Students in group legal action to claim millions in compensation over lost teaching time during strikes

Over 1,000 students from some of the UK’s biggest universities have launched collective legal action which could see universities pay out millions in compensation for lost teaching time during recent lecturer strikes.

The law firm behind the group action believe institutions, including Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol and Manchester, could end up paying out £10m each.

It comes after staff from 64 universities around the UK were hit bay 14 days of strikes in a dispute over pensions.

When the action collected 1,000 signatures, it triggered the number needed to apply for a Group Litigation Order. It’s expected that more students could sign up too.

According to lawyers, a quarter of those who signed up are overseas students. The most number of signatories have come from the University of Manchester.

Members of the University and College Union staged a wave of strikes in February and March as part of a bitter dispute over changes to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), a major pension scheme. UCU called off further action earlier this month after members accepted new proposals put forward by Universities UK.

Students can sign up on a website set up by specialist law firm Asserson, which would mean all the individual claims could be grouped together and heard at the same time if a law suit goes ahead.

Shimon Goldwater, a senior solicitor at the firm, said that decision on how to proceed will be taken in the next few weeks, and it is likely that if a case is brought, it would be "a set of 10 to 20 universities that we would be suing".

Which universities are involved is likely to depend on which students come forward, he said.

He claimed that if a class action suit was successful, institutions could have to pay out millions of pounds.

"Over 20,000 undergraduates attend each large UK university," he suggested. "Paying approximately £500 compensation each to 20,000 students would cost £10 million."