Author: L Scott Blankenship

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Violating the University’s Governance Processes!

Email sent to members on Monday 16th March 2026.

As part of our fight to protect jobs and working conditions at the University of Nottingham, we will be sending regular emails outlining various aspects of our campaign. Today, we discuss UEB’s decision to suspend a whole range of degree programmes and how this violated the university’s governance processes. Further details about our campaign can be found on our webpages, via the Future Nottingham tab.

The University of Nottingham’s Course Suspensions: Two Claims That Don’t Hold Up

The University has offered a public justification for its decision to suspend over 40 courses, including the whole departments of Modern Languages and Music. Here is why some of those justifications deserve a closer look.

Claim 1: “Our governance processes are being followed across all the [Future Nottingham] programme, including the decision to suspend courses.”

What happened? Heads of Schools were informed of the decision approximately a week before staff were notified on 5 November 2025. The courses were taken off UCAS by 7 November. And as for the “two main bodies […] involved in the governance of the University”, Senate and Council, the former was invited to comment on 13 November, while the latter only voted to approve the strategic case for change on 25 November.

On governing processes, it might be worth looking at the University’s Quality Manual, as a “robust quality assurance framework which sets out the regulations, policies and procedures around teaching and learning at the University of Nottingham.”

Section 4.1 on closing or suspending a course is unambiguous: “School and Faculty endorsement is required to close or suspend a course”  (emphasis added). That is mandatory language, not aspirational. It also specifies that “at the end of this stage there must be clear evidence of support from both the School and the Faculty” and that this evidence “must be retained for audit purposes”.

Heads of Schools were informed but not asked. Notification isn’t endorsement. The Quality Manual does not state that Schools should be kept in the loop, but that their support should be sought and evidenced before the process moves forward.

Now, the University Executive Board (UEB) may contend that Future Nottingham, as a top-down executive programme, operates outside or above the Quality Manual framework. However, this argument does not hold either.

The Quality Manual states that “all closures and suspensions […] will require endorsement at School and Faculty level” (emphasis added). It contains no exception for strategic restructuring programmes, nor any provision allowing UEB to disapply its requirements.

The logic of a “top-down” decision superseding the Quality Manual also defeats itself. Its stated purpose is indeed to:

  • Enable the effective and efficient monitoring of academic standards and the quality of the student experience in relation to internal priorities and external requirements (such as those stated in the QAA’s Quality Code   and from accrediting professional, statutory and regulatory bodies);
  • Ensure consistency and transparency, whilst enabling and acknowledging appropriately diverse discipline practices;
  • Provide a mechanism for critical review and, in doing so, highlight and promote good practice across the institution.

The endorsement requirement has its greatest value precisely in situations like this one: where an executive decision is being imposed on Schools that have not asked for it, and where the outcome of following the procedure would have been a documented objection. The University bypassed a mechanism that would have produced a formal, recorded refusal to endorse. That is not a procedural technicality. It is a substantive governance failure.

Claim 2: “This decision was made to ensure compliance with Consumer Protection Legislation (CMA) as well as to ensure transparency to potential future students and not promote programmes that may ultimately not exist. No final decisions have been made about the future of these courses.”

This argument, repeated on many occasions, deserves closer reading.

The University says, in two sentences, that it removed courses from UCAS to avoid promoting programmes that “may ultimately not exist”, and that “no final decisions have been made.” If no final decision has been made, then these are courses that may well continue to exist. Removing them from UCAS, therefore, does not protect prospective students from applying to closing courses. It deprives them of the chance to apply to courses that the University itself admits might survive.

That is not a consumer protection measure. It is the operational implementation of a decision that has not yet been taken.

Furthermore, the CMA requires that prospective students be given “clear, intelligible, unambiguous and timely information by HE providers”. Thus, transparency, according to CMA, is telling people what’s happening, not suddenly withdrawing options without explanation. If the University’s genuine concern was transparency, the appropriate step would have been to add a visible notice to the relevant course pages explaining that these programmes were under review. Instead, the courses disappeared.

There is also the matter of the withdrawal date. The University’s public communication of 6 November told students that courses would be suspended from UCAS from Monday 10 November. They were, in fact, removed on Friday 7 November, without correction or explanation.

Other than a misleading public statement, it undermines the University’s CMA compliance argument. The University’s statement claimed that the suspension was made in the interests of transparency and CMA compliance. It is very difficult to maintain that position while simultaneously having communicated an incorrect withdrawal date to the public. This was either an administrative error or a deliberate choice. If it was an error, it demonstrates inadequate control over a consequential operational decision. If it was deliberate, it raises the question of who made that decision, on what authority, and why the public communication was not corrected before the earlier withdrawal took effect.

