Previous page
Table of Contents
| Previous page |
Table of Contents |
Next page |
Tuesday, 13 June 2000. A Discussion was held in the Council Room of the following Reports. Under the provisions of Regulation 6 for Discussions (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 113) the Editor has omitted one passage from the remarks made by Professor Bowring; this omission is indicated by square brackets.
The Report of the Council, dated 15 May 2000, on arrangements for Discussions and related matters (p. 722).
Dr D. M. THOMPSON:
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, those members of the Council like myself who signed this Report have no wish to undermine the significance of Discussions in the University's procedures. They are an example of the medieval principle that that which concerns all should be agreed by all. Indeed the very first question raised in paragraph 8 is whether University staff who are not members of the Regent House or the Senate should be entitled to speak, which seems to me to be something very well worth exploring further. Furthermore the fact that decisions on important policy matters require a Report and Discussion serves to concentrate the minds of those formulating policy in order to ensure that proposals are clear and defensible. For this reason I am hesitant about other forms of consultation being regarded as a substitute for this procedure, as might be implied from paragraph 9(a).
What does concern me is the fact that our relatively loose rules for Discussions at present make possible certain kinds of abuse. I take it for granted that the primary purpose of Discussions is to facilitate discussion within the University, rather than the world at large. It is a matter of convenience that the reports of Discussions are published in the unofficial part of the Reporter, which also happens to be registered at the Post Office as a newspaper. I was somewhat surprised a little while ago to be taken to task for remarks I had made in a Discussion, on the grounds that these remarks had been made in the presence of the Press. It made me wonder whether some see our Discussions as a way of attracting Press publicity; if so, I doubt whether that is a proper use of them. I have been even more concerned by a tendency for remarks to be made about named individuals, often in a context only loosely related to the Report under discussion. I can see no justification for making personal remarks, especially when the persons named are not present. The only exception I would make is in the rare cases where a Report concerns named persons. So I would like to see such remarks ruled out of order, and also omitted from the published record, regardless of whether they are likely to be held to be defamatory.
I do think that there are advantages in a representative of the body submitting a Report being present to respond to points made. This can save a lot of time for the Council in preparing a subsequent Notice; and it has always been my practice, if I have been involved with a Report, to attend the Discussion of it. But I doubt whether it should normally be necessary for a Report to be introduced. It should have been written to make such introduction unnecessary; and since an introduction is unlikely to prevent a determined speaker from speaking, the time can be more effectively used in response. My belief in the value of such responses is the main reason why I would not wish to limit Discussions in person to 'topics of importance to the University', as described in paragraph 9(c).
Finally, I hope that we shall resist the temptation to copy the House of Commons in thinking that Question Time is more important than getting legislation right. The rise in the perceived importance of Prime Minister's Questions seems to me to be in inverse proportion to the effectiveness of the House of Commons as a legislative body. The use made of it on television illustrates the way in which media pressures can distort policy priorities. Writing letters is still reckoned to be a more significant way of bringing public opinion to bear on legislators, and I suppose that in this respect, if in no other, the development of e-mail in the University has significantly changed the context in which we work, so that it is possible to be more responsive to the concerns of colleagues.
Professor D. N. DUMVILLE:
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, there is no doubt in my mind that Discussions in their present form are not a success. Although some measure of new life has been breathed into them in recent years by Dr Gillian Evans, and as a result the Reporter has acquired a much more devoted and attentive readership, it is clear that most members of the Regent House are disinclined to participate - and that for quite a variety of reasons. It is unusual for the number of persons present (apart from the Deputy Vice-Chancellor and members of the administration) to exceed single figures, and I am aware of only one occasion in the last generation when the Senate-House was filled to capacity for a Discussion. Since I started speaking in Discussions a few years ago, I have been surprised by the number of colleagues who have told me that they could not bring themselves to do likewise, feeling that the atmosphere and general circumstances were intimidating. Others have said that they feared the consequences of expressing in public their views on matters of University business: it is far from clear what can be done to change that attitude; it is a very real fear and far from unjustified.
Furthermore, our Discussions in this place are far from well described by that noun. It is rare that any element of spontaneity can be detected and equally unusual for speakers to interact with one another, as in any normal discussion. Then the response of the Council and the General Board, if it comes, has all too often over the last generation been abrupt and contemptuous, as has commonly been remarked.
Discussion about Discussions is therefore welcome. It had better be said at the outset, however, that if one of the intentions of the Council in framing this Report was to find a way to suppress Dr Evans's contributions, it will fail, and any such unworthy intention might usefully be set aside. It is very clear where §8(b), (d), and (f) are coming from.
The central problem, it seems to me, is that raised, almost obliquely, in the concluding paragraph (§10) of the Council's Report, namely 'consultation generally within the University'. This University advertises itself as a democracy. There is a sense in which this insti-tution failed to take notice of the events of 1832. The University is ruled by a largish oligarchy which perhaps has the shape of a ziggurat rather than a pyramid. It is my experience of more than twenty years' service here that most colleagues feel left out of any effective part in the decision-making process, whether at local, mesne, or upper levels. That favourite phrase, 'the central bodies', conveys its own message to the periphery. It is a rare event when a consultation exercise involves individual members of the University rather than, or in addition to, Faculty Boards, Degree Committees, and the like. Many colleagues never know the views which have been expressed on their behalf or hear about them only after the event. More direct consultation of as many members of the University as possible is what I think to be most desirable, and electronic methods of transmission should make that much less difficult than it would once have been. I notice that the word 'stake-holders' has found its way into this Report (§9(b)): many people have a stake in this University and I am sure that very many of them think that their views are held to be of no account by the oligarchy. The right question has been put in §9(a), but the further comments already imply a restriction of an individual's right to offer input.
My answers, then, to the questions in §8 are 'yes' to the second part of (a), and an exceptionally vigorous yes to both questions in (c), with the rider that it would be courteous for the sponsor of a Report, whether deemed controversial or not by that sponsor, to speak as suggested. On the matter of publication, my answer is also affirmative: my preference would be for both printed and electronic publication, as at present; attempts to summarize the views of speakers will be arduous, time-consuming, and controversial, and this idea is therefore best abandoned. I have already referred to the apparent motivation of the other suggestions in §8.
The suggestion in §9(b) for the consideration of the Annual Reports of the Council and the General Board seems to me to be a good one, as long as the Reports have already been published, giving members of the University time to study them before the 'presentation'. But a possible reading of §9(b) is that the Reports would simply be presented, with no opportunity for an effective question-and-answer session or for the expression of considered views on the Reports. In other words, a managed and 'spun' presentation would be more likely to infuriate members of the University than to engage them in a constructive expression of views.
In sum, a remedy for this creaking part of the University's so-called 'democracy' is certainly required. A mechanism for holding the administration, in its manifold manifestations, to account is desperately needed. A forum which engages the interest and participation of individual members of the University would revitalize its inner life. In the immediate future, minor changes to the format of Discussions are certainly desirable. In the medium-term, a variety of parliamentary devices might be instituted to oversee the working of the administration. A Question-Time is one good suggestion. Select Committees, elected by universal suffrage, would be another such possibility. This Report contains an undertow of managerialism. Management and democracy are uneasy partners. Democracy relies on freedom of expression and the giving of informed consent by all adult 'stake-holders'. Denial of such rights provides the conditions for revolution, and we have had some taste of guerrilla-warfare over the last few years. The administration may not always find democracy comfortable, but it is a far surer basis for long-term confidence and stability than the present unhappy state of governance of the University. Above all, I urge the Council and all the 'central bodies' to ground their actions in consultation with the thousands of individuals who make this University work. In that context, these Discussions may eventually prove to be unnecessary. But, unsatisfactory as they are, Senate-House Discussions provide one of the very few safety-valves in the system; to emasculate even these, whether directly or through restrictions on publication, would be a dangerously unwise act.
Ms J. WOODHOUSE:
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I speak from the slightly anomalous position of being a University Administrative Officer, that is, one of the large body of staff who support the University's teaching and research function. Because my grade entitles me to incorporate my Oxford MA, I am a member of the support function who also has the right to speak in Discussions. A colleague who also supports the University's teaching and research also intends to speak today: as a member of the assistant staff, he speaks by special permission of the Vice-Chancellor.
I am speaking today solely on the issue of who should be entitled to participate in consultation, whether that takes the form, in the future, of Discussions or a paper exercise. All of us 'support staff' can usefully contribute to debate, from our own perspectives and our expertise which covers administration, finance, research, librarianship, and information technology; many of us, of course, also have knowledge in the fields of our own degrees, whether we are academic-related or assistant staff.
Where consultation is by delegation, I would hope that Faculty Boards would reflect the views of their entire constituency, including all staff categories employed in their constituent bodies; equally, where consultation is in person by Discussion, I believe that all members of staff, whether they are University officers, assistant staff, or contract research staff, should have the right to make their views known.
I have made this point as a matter of utility, with the aim of bringing new and varied perspectives into the consultation process. But I would also like to raise a point of principle. Those two great exponents of universal history, Messrs Sellars and Yeatman, in 1066 and all that set out the terms of Magna Carta, which gave a respectable list of freedoms for everybody 'except the common people'. Democracy in the University exists at present on much the same terms, and to my mind there is no democracy unless there is democracy for all.
There is perhaps one rider to add. In order to make consultation meaningful, there may be a need to set a minimum length of contract to qualify, so that only those who had a real stake - I apologize for the word - in the University, not those who were employed for a few weeks or months only, could contribute to its debates.
Dr D. R. J. LAMING:
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, the Council asks for comment on existing arrangements for Discussions and I am happy to speak to that; but I do so as an ordinary member of the Regent House, not as a member of the Council. I believe this University needs a forum in which individual members of the Regent House can publish criticism of University policy and where other members can read it and make up their own independent minds on the issues raised. Discussions fulfil that function well, so I think there should be rather little change in existing arrangements. My argument will be clearer if it is illustrated with examples and I hope you will not think it out of place if I use the recent debate about promotion procedures - this is a debate to which I have contributed several times - as a running illustration.
