Previous page
Table of Contents
|
Previous page
|
Table of Contents
|
Next page
|
Tuesday, 9 July 2002. A Discussion was held in the Senate-House of the following Reports:
Report of the Council, dated 3 June 2002, on the stipend attaching to the office of Director in the Unified Administrative Service (p. 864).
Dr S. J. COWLEY:
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, why is it, cynic that I am, that I am unsurprised that the issue of Directors' salaries has come up during the research period when many academics are away from Cambridge? I speak as one of those who requested a vote and proposed amendments on the Graces on the Council's Report on the Unified Administrative Service of 21 March 2001. My particular concern was that the scales of stipends attaching to the various offices, i.e. the Directors, should be fixed by Grace. My motivation was a belief that [relatively] large salaries fixed in secret open up the possibility of abuse. Transparency does not of course prevent abuse (as readers of the THES know over the remuneration of the Vice-Chancellors of certain UK universities), but I believe that transparency is a helpful check and balance (as evidenced by the intervention of HMG over the Vice-Chancellors' remuneration).
To detail. First, in the Second Report of the Council on the Unified Administrative Service of 3 October 2001 it was proposed that:
The scale of stipends of the various offices within the Unified Administrative Service shall be determined by Grace.
The Council now proposes in Recommendation II:
That the stipend of each Director be determined by the Council on appointment to the office at a single step within this range and published in Schedule II to the regulations for stipends.
As Dr Reid observes in his note of partial dissent:
I do not agree with Recommendation II of the Report because it reverses the decision of the Second Report of the Council on the Unified Administrative Service, which Report was in the nature of a compromise agreement to secure the passage of the Council's first Report.
I agree. Council does not seem to be able to keep to an agreement. I ask them to think again. Second, in Recommendation III Council propose:
That holders of the office of Director within the Unified Administrative Service be included in the arrangements for the review of stipends of academic-related staff in the Professorial grade.
Reference is made to the Report of the General Board on the recruitment, reward, and retention of academic and academic-related officers of 17 June 1998. In that Report I read that:
the Board propose that under the revised arrangements the Regent House should delegate to the competent authority power to decide increases resulting from a review, on the understanding that increases would correspond to steps within the framework of Professorial renumeration set out in Annex 2. Increases would be permanent for the holder of the office, but the level of stipend associated with the office would be reviewed when the office next fell vacant.
Annex 2 is entitled 'Proposed Professorial range of the academic and academic-related stipend structure' and lists the 'Proposed stipend, based on rates in force at 1 April 1997' (well it attempts to list the proposed stipend but there are 'typographical' errors, at least two of which have been rounded up subsequently). For instance it is stated that Professorial stipend plus supplementary payment, level 4 on 1 April 1997 was £63,164 (152% of the Professorial stipend of £41,288).1
So what does all this mean for the review of stipends of the Directors? It seems to me that the key phrase is 'within the framework of Professorial remuneration set out in Annex 2'. What does this mean? After a quick glance a lawyer told me he could not make any sense of it, and he would need more time. I have asked for an answer from the Central Bodies, but have yet to receive a definitive reply, although I have been asked to make sure of my facts (no doubt friendly advice, but rather hard to do if you cannot get a definitive reply from the Central Bodies).
In the Report of 17 June 1998, Annex 2 is only referred to once and in the context of the arrangements for the holders of academic-related offices in the Professorial grade. Hence, since the Annex is headed 'Proposed Professorial range of the academic and academic-related stipend structure', I interpreted the stipends included there to be the range of remuneration in absolute terms, i.e. a range from £41,288 to £63,164 if the salaries of the Vice-Chancellor and Secretary and Chief Executive of the Local Examinations Syndicate were discounted. With that interpretation no academic-related member of staff would earn more than one of our star Professors. However, on reflection my suspicions should have been aroused. With this interpretation the Deputies to the Principal Officers would have steps allowing increases of up to 52% (or 53%) above basic salary, while the Registrary would only have one step allowing a 7% increase above basic salary (or a 3% increase after a correction for a typographic error).
It has now been suggested to me by a member of Council, but not definitively, that my interpretation was wrong and that what 'within the framework of Professorial remuneration set out in Annex 2' may mean is that the holders of academic-related offices can receive increases of 5%, 7.5%, 10%, 13%, 20%, 25%, 26%, 30%, 39%, and 52% (or 53%) of the standard Professorial stipend, or should that be 5%, 7.5%, 10%, 13%, 20%, 25%, 26%, 30%, 39%, and 52% (or 53%) of the officer's basic stipend (as another has suggested to me, but not definitively, or as is possibly suggested by the Supplementary payments for academic-related staff: Notice of 6 February 2002)?
Like my lawyer friend I cannot really make any sense of it (although I presume that that there is no 'culture of obfuscation' within our governance similar to that indicated by the series of internal e-mails published this morning illustrating instances of civil servants plotting to conceal information about the government from MPs). Speaking personally, I favour the interpretation suggesting that no academic-related member of staff should be able to earn more than a Nobel Laureate or Field's Medallist (with no administrative responsibilities). Of course that may not be in the University's best interests, and for the sake of the efficient running of the University it may be necessary to pay the Director of Widgets possibly up to £112,375 (i.e. 53% more than our star academics), but such a decision would be best done openly.
I therefore suggest that Council should clarify what the Report of 17 June 1998 really means, and how it has been implemented. Following that, Council should redraft its regulations in plain English, and submit them to the Regent House for inclusion in Statutes and Ordinances. Indeed, I find it more than a little surprising that while the Schedule payments for administrative responsibilities (which are in fact applicable to non-Professorial Heads of Department and Faculty Chairmen) appear in Statutes and Ordinances, the increases for academic-related staff in the Professorial grade do not.
Let me make two more points.
Professorial supplementary payments are for six years and can be lost (at least theoretically), whereas the increases for academic-related staff in the Professorial grade are permanent for the holder of the office. If such increases are to remain permanent surely they are part of the scale of stipends and should be determined by Grace? They should at least be published as part of our system of checks and balances (see above regarding the remuneration of Vice-Chancellors at other universities).
However, I would advocate that, like the Professorial supplementary payments, increases for academic staff in the Professorial grade should be for six years or some other fixed period. I do not know if those academic-related staff in the Professorial grade who hold some responsibility for CAPSA/CUFS, or the deficit, etc. have been awarded permanent increases. But the question surely arises after such fiascos whether permanent increases are appropriate. Maybe Council might like to ponder that point over future increases, and I would hope that holders of permanent increases might behave honourably if thought appropriate.
1 One of the typographical errors since £63,164 is 153% of £41,288.
Dr G. R. EVANS:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, 'Comparabilities within the University'. There is a matter here on which a number of academic staff are likely to feel rather strongly. Two matters, in fact.
