TCM - An Update

Members of staff in CHSSC were sent the following email on Wednesday 17th:-

We are writing to correct considerable inaccuracies in the statement made by John Dobson in relation to TCM in the School of CHSSC. All the points noted below have been raised frequently in a series of meetings in relation to Phase 1 of Project Headroom; namely:
• The original business case was carefully put together. Its key point was the academic case for re-structuring; we recognised that TCM made a small surplus.
• The union’s re-calculation of the finances of the programme, incorrectly omitted some of the staffing costs and overheads; plus, that retention has been an ongoing issue, several students are part-time and several have ELQs. Our re-calculations of their figures confirmed our original finding that TCM made a small surplus.
• TCM as an undergraduate programme is no longer a sound academic fit for the School.
• The loss of income from TCM undergraduates will be replaced by recruiting students in other subject areas which are a sound academic fit for the School.
• The School and Faculty are working with TCM staff to determine whether a sound research profile can be established for TCM which would give it a place, allied to a clinical research base, in our PG portfolio. This latter option is to be developed over the next few years while the TCM undergraduate programme is still running. If successful, one post which is VS would be saved before the staff member is due to leave in 2010.
• The union has at no time given any alternative options which would achieve the £980k saving

From:
Dr Ruth Wright, Head of School CHSSC;
Professor Cynthia Pine, Executive Dean of the Faculty;
Mr Simon Attwell Director of Finance”

The following observations spring to mind:
 The authors acknowledge that TCM makes a surplus
 There is no explanation as to how the additional recruitment in other subject areas, to cover the loss of TCM income, will come about
 The potential for TCM in some postgraduate format is clearly far from a certainty, particularly since it is not known yet which School will host this. Furthermore, there is no reason to lose a viable undergraduate programme while developing the postgraduate one.
 Salford UCU has never accepted that £980K should be saved as it has consistently refuted the basis for Project Headroom, hence no alternative options to save this amount

The only conclusion is that TCM was always to be closed, regardless of UCUS efforts – “no longer a sound academic fit for the School”.

SBS Poetry Anthology Part 3

The writer of today's poem wished to remain anonymous. Nevertheless, we'd like to thank him or her for writing the poem and submitting it.

‘The Education of Oppenheimer’

By ‘anon’

Look! I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
This ‘World’ collapses, stripped of its most precious resources
Yet the destroyer feels no guilt.

Death stalks the corridors, the chilling touch felt by all
As ‘Fate’ decides your number is up.

Destroyer, you are a classic general.
You had loyal troops but, sat in your ivory tower,
your men became more numbers,
morale an intangible asset, lives simple figures to be balanced.

Destroyer, see your world. You have destroyed it.
Your legacy is desolation, your kingdom laid to waste.
Look, you have become Death.
You have destroyed your own world.

Traditional Chinese Medicine - Programme Closure

It is with much regret that I have to announce that, despite the hard work of many people, the University is to continue with its closure of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Programme.

Despite figures showing the programme to be profitable to the University, the Finance Department has given the following feedback:

(1) They originally based their figures on 80 students. We used 77 being the average of the last 5 years.

(2) They have come back and changed their figures to 60 students – being this year’s intake, which has been lower than for any previous year (probably the effect of centralising admissions).

(3) Further they have now decided that 15% students are ELQ (equivalent and lower qualifications), and therefore are further reducing the number of students from their original 80 to 50.

(4) As a consequence, the programme which made a small surplus on 14th October 2008 now makes a substantial loss.

(5) The programme will therefore be closed.

The Programme Leader, Mei Xing, has commented:

At this disheartened moment, what I would like to say is Thank You all for your effort to save this programme, but at the end of the day, it is a loss of the university!

SBS Poetry Anthology Pt 2

Another poem. I should shortly be able to provide a write up of Wednesday's meeting and a serious update.

I rather think that this week's poem, although short, is a call on everybody to get together and make more of a fuss about what's happening. It's by Andrew Basden who is the Professor of Human Factors and Philosophy of Information in the Informatics Research Institute of Salford Business School.


I'll have a think
To raise a stink

Before we all go
Down the sink.

SBS Poetry Anthology

Staff in SBS have been asked to write a poetry anthology for those taking redundancy, to be given to them as a memory of their time at University of Salford. That is, as a memory of their friends and colleagues here. We thought it would be nice to publish some of those poems here, so I will be trying to do that once a week over the next 3 weeks.

