Dear Students’ Union members,
As some of you may know, the University is undergoing a restructuring and redundancy process under the title of the Professional Services Review (PSR). The proposed changes will mean that some roles in Professional Services cease to exist, and some new roles will also be created. UCA is proposing roughly a 20% reduction in the number of people in professional services roles. This is one of the University's efforts to cut costs across the institution to enable UCA to continue to operate effectively.
As your Union, we understand the financial difficulties that universities are facing across the sector right now, and appreciate that these issues are not specific to UCA.
When full details of the proposals were made available to us, the Students’ Union released a questionnaire that highlighted key risks to the student experience, with the aim of collecting student feedback to present to the University.
Since then, we have been in conversation with UCA to discuss how they are planning on collecting student feedback about the proposed changes. UCA does not have plans to gather feedback from students directly, but has asked the Students’ Union as the main representative body of the students to present them with the feedback we have been collecting.
Alongside this, we have asked for UCA to provide us with an impact assessment on the student experience as well as an equalities impact assessment to show how students with protected characteristics (e.g. disabled students) will be affected. We would hope that UCA is in the process of shaping these documents with a view to sharing them with us, although at this time, these requests have not yet been acknowledged.
We have since been in conversation with the affected departments, as well as UCA leaders to better understand the impact on you and your student experience. Certain proposed changes are likely to have a significant impact on the availability and quality of UCA services, and we have concerns about how these services will be able to provide sufficient support to suit the needs of our student body.
As your student representatives, we have raised concerns about the process of the PSR, the proposed changes, and their impact on the student experience through the available channels. We have been reminded by UCA that students are not officially required to be part of the formal consultation period. However, UCA will engage with the student feedback we have collected from you, and we will share their responses with you once received.
While students are not included in the formal consultation period (open until April 25th), we believe it’s essential that student perspectives are meaningfully considered as part of any major institutional change. The consultation enables staff to give feedback on the proposed changes — including comments, concerns, and the opportunity to present an alternative structure. We are continuing to seek constructive ways to ensure student voices are part of this ongoing conversation.
We understand UCA’s leadership are considering and discussing alternative proposals and feedback from staff regarding the PSR as they come in, and will make any potential amendments to the structure between April 28th and May 2nd. On May 6th, the new structure will be confirmed and any staff whose roles are impacted will be made aware.
The Students’ Union is planning on presenting our feedback on the PSR (including data from the survey and individual feedback we’ve received from students), to UCA at a meeting with leadership members as close to the April 25th deadline as possible. We have had an overwhelming number of responses from students across the university, totaling 20% of the student population. These are unprecedented levels of engagement, and we want to thank everyone who has taken the opportunity to share their thoughts. We will continue to advocate for the student voice throughout this process, and will lobby the University to take your views and experiences into consideration.
If you would like UCA to hear your thoughts, concerns or questions about the Professional Services Review, please email studentnotices@uca.ac.uk. If you would like to share your views with your Union, please email presidents.su@uca.ac.uk. This inbox is managed by your Presidents (Cassie and Charlie).
UCA Students’ Union stands in solidarity with all UCA staff and their Unions who we are in contact with to discuss the proposed changes and their impact. We do not support the proposed structure and implore UCA to take the expertise of their staff and students into consideration when revising their plans.
We will publish our report on our website after we have presented it to UCA, along with the statistics from the questionnaire. We will also publish any formal written responses to student feedback from UCA. You deserve transparency and clarity throughout this process.
We understand that this is a difficult and uncertain time for everyone, and that many staff and students are feeling fearful about their future at UCA. Your Union will continue to advocate for student voices to be heard throughout this process, and will aim to feed back to you wherever possible.
In solidarity,
Cassie de St. Croix (President Canterbury), Charlie Skinner (President Farnham)