1. It is not clear to us why administrators are 'worth' more than we are in salary terms. Are their lists of qualifications as long? Have they spent as many years as we have in higher study. (I counted up recently, and I believe I am entitled to wear at least eleven different gowns.) Are they internationally famous, in demand all over the world for their unique knowledge and the originality of their thought and the beauty and clarity of their writing?
2. To the eye of a number of us, it gets worse. Why has it been assumed that these rather ordinary individuals with their modest qualifications should be considered the equivalent of Professors? If they were cast forth from their posts into the big wide world they would be nobodies. (Unless of course they could land a non-executive Directorship. The Vice-Chancellor earned an extra salary of £65,000 this year as non-executive Director of Vodafone.)
The old three senior administrative officers (Treasurer, Secretary General, Registrary) were entitled to Professorial Fellowships if any College wanted them. But that does not mean they were to be regarded by the University as the equivalent of Professors. While Professorships continue to be denied to so many in this University who are long overdue for such recognition, it is surely not acceptable that we should be making Graham Allen and the others Professors, in effect upgrading their offices and giving them personal recognition at a stroke, without their individually having to demonstrate that they deserve it by going through any process of 'evaluation'?
I vote for 'effectiveness' evaluations for the Directors. I vote for them to have to apply for Professorial status year after year while irrational goblins sit in judgement on them, judging them by undefined criteria of amazing vagueness. Above all, I vote for them to have to depend on the references for their chances. The members of the University's staff will be glad to write references for our Directors and other senior administrative officers.
Mr DEPUTY VICE-CHANCELLOR: Have you any evidence at all that this is not, in fact, the case?
Dr G. R. EVANS: May I ask you to clarify what you mean by 'this is not, in fact, the case'?
Mr DEPUTY VICE-CHANCELLOR: The case that people are appointed to a particular office without reference and without qualification.
Dr G. R. EVANS: I did not state that people are appointed to their offices without references. I am addressing the question of the level of entitlement of Professorial equivalency to which they may lay claim.
Mr DEPUTY VICE-CHANCELLOR: The Report is about Stipends of Directors.
Dr G. R. EVANS: The Report is about whether the Directors are entitled to be treated as of Professorial level in terms of salary and in terms of status. If I may continue, Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor?
Mr DEPUTY VICE-CHANCELLOR: For the moment.
Reasonable doubt that they meet the criteria? O yes, I think so. The High Court has just held that procedures for promotion are Ordinances of the University and the University has conceded that it has a contractual duty towards those who have to use them to get their own Chairs. I foresee some stirring among the troops when Professor Graham Allen writes those rejection letters again this year.
In Oxford, even God does not get a Professorial salary. From an Oxford publication of a few years ago comes the warning to Faculty Boards that God is not eligible for consideration for the title of Professor. 'He has only one major publication. It is in obscure languages. It has no references. It is not published in a refereed journal. Some even doubt that he wrote it himself. It may be true that he created the universe but what has he done since then? His co-operative efforts have been quite limited. The scientific community has had a hard time replicating his results. He never applied to the Ethics Committee for permission to use human subjects. When one experiment went awry he tried to cover it up by drowning the subjects'.
I would rather enjoy writing along those lines in my reference for the little gods in the Old Schools who want us to pay them like Professors. The Council disapprove of personal remarks in Discussions (p. 887). As the individual most often and most cruelly vilified I am entitled to say that I think they are a necessary feature of healthy debate. You cannot make a proposal like this, members of the Council, without making it appropriate to query whether those you propose to pay like Professors are personally worthy by reason of their qualifications and achievements.
I am glad to see George Reid's dissenting note.
Joint Report of the Council and the General Board, dated 3 June 2002 and 29 May 2002, on guidelines for the acceptable use of computers (p. 865).
Dr G. R. EVANS:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, that's better. Why could it not have been done this way at the outset?
But how shall we know whether the recommendation of the Council and General Board has come into effect? (p. 866). I see no Grace, nor any proposal for one. At what level of our legislative hierarchy is this to fall? How can it be enforced if its authority remains unclear and its time of coming into force remains undetermined. O woe, the idiots have messed it up again. The High Court has just decided (unless the judgment can be overturned) to block any route to challenge of breaches of such procedural rules in the University except by way of individual actions for breach of contract. So we shall have even less accountability over the implementation of guidelines such as these.
Report of the General Board, dated 29 May 2002, on the establishment of a British Heart Foundation Professorship of Cardiac Surgery (p. 868).
No comments were made on this Report.
Report of the Faculty Board of Classics, dated 7 March 2002, on the regulations for the Classical Tripos (p. 869).
Dr S. GOLDHILL:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I speak today as Chairman of the committee of the Faculty Board of Classics which prepared the proposals presented in the Report under discussion today, to summarize very briefly the background to the Faculty Board's thinking. Like all subjects, Classics has to adjust to the different levels of skills and technical knowledge achieved by potential candidates who are otherwise very well qualified to attend Cambridge. We are facing particular difficulties because of the pressures on the subject from the limitations of the National Curriculum. At the same time, we are wholly committed to maintaining our good record of outreach and attracting the best students from whatever background: we believe that the new four-year scheme proposed in this Report will enable us to broaden access in the most promising way. It will enable us to take students from any school background who have the requisite A level grades and potential, and give them the skills they need not only to complete a fine course of study in the Classics, but also to be able to proceed to graduate work in the field.
The new course is aimed in particular at producing the necessary language skills, with a first year dedicated largely to training in the Latin language. The acquisition of good linguistic skills is the basis of all competent classical work, as linguistic competence provides the most important means of access to the ancient world. The structure of the course means that students who enter for the first year of intensive Latin study will be able to compete at a comparable level with those entering through the more traditional educational preparation. As we have already found with the very successful intensive Greek course, it is important that all students will be able to sit the same Part I - or under these proposals Part IB - examinations. I commend them to you.
Dr G. R. EVANS:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I am sincerely glad that something is being done to ensure that we send forth adequately prepared Latinists into the world. But this is an admission of dumbing-down, however you look at it. In my early years here I was able to run a Special Subject which required students taking it to read a thousand pages of Latin texts. Recently, I ran it again, but now they are required to read them only in translation. The schools' fault, not ours, perhaps. But a sad sign of the decline of culture.
Professor M. SCHOFIELD:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I don't think Dr Evans can have it both ways. If students in the schools are not prepared in Latin as they once were, but it's important that at the University we continue to teach them Classics, then we've got to find a way to have them in. If that means offering a course that thirty years ago we would not have contemplated offering, then it's not very helpful to call it 'dumbing down'.
Report of the Council, dated 10 June 2002, on the construction of a new building for the Faculty of English on the Sidgwick Avenue Site (p. 902).
Dr S. J. COWLEY:
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, as someone who on 9 December 2002, or thereabouts, will be moving to a shiny new building with, inter alia, £500 two-drawer filing cabinets (I should add, not my choice), I am reticient to comment on the construction of a new building for the Faculty of English in other than glowing terms. I believe it totally appropriate that there be a building to provide a public presence and a focus for English studies within the University. However, I have a couple of concerns.
