Author: Shaun Williams, Executive Director Engagement and Advancement
Last week’s UEB meeting heard of fast-moving developments in respect of the COVID pandemic – just hours later the Prime Minister announced a third national lockdown in England, the implications of which for the University were explained in all staff emails from the Vice-Chancellor last Tuesday and from the Chief Operating Officer on Friday.
As a result of this latest lockdown, we have reverted for a period to our business continuity leadership protocols of Gold and Silver Command. So for much of today’s meeting UEB operated in Gold Command mode to consider a number of pressing issues:
- The need to ensure that we all respect the spirit as well as the letter of the prevailing Government guidelines was stressed, particularly in respect of staff attending campus, where it was agreed the bar for eligibility should be set high. Every member of staff needing to be on campus is expected to participate in our testing programme, as are any students eligible to be on campus. Equally, the University is setting the bar high for anyone requesting support for a Critical Worker application to schools for in-person attendance by their children, although eligibility is ultimately a matter for schools to determine.
- The latest student and staff COVID cases dashboard was reviewed – for students this data includes students who may still be at their home address, not in Southampton, but who are rightly continuing to report cases and self-isolation to us. The data for staff includes all staff, including those working solely from home. As reported last week, we have currently suspended review of our Department for Education tier levels as these have been superseded first by the Tier 4 restrictions, and now by the national lockdown restrictions.
- There was an update on the Silver Command meetings that have taken place daily since the new lockdown started. There has been a lot of detailed activity underway including a temporary extension of the domestic leave entitlement from four to ten days (pro-rated for part-time staff) particularly to help colleagues through the peak of school closures, and the provision of related advice to line managers.
- Huge sympathy and understanding was expressed to our students, recognising the very difficult and uncertain situation they face this term. UEB heard that the University is working very closely with SUSU on a number of issues including ensuring wide awareness of the hardship support and mental health support that is available. UEB, which is now attended each week by the President of SUSU, also discussed concerns raised by students around residential fees, and concerns around “no detriment”, an issue on which the Russell Group has recently published a joint statement explaining why it is not appropriate or necessary to apply the emergency no detriment measures put in place last year, given the newly-designed teaching and learning plans and support put in place for this year. The University will be meeting with SUSU during this week to explore how we might provide fair and equitable support and solutions to students on both these issues.
- There was strong recognition of the desire for certainty by students, and indeed by staff, particularly around the date at which students might be able to resume face to face teaching and therefore need to return to Southampton. There is nothing we would like more than to start welcoming our students back, but it is unlikely there will be any clarity from Government for several more weeks until there is a clearer assessment of the impact of the lockdown and the impact of the vaccination roll-out. We are doing a lot of contingency planning based on possible timings ahead, and will of course provide more clarity to our community as soon as we can.
- Finally, there was a discussion about how the unique circumstances of the last 12 months will impact on our annual appraisal process and moderation this year. Further guidance is expected shortly.
Reverting to normal UEB mode for the remainder of the meeting:
- There was a wide-ranging and constructive discussion about how we might create the most effective partnership between Professional Services and academic staff. There is a recognition that the performance of the University in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic has been little short of remarkable, and has provided a good example of a strong, effective and agile partnership between academic and professional services staff. However, as we start to look to post-pandemic ways of working there is also a recognition that some pre-existing opportunities for improvement have yet to be fully realised. Some of these issues were captured as part of evidence submitted to last year’s Administration Taskforce review, particularly around our systems and processes. Progressing that work was paused given the exceptional demands posed by the pandemic, but as we start to look more to the future, the Chief Operating Officer has commissioned work to assess areas where improvements to systems and processes and resources might be beneficial, and to assess the most effective deployment of resource. Everyone recognised that better communication and understanding will be key to an improved partnership.
- UEB noted a number of reports which will be discussed by our governing Council at its meeting this week, including the management accounts for November, the SUSU President’s report, and progress against the Bridging Strategy Key Performance Indicators. Pulse surveys were sent to all our staff and students in December and the results are currently being analysed and will be shared with our community later this month. Early indications suggest a largely positive response from staff, and a more disappointing response from students – not unexpectedly given the massive disruption the pandemic had on students last year. A further pulse survey is planned after Easter.
- This week also sees the annual Council away-day, which for obvious reasons will be entirely online. Key topics will include a major focus on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, and lessons learned from our pandemic experience of 2020 in terms of our future education strategy, and ways of working and operating in the future.
- Finally, there was the regular review of the University’s risk register.