Many thanks to all those eligible members who participated in our pay offer consultation vote: just over 33% of you did so, which is an improvement on recent years. 

 The result locally was that 85% of respondents indicated that they wished to accept this year’s offer.

Our local outcome was reported to UNISON’s Higher Education Service Group executive, who discussed the results from all participating Branches and ratified members’ acceptance of the pay offer.

 Overall, UNISON members voted by 71.1% to 28.9% to accept the offer.

 The HE Unions have jointly reported to UCEA, the higher education employers’ organisation, that UNISON and GMB had consulted members and were accepting the offer; UNITE have rejected the offer but are consulting further before deciding on next steps; UCU was conducting an electronic ballot of members (due to end at the end of July) with a recommendation of “best that can be achieved by negotiation”; and EIS, the Scottish lecturer’s union, had conducted an initial consultation and would be consulting further over the summer.

 UNISON’s head of higher education, Donna Rowe-Merriman, commented:

“Members working in universities have reluctantly accepted this year’s offer.

 “Whilst higher than recent years, it still does not go far enough in compensating staff for successive years of low wage increases.

 The HE service group executive has already begun work on next year’s claim and will want to mobilise support from across HE to ensure decent pay for our members in future.”

 It should be noted that because not all the unions have concluded their consultation processes, it will obviously be some time yet before any pay uplifts can be applied, even assuming that each union ends up accepting the offer over the summer.