Calling all Lib Dems

The STUC today wrote an open letter to all Lib Dem MSPs and MPs in Scotland. Their conference begins tomorrow in Liverpool and we hope that Scottish Liberal Democrats will join us in rejecting calls by George Osborne and Nick Clegg to remove an additional £4 billion on top of the £11 billion that they have already taken out of the welfare budget.   

In our letter we condemn Nick Clegg’s comments that welfare payments should be “an engine of mobility...rather than a giant cheque written by the state to compensate the poor for their predicament," and we make the point that with long-term unemployment on the rise there simply aren’t enough jobs to go around.

Here is an extract from our letter:

STUC is receiving a very clear message from its own members particularly its disabled members, not to mention our sister organisations in the Scottish Campaign on Welfare Reform. People are becoming increasingly fearful for their futures and increasingly angry as it is insisted ‘that more people must find work’ when so little is being done to tackle unemployment.  Figures released this week by STUC showed a 132% increase in long-term unemployment across Scotland with the highest regional increase of 475% being recorded in the Scottish Secretary’s own constituency.

It remains the fact that benefit payments in the UK are low compared to most other countries, income inequality is stubbornly high and work is not the automatic route out of poverty that it should be with the incidence of working family child poverty on the increase.

Two thirds of the UK welfare budget goes to those above working age, with just one third being spent on those of working age and children.   Whilst fully supporting the pledge to safeguard elderly benefits, STUC is horrified to contemplate the cuts that will be borne by the others.

The letter ends by calling on Scottish Liberal Democrats to join us in our Better Way campaign in order to ‘buttress the most draconian attack on welfare in a generation.’

Along with the open letter the STUC also unveiled its campaign banner which is a humorous depiction of the respective roles of David Cameron and Nick Clegg. The banner is currently hanging on the outside of the STUC building and is designed to raise awareness of the Better Way Campaign and challenge the myth that there is no alternative to the Government’s cuts.

Helen Martin – STUC.

Glasgow University’s List of Shame

The Herald today reports details of a leaked document from Glasgow University that sets out in very stark terms how the University intends to make savings in its budget between now and 2012/13.

In this document the University has ranked each of its departments into four categories. The departments with the highest international rankings become ‘invest’ departments, where the University will focus its funding to become a world leader. The next departments down become ‘improve’ departments that will not receive any additional funding. Below that is ‘reshape’ departments, which are likely to see their budgets downsized and finally there are ‘remove’ departments where courses will simply no longer be offered. Included in those earmarked for removal are adult and continuing education, anthropology, dermatology, nursing and social work.

What is surprising about this document is not that Glasgow University is considering how it might make £20 million a year of savings, unfortunately that is the financial situation the University finds itself in, due to decisions being made at a national level. No, what is surprising is the way Glasgow has determined what is of value and what is not.

Academia has long resisted the pull of pure, unadulterated market forces. Instead universities have prided themselves on placing the pursuit of knowledge and a drive for excellence as their raison d'être. But in this document Glasgow simply sees itself in economic terms and this perhaps marks the beginning of a significant shift in the set up of university education across Scotland.

In this approach, Glasgow has allowed international league tables and survey results to dictate completely and absolutely the courses they offer and the level to which that course is funded. No other value is considered. This is why we can see something like adult education being placed right at the bottom of the list. It’s true that this sort of course is not as glamorous as some of the others offered at the University and it certainly doesn’t bring in large research grants and international acclaim. But that does not mean that it is without value. Adult education opens the University’s doors to the wider community. It gives people the opportunity to keep learning throughout their careers and to raise the level of their skills and is therefore of great value to the learner and contributes to the Scottish economy through increased skills levels. The University, therefore, is wrong to disregard it so out of hand.  

And this is what is so hard to stomach about this document – the callous nature of it all. By ranking their departments in this way, based only on the views of surveys and league tables, not the thoughts and opinions of learners and staff who are present in these departments today, the University has sent a clear message about who and what they value and why.  

The University says they are only beginning the process and nothing has been decided yet, but if this is a sign of things to come, I can only feel sympathy for the staff and students whose contribution the University has dismissed so outright.

Helen Martin- STUC.