In November 1994 (Reporter, 1994-95, p. 118) ten members of the Regent House signed a request for a Discussion at which Dr G. R. Evans and Dr V. A. Law spoke. To judge from the tone of the reply from the Council and the General Board (Reporter, 1995-96, p. 491) they were pushing at an open door. But that door led only into the Garden of Live Flowers; two years later we came back into the Looking-Glass House with rather little changed. To be sure, there was a great increase in bureaucracy and formalization of procedure. But the decisions whose names should be put forward for promotion were still made by the same people as before, who continued to exercise their previous patronage. The Board will say that it consulted widely. Indeed it did in the matter of details; but on the question of who should make the decisions it did not consult at all. There are other possibilities, which should have been considered. I understand that for decades past Trinity College has operated a rather different procedure, a procedure which takes careful account of the diversity of research topics, in electing its Title A Fellows. I am sure that Trinity would, if asked, have provided advice on how well its procedure works. I have no insight into the Board's thinking on this matter; but the changes it put in place were roughly what one would expect from an administrator who felt under pressure to do something, but did not understand what was wrong, nor how it might be put right.
When a body such as the General Board appears not to understand, Discussions, as we have them at present, provide the one recourse available to ordinary members of the Regent House. Remarks are published verbatim in the Reporter and, although the attendance at Discussions is usually thin, the printed speeches are widely read. Individual members of the Regent House will decide in private what they think of my argument today. This opportunity for individuals to make public criticism is much needed.
It is said that the opportunity afforded by Discussions is sometimes abused; and I remark that there is abuse on both sides. Remarks made at a Discussion are required to be considered by the appropriate University authority, but that 'consideration' might amount to no more than an acknowledge-ment that the remarks were made. On the refusal of a right of appeal on substantive grounds the General Board merely replied, '... the Board remain of the view ...' (Reporter, 1998-99, p. 106) and 'With regard to the points made by ... Dr Laming ... on the appeal procedure, the Board believe that this procedure has worked well (Reporter, 1998-99, p. 224); that is to say, the Board had no good reason for the decision that it reached, not, at least, a reason that could be put before the Regent House. On another occasion the Board replied, 'Since the Discussion the Regent House has decided, as the result of a ballot, how it wishes to proceed.' (Reporter, 1998-99, p. 466); that is to say, the Board had by then obtained the authority to do what it wanted to do and did not need to reply! If the Board had given a reasoned reply, one might not agree, but at least the Regent House would know that the Board had thought about the matter. But with rejoinders such as I have quoted, the criticisms have to be put again in a subsequent Discussion and with greater force. I give two examples.
The promotion booklet (section 1.3) explicitly states: 'This, of course, does not preclude Heads of Departments or Chairmen of Faculty Boards or other senior members from encouraging individuals to apply' - and you may take it for granted that such encouragement comes with inside advice how to prepare one's application. I pointed to that (Reporter, p. 295) as an example of the bias built in to our promotion procedures. The Board replied: 'It is true that Heads of Departments and Chairmen of Faculty Boards can (and surely should as part of their job) sometimes encourage someone to apply for promotion.' (Reporter, p. 484). But if the Head of Department is also a member of the Faculty Promotions Committee ... - that is what the Board is now pleased to call 'equity of treatment' (Reporter, p. 776). It has the appearance - it may not have the reality, but it has the appearance - of collusion (Reporter, p. 595); and that criticism needs to be repeated.
Again, in its latest rejoinder (Reporter, p. 776), the Board takes the stance that if no member of a Promotions Committee is actually related to any of the applicants, the proceedings will be fair and unbiased. In a court of law, on the other hand, anyone who has prior knowledge of the case, or merely prior sympathies with plaintiff or defendant, is excluded from the jury, lest that prior knowledge bias the deliberations. For the same reason Tripos candidates are anonymous to the examiners, and the Government is now insisting on anonymous marking in public examinations. I put that criticism in Discussion on 7 December last year (Reporter, p. 295) and again on 14 March (Reporter, p. 595). So, how many more times does that criticism have to be put before the General Board acknowledges that there is a problem there needing to be addressed?
Such criticisms naturally cause a certain amount of pain, and that pain is one of the reasons why we are here today discussing future arrangements for Discussions. But I do not think those future arrangements should be designed to ease the pain. In nature pain provides an early-warning system to minimize the susceptibility of the body to injury. Although pain is unpleasant, you would not wish to be entirely without it. Discussions fulfil an analogous function in this University - they provide an early warning against mal-administration. While public criticism may be uncomfortable for the administrative bodies, the good health of the University as a community of scholars and students requires that it continue. Here is the ultimate reason why.
It is tempting to infer from the General Board's failure to reply meaningfully to the criticisms which I and others have put that it is arrogant - that its failure to reply is deliberate, its only means of defending the otherwise indefensible. I, personally, think the situation is worse than that. If the Board could have made a reasoned reply, it would have done so; and its failure to do so means that it does not understand the criticisms that have been put. (And at this point, I emphasize that I am looking at the General Board as a corporate body, not as the aggregation of its individual members. It is as a corporate body that the Board makes the decisions that greatly affect the health of this University.)
So, we have an administrative body with great authority and responsibility which allegedly does not understand what it is doing in a matter of great importance to all the academic staff of this University (and there are other matters besides which I have not mentioned). It goes without saying that the General Board does not understand that it does not understand. But the Board can often get its way in such matters, not by convincing argument, but purely by virtue of its authority within the University. What is to be done? At present any member of the Regent House has the right to make critical remarks at a Discussion and have those remarks published in the Reporter for other members to read and consider. That is what is to be done. It is a procedure which should be preserved.
Finally, Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I suggest answers, in the light of my preceding argument, to some of the questions on which Council explicitly asked for comment.
Question 8(b). There is a case for speeches being shorter, but five minutes would have been insufficient for my argument today. Perhaps a limit of ten minutes would be right.
Question 8(d). I do not see how the presiding officer can judge whether remarks are relevant or not until they have been made. The authorization that is proposed would lead to devices to circumvent it, after the manner of 'supplementary questions' in the House of Commons.
Question 8(e). Verbatim reports, including irrelevant material, should continue to be published as a permanent record for posterity. If a summary only is published, who is to make the summary and what distortions will they impose on the remarks actually made?
Question 8(j). I know of occasions when personal remarks have been very relevant and have caused no offence - but in general the answer has to be 'No'. But, just as there is a need for discussion of policy, so sometimes there is a need for criticism of the manner in which that policy is implemented by particular University officers. Some alternative procedure is needed, not a public procedure, but one not any the less accountable, when personal reference arises.
Question 9(a). When the administrative bodies actually want comment (as in this present instance), they know how to get it. The importance of Discussions is that they provide a statutory vehicle for individual comment in cases where the administrative bodies would prefer to be left to get on with business in their own way without enquiry from members of the Regent House.
Question 9(c). All Reports to the University should be subject to discussion as at present.
Question 9(d). Replacing the present formal arrangements for Discussion with purely written submissions would be the first step towards administrative anaesthesia. It sounds innocuous, but what follows next? There will be restrictions on length due to limitations of space in the Reporter; elimination of replies from the administrative bodies, partly because of the volume of material submitted, but also because many of the points to be made in reply would have already been covered in other contributions to 'Discussion'; and ultimately we should have merely a correspondence column after the style of the national newspapers. At that point we would need to bring back Discussions in the form we have them at present.
Dr G. R. EVANS:
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, 'the Vice-Chancellor said that he thought it might be of assistance to members of the Senate if he made a short statement as to procedure. Since a number of non-residents had been good enough to come up for the Discussion, and some of these might have engagements which made it important that they should leave early, he would be glad if any in that position would send him their cards'. Thus the then Vice-Chancellor before a Discussion seventy years ago (Reporter, 7 November 1932, p. 294).
Now turn to the present Report and contrast the assumptions. In 1932 it was taken for granted that those who spoke in Discussions were to be thanked for taking trouble and that the University wanted to hear what they had to say. That is still the tone of the Notice (Notice?) on p. 117 of Statutes and Ordinances. The Council cut out at the last minute the portion of the present Report, which would have told you frankly that it comes forward on a very different presumption.
This is a grave occasion. We all know that this began as a reaction to my speeches of recent years by those who would like to silence me. Of course I have pushed to the limit the possibilities of Discussions. It has not been easy for me to find another way of getting things attended to, for they keep me off almost all the committees I might expect to be on as a member of the Council. Denied access to the deliberations reported to you, what else is a Council member to do? It is clearly unacceptable for the University to be deprived of its forum for the expression of free opinion over one individual. There are surely other ways of dealing with my speeches, even perhaps by attending to the issues I have been raising?
What is the Council doing calling into question the right of the Regent House to have its say in its own business? That is none of the Council's business.
Certain principles are fundamental to our constitution. This is not antiquarian sentimentality. These are things definitive of the kind of body politic we are. The Masters of Arts have always met to debate their business. Statute IV of about 1250 says that, '[All the regents] are to assemble together, unless reasonably excused, to discuss in common matters affecting the general good of the university and public order'. Markaunt's Book (Proctor 1417-8), Statute 9, says the same, with the addition of 'or other business of the University'.
There is also the provision under the ancient (pre-1570) Statutes for the two houses (regent and non-regent) to be formed into one assembly, to deliberate together. That is what we do in the modern Discussions of the Senate. That is why they are Discussions of the Senate and not Discussions of the Regent House. The fundamental reason why students may come and speak is that students are members of the University too, even though they do not have a vote (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 113 does not make that clear).