So here is our first poem, it's by Graham Taylor Cooke. Graham is the Programme Leader for CIPD Leadership and Management. It never fails to amaze me, that with so much expertise in management and leadership at the University it never seems to get drawn upon.

‘THE BUREAUCRATS’

Graham Taylor Cooke June 1997

(Some things never change)

They’re painting the house, they’re baking a pie,
They’re digging a hole and they don’t know why
The faceless beige people with the usual names
Plotting our course with their management games,
They write the procedures, they give us no quarter,
They’re...
The writer, the enforcer, and their blind supporters

Monitoring progress of things that don’t move,
Inflexible people in the processing groove
They’ll never falter in their quest to gain order,
And plot to discredit the ones on the border
And creative spirit is diluted with water,
By...
The writer, the enforcer, and their blind supporters

They’re bureaucratic, acrobatic people in beige,
Who jump through the hoops and work hard for their wage,
But when the great change comes, these beige bureaucrats
Will write more procedures whilst wearing two hats,
And they’ll slip unaware like lambs to the slaughter,
No more...
The writer, the enforcer, and their blind supporters

Special General Meeting

Wednesday 10th December 2008 13.00 - 14.00

Venue : Mary Seacole Lecture Theatre G 21

Agenda :

1. Collective Redundancy Consultations – progress report

2. Update on redundancies in :-

(a) CHSSC

(b) SBS

(c) ILS

3. Phase 2 redundancies

4. Questions from members

The officers will remain behind after 14.00 to answer any personal questions.

John Dobson

President

Salford UCU

UCUS Response to Project Headroom

Please visit the UCUS website to read the official UCUS response to Project Headroom.

More Pictures from the Lobby & ILS Update

Those people being made "voluntarily" redundant have now received their letters. Staff in ILS still under threat from Project "Headroom" have been invited to meetings to be informed of the next steps. None of the remaining staff want to leave, like all of those under threat, many have families and mortgages to pay, few are nearing retirement age.

Being made redundant from an IT post during a time of recession when many privatised industries are cutting back is causing stress amongst the remaining staff, and I am sure that this is also true of staff in the 2 affected Schools. We believe that the remaining staff losses could be made due to "natural wastage" ie not filling posts when staff leave and waiting for retirees to reach their retirement date, however the powers that be do not appear to want to consider this as an option.

If anyone has any information about what is happening on the ground, and how staff are feeling, in SBS and CHSSC please let us know.

In the meantime here are some more pictures from Wednesday night's lobby of the SBS Annual Lecture, showing the support from the Student Union.

Successful and well attended lobby against the redundancies during the Annual Business School Lecture to be given by Brendan Barber

Over 100 people turned out on a wet Wednesday evening to support the Lobby against Redundancies at the Allerton Building during the Business School Annual Lecture.

It was good to see both staff and students working together to defend higher education. The rally was also supported by representatives of the trade union movement including the Manchester Trades Council and the local community.

Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the Trades Union Council (TUC) addressed the rally as did local MP Ian Stewart (MP for Eccles). Brendan Barber said that he was aware of the situation at Salford and had just come from a meeting with all the Salford Unions.

Ian Stewart said that he come to attend the lecture and had only just become aware that large scale redundancies were taking place at his local University.

Both speakers pledged their supported of the Unions stand against compulsory redundancies, as did all the speakers.

Explanation of Voluntary Redundancy Letter

A number of staff who have volunteered for redundancy have been very concerned about the following statement which was included in the letter which management have handed out today, and have asked us what it means.

‘at this stage, your acceptance is only provisional.
The reason for this is that the University is unable to progress any applications at this stage because the ongoing Collective Consultation process with the Trade Unions and they have requested that we put the Voluntary Severance process on hold’

The University has a statutory duty to consult with the unions. This consultation period does not end until mid January. Unfortunately, the University decided to start implementing the redundancy programme the day after it started consultation. Unfortunately, the consultations have not proceeded easily. It has taken us weeks to get financial information from management which we thought should be readily available. As a result, our consultations have been delayed. But even more worrying, the financial information we have received from the University, together with our own calculations have given us serious concerns about the concept of Project Headroom and also its implementation. Our detailed written reply to the University will be made available to members shortly. But in short we have serious concerns that the business plans for the two Schools will leave both Schools financially weaker and will result in further redundancies next year.