All in all

These two claims share a common thread: they assert compliance and good faith while the documented sequence of events tells a different story. Governance procedures were bypassed or substituted with lesser forms of engagement. A withdrawal date was communicated incorrectly.

The University said that no final decisions have been made. If that is true, there is still time to act consistently with it, by reinstating the courses on UCAS pending the September 2026 decision.

The students, staff, and communities affected by these decisions are entitled to more than statements of reassurance. They are entitled to governance that matches the commitments set out in the University’s own documentation and to an institution that, when it makes claims about compliance, can demonstrate them.

                UoN UCU Branch Committee

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Our current mandate

In this current period of balloting for industrial action, we want to remind members of what we are voting for. Thus, we reproduce here our branch motion on moving towards a new industrial action mandate, passed at members’ meeting on Friday 12th December.

This branch notes:

  1. The current dispute for no CR in 2025 and 2026 remains live because the commitment given is only until 31 Oct 2026.
  1. That we see a breach of the agreement reached in November when we suspended our informed strike action. 

The University said in our agreement

“We make a commitment to meaningful and immediate engagement ie w/c 17th November with unions to discuss timeframes and proposals with sufficient time to review 2026 recruitment for suspended courses.  By meaningful we mean the University to provide in as quick as time as possible, any data needed to allow for a counter proposal to suspension.  This counter proposal will be seriously considered and responded to. The aim of the counter proposal is to show other areas of potential investment the University will adopt, with the sole aim of ensuring the reversal of potential suspension in time for 2026 or 2027 recruitment. “

On 4th December the University said (taken from the University’s own minutes)

“It was clarified that while alternative proposals from unions and staff were welcome at any time, they would not be incorporated into the initial consultation document. Instead, all proposals would be considered collectively during the formal consultation phase in the spring or early summer.

              UCU gives acknowledgement that data has been received but the above statement makes it clear that nothing is going to be considered until the formal consultation. This does not fit with the highlighted sentence of our agreement, as it will be too late.”

  1. The university has been making plans for months (possibly longer) regarding workload, whether that be an enormous increase in SSR or to impact time for research. It has even paid for outside consultants to assist in the decision making. Until late November, i.e. just prior to going to Council, this was not even mooted with the unions. This does not fit with genuine dialogue. 

This branch believes: 

  • The recent actions of the University do not give confidence in meaningful dialogue and some of the actions indicate the precise opposite.

This branch, therefore, resolves that a trade dispute should be registered with the University on the following points:

  • UCU seeks an agreement from the University that there will be no compulsory redundancies from the current commitment of 31st October 2026 until 31 December 2027. 
  • For the University to suspend its plans for increasing workload and job cuts (either by increasing SSR or by reducing research time) and to enter into discussions with UCU on a more appropriate ratio that is broadly in line with other Russell Group universities, who are within the QS global top 100 universities.
  • We seek to safeguard jobs and as such expect the University to provide a guarantee that degree programmes will be reinstated in all areas where programme suspensions or closures would have job implications; 
  • For a return to the agreement reached in November regarding suspended courses. In particular for the University to enter discussions with UCU with the sole aim of ensuring the reversal of potential suspension in time for 2026 or 2027 recruitment.
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UCU campaign post: Sir Keith O’Nions – Engendering Decline!

Email sent to members on Monday 9th March 2026.

As part of our fight to protect jobs and working conditions at the University of Nottingham, we will be sending regular emails outlining various aspects of our campaign. Today, we discuss the role of the Chair of Council Sir Keith O’Nions in the university’s financial debacle. Further details about our campaign can be found on our webpages, via the Future Nottingham tab.

Sir Keith O’Nions – Engendering Decline

The Council of the University of Nottingham plays a key role in the development of the institution. As it is highlighted on the university website, ‘University Council is a key component of the University’s governance structure, critiquing, debating and ratifying decisions which shape the future of the University. Council plays a critical role in challenging University decisions, influencing strategy and supporting the work of the University’s Executive Board which is made up of a small group of executive colleagues.’

Sir Keith O’Nions has been the Chair of Council since January 2020.

When the pandemic struck in Spring 2020, the University of Nottingham (UoN) experienced financial difficulties, which required drastic action. All non-essential spending was immediately suspended, a voluntary redundancy scheme resulted in the loss of more than 400 members of staff, and fixed-term and postgraduate teaching posts were terminated. In June/July 2020, budget cuts of 15 per cent were imposed on all faculties for the subsequent academic year.