In the Report is stated that:
The balance of the additional recurrent costs will add to the University's estates costs in respect of which there will be a charge against the Faculty under the RAM.
If this is to be meaningful, then surely the RAM needs to be an income and cost attribution model. However, according to a letter of 24 June 2002 from the Academic Division I am informed that 'the RAM is not an income and cost attribution model', but that instead the 'RAM is trying to answer the question 'how much resource should the University give to each of its constituent parts''. If the latter then the University could just give extra funds to the Faculty of English to cover the extra costs, so that whilst there might be a charge against the Faculty under the RAM it would be meaningless. There is either woolly thinking here, or the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.
Next, according to the Report (dated 10 June 2002) the Faculty of English building will be started in July 2002 (as also indicated in the Estate Management Building Service Capital Project Report of July 2002). This seems a tad presumptuous given that the Report has yet to be graced, and most probably cannot be graced until 26 July 2002. Cannot the Council arrange for a decent period of consulation with the Regent House? I say this because I note that of the £15.16 million project budget, £5.756 million is to come from the University New Buildings Enabling Fund. Given the current real, i.e. non-massaged, recurrent deficit of 15-20 million, I had assumed that the New Buildings Enabling Fund had at least £5.756 million uncommitted in it. At the start of the Discussion I was informed that it has £4.3 millon in it. Whoops!
Dr D. R. DE LACEY:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I do not object to the construction of a new building for English. I welcome it as long overdue.
I do, however, object to the irrevocable stripping and destruction of the existing building, which I witnessed en route to this Discussion, before the issue is discussed, let alone approved by, the University's Governing Body. At a time when we are about to debate our governance structures, this roughshod ride over the current governing body seems inflammatory.
Mrs S. BOWRING:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I just wanted to mention that the demolition of the building was graced by the Regent House approximately, I think, five years ago in an earlier Report, so the demolition of the building is not under discussion today.
TREASURER:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I shall respond to Dr Cowley and follow on from Mrs Bowring's comment. The contract itself for the English building will not be formally placed until the Report has been graced by the Regent House. If it were not to be graced that would, of course, be difficult and embarrassing, but I would have no authority to accept a tender, either to approve the first stage or to accept the second stage tender. As far as the New Building Enabling Fund position is concerned, the amounts allocated to English were indeed authorized by the central bodies some time ago and the figure that has been given to you is, I understand, the uncommitted figure which excludes an amount set aside for the English Faculty building.
Report of the Council, dated 10 June 2002, on accommodation for the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies within the Department of Biological Anthropology (p. 904).
No comments were made on this Report.
Report of the Council, dated 17 June 2002, on the financial position of the Chest, recommending allocations for 2002-03 (p. 921).
TREASURER:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, under Statute F, I,1 (b) it is the duty of the Council, acting on the advice of its Finance Committee, to keep under review the University's financial position and to make a Report thereon to the University at least once in each year, recommending allocations from the Chest. The Finance Committee received the draft Report at its meeting on 29 May 2002 and agreed to recommend to the Council that the Report be approved for publication, subject to various editorial and other amendments which have now been incorporated. At that meeting, it was pointed out that some of the functions previously the responsibility of the Financial Board had, in effect, been taken over by the Council's Planning and Resources Committee, a body created in the Michaelmas Term 1997 as a joint Committee of the Council and the General Board, although not established by Statute. The strategy which underlies this Allocations Report, and most of the detailed figures, have been considered carefully and approved by the Planning and Resources Committee (PRC) and recommended by them to the Council. The formal relationship between the Finance Committee and the PRC is being reviewed by a Working Group set up by the Finance Committee.
Reading through this Allocations Report, members of the Regent House will rightly question why the University Chest's income and expenditure position, which has been managed for the past decade on the basis of achieving small annual surpluses, has now dipped dramatically into deficit, starting with the financial year 2000-01, continuing in the current year and with a much larger deficit predicted for 2002-03.
The Council have set out in the Report some background information about the financial state of the UK Higher Education sector as a whole, with particular reference to the top research-intensive universities. They refer to a number of highly readable and informative reports which have been published recently, dealing with issues such as the economics of research funding and the major review of infrastructure requirements in UK universities and colleges of higher education which has been carried out for the HEFCE by JM Consulting. That firm has reported on science research and their report on research in arts and humanities is due out in July.
There are a number of increasingly well-rehearsed underlying weaknesses in the finances of most, if not all, of the top UK Universities.
1. The dual support transfer. When DR was first deducted from the UFC Grant in 1992 it was confidently expected that universities would recover the whole amount through overheads directly claimed from the Research Councils, to whom an equivalent amount had been transferred. However, although the result may have been financially neutral for the university sector as a whole, it was not neutral for the most research-intensive universities.
2. Research Overheads generally have not covered the full costs. The Research Transparency Exercise, and subsequent consultants' reports have shown that publicly funded and non publicly funded research are both in deficit and that 'Other' Activities subsidize publicly funded activities.
3. There has been inadequate Government funding over a period of around ten years. The expansion in higher education has not been properly funded. This particularly affects the unit of resource for undergraduate teaching, where Cambridge has not of course suffered as much as universities which have expanded more dramatically. Funding for research has also been squeezed, as can be seen from the very disappointing result of the RAE 2001. Universities scored better but got little extra money. Cambridge came top, but did not really benefit, certainly not in the way the Council had hoped and expected.
4. The cost of providing infrastructure for research and teaching has increased enormously. The top universities in the UK are trying to compete with universities all over the world, and to recruit individuals who are used to top quality facilities. The Government and the HEFCE have carried out a number of studies to try to identify the extent of the shortfall. Some of these are referred to in the Allocations Report. The latest JM Consulting report came out just after the Allocations Report was finalized. Published as HEFCE Paper June 2002/31, it deals with infrastructure for teaching and learning, and covers buildings and plant, IT, libraries and related information resources, specific equipment, technical support staff, and services. It concludes that in addition to the £3.2bn shortfall on science research infrastructure and equipment, the sector as a whole needs £4.6bn for remedial investment in generic infrastructure for teaching and learning, to comply with all modern guidelines and statutory requirements and to enable universities to match the best standards already attained in certain schools and in the workplace. A further £500m is needed for specialist teaching facilities, such as data projectors in all large lecture rooms, CCTV in all overflow rooms, properly equipped language labs, video conferencing facilities, and such like. There is a £100m gap for advanced specialist facilities needed to support distance e.learning and widening participation. There have been a number of initiatives to help universities to improve their buildings and equipment, including JIF and SRIF and the Joint Research Equipment Fund. But the initiatives were fatally flawed in their assumption that universities could themselves meet the on-going recurrent costs of new and refurbished buildings, and even of huge new pieces of equipment. A well-found university probably ought to set aside up to 5% of the insured asset value, to allow for renewal and replacement of buildings and equipment. It also needs to have adequate recurrent funds to cover the cost of technicians and other support staff (including staff training and development), minor equipment, travel, books, journals, and conferences.
