UCU has this week written to Ministry of Justice (MoJ) officials and the government to call for clarity on issues like pensions, pay, contracts and the introduction of a Fair New Deal.
Letters from four UCU prison education branches were sent to officials at the Ministry of Justice about the lack of pay negotiations, and UCU's head of further education also wrote directly to prisons minister Damian Hinds MP to raise concerns about the lack of clarity around Fair New Deal for pensions in the prison contracts and the current procurement process.
Under the Prison Education Framework contract terms, prison education providers are due a payment uplift of 10.4%, and prison education staff and providers expected this to be automatically applied from 1 April 2023. Justice minister Damian Hinds, confirmed this expectation in parliament earlier this year.
However, this indexation has still not been applied, and the MOJ have not explained the three-month delay to relevant stakeholders including UCU. The failure to confirm the uplift means pay negotiations cannot start.