In March 2021, the local University and College Union (UCU) branch presented its Alternative Financial Strategy (AFS). We pointed out that unless university management changed its lean financial management strategy, in which long-term infrastructure projects are exclusively financed through annual surpluses while cash reserves are being kept low, a similar situation was likely to re-occur a few years down the line.

Importantly, we contacted Sir Keith O’Nions at the time and asked him to circulate our financial alternative in Council. Nevertheless, the Chair of Council, responsible for the oversight of UoN finances, refused to do so. ‘The Chair and Council’, we were told, ‘are both fully apprised of, and have complete confidence in, the financial positioning of the University and require no additional external input’ (17 June, 2021).

Only a few months later, Council with Sir Keith O’Nions at its helm authorised the purchase of Castle Meadow Campus (CMC). It approved the initial acquisition cost of £37.5 million, i.e. Phase 1, and an additional £47m + vat, i.e. £54 million funding envelope, i.e. Phase 2, for a 10-year development plan, i.e. £91.5 million overall.

Senate, the only partly democratic institution within the university’s governance structure, pointed out that CMC was not fit for purpose as it did not have enough teaching rooms for a start. Instead of listening to reason, the Chair of Council together with the former Registrar stepped in and disempowered Senate through a change in its statutes.

Unsurprisingly, with the same financial strategy in place, by the end of 2023, the University was facing financial difficulties again. An immediate hiring freeze and non-pay savings were combined with a Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme (MARS), which resulted in the ‘voluntary’ redundancy of almost 300 staff in June 2024.

And still, the University of Nottingham with Sir Keith O’Nions as its Chair of Council soldiered on regardless. More money was invested in CMC and the financial model remained the same. In early 2025 it became finally clear that more drastic action had to be taken to keep the university afloat. Management finally accepted that CMC was not fit for purpose, estimating that it may have to sell it for no more than £14.5 million. Heads did roll. The term of the VC Shearer West was not renewed, the Registrar Paul Greatrix and the Chief Financial Officer Margaret Monckton both had to leave. However, Sir Keith O’Nions as Chair of Council stayed on.

Future Nottingham, a grand restructuring plan, was put forward. Phase 1 resulted in the loss of 350 mainly administrative staff through ‘voluntary redundancies’, Phase 2 is likely to cause further redundancies of hundreds of staff, this time mainly academics and technicians. A host of study programmes are earmarked for closure, higher staff-student ratios are intended to teach more students with fewer staff. And yet again, it is Sir Keith O’Nions, who ensured that the Strategic Case for Change was pushed through Council in November 2025.

In sum, it was Sir Keith O’Nions, who ensured that the purchase of Castle Meadow Campus was waived through Council back in 2021. It was he, who refused to share the Alternative Financial Strategy 1.0, produced by UCU, with members of Council. It was he who, together with the former Registrar, engineered the disempowerment of Senate. It is he who is currently driving the disastrous Future Nottingham restructuring programme. He is in many respects one of the key architects of the university’s current mess.  

It is Sir Keith O’Nions who has engendered deline! No wonder that members of all three campus unions included him in their Vote of No Confidence.

On behalf of the UCU Branch Committee

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Motion on International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) Definition of Antisemitism

The following motion was passed with a majority of 68% at the members’ meeting on Wednesday 4th March 2026.

This branch notes:

  1. That there has been a sharp rise in reported incidents of anti-Jewish discrimination/racism (antisemitism) in Britain since the escalation of violence in Israel/Palestine from October 2023, including the 2025 attack on Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue on Yom Kippur.
  2. That over 100 human rights organisations including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B’Tselem and the ACLU have criticised the IHRA working definition of antisemitism for repressing free speech and enabling false accusations against students, academics, and activists. 
  3. UCU Congress passed a motion in 2021 against the adoption of the IHRA definition in Universities, and Goldsmiths UCU has adopted a similar motion.
  4. More broadly, a legal challenge to the NHS, and a mass campaign targeted at Ireland’s government, due to their respective adoptions of the IHRA definition.
  5. That the right to protest Israel’s acts – deemed genocidal in a United Nations report of September 2025 – has been heavily suppressed across Britain, including at the University of Nottingham.

This branch believes:

  1. That the IHRA working definition of antisemitism enables the conflation of anti-Jewish discrimination/racism with critique of the Israeli state’s actions. 

