Thanks to UCU for passing on the reply below from Chris Cobb with some more concrete details as to the in-house process and timetable.

For the first time we have some almost concrete dates for some workers. The key section is below, and should be viewed as a massive concrete success for the in-house campaign, in that we now know that soon many outsourced workers will be in-house.

In other words, our tactics are working.

However, it is now even more important that we intensify our efforts when the new academic year starts to force the University to ensure ALL workers are in-house by June next year. (Details of the next steps of the campaign will follow soon!)

The current planning is focused on the following services: security, reception, switchboard, porters, post room, AV and cleaning. 

If our current planning progresses as anticipated and our plans are subsequently accepted by the Board of Trustees in the autumn, our aim would be to put in a place an in-house service provision for reception, porters, post room and AV during the second and third (calendar) quarters of 2019.

You will understand that we are not able to be absolute in our timings and the above provisional timings will be subject to discussion with our suppliers and further informed by our, and our suppliers, statutory obligations in respect of the people they (our suppliers) employ to work at the University.

The security and cleaning services are quite complex in that they involve more work streams than the other services and rely on specialist contractors to an extent that the other services do not.  The planning in relation to these services will inevitably therefore take longer.  Our aim however is to be in a position to outline a provisional timeline in relation to cleaning services by the end of October 2018 and in relation to security by December 2018.

We are not yet in a position to add anything by way of further update in relation to our hard FM, catering and grounds services for the reasons set out in the statement of 29th June 2018.  Please be assured however that we remain in active discussion with the current service providers.

The full letter is available here.