UWE is conducting a restructure of technical staff in the College of Arts, Technology and Environment (CATE). This restructure is a choice, not a necessity. The current path chooses short-term, headline savings at the cost of long-term resilience, staff wellbeing, and student success. Developed through genuine consultation with staff, our alternative path trims unnecessary senior management duplication, reinvests in frontline staff and embodies sustainable efficiency and educational excellence.
The restructure is ostensibly focused on enhancing technical provision, implementing the Technician Commitment, and improving staff experience. However, these objectives are fundamentally inconsistent with the operational reality of a programme driven primarily by an arbitrary £240,000 cost-saving imperative. We question the university’s claim to impoverishment as a justification for redundancies. UWE’s own 2024-25 financial report boasts that “In 2024-25, the University has delivered a surplus of £21.6m (2024 £7.3m) this has resulted from one-off accounting adjustments, including pension revaluations and higher-than-expected interest income, as well as early realisation of savings from the University Transformation Programme.”
In its present form, the restructure contains material flaws in its approach to equality law, health and safety obligations and the management of organisational change. These flaws are not merely procedural, they actively undermine the very objectives the programme purports to advance.
Students agree that technicians are the lifeblood of the University. A recent student petition states that the restructure means:
“- Less workshop access
– Fewer specialists to learn from
– Longer waiting times to use necessary specialist equipment
– Increased safety risks
Technical staff and workshops are the most vital part of our experience at Bower Ashton, It makes it the creative hub that it is, it would be a travesty to lose that.”
Please contact the union or your local Reps if you are being asked to sign any new contracts.
To avoid potential litigation, reputational damage, the loss of skilled technicians, and protect students’ education, we are calling for UWE to:
1. Engage in a genuine dialogue with affected staff and UNISON over the proposed changes.
Time and again, we have seen the consultation process significantly lacking integrity, exacerbating an already severe deficit of trust in senior management. Technical staff have been falsely told by managers that academic leads had “signed off” the structures, academic staff were falsely told the unions had agreed the proposal, and inaccurate minutes have been produced in School of Engineering consultations. Meanwhile, data on student numbers relating to decision making was received by a union Representative extremely late in the consultation and we are yet to receive an official response to our substantive concerns. We look forward to returning to a good faith dialogue.
2. Decouple the Savings Agenda from the Structural Reform.
You cannot conduct a fair, legally compliant role-matching exercise when the outcome is predetermined by a £240k savings target. Remove the savings target from this project scope. If savings are required, they should be identified through a separate, transparent cost improvement programme, not disguised as “efficiencies” within a restructure. This immediately removes the conflict of interest inherent in current assimilation metrics.
3. Implement our tangible alternatives to achieve savings
UWE UNISON through a genuine consultation has identified a significant cost saving option while actively improving the University’s performance in the TEF and NSS. See the full proposal here.
4. Abandon the Subjective ‘Contribution’ Metric.
Replace the 50% weighting for “Contribution to nature of role” with objectively verifiable criteria. If you must score staff, use evidenced-based metrics: length of service, qualification attainment, continuing professional development (CPD) logged, and accident/near-miss reporting history.
5. Publish the Health and Safety Ownership Matrix Before Implementation.
Shared responsibility fails without dedicated ownership. For every laboratory and workshop, publish a RACI matrix (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) identifying the single, named, accountable individual. If that individual is not the principal technician linked to that space, justify why. This is not bureaucracy; this is the Bennett defence.
6. Appoint an independent reviewer from the UK Institute for Technical Skills and Strategy.
UWE HR and CATE management are inapropriately placed to assess whether the proposed structure can deliver the stated objectives without compromising safety or the student experience.
You can support the campaign by:
- Attending the next UWE UNISON members’ meeting on 22 April.
- Promoting the union in your workplace and recruiting new members. The more of us there are, the harder we are to ignore.
- Sharing how the restructure will affect you or giving us any other thoughts by contacting your Rep or emailing unison@uwe.ac.uk.
We support student-staff solidarity and are delighted that so many students recognise that our working conditions are their learning conditions. If you are a student, you can support us by:
- Engaging with the Students’ Union: let your Presidents, student reps and LSRs know your opposition to the restructure, or create a Student Idea to shape SU policy.
- Emailing us at unison@uwe.ac.uk and ask how we can work together.
Additional information:
- Latest update: UWE UNISON’s feedback on CATE Technical Re-Organisation | University of the West of England
- The Technician Commitment, to which UWE is a signatory.