Cambridge University's experience in recent years mirrors the problems in the sector. We have identified major shortfalls in our capital provision and have tried to deal with them by utilizing funds from JIF, SRIF, and donors, as well as internal sources. We have been extremely successful, compared with most other universities, in raising funds for capital and equipment. But by putting up so many new buildings, without having first carried out rigorous whole-life costing, and without seeing clearly where the on-going Chest funding would come from, we have caused a growing problem for the recurrent budget. The Council have drawn attention to this in successive Allocations Reports (starting in 1999 when they referred to the likely implications of the JIF bids and with increasing emphasis in the following year). The 2000 Allocations Report said that the massive building programme would cost the University £8.6m extra recurrently from 2003-04. That Report was looking at a capital programme which had doubled, to £280m. The current Report refers to nearly £530m's worth of projects in all stages of planning. If all those projects come to fruition, the cost of maintenance, utilities, security, staffing, etc. will be at least £10m per year, and probably considerably more. The question has to be asked, yet again: Will these buildings generate that amount for the Chest? If that were the Chest share of overheads on research it would require the University's research income to double. Is that really likely to happen? For a long time a number of officers have been pressing for a more rigorous business planning process to be undertaken before buildings are agreed. They have also suggested that more effective space management would enable excess space to be identified and sold off. The Estate Plan has this as policy, but it has proved very difficult to implement. At last, however, the PRC has been asked to get a grip on the problem. It has already seen a draft of a Capital Projects Process Paper and will be asked to take that forward at its next meeting. In addition, and by way of response to the issues raised in this Allocations Report, the PRC has set up a group, under Pro-Vice-Chancellor Grant, to develop an action plan to bring the University's overall financial position back into surplus. This work will include the development, for the first time, of a financial and operational model of the University. There are still many areas where the Council and its PRC do not have enough readily available information to support a robust decision-making process.
Bringing the University's accounts into balance will not be easy. The reason for our current deficits is not just to do with buildings. Over the past two years there has been a sharp increase in overall staff costs, due to new posts, promotions, and incentive payments. The Council have approved a large number of new needs and have undertaken to fund all promotions without any form of cap. They have agreed to increase administrative support throughout the University and have started to remedy years of backlog on IT. To help pay for all this, which is of course a charge on the Chest, they have long hoped for a significant increase in income, from research overheads and from the 2001 RAE. But this has not happened. Last year we suffered from reductions, all at the same time, in interest rates, cash flow, and overheads on research grants, due to delays in invoicing. The last of these, but none of the others, was related to particular difficulties with the financial system. Endemic financial problems are not caused by systems. But the massive disruption which has accompanied the introduction of the new financial system has delayed analysis of the problems. We have to have a period of calm reflection so as to avoid precipitate and unthought-out action. That sort of environment has been lacking until very recently.
The current problem can be explained in starkly simple terms. For 2002-03 we expect the University's income to go up by £7.2m. The likely cost of the ordinary pay rise for staff currently on the books is £4.6m. That leaves £2.6m for everything else, including volume-driven costs such as extra maintenance, last year's baseline increases, etc. But approved new needs alone amount to £5.1m. The figures just don't add up. In other universities the message would be that in order to fund new needs and to avoid a deficit a large sum has to be taken out of the baseline. The implications of that would be stark. In the THES for 28 June, for example, Sir Howard Newby, Chief Executive of the HEFCE, was reported as saying 'The volume of research has to reduce. It is the very commitment to research - a professional commitment that often overrides economic considerations - that risks compromising the financial health of universities, the symptom of which is an unsustainable erosion in infrastructure and in staff pay and conditions.' He has since emphasized that his point was that funding needs to increase substantially, if universities are to avoid a reduction in the volume of research. At Cambridge, although this year's Allocations Report contains some very painful reductions in the equipment grant and a freeze on filling vacancies, the Council have not been able to make the radical changes which would allow for new developments and yet bring the deficit down. A decision has been made that we can afford to continue in deficit for a bit longer. But there has to be an end to the free fall.
The Council started to budget for a small deficit in 1996. In each year since then something turned up to prevent the estimated deficit actually occurring. There was a deficit in 1998-99, but only because the whole cost of the Early Retirement scheme had been charged to the Income and Expenditure account. Otherwise, we were able to manage, through some reduction in items such as maintenance, through the savings exercise in 1999, through major VAT recovery, and through delays in budgeted salary restructuring. But the graph on p. 922 of this year's Report shows that the Chest has now moved seriously into deficit, with the gap likely to increase year by year unless action is taken. Much of the non-Chest expenditure is on the direct costs of research and teaching. The Chest expenditure includes the pay of established staff, but also, importantly, the infrastructure costs related to research and teaching. The lines should go up in parallel, with direct costs being matched by an equivalent amount of indirect cost, or infrastructure support. Since 2000, the lines have diverged. The costs to the Chest have gone up but the income has not matched them. The Council have agreed to fund infrastructure with money which isn't there. The QEF has been exhausted and the deficit begins to eat into other reserves. It is time to contemplate major changes.
Cambridge is fortunate in having a very strong balance sheet, with large amounts of permanent endowment and with big reserves, both centrally held and departmental. It has underused Trust Fund income and the capacity for growth in its core activities and its commercial exploitation of the knowledge base. There is money passing through Donation Accounts which supports and funds research, for which, as yet, no appropriate overhead is paid to the Chest. Cambridge has two strong and thriving associated bodies, CUP and UCLES, which already provide considerable support and may be able to provide more. It is the recipient of extremely generous donations, although it could do with more endowment for the running costs of its new buildings and a great deal more unearmarked income. (In that context I should say that the ability to apply at least part of the amazingly generous Herchel Smith legacy, reported in the same number of the Reporter as the Allocations Report, as substitutional funding is a major benefit for which we must thank a most far-sighted and understanding benefactor). On the other hand, Cambridge University is a very complex organism, with 31 separate Colleges, whose views must all be taken into account. There need to be very careful discussions about tuition fees, since any changes there could have serious implications for access and for Government funding. The Grant Working Group has a very major task to perform, and it knows that it has to work fast.
Dr S. J. COWLEY:
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, the headline figure for the deficit in 2002-03 is £11.6 million, but as stated in the Report this is 'despite significant restrictions made against bids for new needs', and by the introduction of delays in the filling of vacant offices and reduced allocations for equipment, minor works, and maintenance.
The underlying recurrent deficit is therefore much larger. Since the equipment fund has been cut by £4.4 million, the real recurrent deficit is at least £15 million, but probably significantly more.
