Author: Philip Greenish, Chair of Council
Please note: information in this blog was accurate at the time of the meeting – 8 March 2022 – and may now have been superseded.
Council has met twice this year so far: on 19 January via Teams and on 8 March in-person. We now hold shorter virtual meetings to deal with specific issues and to give us time for deep dives on important topics.
In January, we discussed the draft education strategic plan, which sets out to define what blended learning will look like in future and which builds on our experience with teaching and assessment in the last two COVID-impacted years. This is work in progress, to be taken forward by the new Vice -President (Education and Student Experience) when she joins the University next month. The Senior Vice-President (Academic) then updated us on progress with our sustainability plans and goals, which Council considered to be good, and we took a further report from him setting out progress with work on the University’s future size and shape. This is an essential adjunct to the new strategy and necessary to inform decisions on capital investments; the final version will be brought to the Council Away Day in April. We agreed the format, content and reporting frequency for the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) against which we will monitor the delivery of the strategic plan. Finally, we noted actions taken to improve our Health and Safety systems and progress with the modernising governance project.
Our March meeting was preceded by a visit to the Science Park which gave us important insights into the value it offers both to the University and to the economy of the region. This was timely, given the emphasis on enterprise in the Strategy. After the usual preliminaries, our meeting started with an update from the Vice Chancellor. His report included: actions taken in response to the war in Ukraine; USS pension reforms; the positive indicators on student recruitment for the next academic year and how we are planning to ensure a quality experience should our numbers increase significantly; his meetings with staff to brief on, and discuss, the new strategy (he is half way through the planned 44 meetings); and the long-awaited government response to the Augar review and what it means for us.
Ben Dolbear, President of the Students’ Union, then highlighted key items in his excellent written report. These included concerns about the possible interpretation by some members of staff of the University’s guidance on lecture capture and student concerns about the conduct of exams in January (a lessons learned review has been commissioned by the Vice Chancellor). We congratulated him and the Union on the number of union initiatives on student wellbeing.
Council then approved the University Economy Model (UEM), which had already been considered in detail by the Finance Committee. The model looks ahead five years and forms the basis for the 2022 business planning exercise. It also underpins decisions on our infrastructure investment plans. Although there are many uncertainties, current indications are positive for our long-term financial sustainability and for our ability to meet our expectations for growth.
Each year, Council takes a report from the executive on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). We are one year into the delivery of our strategic plan for EDI and were pleased to see progress in many areas, albeit that change in outcomes against EDI indicators is slower than we would wish. The new Gender and Diversity Dashboard was demonstrated to us and will provide a valuable tool for leaders across the University to hold themselves to account. We also approved Level 6 promotions and will review all promotions against EDI criteria when this year’s Level 6 and 7 promotions have been concluded. We also took, for information, the annual report to Council on research integrity, ethics and governance. During the discussion, we received the news that the University has successfully renewed its Athena Swan Silver award. Council was delighted and we offer our congratulations to all those who have worked so hard to achieve it.
The Office for Students has issued three consultations on which the University is responding which cover the Teaching Excellence Framework, regulation of student outcomes and the indicators for use in OfS regulation. We were briefed on and noted this work.
We considered progress with the development of the estates strategic plan and masterplan which is being supported by the consultancy CBRE. They have identified a number of key strategic and operational challenges as well as issues with the character of our estate. This is due to report at the Council Away Day in April with a final plan for sign off at the May Council meeting. This, along with the conclusion of the size and shape planning work and the strategic plans which support the University Strategy, is essential to enable us to proceed with major investment decisions in the summer.
The Finance Committee Chair, Stephen Young, introduced three items recommended to Council by the Committee for approval: the business case for investment in High Performance Computing; the appointment of new investment managers selected to deliver each of the mandates for the University’s investment portfolio; and some resources for contingency space to accommodate the anticipated growth in student numbers. Following discussion, we approved all three.
Other items we considered included the analysis of the December 2021 management accounts, which provide confidence that we can deliver against the agreed budget for this year, and progress with the modernising governance project. We concluded a long day slightly ahead of schedule.