For example:

  • Point 7 defines antisemitism as ‘Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, eg. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour’.  This represses debate over the historical origins of Israel as a nation state. 
  • Point 10 defines antisemitism as ‘drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis’. This represses any debate that situates Israeli policy in relationship to far-Right politics and fascism. This, again, inhibits our ability to understand Israeli politics in a historical and global context. 
  1. That the IHRA working definition of antisemitism distorts the meaning of antisemitism and thereby compromises the fight against anti-Jewish discrimination/racism.
  2. That the IHRA working definition of antisemitism prevents legitimate critique of Israel, including critique the oppression of, and genocidal acts against, the Palestinian people. 
  3. The IHRA disavows the plurality of Jewish beliefs and identities by conflating Jewish self-determination with Israel. As such, it contributes towards antisemitism.
  4. That due to its overt ideological character and nebulous legal status, the IHRA working definition of antisemitism has had an overall detrimental impact on the exercise of freedom of speech in academic institutions. 

This branch resolves to:

  1. Strive towards the University of Nottingham relinquishing its adoption of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism.
  2. Work with Jewish staff and students to identify alternative ways of understanding and defining anti-Jewish discrimination/racism, including potentially the Jerusalem Declaration, with the explicit goal of combatting anti-Jewish hatred.
  3. Protect free speech and the right to protest Israel’s apartheid regime and genocidal acts against Palestinians on campus and the broader public sphere of the United Kingdom.
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No Confidence in the Vice Chancellor, Chair of Council and University Executive Board 

This motion was passed at the members’ meeting on Wednesday 18th February 2026, with 96% voting in favour. It was also passed with similar majorities by the UNISON and UNITE branches at the University. The branch submitted the Vote of No Confidence to the Vice Chancellor on Friday 20th February 2026, and has passed this on to the press.

The University of Nottingham Branch Notes: 

1. A nationwide crisis in Higher Education funding has been in part caused by a funding mechanism that is not fit for purpose. 

2. Universities, including Nottingham, have failed to effectively challenge this model. 

3. A series of disastrous financial decisions have been made by the University Executive Board (UEB) and the Chair of Council over a period of many years.

The Branch further notes: 

1. The ‘Phase 1’ process was badly thought out and implemented without proper consultation, and had a serious detrimental effect on the morale and wellbeing of the Administrative Professional and Managerial (APM) and Operations and Facilities (O&F) staff. It has also led to unmanageable workloads and ongoing stress for remaining staff in these job families. 

2. Lessons have not been learned from this and ‘Phase 2’ has not been discussed in any meaningful way with any stakeholders. 

3. Indeed, there is a mandatory obligation that changes on this scale go through the Education and Student Experience (ESE), Quality and Standards Committee (QSC) and then Senate, then Council. None of this has happened. 

4. Further, the Quality Manual clearly states that School and Faculty endorsement is required to close or suspend a programme, none of which has even been sought. 

5. We are particularly concerned by the fact that decisions to ‘suspend’ courses have already been made. UCAS has been informed and students will not be enrolled. Council was presented with a fait accompli and it is obviously not a ‘suspension’ but a closure. The Chair of Council chose to ignore this fact. 

6. The ‘suspensions’ have gone ahead without any School or Business Unit level Equality Impact Assessments, leaving the university open to breaches of the Public Sector Equality Duty and the Equality Act, 2010. 

7. Preliminary proposals to impose a university-wide staff:student ratio (SSR) target of 18-22 have been advanced without any credible modelling of the consequences for the University of Nottingham’s global reputation, research standing, or its ability to deliver education consistent with its status as a Russell Group institution. This reflects profoundly poor judgement and a serious failure to assess long-term strategic and reputational risk. 

These decisions are ultimately the responsibility of the Vice Chancellor; however, the Chair of Council and UEB are equally culpable for their repeated failure to hold her to account. 

A natural consequence of this financial mismanagement, failure to consult, failure to follow even internal university governance and failure to be able to rule out compulsory redundancies is that this Branch cannot maintain any confidence in the Vice Chancellor, the Chair of Council or the University Executive Board. 

Therefore, this motion is one of no confidence in the Vice Chancellor, the Chair of Council and the University Executive Board. 

This Branch resolves to: 

1. Inform the Chancellor, Senate and Council of this decision. 

2. Publicise this decision in the press. 

3. Demand that a new UEB, Chair of Council and Vice Chancellor be appointed who will consult with campus trade unions over a fair resolution to the financial situation and who will abide by their responsibility to all stakeholders.