The deliberative function of this combined 'house' is fundamental to its nature. The Vice-Chancellor announced, for example, on 22 May 1857, that on 27 May he himself would attend in the Arts School, 'in order to afford an opportunity to those members of the Senate, who may choose to meet him there, of giving and receiving information and explanations respecting the proposed new statutes for divinity professorships'1. The Latin of the Statute of 1858 is quite clear about this deliberative function (Statute A, III, 4): Si quando cancellario aut concilio senatus visum fuerit, conveniat senatus ut de gratiis quibuscunque, priusquam in suffragia mittatur, fiat deliberatio.
And the Senate-House has not ceased to be a forum for real debate. We had an example of that at the Discussion of 2 May when I was delighted to find a speaker rising up spontaneously to comment on what I had just said (Reporter, p. 673). The Discussions published in the Reporters show that there has been until recently a right of reply as well as the most robust exchange of views. It would be good to go back to that. It would put an end to the startling attempt to say that if we do not 'deliberate' we need no longer discuss. The suggestion in the present Report that we should cease to discuss the Annual Reports of the Council and the General Board takes the breath away.
In 1882, Statute A, III, 1 says that there shall be a meeting of the Senate for the Discussion of proposed Graces, or of Reports, 'or of any other question strictly Academical', although such Discussions shall not lead directly to a vote on the spot ('No vote shall be taken at the time of such discussion'). If a vote is to be separated from the debate, it is of the utmost importance that those who were not present may read what was said before exercising their vote.
Now that there are 3,000 of us and we cannot all get into the Senate-House to listen, speeches must continue to be published in a permanent printed record.
The Reporter is the lifeline of the University's democracy. Do not underestimate the consequences to our academic freedom and control of our own affairs which would follow from the implementation of some of the suggestions in this Report, about ceasing publication or putting selected comments (inevitably temporarily) on the University web-page.
The Reporter began as an unofficial record in 1870. The University 'adopted' it. It was published 'by Authority' from 1873. From the beginning it carried Reports and reports of the Discussions of those Reports. The fourth 'number' contains a Report ending with an invitation from the Vice-Chancellor to members of the Senate to attend for the Discussion of a Report in the Arts School on Thursday, 30 January at 2 o'clock. The remarks made were printed in the issue of 4 February.
The Council of the Senate is a parvenu in this story. It was set up in the mid-nineteenth century and it is from that period that the requirement for the new Council to make a formal 'Report' to the University for Discussion dates, with its inevitable distancing of the Masters from the hands-on conduct of what nevertheless remains their business. But that distancing was short-lived precisely because of the beginning of the publication of the Reporter.
Did the Wass Syndicate make any change to these fundamentals? The Regent House is still the legislative body. Under the Wass reforms it permits the Council to propose legislation to it, while retaining the power to initiate legislation through the fifty-member Grace. The Regent House has (post-Wass) retained a power of veto through a non-placet or of limited amendment to a Grace through a call for a ballot. The Council would do well to remember that it is servant and steward and not master of the University.
I wish our Vice-Chancellor would come among us on these occasions when we discuss our business and sit in that chair as his predecessors until recently felt it their duty to do. This is not a job for a deputy. Let him come and get a sense of the powerful possibilities of this forum. Let him come and find out where the muscle ultimately lies in the University. For Discussions remain a powerful instrument of reform. Look what they have brought about over the last few years. That is why there is a wish to emasculate them.
So what are the options you are offered here?
(i) No more live Discussions. Why end live Discussions? They take half an hour on a few Tuesday afternoons a year.
(ii) Curtailing the freedom of speakers. The fact that there is plenty of time to spare should be borne in mind if there is any move to shorten speeches to five minutes. That could be appropriate only if Discussions were going on too long. There is no pressure on time at all. I thought the argument was they did not go on long enough because not enough people were making use of them? This, like much else in this list, looks suspiciously ad hominem; I repeat: even if everyone is tired of my speeches, that does not make it appropriate to curtail those of others.
Allowing the person presiding to restrict what is said is dangerous unless we can have a well-founded confidence in a high degree of clear-headedness in each of those the Vice-Chancellor appoints, and require them to demonstrate an appropriate understanding of the constitutional underpinnings of the high honour, before they are allowed to sit in that seat. If any person presiding had had the wit and courtesy and style to query what I was doing in an appropriate way and on valid points, I would have left the rostrum with a laugh on many occasions over the last few years, or moved on to a concluding paragraph with the utmost good humour. I am quite good fun really. That was the way to do it. But not always, and it is right that sometimes a speaker should be able to insist on the statutory right of freedom of speech.
Are you yourself willing to go back to your seat meekly in the middle of your speech without an opportunity to explain the relevance of what you wish to say? How are we to be saved from arbitrary axing?
I cannot understand what objection there can be in a mature democracy to naming names. This is a most unhealthy suggestion. Naming names is not the same as 'making personal remarks', with respect to Dr Thompson. Accountability is slight enough in the University without our making senior figures still more unaccountable. How can those who do things in our name be called to account if we have to be mealy-mouthed about saying who did what? One would hope a Vice-Chancellor could take a bit of criticism, and also a senior administrative or academic officer who has powers over the lives of others. One should not have to resort to metaphors about hedgehogs.
(iii) Ceasing to print speeches in the Reporter. The value of the printed historical record will be apparent to anyone who goes into the Reading Room of the University Library and browses through the Reporters of the last hundred and more years and reads the Discussions they contain. Note as you read, that those early accounts, before there were tape-recorders and when debate was extremely live, were agreed with the speakers before they were published. No one presumed to interfere with what the Masters of Arts said as they leapt to their feet and contradicted one another and called one another names.
Electronic publication is ephemeral. It will not be possible to read it in the future without the appropriate machine. Composition for such vehicles is likely to be far more casual. Those of us who speak in the Senate- House put time and effort into polishing what we say precisely because we are conscious that we are speaking to history.
(iv) Ceasing to print speeches verbatim. This is perhaps the most dangerous suggestion of all. 'The comments, or a summary or selection of them, could be published in the Reporter'. You cannot run a democracy in that way. Do you trust the Old Schools to 'summarize' what you want to say? Will you hand over your moral rights of authorship (yours in law to affirm) to administrative officers, and allow them to monkey about with your prose? How long will it be before the carved-up remains actually appear in print? Who is going to decide whose remarks are privileged to appear at all? You will certainly no longer be able to chuckle over or fume at what I say, will you?
So, to move to my conclusions, I think we should turn this Report round and press for more not less accountability through the machinery of Discussions. In 1948 (Reporter, 1947-48, p. 846), provision was made for members of the Regent House to draw attention to 'topics that they think worthy of discussion at an earlier stage than is made possible by the publication of Reports and their formal discussion'. Our present ten-member call should be coupled with speedy timetabling, before interest has moved on to other things. The theme of the last Discussion thus called (Reporter, 1998-99, p. 766) turns out to have been indeed an important matter and you will be hearing soon about the result of an invocation of Statute K, 5 on the subject. Oxford has a scheme by which ten members of Congregation may arrange to have a fly-sheet circulated with the Gazette 'relating to matters of general interest to the University'. (Gazette, 27 January 2000, p. 662). We could try that, with a speedy Discussion to follow.
I hope that after nearly losing them more people will want to use Discussions. It is not easy for busy members of the Regent House to attend Discussions, though an absentee can get a speech read by proxy. We could provide for a means by which remarks may published in the Reporter as of right if they are sent in for that stated purpose within a stated period of time after the publication of a Report. We can quite easily continue with Discussions in the ancient way and allow written contributions to be published in addition.
One of the present proposals would add to the effectiveness of our democratic system and that I would certainly not resist. University staff should be allowed to speak even if they are not members of the University. That would be in keeping with the new moves to improve the lot of staff who are not members of the University. We already allow speeches from those who cannot vote. Constitutionally, the new category would have to be 'guest' speakers, but would that matter? Ms Woodhouse is quite right that we are missing contributions we need.
I propose again that we create a Question Time at Discussions on the model of the parliamentary accountability procedure, at which, with notice, Chairmen of Committees and senior administrative officers may be required to answer questions put. This is hinted at but not developed in 8(c).
Then perhaps our Vice-Chancellor will really be able to speak as one of his predecessors did, of 'the satisfaction which comes from being in charge of one of the world's great universities' (Sir Alan Cottrell, 1 October 1979). Our greatness consists not in getting more money than anyone else from industrial partners, not in topping league-tables, but in being a community of scholars who run their own affairs. It is his highest privilege to chair us, if he will come and do it.
1 Council minutes, 22 May 1857; Winstanley, EVC, p. 320.
Dr A. W. F. EDWARDS:
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, when Professor Linnett addressed the Regent House in 1975 on completing two years as Vice-Chancellor he remarked, 'The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge are alone in that the government of the University resides ultimately in the whole body of resident dons. I believe that, despite its tendencies to inefficiency and occasional oddities of behaviour, all senior members believe that the University is extremely fortunate in possessing this form of government and would not relinquish it without a considerable fight. However, I believe that, to work well, this kind of democracy needs fostering and there is a need to have the means to keep it alive and vigorous'.
I was first a member of the General Board from 1975 to 1978, and I soon became concerned about the manner in which the business of the University was being conducted. By the end of my year as Senior Proctor in 1978-79, when I had occasionally attended the Council as well, I was seriously troubled. I therefore studied the development of the University's constitution in order better to understand the problems. I gave my conclusions in an article in the Cambridge Review in 1981 which opened, 'On 1 October 1963 the University's seven-hundred-year-old constitution suffered a blow which may yet prove fatal; although the patient is showing signs of regaining consciousness, the prognosis is not good, and much loving care will have to be devoted to him if he is to recover his powers to the full'.
In the summer of 1998 I found myself reluctantly having to concede that the government of the University was now broken beyond repair. I wrote to a number of friends saying that after the end of the academic year I would no longer be taking an active part in Regent-House business. I would no longer call for ballots, write or sign fly-sheets, ask for Discussions, or promote Memorials. Henceforth I would just speak in Discussions, mainly for the benefit of historians who might at some future time enquire how Cambridge came to destroy its own outstanding constitution.
