will suffer a pay cut whilst USS staff will not. When you factor in colleagues on the LGPS scheme who are not part of the TRE plans, there are four tiers. This is chaotic, unfair, and inequitable.
Management’s plans are corrosive and contradictory, offer you crumbs (while nicking your loaf!), treat you with contempt, and are blighted by conflicts of interest. The Total Reward Envelope may ‘equalise’ management’s costs (at some indefinite point) but does not equalise the risk to everyone. The university’s own most recent financial report identifies top strategic risk to the institution as ‘Staff are not motivated, engaged, or aligned with the University’s ambitions’; it also notes the gender pay gap remains 13.9%. These plans make these problems worse.
Crumbs and Contempt
- If you stay in TPS your pay will be cut indefinitely (if you move to USS your pension is reduced and could be more precarious). As a “cushion” against the significant financial detriment for staying in TPS, TPS members at grade 7.6 will receive a one-off compensatory payment in August 2026. This means c. £6.70 a week (after tax; a little more for those at grade 8.5) for one year to compensate for losing c.15% of your annual salary indefinitely under ‘equalisation’ for the rest of your working life at Northumbria. Don’t spend it all at once, eh?
- “No pay award will be applied to the TPS pay scale”. A pay award is meant to help your pay keep up with inflation. Without one, this is a pay cut for anyone on TPS, to fund the university’s strategy. There is no financial black hole to fix or fill. How is keeping this responding to feedback, where precisely no-one said ‘please cut my pay’? This statement ignores the key issues raised by you in feedback and means management see you as a financial burden, not one of the people who make the university function.
- If someone joins the university from August 2026, they will be paid 10% less than a current TPS staff member at the same grade and 12% less than a USS colleague. Who will want to come?
- If you move to USS, you will get a 2% pay rise as well as a bribe/’compensation’. But USS can be seen as more precarious than TPS, and because you (and the university) pay less in, you get less out. That bribe +2% won’t get you far.
- The plans say nothing about Grade 9 or existing USS staff, or those with no pension.
- Close to retirement? Forget any brilliant contribution to the job you might still make: the university wants you gone! If you commit to a leaving date of 31 July 2027 you will get a whopping 2% pay increase between now and then! For some staff close to retirement, accepting this deal would leave you out of pocket. Again, don’t spend it all at once! As for those who remain, prepare to do more work with fewer colleagues for less pay.
Contradictions
- “Addressing this gap is essential to safeguard the University’s long-term financial health and ability to invest in teaching, research and the student experience”. THAT’S YOU! The university already invests in this BY INVESTING IN YOU! Implementing the TRE detriments mean they are DIVESTING in these areas – by cutting your pay or reducing your pension.
- “The following elements (1-4) should be taken together as a set of changes making up a single proposal, rather than a set from which individual aspects can be accepted or implemented in isolation”. All or nothing and goes against good faith bargaining. What precisely do management want to negotiate?
- “We remain open to adjusting the timeline as negotiations progress if that is judged as likely to lead to a mutually acceptable outcome” versus “We have developed a timeline for the collective bargaining process that allows for full consideration of the proposals” versus “The timeline for negotiations is being developed in consultation with UCU”. It's quite the paradox: the timeline is both being developed and is developed, while also UCU is being consulted on it and not being consulted. Schrödinger’s Timeline ?
Conflicts of Interest
- Why is an individual – the Deputy VC – who has announced their intention to leave to run for a competitor institution orchestrating plans intent on weakening Northumbria University, leaving behind a demotivated, angry staff base who are being paid unequally? Why hasn’t he been asked to stand down or recused himself?
- The VC must step down from his position on UCEA (the employers’ bargaining body). You don’t get to take part in national bargaining if you aren’t going to implement its decisions.
- What are the Board of Governors doing? They approved but didn’t even vote on these plans, and they have said they do not want to engage in any more communication about them. This is a gross dereliction of duty.
