Category Archives: Update

Results of Vote of No Confidence, launch of a new EEES, and ‘Ask the VC’ all-staff event

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Vote of no Confidence Results

CCCU UCU wrote to the Vice Chancellor, the Senior Management Team, and the Clerk to the Board of Governors on Monday evening, following the closure of the Vote of no Confidence (VoNC) at 1700 on the same day.

The Canterbury Christ Church University vote of no confidence, organised by UCU, closed on Monday 31 March 2025 at 17:00.

Fully verified and unique votes with @canterbury.ac.uk email address:  375

Of whom:
Staff 282  (75%)
Student 90  (24%)
Other 3  (1%)

And of which:
No confidence: 359  (96%)
Yes confidence: 16  (4%)

The results indicate the lack of confidence staff and students have in the governance of the University and the decisions being taken at the current time. We hope SMT and the Board of Governors will use this information in their future decision making.

The results of the vote were reported on the UCU website at: https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/13973/Canterbury-Christ-Church-University-staff-and-students-deliver-vote-of-no-confidence-in-vice-chancellor-senior-management-and-governors

Launch of a new Targeted Enhanced Early Exit Scheme (EEES)

Following repeated requests by UCU at JNCC (Joint Negotiation and Consultative Committee) and following the results of the VoNC, SMT have agreed to open a Targeted Enhanced Early Exit Scheme for colleagues in affected departments, regardless of risk status. The scheme launches on Monday 7th April 2025 and will close on Monday 28th April 2025. Further details can be found here: Targeted Enhanced Early Exit Scheme

UCU welcome this decision, although have fed back that the deadline is not long enough for staff to be confirmed at risk or not at risk, and that several months of unnecessary stress and anxiety could have been avoided had SMT taken this decision when UCU first requested it.

‘Ask the VC’ all-staff event

CCCU UCU are hosting an all-staff ‘Ask the VC’ event on Tuesday 8th April 2025 from 1130-1300 in VH.0.03 and hybrid on Teams. Members will have received an invitation to the event, which they are encouraged to pass on to non-members, and there is a StaffNET notice about the event here: All-staff ‘Ask the VC’ event StaffNET announcement

This Q&A event is a chance for staff to ask questions about the Transformational Change Programme (TCP) and the current financial status of the University, amongst other concerns you might wish to raise/ask about.

UCU will moderate the session but will not filter your questions – we want you to be able to ask the questions you really want to know the answers to.

Please do spread the word and attend in-person if you can (although this is a hybrid event).

Vote of No Confidence in VC, SMT, and Board of Governors launched!

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In accordance with the second resolution of the amended motion presented at the December EGM (Motion EGM1224_01) and subsequently passed by members via digital vote, CCCU UCU have launched a vote of No Confidence in the Vice Chancellor (VC), Senior Management Team (SMT), and Board of Governors.

The vote was launched in the CCCU UCU Branch Meeting on Wednesday 12th March and will run until 1700 on Monday 31st March 2025. The vote is open to any staff or student at Canterbury Christ Church University and you will need to enter your CCCU email address to vote, and subsequently verify this email address once you receive a verification email for your vote to be counted. Non-verified, duplicate votes, and votes cast with a non-CCCU email will not be counted.

The vote is hosted by UCU via the national campaigns team so CCCU management will not see your email address or know whether or how you have voted.

To vote, please go to: https://yoursay.ucu.org.uk/s3/CCCU-VONC-vote
or scan the QR code here:

There is some background information and then you will be asked:
Do you have confidence in Canterbury Christ Church University’s vice chancellor, senior management team and board of governors’ ability to effectively and responsibly oversee the current financial and strategic operations of Canterbury Christ Church University?

As a reminder, CCCU UCU is currently in dispute with CCCU over failure to rule out compulsory redundancies (CR) in this academic year, 2024-25, and next academic year 2025-26). CCCU has not ruled out CR, nor committed to launching an Enhanced Voluntary Redundancy scheme alongside the TCP consultations, despite repeated requests from CCCU UCU.

SMT Pay Award Update – No change to decision to award pay rise

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We received a response from the Remuneration Committee on 06/03/25. You can read the letter here, which states that the pay award decision was taken in October 2024 based on 2023/24 performance. The committee has decided not to revise its original decision to award SMT a pay increase.

The letter highlights areas of achievement for the University in 2023/24: partnership developments (we have argued that there is an over-reliance on these high-risk partnerships, there have been investigations into some of these partnerships leading to the ending of some contracts following teach-out, and the Office for Students is keeping a watchful eye on institutions with a high number of partnerships); and the growth in overseas students (which has evaporated this academic year).

As a reminder to members, the University announced in 2023-24 the need to make £10m savings, made colleagues in the Centre for Languages and Linguistics compulsory redundant, and approximately 60 staff were made redundant via an Enhance Voluntary Redundancy scheme. This is not acknowledged in the letter.

The letter does acknowledge that student recruitment numbers in 2024-25 were ‘disappointing, it was also acknowledged that work had now started on the reshaping and redesign of the University to help ensure financial sustainability’. There is NO MENTION of the need to make £20m savings and the 400+ JOB LOSSES in the letter. It should be noted that the decision of the Remuneration Committee, in October 2024, was taken AFTER the data on student recruitment was known, and after the Transformational Change Programme was launched.

The letter also states that ‘no member of SMT is granted a pay award unless their performance is rated as Excellent in the annual appraisal process’. UCU would not, therefore, expect any member of SMT to achieve this rating this academic year, given the poor student recruitment and retention, the poor financial planning that has led to the need to save £20m so urgently and by the end of July 2025, and the lack of any plan for an alternative to staff job cuts to make the bulk of these savings. The uncompassionate, delayed, and inaccessible communications of the proposals of the TCP and the inconsistences in each Strand’s approach (plus the different processes for some academic schools which have gone through redundancy consultation outside of the TCP), plus the refusal to rule out compulsory redundancies or to offer an Enhanced Voluntary Redundancy scheme alongside the TCP redundancy consultations, should also be factored into SMT performance analysis at appraisal.

CCCU UCU will consider how we can facilitate members to feedback to the Remuneration Committee on SMT performance this year so they can take this into account, and whether to respond further to the letter.

If you have views on the committee’s decision to go ahead with the second instalment of the pay award to SMT, or on how the branch should respond, please come to our next General Branch Meeting on Wednesday 12th March at 1230-1400 – look out for a reminder invite in your email inboxes soon!