Message on Staff Forum changes

Tuesday, 02 January 2018

Dear Colleagues 

As you may be aware, the University's Staff Forum has been operational since 2014 and was established to provide better representation and a voice for all staff up to Grade 5.
The Forum has been very successful to date, maintaining a steady membership since its establishment with representatives actively and effectively being involved in a number of significant consultations, for example, the re-structure of ITS and the staffing challenges arising from the E&E and PAS review.

We now think the time is right to extend the opportunity to participate in the Staff Forum to colleagues on Grade 6 and above. It is important to stress that this is intended to complement the formal representation rights held by the UCU, the trade union for staff on those grades who make an important contribution to our employee relations activity.

Extending the Forum provides another, different way for colleagues to exchange information and ideas. With that in mind, the UEB has approved to support the formal extension of the Staff Forum with immediate effect and the formal Information and Consultation Agreement has also been updated to reflect these changes. This is available on the Staff Forum webpage.

The "new look" Staff Forum will be made up of between 14 -22 Staff Forum representatives in total. More details of the scope, membership and role of Staff Forum representatives can be found on the Staff Forum webpages.

We are also now recruiting for Staff Forum vacancies - so please see the advert which provides details in relation to how you can express interested in becoming a Staff Forum representative.

Please consider nominating yourself or a colleague (with their permission) for this opportunity and valuable role.

Michelle Hargreaves & Rhiannon Vaughan (Staff Forum Chairs)

John Brady (Director of HR)

Robert Van de Noort (Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Academic Planning & Resource)