While the USS strike was called over pensions, as the strike progressed many issues concerning governance came to the fore. This included governance of all the key actors in the pensions issues - universities, UUK, USS, UCU and the role of Government. While for some these were side issues, for others these issues will outlive the pensions strike, and go to the heart of what must be changed.
Special thanks to Professor Vian Bakir, Bangor University for the list of resources listed below.
USS and UUK argue that 42% of universities were not wiling to continue bear the burden of shouldering greater risk to support a Defined Benefit scheme. But how does university authorities’ attitude to risk come about? What are universities for, how democratic are their governance structures, and what could the university of the future look like? These issues are addressed in the following links.
The governance of UUK has been criticized on a number of fronts, some with calls for action.
Various questions were raised about the governance of USS, including how it operates, its trustees ands its directors. A legal team (Academics For Pensions Justice@ForPension) was crowd-funded to investigate whether USS trustees could be sued.
Questions were asked about the government’s role in causing the pensions dispute.
During the 2018 strike, UCU’s membership leaped, increasing its strength. Yet, UCU’s leadership was frequently criticized on social media for not adequately representing the views of its branches during the pensions strike..
