UCL UCU Notes, believes, resolves....

UCU Wrote to our Provost in September on the USS question and UCL's position on it at Universities UK. This is our letter: Professor Michael Arthur President and Provost University College London University College London UCU Branch President: Saladin Meckled-Garcia, Political Science  Secretary: Tony Brown, Information Systems Division  Enquiries: ucu@ucl.ac.uk, www.ucl.ac.uk/unions/UCU Thursday, 28 September 2017 Dear Professor Arthur I am writing briefly on behalf of UCU to explore UCL’s position on the current valuation of the USS pension scheme.  As you will recall, I wrote to you in 2014 regarding the valuation methodology at that time. I enclose that letter. Despite substantial concessions by UCU members and increased contributions from subscribing employers, we appear to be at a similar position with the current valuation as we were at the ...

Are students paying for ‘gold plated’ pensions? Fact 1: Staff costs have declined as a proportion of university expenditure The graph above shows where university income is actually spent. So-called ‘non-staff costs’ (primarily buildings) have increased steadily as a proportion of expenditure over the last ten years. The trend for the booming pre-92 University College London (a USS institution) is similar to the post-92 London Metropolitan University, which has lurched from crisis to crisis over the same period. (Source: Holmwood et al. (2016: 11),   In Defence of Public Higher Education . HE Convention.) Holmwood et al. comment: UK-average data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency shows an 8.7% growth from 41.5% of expenditure in 2004 to over 45% in 2015. UCL grew its non-staff budget by almost 20% over this period. Whereas LMU’s ratio is more volatile, the upward trend is similar. Students and taxpayers might be forgiven for asking what their fees are supp...