The last straw had been the spectacle of the Regent House, the governing body of the University as by law laid down, being expected to make a decision about academical dress worn at an Honorary Degree Congregation whilst being denied any involvement in the most fundamental issue to affect the University since the last Royal Commission, the turning of its constituent Colleges into publicly-funded institutions. No governing body, I reasoned, could survive such treatment.
The decay of Discussions is but part of this general decline of constitutional government, for which I hold the Old Schools and the administrative officers responsible. Since I am not going to mince my words, let me state clearly what I mean by 'the Old Schools' and by 'the administrative officers'.
Until the classes 'University administrative officer' and 'University teaching officer' were amalgamated under the title 'University officer' in 1974 by change of Statute, the former had been the normal title of University officers engaged in administration, listed in Statute D as the Vice-Chancellor, Proctors, Registrary, Secretary General, Treasurer, and so on. There is a tendency nowadays for the Old Schools to describe this class as 'officers' and the teaching officers as 'academic staff', by which redbrick reclassification the important distinction between University officers and so-called 'research staff' is conveniently blurred. I shall use the traditional terms.
By generalizing about the administrative officers I have known since 1975 (I count twenty-one in all amongst Vice-Chancellors, Registraries, Secretaries General, and Treasurers, to go no further) I intend to spread the criticism so widely that no particular person is singled out. Some few have been, or are, beyond criticism. The loss of Professor Linnett, who died a month after leaving office, was a particular tragedy.
By 'the Old Schools' I mean that amalgam of administrative officers, teaching officers, and Heads of Houses which has steadily eroded the constitution bequeathed the University in 1926 after the last Royal Commission by men of the calibre of Sir Hugh Kerr Anderson and H. A. Hollond. The longer I have observed the decline the more I have come to see that the responsibility lies mainly with the administrative officers, for the academics serving on bodies like the Council and the General Board are entitled to advice of the highest quality on constitutional matters, advice which should always err on the side of judging a power to belong to the senior body rather than to the junior one, to the Regent House rather than to the Council, to the Council rather than to a committee. On the contrary, calling attention to an abuse of power has normally resulted in the administrative officers proposing, and the academics accepting, that the regulations be altered to condone the abuse. By this ratchet mechanism all important decisions are drained from a governing body.
The culture of the Old Schools is a phenomenon which no change of administrative officers seems to affect, as though it emanates from the very stones of the place. It rests on the twin illusions that democracy is a dispensable luxury and that bad government can be countered by good management. Such a culture creates an unhealthy attitude of resentment, a siege mentality, a confusion of roles, a defensive reaction to suggestions, a chronic reluctance to concede a point, and finally to the exhaustion which leads to bad management in addition to bad government.
Discussions, which are but the meetings of the governing body to discuss proposals emanating from the Old Schools, have over the years degenerated not only as a consequence of the wider constitutional decline but specifically because of three further factors: the unsatisfactory nature of Council replies, the absence of the signatories of the Reports that are being discussed, and the inaction of the chair.
By treating a Discussion as a peculiar occasion, the chair has helped to turn it into one. No chairman should allow a speaker to deviate from the topic of a Report for minutes on end; no chairman should hesitate to require a speaker to withdraw unparliamentary language immediately, and on a refusal require him to sit down. In extremis, the meeting must be adjourned. Part of the problem seems to be lack of authority. Vice-Chancellors have only recently ceased to chair Discussions. I find from the Reporter that Mr McCrum was the last Vice-Chancellor regularly to perform this duty, which had been regarded as an essential obligation of the office ever since modern Discussions were instituted in 1858.
The absence of members of the reporting bodies is equally deleterious. On many occasions in the past I have introduced Reports for which I have been responsible through my chairmanship of the relevant Council or General Board committee. It is not always possible to reply immediately to speakers, but I can recall occasions when, as an ordinary member of the Library Syndicate asked to be present because the Syndicate was itself meeting at the same time, I have replied on its behalf. It is no good people who sign Reports complaining that a speaker has said something that is not true if they are not prepared to be present to correct it from the floor, so that the correction may appear in the printed record.
Council replies, in my experience, have been the worst factor of all. Most intelligent people long ago saw that raising points in a Discussion was futile; the administrative mind was made up, and the Council too feeble to challenge it. Time and again as a member of the Council or the General Board (and sometimes of both) I tried to have replies improved, but it was an impossible task. They had been carved on tablets of stone in some dungeon of the Old Schools and neither facts nor reason nor compassion could change them. Indeed I may say that never in my experience of sitting on committees and councils of one kind and another, local, national, and international, sometimes in the chair myself, have I encountered anything remotely like the disdain with which in Cambridge some administrative officers have treated elected members.
It is true that administrative officers have been labouring under some disadvantages not of their own making. Democracy is at a discount in England now, cheapened at every level nationally up to and indeed beyond Parliament (I refer of course to the European Union, not the Crown). Its state in Cambridge is partly a reflection of this.
Secondly, the unaccountable bureaucracy which this failure of democratic control spawns has imposed external pressures on the University which are themselves destructive of democracy. Too often they expect a compliance which can only be achieved by short-circuiting the democratic process, though here it must be admitted that the readiness of administrative officers to bow to such pressures rather than to question their legitimacy has itself been a contributory factor.
Thirdly, the uniqueness of the constitutional structure of Oxford and Cambridge to which Professor Linnett referred, arising from the Victorian reform Acts and the Oxford and Cambridge Act of 1923, has meant that most people simply have not understood the very basis of the University's constitution, that the Regent House is the governing body, responsible not only for legislation but for all important business generally (in the words of the Royal Commission), and that the apparatus of Council, Boards, and Syndicates, and indeed Discussions like this, is intended to facilitate the process of arriving at informed decisions in reasonable time, as it used to.
I could cite with chapter and verse many utterances of Vice-Chancellors and other administrative officers which have made it clear to me that they have simply not grasped how the constitution is supposed to work. Worse, when it is brought home to them by some challenge that the constitution is being abused, there are always ready voices on the Council and the General Board to make sycophantic remarks about overworked administrators and the absurd practice of having to obey some old Statute whilst the real business of the University is being held up ('real business' being code for the promotion of some scheme dear to the speaker).
There are other, less culpable, voices which are also of assistance to the Old Schools, those excellent people who come here with no experience of Oxford or Cambridge government and innocently contribute to its decay by assuming senior roles without adequate background knowledge. They can make a huge difference when they adopt the tone of an experienced outsider: 'Well, Vice-Chancellor, that is not how it is done in Birmingham (or Bristol or Timbuctu)'. If we were to have external members of the Council we could be sure there would be much more of that (as presumably the promoters of such a breach of the principles of an Oxbridge constitution understand full well).
The present position is now more serious than ever. The traditional democratic processes have been almost entirely destroyed. For some years now anyone calling a non-placet has been regarded by the Old Schools not as a member of a governing body asking that a vote be taken but as a trouble-maker holding up business which wiser heads have already decided. Much of the University's business is now transacted independently of the written constitution and most of its academic employees are nowadays not even subject to it. Managers are appointed to positions unknown to it with powers undefined in it. Reform from within has failed, for even when the Old Schools was forced to concede the establishment of the Wass Syndicate they managed to ensure that the ratchet operated once again. Lord Adrian wrote sympathetically to remind me of the fable of the frogs desiring a king.
History shows that the next stage is compulsion from without, but whereas the Victorians knew how to reform a failed system of university government by Royal Commission, Britain's modern governors would simply and arbitrarily impose their ignorant will on Oxbridge by means of some cheapjack Act based more on the prejudices of ministers and the bureaucratic mania for uniformity of structure than the needs of the two distinguished universities. Those great reforms which finally put paid to the autocratic Caput and returned authority in the University to the body of its teachers will finally have run their course, and, whether by internal evolution or external imposition, Cambridge will suffer rule by the New Caput, accountable to no-one, a century-and-a-half of flourishing self-government at an end.
But there is an alternative. We are a community of educators. Thomas Jefferson wrote, 'I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education'.
I propose that every newly-appointed administrative officer should be expected to attend a course of lectures on the University's constitution. The lectures would naturally also be open to the elected members of the Council and others who wished to be better informed. Then, on the basis of a clear understanding of the constitution and its problems, some progress might yet be made. The schedules should be something like this:
1. Elements of democracy. Participatory versus representative democracy.
2. Constitutional evolution in Cambridge: the first six centuries.
3. Dean Peacock and the Victorian reforms. Discussions.
4. The 1922 Royal Commission and 1923 Act.
5. The 1926 Statutes: the Regent House as governing body. Ordinances and orders.
6. Powers of the University. Statutes as enabling legislation. Powers of delegation.
7. The constitution at work, 1926-63. The Annan and Grave Reports.
8. The decline from 1963. The Wass Report. The price of failure.
It is now more than twenty years since I first drew attention to the naïvety of the changes which initiated the decline in Cambridge's fine constitution. They have led to a political vacuum at the heart of the University. The vessel containing this vacuum sometimes leaks, admitting voices which echo in the thin air. As all physicists know, when pressure falls pitch rises. For all this time, the reaction of the Old Schools has been to try to seal the leaks and maintain the vacuum. But why not let in some fresh air?
Professor R. J. BOWRING (read by Dr N. J. B. A. BRANSON):
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I would like to have been here in person at the Discussion this afternoon, but unfortunately I am chairing my Faculty Board and must therefore borrow the voice of another. And therein lies the rub. The University is a far bigger and busier place than it used to be and however much we might wish to keep the luxury of this kind of debate, it is simply impractical. It does not work as it should.
