You are here Statute 18 What is Statute 18 and why should I care? Statute 18 is a 17-page section of UCL's Charter and Statutes, the governing documents of the University. UCL are proposing wholesale changes to Statute 18 that will fundamentally alter the character of the university, and ultimately threaten jobs, courses and entire departments with cuts and closure. Shutting entire departments, closing courses and embarking on programmes of mass redundancies is impractical for UCL Management as long as Statute 18 is in place, so why are UCL management so keen to reform it over the summer break? More about Statute 18 Statute 18 sets out academic staff's rights and lays out the procedure through which they can be made redundant or dismissed on capability grounds. It also guarantees a certain level of protection for academic staff against redundancy and other forms of dismissal. In the past, this protection for academics was detailed in law by something called Academic Tenure. This was the case until the late 1980's when tenure was formally abolished by the Thatcher Government through the Education Reform Act 1988 and Universities were forced to make their own provision. Universities up and down the country then wrote and adopted their own statutes and clauses that detailed the status of academic staff in universities. Statute 18 has since been in force and provides academic staff with much of the same protection that was enjoyed previously in law. Statute 18 is so important because the power to make