She bangs the drums

Gillian Keegan announces a consultation on minimum service levels for universities

Yesterday at the Conservative Party conference, the secretary of state for education pulled a rabbit out of the hat with almost the last line of her main auditorium speech. Following years of disruption to higher education through industrial action, Keegan declared that the Department for Education would now be consulting on minimum service levels for universities.

The government has previously threatened to seek minimum service levels for parts of the public sector, such as transport and hospitals, during periods of strike action that saw multiple unions in dispute with employers over pay. It was not thought that such an agreement would or could apply to universities.