Cambridge has survived and will continue to survive in the future only by virtue of its willingness to hang on to what is worth retaining while at the same time jettisoning that which no longer works. This needs both wisdom and courage. A Discussion on Discussions? What could be more quaint? It sounds slightly barmy but I welcome it because it shows that we are yet again questioning the way we do our business. We must face up to the fact that Discussions as they are presently constructed are no longer of much use and do not serve the purpose for which they were created.
It is Dr Evans whom I should thank at this point. It is she who has made it so clear, by her misuse of this procedure on almost every occasion over the last few years. Single-handedly, she has, through her extraordinary antics, brought it into disrepute. I do not question her right to complain, but I do question the way she does it. For some reason that many of us can no longer fathom, Dr Evans has been allowed to hijack Discussion after Discussion, stretching relevance to breaking point on a whole series of matters [28 words omitted].
On one occasion this year a Topic of Concern was raised and the necessary ten signatures obtained; but on the day in question only two of those who had signed (Dr Evans and Dr Laming) actually spoke at the Discussion. So where were the others? Their concern was obviously very shortlived. Dr Evans may feel misused herself, but she has taken such revenge on the system that it now lies in tatters.
Certain of my acquaintances have become so hooked on the Reporter that they experience withdrawal symptoms when the 'Evans column' fails to appear. Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, when a procedure of governance proves to be so weak that it cannot withstand a determined campaign of misuse by one member of the community, it is surely time to call it a day.
Mr A. M. BAILEY:
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, as a representative of the negotiating unions, I was especially invited here today. Hopefully members will feel that, for others like myself, the right to speak here will soon be the norm rather than the exception.
In the Prime Minister's recent well-publicized speech to the Women's Institute, he attempted, above the heckling, to distinguish between 'old fashioned values' and 'old fashioned practices or attitudes'. I would like to echo that distinction in this Discussion. The University has established traditional values over 600 years, such as those of discussion and debate, but has not necessarily adapted all of its procedures to the modern age.
There is a vast untapped source of new ideas and understanding within the University structure. The group I am representing are University assistants, a number of whom are graduates; it has even been known for people with doctorates to be thus employed. However, we do not believe academic qualifications account for everything; common sense, experience, and an intuitive insight are things we develop in the wider school of life. In fact, sometimes these qualities are more developed in the less academic mind. Therefore we would make the point that it would be beneficial to the University to hear such voices, in a spirit of democracy, in Discussions.
We would also like to touch on the question of motivation. Money is one obvious motivation. The University has recognized this over the last couple of years with the restructuring of academic stipends. (We refrain from comment on assistant staff wages - this is obviously neither the time nor place.) But another great motivation is a sense of involvement, to be part of something, to have the opportunity for creative input, and to help steer it in the right direction.
We feel sure the University does not want a disgruntled work force who feel like a small cog in a huge autocratic wheel, with a 'them and us' perception of the workplace.
In the twenty-first century, we see no reason why all established employees of an institution such as this should not have the right, should they feel inclined, to contribute to Discussions on issues which may ultimately affect them. In fact, we find it difficult to conceive a rational argument against allowing all such employees of the University an opportunity to voice their side in Discussions, unless such an argument was tainted with something resembling 'old fashioned practices or attitudes'.
Dr J. C. HORTON:
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, this is a very interesting Report. Its most fascinating paragraph, however, is one that does not appear - the paragraph that would tell us why the Council wishes 'to initiate discussion and consultation' about Discussions. (The Dissenting note has saved me from assuming the second half of paragraph 1 has this role.) In the absence of reasons, therefore, I shall state that what I value about Discussions is their formal and public nature. They are public in the sense that what speakers say and the answers they receive are published in the University's journal. They are formal in the sense that the answer implicitly has the authority of the Council.
Including the issue of whether one should be allowed to speak uninterrupted, I note that several different sub-paragraphs address the question of whether the speaker's contribution should be published, both in full, and in the Reporter. These are 8(b), 8(d), 8(e) (several times over), and 8(f). Buried in the thinking behind these, I suspect, must lie some of the contents of that missing paragraph. I believe all these suggestions lead to dangerous waters. Apart from the fifteen-minute limit, your role, Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, is not contentious. The changes proposed, however, would place both you (as the Vice-Chancellor's Deputy) and any editor of speeches at continual risk of accusations of partiality. This University has a very high public profile and any accusations of dissent being suppressed would surely be damaging.
Addressing one aspect of 8(e), I wonder whether editing speeches is really any cheaper than publishing them in full. If publishing expense is currently an objection to the length of Discussion items, though, the price of the Reporter can presumably go up. (More interestingly, if only edited versions appear, would the price be reduced? Here may lie a novel method for keeping contributions short.)
I turn now to paragraph 9. This suggests some consultation methods further to Discussions - perhaps even instead of them on occasion. The paragraph as a whole seems unclear on this but 9(c) does indicate Discussions could be restricted to one purpose only. (It also implies that the right to raise a Topic of Concern might be widened.) What is certain is that paragraph 9 does not say who would be allowed to participate in these consultation methods. Are we tacitly invited to assume that all those currently invited to Discussions would be included? Careful reading of paragraph 9, though, suggests such an assumption may be mistaken. (Who are the 'stake-holders' of 9(b)?) I wonder if this is something else from the missing paragraph. Is there an intention to reduce, in effect, the role non-Regents can take in University business and, if so, why?
In my experience the Senate-House is never flooded with non-Regents wishing to speak. They turn up in their twos or threes at most and therefore cause no logistical problems. Furthermore, those that choose to speak do so on topics of genuine concern to them - they do not abuse their right. We hear much at present of the University scouring the kingdom for the very best undergraduates. There would be a certain irony in the University deciding to dispense with such ability once these brilliant minds graduate. Speakers at the Discussion of 18 January (Reporter, 26 January 2000) raised similar points.
Simply knowing that I have the right to speak here, regardless of whether I exercise it, makes me far more interested in University affairs than the (now traditional) begging letter found in many other places. Non-Regents' interest in University affairs, however, can - should, some might say - lead them to voice their opinions and experiences outside the University as well as inside. Like all organizations, this University has its critics. Unfortunately, many of ours - including, I fear, some of the most powerful - allow their ignorance to insulate their prejudices, and their prejudices to inform their comments. Prejudiced remarks are no less damaging than well-informed ones, frequently more so since they are often sensationalist in nature. In the battle against prejudice and misinformation, numbers are important. Action from even a fraction of our army of 200,000 could do much to fight these twin evils.
I believe the formal participation of all members of the University in University business is a good thing. It is a fine principle (for which this University ought to receive more recognition) and, I suggest, a very useful thing in practice. I trust it will be maintained in whatever proposals the Council may make.
Mr T. N. MILNER (read by Dr J. C. HORTON):
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, as the Report states, until 1994 Discussions were in fact meetings of the Senate rather than the Regent House. The Wass Syndicate expressed the view that it had no desire to see non-Regent members of the Senate excluded from the Discussion process. To re-enforce this, the right of non-Regent members of the Senate to attend and speak at Discussions was enshrined in Statute A and not merely granted by Ordinance, as it is to various other categories of person.
There is, however, still a more formal basis for this distinction being made. The Senate remains what I believe the University of Wales would call an 'authority' in the University. It elects the Chancellor and High Steward and has the power to pass Graces and make Ordinances.
The situation can thus arise, albeit rarely, that the Council might report on matters reserved to the Senate, or that a contested Grace of the Senate be put up for Discussion (as did indeed happen in 1994). At present, by reading the Reporter either on paper or online, non-resident members of the Senate may keep themselves informed, not only of the Reports and Graces themselves, but also of the complete content of any remarks made at their Discussion. It is principally from this information that a non-resident member of the Senate must take the decision as to whether or not to come to Cambridge to vote in the event of a ballot. In 1994, the Council did allow the publication of Notices in the Reporter prior to a ballot of the Senate, since the arrangements for circulating fly-sheets applying to ballots of the Regent House are clearly impractical in relation to the Senate. These Notices, however, appeared on the day before the first day of voting, and only three days before the final day of voting. As such, it was, in itself, rather unsatisfactory as a means of informing even those non-resident members who do read the Reporter of what was happening. I suggest that a mere summary of remarks made at a Discussion would not suffice to inform non-resident members adequately when no fly-sheet is to follow.
While it would be foolish to suggest that this is going to be a principal concern in any reform of the Discussion process, I make these points because I would like to remind the Council of the possibility of Senate business and ask them to give it some consideration when proposing any changes to the status quo.
Professor M. SCHOFIELD (read by Mrs S. BOWRING):
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, this is a Tuesday afternoon in Full Term, a time when most members of the University's staff are engaged either in useful academic business or in attending poorly-designed CAPSA training courses. So I don't imagine the University will have turned up in huge numbers to 'discuss' the democratic institution of the Discussion. If so does that matter? What would matter would be if this were the only forum in which people thought they could have an input into the consultative processes. But it isn't, and I doubt that many people who have been here a while think it is. As just one element in our consultative arrangements I think Discussions - in some shape or form - continue to have a place.
I would suggest that there are only three things wrong with Discussions as we have them at present. One is that they are called 'Discussions'. This annoys some colleagues a great deal, since discussions they are not. So let's call them something else, something unsexy and lower case for preference, for example, 'formal meetings'. Second is that they are abused by some speakers in ways too well-known to need further comment, with consequent waste of time for senior officers in particular. Let us hope this is a temporary phenomenon. In the meantime it seems to me obvious that the person presiding should have the authority to rule personal remarks out of order and be encouraged to use it, with consequent deletions from the record (see paragraph 8(f) of this Report). Third is that because Discussions are part of our history and are conducted in an archaic and rather grandiose style, there is a bit of a tendency for everyone who has anything to do with them to take them more seriously (whether as a contribution to the work of the University or as an irritant) than they usually - but of course not invariably - deserve.
I'm sure the Council are right to be thinking of ways of improving Discussions, though tinkering profitably with old-fashioned democratic institutions is never easy. But let us not lie sleepless at night worrying about it all.
