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Survey on Proposed Congress Changes 2026

Proposed Changes to Congress 2026

The NEC agreed to review the arrangements of Congress business at its June meeting following concerns at the volume of business lost at this year’s meeting.

The annual Congress is the highest policy making body for the union and a significant area of resource. Working within the existing time available, we are conducting a survey of previous Congress delegates to seek your views on proposed changes to Congress standing orders and rules, and the agenda.

Responses are anonymous and findings will be shared with the NEC.

The survey will be open until 2 November.

1. How many UCU Congresses have you attended?

2. How have you attended conferences? Please select all that apply.

In person
Online
Both

In what capacity have you attended Congress? Please select all that apply.

Branch delegate
Region/Nation delegate
NEC member or delegate from an advisory or specialist committee

4. What is your sector?

5. Would you be open to reassessing how votes are taken at Congress, FE Sector Conference and HE Sector Conference? Currently a vote is called even where there has been no opposition made in debate.

6. The Congress Business Committee (CBC) report makes up the agenda of Congress. Currently delegates can amend the CBC report at Congress. Amending the CBC report has considerably reduced the amount of time available to debate motions.
Please tick any of the following statements that you agree with:

challenges to the CBC report should be submitted in advance of Congress, and decided upon by the elected members of CBC
UCU should review the grounds on which challenges can be brought
Congress should not be able to amend the CBC report once it has been distributed to delegates
challenges to the CBC report should continue to be heard at Congress
Unsure

7. Currently, UCU rules can only be altered by a two-thirds majority at the annual Congress. Do you support allowing the union to amend its rules by balloting the whole membership online or by post?

8. Once Congress / Sector Conference is in session, the Chair makes decisions on procedural matters. These decisions can be challenged by delegates, and under the current Standing Orders the Chair's decisions can be overturned by a simple majority vote.
Do you support raising this threshold from a simple majority to a two-thirds vote?

9. It has been proposed that NEC look at the Congress timetable and consider how time is divided between debate on motions, panel discussions (on subjects proposed by branches) and social events. Within the time and resource available for the event would you like to see more, or less or about the same amount of time allocated to the following:

Space Cell	A lot more time	A little more time	About the same amount of time	A little less time	A lot less time
Sessions for the debate of motions
Panel discussions (on subjects proposed by branches)
Fringe meetings
Social events

10. Do you have any comments that you would like to make about changes that may be considered to Congress?

11. UCU's Standing Orders and Rules Group (SORG) intend to undertake further qualitative research on Congress Standing Orders. Would you be interested in participating in this work? If so, please provide your email address below: