Email to all SOAS staff and students 4 August 2017

Dear Colleague,

I am pleased to announce that SOAS has decided to stop outsourcing core support services to private contractors from September 2018.

Our current Bouygues and Elior staff in central facilities teams will be directly employed by the university. This means they will be put on equal terms and conditions with existing SOAS employees.

There are more than 120 staff currently employed in outsourced cleaning; catering; conferencing and events hospitality; porters; security; mechanical and electrical services; post room; helpdesk and reception teams.

It makes SOAS one of the leading UK universities to self-deliver all its core services.

This is the right decision for the institution.

We already guarantee the London Living Wage for all our staff whether contracted externally or not. Now putting our whole workforce on the same terms and conditions, reflects our values of social justice and equality.

Our support staff help to make the university tick and we could not deliver on our teaching and research agenda or offer an excellent student experience without them.

Our staff and students have argued passionately for this and helped us get to this point. It has been a challenging journey at times but I now hope the community can come together to make these changes a success.

We have sent a detailed outline of our proposals to Unison SOAS Branch Secretary today – this is attached for information.

Letter to SOAS Unison branch – 4 August 2017

We will work with every single Bouygues and Elior employee to enable a smooth transition over the next 12 months. We have written to all staff involved today and translated versions will be available next week.

We look forward to working positively with our trade union partners at national, regional and local level.

We will, of course, keep the wider staff and student community informed throughout the process.

All best wishes,

Valerie

Valerie Amos

Director