Mr T. JONES:
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, a Discussion on the University's arrangements for Discussions requires referral to the use and abuse of the wider mechanisms of governance of which Discussions are an integral part.
The Report invites comments about 'consultation generally within the University'. Perhaps an illustration of 'consultation' in practice will aid us. Following the elections for the Student Members of Council on 6 March 2000, one of the successful candidates announced that she was unable to take up the position. At the following Standing Advisory Committee on Student Matters (SACSMs) meeting, the students present explained that running another election was not really practicable since the undergraduates in each College, who are expected to act as Returning Officers, would be caught up in exam revision. We suggested instead that the votes from the last election should be redistributed according to the normal rules of the Single Transferable Vote system. This does not seem in any way undemocratic. It is a method used widely, even at governmental level, such as in Malta. The influential senior members present, however, knew better, and a bye-election was held on 18 May - just days before the start of exams. Bizarrely, the University did not even agree to consult specialist agencies. Had they done so, they would have discovered that the Electoral Reform Service is so accustomed to the method suggested by the student members that, as a matter of course, they do contingency counts in case of any candidate's withdrawal. Needless to say, student officers from across the University felt ignored and under-valued, and many contacted me to ask whether I had been consulted. The answer, I think, is, 'no'.
A fundamental linchpin of any organization is trust. The Council would be well advised to develop a system which, rather than simply giving various interest groups placatory positions on a selection of committees or even permitting us to air our views in Discussions, they ensured that voices were actually listened to. Unfortunately, this has not been the case of late. There is a serious lack of trust in the University among our students. The recent rent debacle, for instance, has left students in no doubt about how unhappily the establishment priorities sit with our own needs.
The University protests it has no part in these deliberations. Allow me to dispel these myths. In the Standing Advisory Committee on Student Matters of 20 January 1998, Sarah Bonnett (then CUSU President) warned that Colleges may try to compensate for the loss in the College Fee by increasing students' rents, and asked whether 'any central body' would be looking into this. She was assured that this was 'unlikely'. Present at that meeting was Dr Raban, who was speaking 'as the representative of the Senior Tutors' Committee at the Bursars' Committee'. Strange, then, that the Bursars' Committee had already received the completed Bursars' Report, recommending rent rises which equal almost exactly the loss in fee revenue. I am now told that Sarah's question was unfortunately phrased, since 'central bodies' encompasses only the Council, General Board, and Finance Committee, none of which were investigating rent rises. This definition, though, is not a constitutional one, but simply, according to the Registrary, one that has 'been in common usage for many years'. One cannot help but wonder about the integrity of our Statutes if such an a-constitutional colloquialism can be so casually employed to argue that students were not deceived.
To the Masters and Scholars of Cambridge University I say this: you have also been deceived. Worse, you have allowed yourselves to be deceived. If you truly believe that student living costs here will still be at the national average in five years' time, I implore you to read the various reports (all on the CUSU web-pages) and to seriously consider your own positions. When College Bursars claim that they have no intention of making profit from their students, ask the following questions: does 'profit' include the opportunity cost of not having invested the capital elsewhere? Do students really consider Kitchen Fixed Charges to be totally incidental to their room rent? Is there any evidence whatsoever that bursaries actually balance the access imbalance?
Such examples obviously prompt questions about the exact relationship between our Colleges and the University. It is to these that I now turn.
One of this University's greatest myths is that it operates through a process of democratic consensus. The myriad of referrals and consultations that wastes so much of our time is supposedly fundamental to good governance. As long as the same clique of people discusses the same paper in four different committee meetings, and then publishes it and allows a sprinkling of brave souls to spend an afternoon here waxing lyrical about it, everyone has been consulted and all is well. On 15 June 1999, SACSMs noted that the Working Party on Student Unions and Similar Organizations (which included representation from both Student Unions) would be reporting to the University Council on 26 July. In the event, the Council did not consider the Report until 25 October, at which point it was decided that it should be referred back to the Student Unions, via SACSMs. This happened on 6 December 1999, when we were keen to point out that the most important suggestion in the Report (to appoint a full-time Welfare Caseworker) obviously had our support since we had suggested it in the first place. The Report then went back to the Council, who supported the suggestion in principle and referred it to the Allocations Committee for funding. They decided it was not for the University to fund and referred it back to the Council, who referred it back to SACSMs, who then referred it back to the Council saying the University should fund it. All being well, the Council referred it back to the Allocations Committee, who then agreed to pay half, and referred it back to the Council who referred it to the Senior Tutors' Committee, who have now referred it back to SACSMs complaining about the lack of consultation.
It is not my intention to question the apparent superfluity of having Senior Tutors on every one of the above Committees, but rather to wonder about the seemingly endless string of delays that this structure facilitates - even on such a critical issue as student welfare. It is not as though the rates of depression or suicide among our students give the University and Colleges room for complacency. Students are not asking for luxuries here; Sheffield, for instance, has six student caseworkers. This is funded through revenue from student bars. Cambridge's own table-topping student alcohol consumption levels benefit a rather different set of budget headings.
I move now to the University's inaction on another vital issue - that of public funding for our University and its students. Allow me to use a personal example. I will be applying for Ph.D. funding next year. However, there is no way I could even consider studying in this country. My bank manager simply would not allow it. If I am not offered a scholarship in the States or Canada, I will instead apply for jobs in London - not particularly well-paid jobs, simply those that will allow me to service my debts. Of course, assuming my overdraft were smaller, I could feasibly apply for postgraduate study in the UK. Even then, though, I would not dream of applying to Cambridge. Experience has taught me the costs of living and studying in this great city.
Student funding is an issue of concern for Cambridge University - not because of my personal inability to remain but rather because these sentiments are echoed powerfully within the student body as a whole. The number of Cambridge undergraduates staying on to do further study here has plummeted in recent years; the figures are perhaps not yet public, but I think it fair to say, as a hypothetical, that if the numbers had more than halved in just six years then the University would have considerable and justified cause for concern. The Government's student funding policies are not only leaving a generation of students in debt and narrowing access to our universities; they are also draining the intellectual pool on which the future of academia relies. The item of principal business at the last University Council meeting should have dealt with this, since we discussed top-up fees. However, the wise men and women at the top decided that the best course of action is to sit tight and do nothing. We are not even setting up a Working Party! The Vice-Chancellor assured us that he will speak on our behalf in the Russell Group meetings when their gaggle of right-wing economists have finalized their top-up fees report. But when asked how he could possibly speak on behalf of the University when the University has no policy on the matter, we were told not to concern ourselves with such details since - I lie not - the Russell Group has no constitution.
The need for proper accountability, of course, should be extended to student representatives on the University's committees. If the University wishes to know the opinions of its students, we need mechanisms to hold our representatives to account and to properly inform them of our views. Many of the University's committees give student seats automatically to Student Union officers, as is the norm in most other Universities as well as in the Cambridge Colleges. This is the only way the University will hear the views of our students, as opposed to the views of one particular student. Over the last year, I have argued for things that are not always my personal opinions, but which have been deliberated on by the entire student body, and I have been able to benefit from resources and records held by CUSU. However, some of the other student seats do not go to Student Union officers, and however dedicated those officers may be, they have neither these resources nor any democratic way of getting the views of students. The University is now considering extending this method to the General Board as well as the Council. Yes, they are elected to begin with, but how many manifesto pledges are ever implemented? How would we hold them to account if they lied on their manifestos? Indeed, one student representative who springs to mind, who quite rightly promised to attend many College open meetings to report back and gauge student opinion throughout the year (but who actually failed to do so), has now decided that student opinion is so contrary to his own views that he has actively encouraged friends to stand for University positions simply to block whatever the student body (through CUSU) is trying to achieve. I am in no doubt that many within the University would like to encourage such divisions, but we should remember that though CV point-scorers may make our lives easier in the short-term, in the long-run we will shoot ourselves in the foot by ignoring the students.
I suspect these words fall on deaf ears. The reason Discussions are more popular for their gossip than their insight has more to do with the playground politics of the University than with any fundamental flaw in allowing individuals to express their views. Anyone who has experienced the volume of eye-rolling and tut-tutting that characterizes University Council meetings will recognize the parallel with the over-obedient child who sits quietly at the front of the class while class-mates try to point out that the school is burning down.
Over-obedient children, of course, become prefects. While we sit, though, our towers are burning.
Miss A. TATTERSHALL:
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I speak as Education Officer of Cambridge University Students Union. At present, persons in statu pupillari can speak at Discussions. This is confirmed by the Council Report, which reminds us that this is stated in Regulation 3 on Discussions. Perhaps we should consider why students may wish to speak at Discussions. It is an ideal opportunity for student opinion in the University to be heard. Both Lord Nolan's 1996 report, 'Standards in Public Life' and Lord Dearing's 1997 report, 'Higher Education in the Learning Society' criticized existing student complaints procedures.
Dearing recognized that there were legitimate concerns about existing procedures and recommended that by mid-1999 institutions should review and, if necessary, amend their arrangements for handling complaints from students. This is to ensure that they reflect the principles of natural justice; they are transparent and timely; they include procedures for reconciliation and arbitration; they include an independent, external element; and they are managed by a senior member of staff.
When the National Union of Students wrote, in its response to the Dearing Report, that 'some institutional processes fall well short of natural justice principles', it was a slight understatement. That the complaints procedures of Cambridge University and its Colleges needed both reviewing and amending should never have been a matter of debate. Dearing suggested this review and amendment be completed by mid-1999. For Oxbridge, with its complex collegiate structure, to have completed the review by mid-1999 would have been ambitious; so all the more reason to have prioritized this project. However, it is now mid-2000, and the University Working Party has met only once.
