Universities need more funding to go further on pay, says Ucea

It seems clear that there is no way for all universities to agree and the time for local negotiations has come.

If some universities what to pay their staff more, that is possible under the current framework. While the value of each scale point is determined by national bargining, what scale point each job sits at is determined by each university indeivudally. If well off universities wanted to pay their staff more, without breaking the national agreement, they could just decree that lecturers started at point 41 rather than 38 say. Or they could look at the "rewards in the round", and they could make the job of a starting lecturer easier by hiring more people, and make the job easier: effectively increasing the pay per unit labour by reducing the amount of labour, rather than increasing the pay. Since I don't see them doing any of those things, its all just hot-air and excuses.

One thing that is vital: UCU and UCEA needs to band together to hold USS to account for their flawed assessments and mismanagement of pension funds. We certainly shouldn't be fighting each other over that issue. As for pay, Ian is right. Think outside the box. No more hot air & excuses, please: concrete arguments supported by facts. We need to crack out of the 'them and us' mentality and work together to find affordable and fair solutions to pay & staffing. Again bickering over these issues gets us nowhere.