As you may be aware, students who are eligible for compensation due to missed teaching during the industrial action period have now received emails with their compensation offer from the university.
The Students' Union has been in conversations with the University about compensation since before the Winter Break. As a result of those negotiations, we managed to secure a minimum level of compensation for students who had unmitigated missed teaching, and in doing so, were able to widen the number of students who were better financially compensated. The University set this minimum amount at £50. We appreciate that many students will still be unhappy with their offer.
The University is following the Office for Students guidance in regards to the calculations on compensation. However, we do not believe the current offer reflects the scale of disruption that students suffered, and have engaged with the University repeatedly to discuss compensation and encourage further improvements to their offer. We were unfortunately not successful.
We have received lots of feedback from students in regards to their compensation offer, especially where offers do not align with your experiences. This feedback will be used to reinforce and support our ongoing conversations with the University. We will continue to advocate for students to ensure your concerns are heard.
It is important to note that compensation is only due if a teaching event was NOT mitigated. The university states that events have been mitigated if teaching was rescheduled, consolidated, or material was made available online.
If you are unhappy with your compensation offer, we strongly encourage you to fill out the form included in the email you will have received, decline the offer and provide any relevant information or evidence to support your claim to higher compensation.
The University has informed us that they cannot proactively make compensation offers for PGRs, however, if you were affected by industrial action for example through missed supervision meetings, you can make a claim to the University to receive compensation.
If you need support or guidance, you can contact our advice service here