UCU Prison Education Annual Meeting 2024 and AGM

The annual meeting took place on Friday 16 February (in person) and online at UCU headquarters in Carlow Street, London.

The event was well attended by all prison branches who were treated to some exceptional speakers who had a keen interest in education and specifically prison education.

The day kicked off with a very warm welcome from Maxine Looby, our national UCU President Elect, who chaired the event for the day. Maxine has been a long-time supporter of prison education and her continued support through her presidential term will be much appreciated by all in prison education.

Our first speaker was our current General Secretary Jo Grady who as always reaffirmed the commitment from UCU to supporting our members in the sector and showing her admiration for the work we do. Justine Mercer our President fresh from her visit to Wormwood Scrubs, talked about the not fit for purpose teaching spaces she saw on the wings, whilst all the classrooms in education remained empty. Justine highlighted the problems we all face because of the recruitment and retention crisis within HMPPS in all our workplaces.

An insight to all the Parliamentary work undertaken on behalf of Prison Educators by UCU was given by Charley Allen who organises all the lobbying work and makes sure our issues get to the sympathetic Parliamentarians' ears. He explain this takes the form of both written and oral questions and the facilitation of the parliamentary groups (JUPA and JUPG). Both groups help give us a louder voice as we work with other justice unions on our common aims. This led onto our next speaker Louise Church who is the co-chair of JUPA. Louise gave an explanation of the remit of JUPA and the current work that was undertaken on both the Safe Inside Charter and the current H&S issues the sector was facing. It quickly became apparent that the lack of funding in the sector was affecting the members of all unions.

In the last main session before the branch reports UCU's H&S Official Alex Lancaster gave a presentation on the work that she does in supporting the branches on all H&S issue. Alex emphasised the ned for all staff to keep on reporting incidents on both their employers and HMPPS systems so that a truer reflection on what was actually happening on the ground could be properly escalated and dealt with on a factual basis rather than an anecdotal one. Alex made it clear that she was able to advise and assist any branch on how to take forward any of their H&S issues.

Just before the lunchbreak all the represented branches gave a brief report on their activities on the last year with the themes of Health and Safey, workload and the pressures of the last year of the PEF contract and the constraints of the anticipated PES contract.

After lunch each branch held their AGM. The report on the Novus AGM is as follows. The branch elections resulted in the following members being appointed.

Jane Inskip and Brian Hamilton were confirmed as the two delegates of the branch to attend UCU Congress and speak to any motions brought forward by the branch. There is still time for the branch to take forward any motions and we would encourage members to get in touch with either of the delegates with their ideas.

At Milton Keynes College prison branch AGM a range of issues were discussed including the importance of members raising h&s issues that the branch can take to the h&s committee. Members raised and are experiencing similar workload issues which collectively we hope to take forward. A discussion took place about putting together some advice possibly in the form of a checklist about what isn't the role of a prison educator and what you should not be doing even if asked to. Two PeoplePlus members joined the AGM.

Back at the main conference Pauline Rattery reported on the progress made by the Black Prison Educators' Network and this space is being used for debate and organisation on the particular issues facing them. Pauline referenced the challenges Black Prison Educators face in the workplace and how the voice of Black Prison Educators needs to be heard and acknowledged in a meaningful way across the whole of the union and the sector.

National Organiser Ronnie Kershaw spoke about the need to build up each branch to increase their bargaining strength. He said the best way to communicate with colleagues is to speak with them - and outlined a structured conversation that links colleagues' concerns to actively supporting a campaign. It helps to have an organising plan with aims, objectives and action points. Also, recording the results of conversations, mapping where members and potential members are, and setting targets for recruitment and finding new reps - and celebrating successes.

The final session of the day was given by Paul Bridge, UCU head of further education. Paul spoke about bringing together the various strands of UCU's work in prison education into a unified campaign. He discussed the political work the union does as part of JUPG which enables UCU to promoted members interest in parliament and beyond. He highlighted the important H&S work that is essential to keeping members and learners safe inside as well as UCU own research and joint work with the other unions as part of JUPA. Paul highlighted the successes UCU branches were having by negotiating wins for members on pay and other terms and conditions and how building membership and organisation within the branch's strengths our bargaining position. He commented on UCU's strategic ambitions for prison education that had professional respect for prison educators as a non-negotiable and the need for party of esteem with other educational professionals, which can be realised as part of a national contract for prison educators. Paul gave an overview of the flawed commissioning models in prison education and the prospect that the new PES will be as bad if not worse than the current PEF; extracting money away from front line delivery of education, which penalises providers, learners and members rather than focusing on the good that a broad-based curriculum can do inside prison and as part of prisoner rehabilitation outside it. Paul concluded by saying the campaign will grow over the coming months and that members and reps were essential to its success and would be regularly engaged in its development.

The meeting was closed by the Chair, Maxine Looby, with thanks to all the speakers and to the reps for all their excellent contributions from the floor. Justine Mercer thanked Maxine for her excellent chairing of the meeting.