I was at this point going to say 'did no one see this coming'? But the Treasurer seems to have indicated that someone, at least, did see this coming, and Council, or whoever, did not seem to react. Even though it is stated in the Report that undergraduate numbers in Cambridge have grown by 20%, in marked contrast to the HE sector as a whole (in which full-time student numbers have grown by 70%), and given that over the same period the national unit of resource for teaching, including fees, has declined in real terms by 40%, I think the Council ought to give the Regent House an explanation as to why it did not act on the warnings it received.
In order to give the Regent House a feel for the size of the deficit, suppose that we increased undergraduate student numbers in bands B - D proportionately by a further 42% to bring us in line with the HE sector average; does Council know whether that would eliminate a deficit of £15+ million (after taking into account the College fee)? If not, what percentage increase would?
Dr G. R. EVANS:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, one must clear one's throat for this Report brings on a chesty cough of disbelief. This is the seventh Report on today's list before that one on the governance reform proposals they have tucked into the back row in July, during the Long Vacation Term. This one is, however, important in its own right. I am pleased to hear the Treasurer addressing the big questions. I confine myself to one issue.
For historical reasons, I always turn first to the paragraph on promotions. This year that is paragraph 38, p. 925. It may be recollected that some years ago we called a ballot which snarled up the processing of financial matters for six months because it prevented the University lawfully signing cheques. CAPSA would probably make its impact less today, for all is now perpetual chaos. But in those days it posed quite a problem for the Treasurer.
Two years later a deal was done about not doing that again, in return for the concession that in future all those who deserved it should be given promotion. The result, as everyone has been able to see, is that at last the numbers of promotions each year have risen significantly and there has been some catching up of the vast backlog of the deserving international stars in our midst, to allow them to call themselves Reader or Professor. There has also been no cap on the numbers for Senior Lectureships. If anyone is minded to dispute what I say, the record in the Reporter of the wording of this paragraph may be checked back and it may be noted that this altered a couple of years after that ballot. (When they are accusing me of 'abusing' Discussions, people sometimes forget the things I have achieved for the good of others and at some cost to my own prospects.)
You will see this year a spot of pressure the other way. There is a heavy hint that rewarding our staff is merely adding to our deficit. 'Unless compensating savings can be found, however, this may push the University further into deficit'. Why just this? Why are the other proposed expenditures not described in this way? What is the betting that when those proposals for 'reform' of the promotions process appear (and that promised Report seems to be somewhat delayed) it will lead to a new system in which people are no longer simply promoted if they deserve it but we are back to the old fixed and minimal numbers? Then all those Readers who ought to have chairs will be most unlikely to get them before they retire. I hope that will reignite the indignation about academic promotions and that that will now be conjoined with indignation about the prospects of advancement for existing assistant and academic-related staff.
College lecturers should get their chance too but on a proper basis. (Is the community as a whole aware that any time now, when the Vice-Chancellor has finished dismissing my invocation of Statute K, 5, the title of Professor will begin to be given to anyone who has done the University some 'service' on the say-so of an institution in the University without Report and Grace or proper procedure? A lot of College officers will suddenly become Professors while UTOs go patiently back into the queue again for another year's promotion torment. University employees will not be eligible for this fast-track to the headed notepaper with the handle).
In the meantime, lots of big sums have also started to go out in secret top-up payments for favoured Professors and special starting salaries to aid 'recruitment'. There is no way we can know how those are going to be affected. The device of freezing vacancies (41) is likely to generate maximum protest, as Departments and Faculties try to get by without someone who was doing particular tasks. They will still be buying in all those new administrators at inflated salaries (36). They are still crashing ahead with the building programme which, it is admitted (43), exacerbates the strain on recurrent funding. But then buildings are flagship projects and can be pointed to as evidence of the 'success' of someone's 'reign' in office. Rewarding good and faithful servants of the University is much less flashy, a mere causer of increase in the deficit, as we now see. 'The postponement for various reasons of budgeted salary increases' (13) is a plus, apparently.
I will not take longer, for we need to get on to the governance proposals, which ought to have been timetabled with a day to themselves. But I will just point to the admission of the fictional or notional character of all this (17). 'As in previous years the Estimates have generally been based on existing estimated expenditure'. So the guesswork is based on guesswork? Read Oxford's contrasting relative clarity about its own midget deficit in the article by its Registrar in the Oxford Magazine of Eighth Week, Trinity Term, 2002. A few years ago there was a piece in that magazine about 'bird's nest budgeting'. Their birds are now in neat nest-boxes. Our storks are still building untidily on our chimneys.
Dr N. HOLMES:
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, this Allocations Report makes grave reading. It forecasts a deficit on the Chest of £11.6 million in the financial year about to start. The out-turn for the Chest for the past year is now estimated at minus £5.7 million. It is five years since the actual out-turn of the Chest account was better than forecast in the preceding year, so the £11.6 million figure should be regarded for what it is, a best estimate. I say this not to criticize the Council, their subordinate committees, or the administration. I recognize that the job of forecasting the University's expenditure and income for the next financial year is not an easy one and that it is subject to many uncertainties beyond their control. Including the current year, the accumulated deficits on the Chest total around £13.9 million over the past four years (these figures are taken from the revised Allocations Reports not the final accounts and are therefore not absolutely exact).
How did we come to find ourselves in this regrettable position which, in the words of the Report, 'is clearly not sustainable in the medium term'? This Report and the earlier Annual Accounts offer a couple of suggestions. One is increased spending on staff salaries. The introduction of University Senior Lectureships and the supplementary payments, principally to Professors, have made a significant dent in the Chest. When these schemes were proposed one of my first thoughts was 'Naturally these are welcome but what will be the price?'. I was under the possibly mistaken impression that these extra salary costs were to be paid for by a reduction in established staff via the suppression of a number of established posts by means of an early retirement scheme. Despite the success of this scheme, however, the University's established staff numbers have in fact increased.
The second suggestion, which echoes an observation which the Treasurer expressed in her report on the Financial Statements earlier this year, is that the increasing costs of the expanding estate are a major contributory factor. I am pleased that this Report (in paragraph 10) recognizes that the JIF and SRIF schemes have made the current accounts worse. It is clear that some of these schemes are more financially onerous than others. We might expect that refurbishment, especially where the final bill is within the original JIF budget, does not make much impact and can be regarded as a pretty good thing, often funding work which would have had to be funded from somewhere, including the maintenance and minor works funds. New buildings however are different. First, they have ongoing revenue implications in the cost of servicing and maintaining the building. Second, I cannot help but wonder if there is not sometimes a more immediate cost. I would like to know whether the University has had to fund cost overruns on any such projects and what the total of such liabilities might be to date. I say to date because I am aware that at least some JIF-funded projects have not been completed. If there are projects still to be started, are there mechanisms in place for ensuring that any cost increases are covered by outside funds?
