Fat cat at the Scottish Parliament lobby

A highly successful lobby of the Scottish Parliament took place on 24 May with a large turnout from branches.  The lobby was organised by UCU and held jointly with EIS and supported by NUS Scotland.  Due to publicity stunts at the lobby outside the Scottish Parliament the event received extensive media coverage on STV, BBC radio and the popular press.

The lobby sought to emphasis the shortfall in funding and the need for the new Government to meet its pre-election promise to plug the funding gap in Scotland.  However, given this commitment the union also questioned the need for job losses and attacked management and governance procedures.

UCU branches at the lobby

Following the lobby UCU had organised a meeting with MSPs where numerous local examples of poor governance had led to disputes with UCU.
Speakers from the SNP, Labour and the Greens supported the campaigns and agreed to support a review of governance. Apologies were received from the Liberal Democrat and Conservative spokespersons due to the Ash cloud and prior engagements respectively.

Despite the lack of organised business in the Parliament that day both the lobby and the briefing meeting were well attended by MSPs.

Thousands of students, staff and supporters marched peacefully on Wednesday 6th April in protest at the education cuts in Northern Ireland.

The 2011 Budget included a few announements on UCU issues but focussed very much on business and tax changes. You can see the UCU members’ briefing by clicking here: Budget 2011

Lots of people have asked how they can find out how many young people in their area recieve EMA. The latest data available is form 2008/09 and can be found here: EMA recipents by institution

UCU members from across the country rallied to protect pubic services and lobbied their Members of Parliament ahead of the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). Philippa Davey, UCU South West, reports back …

UCU took part in the ‘All Together for Public Services’ TUC rally against public sector cuts on October 19 – the day before the Comprehensive Spending Review.

The Question Time event was packed out again with over 80 people crammed onto a balcony at the ACC Liverpool. The panel for the event consisted of Sally Hunt, NUS President Aaron Porter, Julian Huppert MP (Cambridge) and Baroness Margaret Sharp. Jeevan Vasagar from The Guardian chaired.

The topic of higher education funding was a contentious issue at Liberal Democrat conference this year. Sally Hunt was joined on our platform with Secretary of State Vince Cable MP, Chair of Liberal Youth Martin Shapland and St Austell and Newquay MP Stephen Gilbert. Liberal Youth member and Councillor Tom Stubbs chaired the meeting.

A number of UCU members and staff attended the Save Our Schools rally which had been organised by NASUWT and the NUT to bring attention to cuts in education.

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt has written to all MPs inviting them to watch our ‘day in the life’ video, which which was premiered at our annual Congress at the end of May, and t0 join the Make Education Count network.