Author: Shaun Williams, Executive Director, Engagement and Advancement
Operating in Gold Command mode for the first part of today’s meeting, UEB discussed a number of operational and campus issues:
- UEB noted a letter from Universities Minister Michelle Donelan MP about ongoing testing requirements for students at universities, which remains an important element of the Government’s COVID-19 planning, and ours. This has less impact on us than other institutions because of our existing comprehensive testing programme in place. Testing for students is regularly discussed at the regional oversight group on universities which we are actively involved with. The importance of students getting vaccinated was also underlined, with GPs at the University Health Service offering a walk-in COVID-19 vaccine clinic this week for our students, even if they are not registered with them.
- The Chief Operating Officer updated UEB on the recent outbreak of student COVID-19 cases, believed to be of the more transmissible Delta variant, and linked to off-campus social activity, including a number at our Mayflower and Glen Eyre residences and some who are in their home towns. We appear now to be on a downward curve and continue to liaise very closely with Public Health England and the City Council. The student support team were thanked by UEB for the comprehensive support they are giving to those students required to self-isolate, and students were thanked for their understanding and for following the advice given to them.
- Following last week’s UEB meeting, as had been widely expected, the Government announced that the current COVID rules will remain in place for a further four weeks beyond the original Monday 21 June lockdown easing checkpoint. For us, this means that we continue to operate as currently, with physical distancing measures in place and those staff who are able to work from home to continue to do so. A further update is expected on Monday 12 July ahead of the new checkpoint date of Monday 19 July.
The meeting then reverted to normal UEB mode to discuss a number of other issues:
- UEB reviewed an important paper providing an update on the University’s approach to the prevention of, and response to, student cases of sexual harassment and misconduct. The report outlined the expectations placed on providers by the Office for Students, our approach to managing cases, improvements made in our offering in recent years, as well as plans for the future.
- UEB reviewed a paper analysing our Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) performance, which will now be discussed by our governing Council. Our University performed extremely well, with a legitimate claim to be the top ranked English University for our overall performance in the activities being measured. While the overall performance is very strong, there are areas where further improvement can be made, including continuing professional development, funding in research partnerships and logging the number of graduate start-ups more accurately. UEB also discussed a draft Knowledge Exchange & Enterprise (KEE) Strategic Plan, following considerable input from Southampton Enterprise Board, and agreed consultation across the University should now commence.
- UEB agreed a proposal to re-constitute the University’s Information Governance Group (IGG) with a wider remit to include Information Security. Information Governance is the framework that ensures that the University’s information is managed efficiently and effectively, and that appropriate policies, processes, procedures and management accountability are in place. There is scope to improve further the existing Information Governance arrangements so that the University can reduce any risk of non-compliance with data protection legislation.
- UEB noted the latest progress report of the Bridging Strategy’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and targets, to be discussed at the next meeting of our Council. Following the first student and staff pulse surveys in December 2020, a second pulse survey was run in May with the same set of questions. There was a concerted effort to increase the response rate which did result in an improvement: the student response rate was 14 per cent, up from 8 per cent and for staff the rate rose from 25 to 35 per cent. A full analysis of the findings from the surveys is now underway and will be communicated to our community once that work has been completed.
- There was a further update on the Universities UK consultation on the 2020 USS pension valuation. UEB heard that the consultation revealed strong support for the proposed UUK option, which will be discussed further at national level. Another round of consultation with employers and USS members is then expected. Pensions expert Brendan Mulkern will be running two further pension briefings this week on Thursday 24 and Friday 25 June covering the consultation and next steps.
- Finally, there was the regular review of the University Risk Register.