Workload

This document provides information about what you should expect when it comes to discussions about your workload – based on existing policies agreed with Northumbria UCU, the branch’s Workload Survey, and on national UCU campaigns.

The results of the Survey have been published nationally by the Labour Research Department, and are available on the branch website: https://www.ucu-unn.org.uk/images/stories/File/Workloads.pdf.  

  • Any changes to or discussions about how workload is experienced, allocated, or processed need to have your health, safety, and wellbeing, as well as equality and inclusivity, at their heart.
  • Any information generated by consultation should be made available to all, and any changes to workload must in turn be negotiated with UCU, to make things better for you not worse. The current Workload Planning Scheme was agreed via negotiation with UCU in 2014; the Scheme says workload is meant to be subject to 'Periodic Review' involving UCU precisely because of this; and the relevant legislation says employers have to collectively bargain (i.e. negotiate) on 'terms and conditions of employment' and the 'allocation of work' : https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/52/part/IV/chapter/I#:~:text=Trade%20Union%20and%20Labour%20Relations%20(Consolidation)%20Act%201992. 
  • Some improvements to how workload is experienced, allocated, or processed, could be achieved simply by honouring the terms of the existing scheme: you should be able to meet to see and agree their workload in a transparent way long before you have to do what is in your workload; you should get additional hours for developing new modules, or for running large modules.
  • 1 hours’ preparation for one hours’ delivery (1:1) is not sufficient.
  • Externally-funded research time should mean that (not use up your research allocation).
  • 10 hours for second PhD supervision per year is not enough.
  • 20 working days, and .75 time, are not enough for marking.
  • Cuts in professional support push the admin burden on to academic staff and are not cost-effective.
  • When academic colleagues leave and are not replaced, this has a huge impact on everyone else’s workload.