Tag Archives: Finance Group

Meeting with management about Transforming Cardiff and the University’s finances

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Cardiff UCU’s Finance Group has made an important step in the history of Cardiff UCU by presenting to the VC and others an analysis of the state of Cardiff University finances in response to the Transforming Cardiff programme endorsed by University Council. The meeting comprised representatives of Council, UEB, SU, Unite, Unison and Cardiff UCU. Members of the Finance Group led a presentation and discussion.

There was consensus that compared with English Russell Group universities of comparable size, Cardiff University has been working with a gradually increasing funding disadvantage since at least 2010, resulting from differences in HEFCW funding and now also reduced student fee income (compared with England).

There were strong disagreements about the financial implications of the university’s capital investment programme on the overall financial position of Cardiff University.  It was agreed that we would follow up on this with the university’s Chief Financial Officer.

The Finance Group is continuing to work with internal and external expertise to be able to impress on Council and UEB on why a change of strategy is urgently required to ensure the long-term financial sustainability of CU. A meeting with Welsh politicians to highlight the concerns of all the unions present regarding Cardiff’s funding disadvantage, was mooted.

Cardiff UCU Finance Working Group: We’re hiring an accountant!

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As we’ve mentioned before, the local volunteers on our finance working group have been doing amazing work critically examining the University’s financial information, with a view to critiquing the case for cuts to staff and re-organisation of the University. It has been a central plank of our campaign against “Transforming Cardiff”, and has given us a lot of information in our on-going discussions with management (see these videos, for example).

On the advice of the finance group, the Cardiff UCU AGM this week agreed to take this research to the next step, and to use some of our limited resources to commission a qualified accountant to do more of this work on our behalf (there’s only so much our volunteer members can do without more expert guidance and input). Given our failure to meet the 50% threshold for action to defend against compulsory redundancies, this vital work becomes even more important.

Watch this space, but in the meantime you can read about what was found when our colleagues at Bangor UCU did the same thing.

The Cardiff UCU Finance Working Group, and challenging the need for Transforming Cardiff

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One of the Union’s biggest strengths during the pensions dispute came from rank and file members’ own critical examination of USS and UUK’s positions on our pensions. Members locally, and at UK level, continue to use their expertise as researchers to effectively demolish the case for decimating our retirement incomes.

A group of Cardiff UCU members have recently been working to do the same locally, to critically examine the University’s finances and, where necessary, challenge the analysis and narratives used by senior management to justify these and other attacks on our pay and conditions.

We will update you soon about the excellent work they have been doing to challenge the need for Transforming Cardiff. To express interest in working with this group contact the branch office ucu@cardiff.ac.uk.

Critically Examining Cardiff University’s Finances: A New local UCU working group needs you!

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One of the Union’s biggest strengths during the pensions dispute came from rank and file members’ own critical examination of USS and UUK’s positions on our pensions. Members locally, and at UK level, continue to use their expertise as researchers to effectively demolish the case for decimating our retirement incomes.

We now need to draw on our members’ expertise around the University’s finances, business strategies, and spending priorities.

Our employers get away with redundancies, increased marketisation, inequality, casualisation, and cuts to pay and conditions by arguing they are financially inevitable. But as we know, cuts are always about priorities and choices, and we can much better counter these claims when we have our own facts, figures, and analysis to use in disputes and campaigns.

In short, knowledge is power: help us generate this essential information! If you’d like to be part of this working group please email UCU@cardiff.ac.uk to express an interest.