Email sent to Vice Chancellor on 13th March 2026
Dear Vice-Chancellor,
We are writing on behalf of the UCU branch committee regarding remarks made at recent town hall meetings, where you stated:
“Unions declared a vote of no confidence in me and my executive team, and I want to say at the outset, I absolutely understand the motivations of individual union members who have voted for that. I understand that … the compact you feel about working for a university has now been broken … the compact that you weren’t going to earn very much money, but you had a secure job for life in a comfortable environment without a heavy workload – that’s gone.”
This comment has caused widespread anger and disbelief across the University of Nottingham. Staff understood your remarks as implying that university employees have so far enjoyed a “comfortable environment without a heavy workload”. That characterisation bears no resemblance to the lived reality of working at this institution. Furthermore, the idea of a “job for life” ignores the prevalence of fixed-term contracts among academic staff and the recurring insecurity faced by professional services staff due to repeated restructuring programmes at the University level (e.g. Future Nottingham Phase 1 and Project Transform), within central services, and across Faculties.
Academic and professional services staff have for many years worked under intense pressure and high workloads. Long hours, evening work and weekend commitments are routine. This month colleagues across the university will give up their Saturdays and time with their families in order to run Offer Holder Day events to support recruitment. Such commitments are typical of the dedication staff show to the institution, often well beyond their contracted hours.
The evidence available to both management and unions demonstrates clearly that excessive workload is already a serious issue at the university.
Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (1999), employers are required to take preventative measures against work-related stress. However, UCU formal Health and Safety inspections in 2024, 2025 and 2026 found that these preventative systems are not in place.
The university’s own Management of Work Related Stress Policy (2023) requires Business Unit Stress Risk Assessments to identify and control workplace stressors. Yet UCU inspections found that these assessments have not been carried out, meaning the university is currently non-compliant with its own policy.
Data obtained through a UCU Freedom of Information request (March 2025) further illustrates the scale of the problem:
• Four out of five faculties have average workloads exceeding 100%.
• 7,420 days of sickness absence between September 2023 and March 2024 were recorded as resulting from work-related stress.
• 37 occupational health referrals for work-related stress were recorded between September 2023 and February 2025.
Our own casework also shows rising levels of workload-related stress, including colleagues experiencing severe mental health impacts and ongoing legal cases relating to excessive workload.
In this context, suggesting that staff previously worked in a “comfortable environment without a heavy workload” is both inaccurate and deeply offensive to colleagues who are already working beyond sustainable limits.
These remarks come at a time when morale at the University of Nottingham is extremely low and confidence in senior leadership has collapsed, as demonstrated by the recent vote of no confidence passed overwhelmingly by members of all three unions and initiated by rank and file staff from across campus. Comments of this kind reinforce the widespread perception that the realities faced by staff are not understood by university leadership.
We therefore call on you to issue a public apology to staff for these remarks. Recognising the commitment and workload of staff would be an important first step towards rebuilding trust.
Staff at the University of Nottingham continue to work extraordinarily hard for their students, their research and the institution as a whole. That commitment deserves recognition and respect.
We will be sharing this letter with our members and with members of University Council.
Yours sincerely,
UCU Branch Committee
University of Nottingham