- Conference
- 2026 National Higher Education Conference
- Date
- 9 October 2025
- Decision
- Carried
Higher Education is an area that is directly impacted by devolution and conference recognises that the sector faces different challenges and funding models in each of the four nations.
While providing challenges, devolution can also bring opportunities. This has meant that our Higher Education (HE) committees in the devolved nations (Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) having direct contact with the minister with responsibility for higher education, resulting in negotiations in a range of issues such as more direct funding via funding councils, a different model of tuition fees or introducing laws that directly benefit our members.
However, too often devolved voices are missing from key committees / negotiating bodies that the Higher Education Service Group Executive have representation on. Despite the devolution protocol and the motions passed at the 2022 HE conference highlighting the problems this causes and calling for action, nothing has changed.
Conference therefore calls on the Higher Education Service Group Executive to:
1)Work with representatives from the devolved nations to develop a fair process/procedure to ensure that there is at least one devolved nation directly represented within Joint Negotiating Committee for Higher Education Staff (New JNCHES) negotiations;
2)Renew its commitment to achieving a Scottish pay negotiation table through developing a clear action plan jointly with the Scottish HE committee with a view to achieving a Scottish pay negotiation table;
3)Provide a special report to the 2027 Higher Education Conference outlining progress on this motion.