Author: Wendy Appleby, Vice-President (Operations)
- The Vice-Chancellor and UEB members said they were looking forward to the Staff Party, which took place on Highfield Campus on Wednesday, and they recognised it was an opportunity for our community to celebrate our hard work and achievements together.
- UEB noted and discussed the response from the Palestine Solidarity Network to a letter from the Vice-Chancellor following their petition concerning the situation in Gaza.
- UEB discussed the draft Workload Principles, one of our Strategic Major Projects and one of the strands of our People Strategic Plan, which has created a set of overarching principles to govern the management of workload for all staff. There has been extensive engagement across our community to develop the principles and accompanying guidance. UEB endorsed the implementation plan for the launch of the principles, which would be presented for consideration at the next Joint-Joint Negotiating Committee meeting with the Trade Unions.
- UEB received an update on the planned approach to the delivery of the Residences Strategy. Up to an additional 5,000 beds are required to support our student number growth plans, a key enabler of our Size and Shape ambitions. Also, on our Estate, UEB considered the Outline Business Case for the Winchester School of Art (WSA), a phased proposal to create the space to support the growth of WSA.
- UEB noted several papers which would be discussed at the July meeting of our Council: Monitoring the Success of the Strategy, a regular update on progress against the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which underpin our Strategy; Business Planning Outcomes 2024, the key mechanism for implementation of our Strategy; the Budget Report, which would be presented for review and signed off ahead of the start of the new financial year on 1 August; and the Modern Day Slavery Statement, an annual statement on the steps taken by the University to deal with modern day slavery risks in our business and supply chains.
- Finally, UEB noted the plans for the refreshed University Risk Register, currently under review with all risk holders. UEB approved the review of the risk register, reducing to every other month, with the proviso that risk owners provided interim updates on any significant new or escalating risks and that UEB would formally review the risk register ahead of its submission to the Audit and Risk Committee.