All students should have an automatic right of complaint against their institution if services are inadequate, and responsibility should lie with institutions to specify minimum service levels, for example, lecturers' professional competence, learning support facilities, and welfare and childcare support. Whilst we wait for a decent complaints procedure, one of the few ways for students to officially express themselves is to use this historic forum of University Discussion. It should not be scaled down, at least until there are effective official procedures for student complaints.
Mr D. BLANEY:
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I speak as Sabbatical Academic Affairs Officer of Cambridge University Students Union. The Report of the Council asks us to consider, 'should the person presiding be formally authorized to restrict remarks?' I have to ask what the consequence of that would be. Say I use this Discussion to argue the Chancellor of the Exchequer has, with ignorance, used the question of Oxbridge admissions as a political football, would I be gagged? I doubt it. It is exactly what University officers want to hear from a student union leader, and it is in fact what I believe. However, say I used this opportunity to criticize the work of Admissions Tutors and others in this University, would a gagging order be imposed then? I have to say I was rather disappointed by the dismissive tones of the Vice-Chancellor, when he was quoted in the Times Higher Education Supplement as saying, 'It is difficult to change this balance when the independent sector scores more highly at A level' (2 June 2000). Is there not a conflict of interest when the Vice-Chancellor, or his representative, rules my criticism irrelevant?
If the Chancellor of the Exchequer really wants to help access to universities like this, the best thing he can do is re-introduce maintenance grants. However, the hand-washing of Admissions Tutors really won't do either. Cambridge academics may be very modest, but compared with the average member of society, they have enormous influence. A collective public demand by all Cambridge Admission Tutors for the government to restore full maintenance grants would be electric in the current political climate. Instead, there is a lot of complacency about. Perhaps it was also ineptitude that led the Director of Admissions to be quoted in the Financial Times, asking 'haven't we exhausted this subject [access] ?' (9 October 1999). It is true that there are serious problems with applications, but we cannot ignore the situation with offers either. 59 per cent of home applicants to Cambridge are from state schools, but make up only 52 per cent of offers (Reporter, 1999-2000, Special No. 7). It is also true that the skewing of offers compared to applications is the fault of some Colleges. CUSU has tried to get to the bottom of the complex nature of differential admissions outcomes according to College, and so have a coherent understanding of what is going on. At a discussion of the Access Steering Committee, University statistics were shown to be statistically flawed by an undergraduate economist. They had been presented in such a way that it downgraded the extent of the problem of differential success rates according to school background, and it has been suggested that no competent statistician would have prepared the statistics in the way Sue Stobbs had. After half an hour or more of an undergraduate explaining that statistics didn't work in the way they had been prepared, they were dismissed with the comment, 'well the figures don't matter ...'.
Annaliese Dodds, president of Oxford University Student Union was spot-on when she said, with reference to the Laura Spence affair, 'We have said again and again that unless they improved their access statistics this kind of thing was going to happen. They needed to make radical changes and they haven't' (THES, 2 June 2000).
The current President of our Student Union, when starting his sabbatical year, requested the contact de-tails of the Sutton Trust from Sue Stobbs. It is my understanding that she put every obstacle in his way. Maybe the University is scared of CUSU getting too informed about research into admissions, preferring us to be dismissed as the voices of ignorance. The truth is Tutors sit around tables, patting each other on the back about how much they care about access, but the figures are still appalling. They demonstrate their arrogance by dismissing rent increases, described by thirty MPs as 'top-up fees by the back door'. Every University officer and every member of the Regent House who really cares about access should be arguing that the University rules out any prospect of top-up fees. Too often we sit in University committees and are forced to listen to eloquent defences of the University's commitment to access ending in a 'but', and then continuing with a line similar to 'what is access worth if you have to level down quality?', as Charles Larkum asked the Guardian (6 November 1999). This isn't good enough. Either you care about access or you don't. You can't have your cake and eat it.
Every year, as one student union executive replaces another, the old lot inform the new of their reservations about the Director of Admissions, but this has never before been stated publicly. It was thought on balance better not to rock the boat. But this desperate situation cannot be allowed to continue. I have not met a single CUSU officer, past or present, who has had a good word to say about the Director of Admissions. I believe this situation changed dramatically for the worse when Sue Stobbs agreed to address a meeting of ordinary students over rents, seemingly daring to side with a Bursar who said, 'It's not that state school students are worried they'll be discriminated against, it's that there are a lot of people in the private sector worried their kids are not going to get a chance' (Varsity, 11 February 2000). Ordinary students, as far as I could see, left the meeting wondering whether the Director of Admissions had any interest in access at all. I believe that it is fair to comment that the competence of the University was seriously brought into question too.
So enough is enough. Full-time Student Union officers as far back as 1996 have enthusiastically endorsed me when I have suggested I use this opportunity to call for the Director of Admissions to be replaced. It is important for senior members of the University to understand the need for a Director of Admissions who has the confidence and respect of the student body.
Is the opportunity to say these things in a Discussion to be allowed to continue? Certainly changes could be made to ensure someone has to respond to these remarks, but the real motive of this Discussion on Discussions is to silence those voices which irritate the University establishment. One of the great statesmen of our age might be cited in defence of freedom of speech. Michael Foot was referring to trade unions, but it applies equally to universities; that is, that 'if they expect to be praised - as most public men do - they must also expect to be criticised ... A real understanding of freedom means a willingness to tolerate not merely the views of the majority or those who have won considerable favour, but the irritating, defiant, even ill-expressed opinions of the minorities which may still contain the essential grain of wisdom as small as a seed of mustard … We will continue to print the truth' (Tribune, 12 November 1954).
The Tribune newspaper did continue to print the truth under Foot's great editorship. So should the Reporter now.
Mr M. LUCAS-SMITH:
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I wish today to express concerns for the proposals being suggested by the Council. Some of these, I regret, appear to me to be an attempt to silence dissent and criticism of the management of the University (which is thus a decrease in the democratic foundation upon which it ought rightly to be bound), rather than for a laudable attempt to improve efficiency in decision-making.
I wish first briefly to describe the background from which I see the issue as having importance. Almost throughout my time as an undergraduate at Cambridge, I have been involved in my College's student union, and have worked tirelessly in promoting the opinions and needs of the students whom I represented. I stood, and have now been elected for next year, as a sabbatical officer for Cambridge University Students Union in order to continue the same.
However, throughout this period I have come time and time again against what I would consider to be often astoundingly bad management manifested in both decisions taken and a slow rate of movement towards initiatives of a progressive nature. There has appeared, in my College at least, in certain areas, to be a real institutional lethargy in moving forward and thinking long-term about the management of the same. I recall a conversation with a fellow undergraduate studying for the Management Studies Tripos, in which we agreed that British managers, to put it crudely, are not good at management. Mismanagement seems to pervade the place. It strikes me as particularly odd that this should be the case in an arguably world-class institution containing academics and students of the very highest intellectual ability.
What limited experience I have had hitherto with the mechanics of the management of the University (central), and what I have heard of it from various sources, leads me, I regret, to the conclusion that such a state of affairs is not limited to the Colleges.
As a CUSU sabbatical for the following year, I hope to work with the University to further its aims of increasing the abilities of its students through education and fostering research. The University additionally has a manifestly important obligation to ensure that the welfare and related needs of its members are taken fully into account in its decision-making processes; and this latter is an area which I, for my own part, wish to work on.
As I have just stated, I wish to work with (rather than in some way counter to) the management of the University in furthering the institution's aims, some of which I have just mentioned. However, such work is surely limited by the extent to which those charged with the responsibility of running the University are receptive, in a full and proper sense, to the diversity of opinions displayed by people and groups of various backgrounds from across the University. This concept of inclusiveness of opinion and belief, is, as I see it, a crucial tenet of democracy. And I hope that all would agree, in turn, that the concept of democracy is a suitable principle on which to found decision-making, here and indeed elsewhere.
In illustrating the need for receptivity to diverse opinion, I would put forward the case of a recent meeting of the Standing Advisory Committee on Student Matters. Some five minutes into a discussion on so-called 'top-up fees', a matter of grave concern for students and indeed for the entire system of higher education of this country, one learned member of the Committee suggested that, if such a conversation were to continue further, he would have to leave. I am afraid I must question why such a person is on the Committee if he is not prepared to listen to the opinions of students, which is the very reason for the existence of the Committee. I use this example as a case of a lack of genuine serious commitment to taking on board varied opinions and treating them with the seriousness they deserve, a function which Discussions also should possess. The rents issue earlier this year is yet another example of central bodies (however one wishes to define such a term) treating in a wholly lacklustre way such diversity of opinion.
The University has nothing to fear if its decisions are sound. In this respect, I strongly believe that the soundness of decisions taken is unquestionably strengthened by inclusiveness in the framework used for this. Discussions, manifestly, are an important part of this process. Any attempt to weaken their role (and, for that matter, other aspects of the system) is, in my opinion, detrimental to the decision-making process, and is perhaps an attempt to move towards a more top-down style of management. The latter is, I believe, a fundamentally problematic approach because it is generally not sufficiently inclusive. Once again, I repeat and emphasize: the University has nothing to fear if its decisions are sound; openness merely increases this. Dissent from academics and other members of the University, who shall remain nameless, are arguably more likely to be indicative of the presence of lacklustre decision-making rather than a fault of such persons themselves.
Having outlined my approach to the matter in hand, namely that of consultation in the University, I wish now specifically to answer on the points for consultation on Discussions issued by the Council as part of its welcoming of suggestions for consultation more generally.
As regards the length of time to make remarks, five minutes is insufficient. Fifteen minutes should remain the length of time; indeed, as a principal means for various members of the University to make their opinions heard, it is essential that such time is not reduced.
On the point of restriction of remarks to the issue at hand, there is clearly a need to keep mainly to the subject. However, too close restriction is detrimental to the democratic process. If members are going off-topic then I would suggest that this may be more indicative of a profound weakness with the democratic process as a whole than an abuse of the opportunity for Discussions.