SRIF was always going to cost someone more as it was not designed to meet the full cost of the projects. As we can see from the Report discussed immediately before this one, the additional cost is sometimes being borne (at least for the time being) by the University. It is a distressing fact, but one which we may have to grapple with, that our success in competing for external funding is actually making the current account position on the Chest worse. As long as the funds we receive from grants, QR, and so on, do not match the true cost of doing the research, expansion will increase our deficit.
Perhaps we are expanding too fast? I am sure this will not be a popular suggestion. Nevertheless, I welcome the proposal (in paragraph 42) to review those building projects still in planning with a view to considering whether expenditure on them at the present time is justified by progress in funding. I also welcome the move to require whole-life costs.
The future holds even more bad news. The Report estimates the Chest's deficit for 2003-04 at £15.6 million and rising. I do not envy the Planning and Resources Committee their task in devising a solution to this problem. They are asked to produce an improvement of nearly £18 million in the Chest out-turn for 2004-05, representing an increase of 8% in income or a saving of 7.5% in expenditure. These are big sums. They will be very difficult to find without compromising the University's basic functions and principles.
One solution which has been mooted in some quarters, for example yesterday's Times newspaper, is that the money could be found from our students. I think it is well known that Cambridge students are already facing an increasing financial burden through a programme of rent increases. We are also, I am sure, conscious of the need to improve access. I feel strongly that it would be wrong of us to have any disparity in University Composition Fees for Home/EU students between ourselves and the generality of other Universities in the UK. Of course, the government may impose a greater burden on students generally, though I hope that if that were to happen it would be done with careful thought. But, even if the government were to allow us to do so without penalty, as they have hinted, I do not believe it would be right for us to charge 'top-up' fees or whatever other term you care to use. Of course, we must address the problem of the Chest deficit as a matter of urgency, but please let us do it without placing additional financial obstacles to studying here.
Report of the Council, dated 17 June 2002, on University Governance (p. 945).
Dr G. JOHNSON:
I would like to introduce this Report by giving some impromptu remarks from the Chair.
The Report is the result of long deliberation by the General Board's and the Council's Joint Committee on Governance. There was quite an extensive discussion throughout the University during the Lent Term of this year. Quite a number of the proposals, which the Committee have considered and which the General Board and the Council have also considered, have informed this final Report to the University.
It is, I think, accepted that the University is now bigger and more complicated than it ever has been and this requires more explicit, open, and better management, not just administrative but in terms of governance. The Report before you proposes modest changes in five key areas that the Council now think will improve our system of governance.
The first is that we do believe it is time that the office of Vice-Chancellor receives some further explicit definition of its authority and responsibilities.
Secondly, we believe that the time has come to increase the academic leadership in parts of the University by an increase in the number of Pro-Vice-Chancellors. Those who have served as Chairmen of the Faculty Boards, Heads of Departments, and Chairmen of the Councils of the Schools will have become only too aware over recent years how onerous the responsibilities have become. There needs to be more support in this area.
The Pro-Vice-Chancellors must be people who are serving academics who are willing to give up a short period of time to help with this task and they must have some recompense for themselves and also for the Faculty, College, or Department to which they belong.
Thirdly, the University Council should receive modest amendments to its composition. The two most important proposals here are that there should be external members and that one of those external members should serve as its Chairman. The second proposal is that members of assistant staff should be represented on the University Council. We believe that these changes, although seemingly very modest, will actually have a significant effect on how the Council works and how it behaves.
Fourthly, we believe that there should be a widened membership of the Regent House to include more of those who have a significant role in the University. It is time we abandoned some pathetic snobberies that still persist, an example of which you have heard in a speech earlier this afternoon.
Fifthly, the Report proposes that the Regent House should have a ballot on whether or not there should be a change in the number of signatories required for a Discussion. It is proposed that the Regent House be offered the choice of the status quo, 25, or 50 signatories to call a ballot. Finally, I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that this Report is being discussed just today which some say is in the depth of the Long Vacation when more serious academics are on the beach, and again on 8 October, by which time they will have returned to Cambridge.
Professor J. H. BAKER:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, we do need constantly to improve the management of the University, and I welcome parts of this Report. I have distinct misgivings about the wisdom of placing external or lay members on the Council, and in particular into its chairmanship. The chief argument in favour seems to be that it works in other institutions; but since our University consistently outshines other institutions, that is unconvincing. No doubt it would be comfortable for our chief officers to have a scapegoat when things go wrong. But it is a real worry that someone from outside (and still primarily located outside) is unlikely to have his or her finger on the pulse of Cambridge concerns, and a further worry that, if such a person were discovered to be tainted with the corruption and incompetence which seem so prevalent among leaders in today's outside world, the University's reputation would be seriously compromised - more so, I suspect, than a government's.
However, that is only my personal instinct and others will disagree. My main reason for speaking today is to plead for the remaining vestiges of democracy in the Regent House, a cause in which I hope there will be less disagreement among the rank and file.
The proposal to increase the number of signatories required to call for a ballot would put paid to the present system almost completely. It may be possible for science barons to collect dozens of signatures from their vassals in a matter of hours, but it is a real and substantial test of resolve for anyone in the humanities to devote the time necessary to collect even ten within the time-scale available. No persuasive evidence has been adduced to show that a change is necessary, and it seems quite inappropriate to argue for a compromise figure between ten and fifty when no case has been made for any change at all. The change would effectively disenfranchise dons in the humanities, and probably a good many in the sciences as well.
The principal argument for the change is that it is proposed at the same time significantly to enlarge the Regent House, and that is the other point on which I have come to plead for re-thinking. I admit that I do not have a great deal of first-hand information about postdoctoral researchers. I am fully prepared to believe that they are necessary, highly qualified, under-valued, over-dependent on patronage, and insecure. But making them members of the Regent House would do nothing to resolve their difficulties. It would, on the other hand, seriously alter the character of our governing body. Most of them, I understand, are scientists, and it has already been pointed out by many commentators that their inclusion would substantially alter the balance of the Regent House as between the sciences and humanities. That is a strong objection. I think an equally forceful objection is that they are, as I take it, employees working under superiors - superiors who might even in a few cases be separate from the University. They are not, in that sense, independent scholars committed solely to the abstract duties of advancing knowledge and providing instruction in their fields of learning. They survive under the protection and direction of those upon whom their precarious tenure rests, and it might be supposed that many of them would vote as told. Even if the ballot is secret, how many of them would dare refuse their signatures to a request for a ballot? Moreover, their numbers and distribution are dictated by the vagaries of outside funding rather than by academical or constitutional considerations. Are we really to allow providers of funding to buy block representation in the Regent House? My first objection applies also to academic-related and assistant staff, who are employees in the narrow sense that their work is directed and controlled by superiors on whom their advancement depends. I am not casting aspersions on any of them as individuals, but as groups they would visibly be dependent fiefdoms. Although we already have a few members of the Regent House who could be said to fit that description, we should not be making it a major new constituency - and simultaneously disenfranchising those who do not belong to it. We run the risk of turning our statutory governing body into a decadent and unbalanced house of parliament, membership of which is perceived chiefly as an honorific mark of recognition, but the real authority of which has fallen into the hands of wealthy outsiders and party whips. I fear, Sir, in short, that the present proposals would destroy what is left of the academical democracy of the Regent House as we know it, and for no good reason.
Dr D. R. J. LAMING (read by Dr G. R. EVANS):
Mr Deputy Vice Chancellor, I withheld my signature from this Report when it came before Council on 17 June and I take this opportunity to explain why.
These proposals for the reform of our governance touch upon some fundamental questions about the future direction of this University. Those questions should have been aired during the consultation period, and I regret that they were not. I do not think that the Regent House should be asked to approve any proposals for the reform of our governance until it has had a good opportunity to explore the underlying issues. But the consultation document produced by the Governance Committee read rather as though it had started out to be a Report and had changed its purpose (but not its character) rather late in the course of its production. I take this opportunity to draw attention to two of the most important questions that now face us.
My first question asks what kind of an institution this University is to be in the future. Is it to remain a university or is it to metamorphose into a commercial research establishment that happens, for historical reasons, to also offer some teaching? I say commercial research establishment because our Director of Finance tells us that government-sponsored research does not pay its way. By a 'university' I mean an institution whose primary activity is teaching and learning. Of course, its teaching officers will engage in research, for that is the way to maintain an ever-improving quality of teaching - teaching and research nourish each other. But in a 'university', as I understand the term, teaching officers are appointed to maintain a comprehensive coverage of the disciplines taught. In a research establishment, on the other hand, officers are appointed primarily to undertake research and are appointed chiefly in those areas in which research money is available. The knock-on effect on teaching is easy to envisage - the coverage of individual disciplines tends to become patchy.
This is a important issue because the change I have sketched is already taking place. As of 4 February 2002 we had 1,719 established academic, academic-related, and research staff in post; at the same time we had 2,565 unestablished staff. Last year our Chest income, income that is nominally at our disposal, amounted to £183m, while non-Chest income, earmarked for specific purposes, was £209m. That difference is projected to increase in the next few years. We now describe ourselves as a 'research-led' university, and it would be as well to look and see where all that research is leading us. Our current building programme is leading to an increasing deficit in the Chest, because the new buildings have to be staffed. Most of our research is funded by government agencies and the overheads that government at present allows do not cover all the costs of the infrastructure. Without some remedial action, our Chest deficit is projected to increase to £20m in 2005-06, and a continuing deficit of that size is unsustainable.
Action to remedy the deficit is, of course, in hand and includes, in the short-term, a general freeze on the filling of vacancies. So the current increase in research activity is leading to a consequential cut-back in teaching. That is the way in which this University is at present evolving. That is how the coverage of some disciplines is becoming patchy.
To be fair to the Governance Committee, when it recommends the inclusion of unestablished research staff in the Regent House, it is doing no more than catching up with changes in personnel that have already taken place. But this change is proposed without any overall consideration of where it will take us in the long term; and that long-term consideration is needed now, before any specific proposals are put to a vote, so that the Regent House can, first, see where we are going and, second, consider other measures if it does not like the prospect.
That prospect is that the Regent House will include increasing numbers of unestablished research staff, chiefly in scientific disciplines, engaged on short-term appointments. That will lead to a loss of balance as between different academic disciplines and a lesser commitment overall to teaching and learning. A different kind of contractual arrangement is needed to preserve this University as a university.
We already have medically qualified teaching staff who are paid on salary scales that give them comparability with other NHS staff. The essential qualifications are that they be medically qualified and in a position to practise; for example, they must have honorary contracts with the NHS. Suppose that research activities, certainly commercial research activities, are organized in a similar fashion. Suppose that those teaching officers who are much engaged in commercial research are engaged on contracts analogous to those offered to medically qualified staff and are paid, like them, on scales that bear comparability with commercial remuneration. (The additional remuneration comes, of course, from the research funding and straightway makes a contribution to the rewarding and retention of academic staff.) Short-term unestablished research staff are also paid on scales comparable to commercial practice, but are contracted to a subsidiary of this University that distinguishes them from the teaching staff. Membership of the Regent House remains the prerogative of the academic staff, and is not extended to those employed solely to do research.
I am advised that this idea of separating contract research staff from the strictly academic raises a number of contractual questions that will need to be considered carefully. But it does provide a way in which this University can remain a university.
A second question of equal importance concerns the seat of ultimate authority in our government. We have an 800-year tradition of academic self-government and this is now under threat from two directions. First, it is proposed that there shall be three external or lay members of Council and two members from the assistant staff. This is a smaller increase than was proposed in the original consultation document, but the trend is still present. If Council is increased by the addition of other categories of member, then it either increases in size to the point that it becomes, functionally, a different kind of body, or the specifically academic representation is decreased. I will not debate here what change in membership should be effected now - other speakers will be contributing to that - but merely remark that we must expect 'another bite at the cherry' in a few years' time.
The second threat to academic self-government comes from the increasing complexity of the duties and responsibilities involved. Those who offer themselves as members of Council or of its subcommittees find that their commitments take an increasing amount of time that would otherwise be spent on teaching or on research. Those demands mean that the people who volunteer to play a part in governance tend increasingly to be those who are content to put research to one side and devote most of their time to academic politics. But if government is taken out of the hands of people who are simultaneously engaged in teaching and research, our tradition of academic self-government is weakened and we are part-way towards government by administrators.
The question whether our government should be left to people who are content to do little else is a matter for the Regent House, but I do not see it as a necessary development - not yet. An alternative would be to spread the duties and responsibilities among a rather larger number of elected academics by instituting an elected membership of the principal subcommittees. It is already the case that the volume and variety of business before Council is too great for Council to scrutinize all of it. The answer is to delegate large and important components of that business to sub-committees chaired by Pro-Vice-Chancellors. The present Report proposes five. If the membership of those sub-committees were to be elected according to a pattern similar to that on which Council members are currently elected, then we would preserve (and actually improve) the present academic oversight of our goverment. Council need not thereafter intervene in the deliberations of those sub-committees except in exceptional circumstances such as a call for a Discussion on a topic of concern.
This second proposal envisages a larger number of members of the Regent House actively involved in central government, with a lighter load on each individual. It will increase the pool from which the membership of other sub-committees might be drawn. At present this membership is mostly drawn from a very small number of people who serve on Council or the General Board.
Mr Deputy Vice Chancellor, I do not think we should proceed to vote on any proposals for reform until these questions, and others besides, have been thoroughly explored by the Regent House. Quite apart from the direction in which these present proposals take us, this Report is premature.
Dr G. R. EVANS:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, here is our very own Railtrack. An ideologically driven scheme, put together a bit at a time, with no provision to make sure the nuts and bolts have been properly tightened on the actual rails. A few years down the line there will have to be a sell-out, with the shareholders - the Regent House - left baffled and impoverished.
