Collective Consultation meeting, June 18th 2026

Wellbeing, Organisational Stress Risk Assessment and Equality Impact Analyses

UNISON, UNITE and UCU joint report

The second collective consultation meeting was focused on the EDI and wellbeing related aspects of the redundancy proposals. This covered the wellbeing support available to staff, the organisational stress risk assessment and the equality impact analyses conducted for both the pooling of at-risk roles and selection stages of the process. We also discussed previous data requests, including on non-pay costs which will be supplied to the Trade Unions this week.

On wellbeing, the Trade Unions stressed the need for greater support to be provided throughout the consultation process and beyond. This included the updating of the Staff Wellbeing Hub, more face-to-face support on campus and a focus on time and support for staff to retrain or prepare for any future redundancy process. While the University Executive noted the decision to provide two coaches to support staff and the potential costs of any training, we discussed the various needs of members who might be considering or concerned about entering the job market (including time off and information and support provided early in the process) and the resources already available on campus that could be directed towards this. We also raised issues from members regarding the specific responsibilities of the University with regard to disabled staff and requested that further guidance and oversight be put in place to address the structural inequalities and injustices faced by these staff members and a more proactive approach to providing reasonable adjustments. These discussions will be returned to in the consultation meeting on selection criteria.

The Trade Unions raised a number of issues from the organisational stress risk assessment, especially around communication, workload and the participation of university staff in decision making. The University Executive present noted the issues with communication to date and the need to provide a clear timeline and ongoing information for plans post-consultation. We also requested a more comprehensive review of workloads and a listening exercise with staff to identify areas where unnecessary work can be removed while we face an increasingly acute crisis of demands on staff.  We noted that participation in decision-making has been lacking to date and offered to support the creation of clear mechanisms for a genuine and ongoing role for employees to shape University plans. 

Finally, on the topic of the equality impact analyses, the Trade Unions noted the need for analysis to be conducted at the Faculty or Division level, as members have flagged that university-wide analysis is obscuring inequalities within teams. The University Executive agreed to provide this at faculty level and across professional services. We highlighted some inaccuracies in the data provided and flagged hidden inequalities, requesting further details on the intersectional and cumulative impacts of any redundancy process and a breakdown for smaller teams (or pools) with only 1 or 2 individuals. We also stressed the importance of equality impact analysis being conducted at each stage of the redundancy process. We will return to these issues as more data is shared with us.

Next collective consultation meeting: June 24th, Redundancy Terms and Pay Protection Proposal.