And as regards the publishing of Discussions, the suggestion that speeches be in some way edited, possibly on the grounds of reducing cost of publication (which, it must be said, is quite negligible), is quite obscene and wholly unacceptable. It is fitting and proper that the opportunity for full discussion in an open forum such as this present should be available, and that a truthful record of the opinions stated therein should therefore be made. There is no possible way in which editing a speech is compatible with such an aim.
In summary, I would like to see the University employing a far more inclusive and consultatory route to decision-making. Limiting the role of Discussions, as is apparently being mooted, is manifestly contrary to such an aim. Concentration should be made upon ways to expand, rather than limit opportunities for democratic involvement.
The Report of the Council, dated 15 May 2000, on the development of the University's land in North West Cambridge (p. 724).
Dr G. R. EVANS:
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, where are we going with this latest planning move and what changes of principle are involved unseen? In Cambridge the story goes back a long way. On 22 October 1969, a Notice by the Council of the Senate was published on the 'Relationship between the University and science-based industry' (Reporter, 1969-70, pp. 370-76). A number of now familiar themes were already in play: the problem of finding sites for University development; the local planning consequences of any substantial increase in population consequent upon enlarging the local industrial base; the importance of 'preserving the character of the City as a predominantly University City'.
In the area of relationships with industry a number of equally familiar considerations were floated without apparently any consciousness of the questions of principle which now present themselves. The Notice was consciously 'written against ... the need to develop teaching curricula and research programmes in a manner ... relevant ... to the industrial needs of this country, and to establish close links through joint research programmes which may involve an interchange of staff and the shared uses of expensive research facilities'. There is talk of 'multiple use [of costly scientific equipment] by industrial and Government as well as University scientists'. It was a matter for pride that there were already collaborative research programmes with industry 'leading to direct recruitment of Cambridge scientists into these units and even to the transfer of research students for substantial periods into these external laboratories'.
Why were these developments then not a threat to the identity and integrity of the University if they are now to be seen in that light? The difference is that it was then not in doubt that the University was the dominant partner. There is a description in the Notice of 'the generous attitude of Departments to bona fide external users'.
It was recognized that large-scale industrial involvement would raise questions different in kind, that there would be difficulty in establishing 'planning controls which would prevent research-based units from developing into large-scale manufacturing processes of a type which neither the University nor the County believe should be located in Cambridge'.
The Notice holds back from that and suggests that 'the type of science-based industry' which should be fostered is of the modest size which could be accommodated in a science park and 'usually' involve 'the same scientists and engineers as managers throughout the entire process'.
Also unnoticed at this stage seems to have been a problem of the ownership by the University of the time and work and intellectual property of its employees.
The model was one of friendly, non-exploitative co-operation, 'where there is a strong community of interests'. Then 'close co-operation will take place between a Department or teaching officer of the University and a firm anywhere in this country or even overseas'. In this same non-threatening way, Research Establishments (then mostly Government institutions) 'develop links with University Departments through common interest in a particular field of study'.
While the lead was intellectual and academic, that demonstrably stood to benefit the University and to assist it in fulfilling its statutory purpose of fostering education, learning, and research. If the 'lead' becomes industrial and commercial, there begins to be a potential conflict. It is thus partly a matter of scale and partly a matter of keeping distinct the role of the University and the role of the industrial partner.
I want to draw attention, as I have done before (Reporter, p. 374), to the Vice-Chancellor's acting 'in a private capacity in trying to see some of the negative planning decisions around Cambridge reconsidered … We have been working with the Government', he admits.1 May the Regent House know more about this please and on what authority it has been done? Who exactly are the 'we' and what does 'private capacity' mean?
We are told in the present Report that a 'formal University policy' exists (p. 724). Does it? I for one am not clear what it is. We are told that 'planning policy in the past has sought to restrain development of Cambridge to protect the historic character of the city centre' (p. 725). Is that not important any more? There is a new rationale. Our land bank is to be largely emptied and the quiet green of the approach to Cambridge lost forever to housing (surely not in reality cheap and accessible?) and 'support facilities and University-related knowledge-based research'. In other words, industry and commerce and our very own Silicon Valley. If you let this Grace go through, you are signing up to something dangerously vague, even by Cambridge's recent standards. You are giving the Vice-Chancellor and the 'cabinet' around him a free hand to 'develop an outline strategy'. They will not be here for more than a few more years. The results of their decisions behind the scenes will be visible for centuries.
As I so often plead, let us take it slowly and keep the decisions under our direct control.
I should apologize here to the person who rang me crossly some weeks ago to ask why I was not doing more in this area and why I had not rung her back to tell her what progress I had made. I have said something now. Some may find it an irony that I should be accused of not speaking up enough. Richard Bowring's little attack on my motivation and integrity earlier will, I suspect, make the opposite point to the one he intended. A recent document, written in the Vice-Chancellor's office and signed by the Vice-Chancellor himself, alleged that it was 'sad' that I had not been able to say things which commanded any assent in the Regent House. I wonder.
1 HC 17-viii, 1 February, p. 236.
Professor P. B. CAROLIN (read by Mrs S. BOWRING):
Madam Deputy Vice-Chancellor, the Council's proposal that the University respond to the requirements of the draft Regional Planning Guidance, on the basis of which the County Structure Plan is currently being prepared, by developing an outline strategy for University-owned land in North West Cambridge raises a number of issues. So, too, does the Council's statement that plans are being considered for the development of the 19 Acre Field and the surrounding area. I would like, if I may, to concentrate on just three of these issues: the oversight of such development strategies, including the appointment of consultants; a wider vision for the University estate; and housing.
With the change of committee structure and the loss of the Sites and Town Planning Committee, land use and planning matters are now included among the many responsibilities of the Planning and Resources Committee. The Buildings Sub-Committee is concerned only with buildings. There is now no University committee with an appropriately qualified membership specifically charged to oversee land use and planning issues.
Meanwhile, the biggest building boom in the University's history is not only continuing but accelerating. The pace is such that unwise decisions are very difficult to unravel and can have devastating consequences in terms of cost and time. And it is on issues of planning strategy and design that some of the biggest mistakes of all can be made. The University desperately needs to get the best advice and involvement from both within and without on such matters. It is questionable whether it currently has access to this expertise.
It is unclear how the consultants for the study on the 19 Acre Field were selected but the recent appointment of a consultant to undertake a study of the Pitt Press site suggests that such commissions are awarded by the Estate Management and Building Service without the involvement of others. This is an unsatisfactory situation - and, on the basis of current evidence, does not always ensure both quality and a quick passage through the planning process. The consultancy appointment for the North West Cambridge strategy study - and all future planning consultancy appointments, however minor - should, surely, be on the basis of an appropriate, open, and well-informed selection process. Indeed, it might even be prudent to review all current appointments.
No one can deny the strength of vision that underlies the developments at Clarkson Road and West Cambridge. However, as many science departments move westwards, it is becoming ever more important to evolve strategies both for the re-use of vacated accommodation and for enabling ease of movement between the centre and the periphery (including the park-and-ride terminals). This is not just a matter of totting up areas, filling vacant spaces with whichever claimant has the greatest clout, and, with another ad hoc committee, organizing the best route for a mini-bus service. Much greater imagination, integration, design sense, and skill than this is needed to ensure that we grasp the opportunity to unravel the locational knots and uneconomic conditions in which many of us have to work, and which the EMBS struggles - often somewhat uneconomically - to maintain. There is a real opportunity here to create, at minimal cost, the same kind of physical expression for potent new groupings as is being constructed, at considerable but justifiable expense, at West Cambridge. Here again, the loss of the Sites and Town Planning Committee as a forum in which interested and informed members can debate the issues and form a strategy is extremely serious.
The Council suggests that North West Cambridge might be suitable for sustainable housing. As a Head of Department, I have become acutely concerned at the accommodation problems faced by younger academic staff, by recently appointed older ones, and by assistant staff. To observe, for example, totally dedicated and already overworked colleagues with young families taking on additional College responsibilities in an effort to increase their mortgage capability - and still being unable to find anything remotely suitable in the city - is truly upsetting. So too are the obstacles faced by older colleagues wishing to move here from elsewhere. If nothing is done in the very near future, the long-term consequences for the University will be extremely severe.
The housing problem was, of course, one of the reasons for the establishment of the Cambridge Futures project undertaken in the Department of Architecture between 1996 and 1999. This remarkable venture was steered and funded by the local government and business community in collaboration with the University. The results have very clearly influenced the Regional Planning Guidance which has initiated this Discussion. But the availability of land is only one of two key factors in the ability to generate affordable housing. The other factor is finance. If it is not already doing so, I would like to suggest that the University should consider the possibility (already adopted by some Colleges in both Cambridge and Oxford) of shared ownership.
This system of ownership could be applied both to housing built by the University (on the same basis as the Housing Corporation's shared ownership scheme) and to housing available on the open market. For employees, it has the enormous benefit of enabling them to get on (or stay on) the mortgage ladder so that they are not disadvantaged if they move elsewhere later. For the University and Colleges, it makes it easier to attract staff and is, arguably, an appropriate extension of their property portfolios.
Cambridge is changing as never before. The possibility of development at North West Cambridge and the need to review the vacant central sites offers the University - in close collaboration with the local authorities - an unrepeatable opportunity to create both an exemplary extension to the West Cambridge 'edge city' and a meaningful re-ordering of the centre. The emergence of a new generation of consultants - sensitive, skilled, and responsive - was clearly evident at most of the recent interviews for the Sidgwick Site master planning appointment. With the involvement of such persons, appropriate and exemplary solutions will surely be possible. But first, I would suggest, the University needs an appropriate committee and membership devoted to the oversight of its land use and planning activities.
| Previous page |
Table of Contents |
Next page |
Cambridge University Reporter, 21 June 2000
Copyright © 2000 The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge.