- Conference
- 2026 National Higher Education Conference
- Date
- 8 October 2025
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes:
1)That the University and College Union (UCU) have announced that they are seeking to raise a dispute over HE funding with the Secretary of State for Education (and equivalent in Scotland);
2)We too have seen a growing crisis in HE under a broken funding model which does not meet the needs of the sector. The dire situation facing many of our members is fundamentally a problem with HE funding, and our employers frequently argue that they have no money to resolve this problem, leading to thousands of job cuts and the lowest pay offer in the public sector (and most likely much of the private sector too).
We call on the HE Service Group Executive:
a)To look into the strategy of raising such a dispute within UNISON’s rules, both in terms of its how such a dispute might be formulated in law, and in terms of how it might potentially succeed;
b)To reach out to the UCU as far as they are willing to share their reasoning and to follow their progress with their dispute;
c)To keep the situation under review.