Wass failed. This will too. This is a naïve attempt to bring into Cambridge just the sort of patterns of corporate governance which are now so publicly in meltdown everywhere else, especially in the USA, and with which we have recently been so keen to form institutional links. Enron, WorldCom, Marconi, Tico, now Cambridge? With Andersen to audit us? 'Cambridge's fortunes have been transformed' (Financial Times, 1 July 2002). Yes. To a giant deficit (The Times, 8 July 2002). Is the Judge Institute handing back the tainted Tico money?1
What alternatives to this scheme have really been considered? We were presented with the preferred options of a few individuals in power in the Old Schools. They calculate that they will win the ballot whose timing they, not we, are going to choose.
What mechanisms do we have to stop this and go back to the drawing-board? Where is the will to be found to turn the spotlight on the detailed failures to do things efficiently which have nothing to do with our constitution? Those Pro-Vice-Chancellors who will be highly paid to interfere in the local affairs of the Schools will need an army of assistants (not budgeted for) to bolster their new positions. Meanwhile the administrative staff will continue to struggle to do their jobs properly because no one is making sure that they are supplied with the nuts and bolts and spanners.
I do not think we can afford two disasters in attempting to reform our governance. That is to invite outside interference, perhaps a Royal Commission. The Report itself admits that these proposals would not solve our present problems. Yet Dr Johnson has just called it 'this final Report'. Why press blindly on with a doomed scheme, except to save the Governance Committee's face? The basic pattern is exactly that of the usual response to Discussions - to reject all dissenting comments. 'The Council do not agree ... etc.' 'The Council consider that these apprehensions are largely misplaced.' 'In the view of Council most of these apprehensions are exaggerated.'
Yet the dissent now in print in the Reporter of 26 June is not lightly to be dismissed. I give example page numbers only, since the electronic text of the responses cannot be searched (or even read on many computers). It is pointed out that the design of the questionnaire was so flawed as to make its findings meaningless (p. 1034, p. 1057). Respondents were critical of the lack of time which has been allowed for consideration of the complex implications of the proposals (p. 1049, p. 1076, p. 1126) and of the air of fait accompli which hangs about the whole thing (p. 927, p. 1077). Comment after comment points out the inchoate character of the proposals, the failure to think things through (pp. 972-3, pp. 974-5, pp. 976-7, p. 1083). There are comments on the confusion and vagueness of language and concept (p. 1014, p. 1058, p. 1073, p. 1083, p .1115, p. 1131). Telling is the remark from DPMMS that there are few in the Department 'with much experience of the politics of the central committees of the University nor of their concomitant administrative structures' (p. 982) and many responses reflect a similar bafflement about what really goes on. How can proposals for change be assessed when the in-crowd keep things so much to themselves that the Regent House has only the dimmest idea what is being done in its name?
Praesento vobis, says the University Orator at the Honorary Degrees ceremony at the end of his encomium. He turns to the assembled University present in the Senate House. He offers them the honorand. It is the University's consent, expressed through the words and actions of the Chancellor, which makes the new Honorary Doctor. It is the University's consent which makes all our graduates. It is the University's consent which creates the Proctors on 1 October each year. It will be the University's consent which lets this - potentially expensive (p. 974, p. 979) - muddle go forward to the Privy Council if members of the Regent House are so foolish when they tick boxes in those ballots.
I hear that members of the Regent House are waking up to what their membership means. I hope so. For although the Regent House gets a mention in this Report, it is not until late on, and paragraphs 27-9 are mainly concerned with two questions: (i) should the Regent House be more inclusive (and bigger)? (ii) should more signatures be required before the Regent House can exercise its muscle as a direct democracy? (There is a great deal of disquiet about that in the responses.)
Yet we are being invited to make acts of delegation to the Vice-Chancellor and the Pro-Vice-Chancellors, and thus hand over our powers to control our own affairs. It is by no means clear that the Regent House can make an act of delegation of this sort to an individual; they can do so only to a 'body' under the Statute (A, III, 4).
I was assured by Gordon Johnson, who is chairing today, that the Governance Committee had checked their proposals against the Statutes and Ordinances. It seems they did not do so very carefully.
'Principal academic and administrative officer' is now to go into the first sentence of Statute D, III, 1 (pp. 953-4). This is important because it raises many of the problems of the relationship between minister and civil servant and between the policy-advice and practical administration functions of a civil service with which the Civil Service itself grappled a few years ago. Our new-style Vice-Chancellor is going to be both Sir Humphrey and the Minister. Statute D, III, 3, which already gives the Vice-Chancellor 'power to ensure that all University officers duly perform their duties' will now, as proposed, make him in addition 'responsible for the executive management of the University and its finances, and for the direction of University business'
Does that mean he will be able to be called to account if he fails to discharge these 'responsibilities'? As an officer the Vice-Chancellor already has a duty (D, II, 12) to send to the secretary of the competent authority (here the Regent House) on request 'returns' explaining what he has been up to. Registrary, may we have the Vice-Chancellor's somewhat overdue 'returns' please? The Vice-Chancellor is already in law responsible for the safe conduct of our finances and nothing much seems to have happened by way of calling to account as a consequence of CAPSA.
'Executive management'. The authors of the Report note that the Council 'is designated as the principal executive and policy-making body of the University' in Statute A, IV, 1(a). They admit the Council's 'executive' behaviour since Wass has had a rough ride in the consultation so far.
Then the prose gets somewhat turgid and tangled. We have the assertion that 'the Council interpret 'executive' in the Statute as stipulating that the Council have a responsibility to make such decisions as are needed to implement agreed and approved policies'. So the Council make the policy and the Council decide how to implement it, by ensuring 'that they have in place mechanisms whereby they can be assured that those decisions are actually implemented'. I am not clear what these can be except legislative acts, and the Council is not allowed to make those, for legislative acts require a Grace of the Regent House.
Policy-making was one of the things the Wass Syndicate thought the Council might try its hand at. This latter-day 'Wass Committee' is keen on policy-making. The Vice-Chancellor is to do it and the Pro-Vice-Chancellors and the Council.
Concerns are expressed in the responses about the effect of the fragmentation of powers on 'the development of policy for the University as a whole' (p. 964). The Colleges are entitled to regard these proposals with a jaundiced eye, and they do. Arts and humanities see themselves being crowded out by the politics of the sciences under the new arrangements (p. 981). Conversely - and here is one of the important internal contradictions in the whole scheme - there is concern about the over-centralization of the powers of the Vice-Chancellor (p. 983, p. 1121). Note 'lack of clarity about where ultimate responsibility lies' (p. 985).
The new Chief 'Executive' Vice-Chancellor is to be 'principal academic and administrative officer especially in the area of policy-formation'. But he will not be chairing the Council, which will be busy making its own policies. And none of these policies will be lawful unless they are approved by the Regent House, which does not appear to be envisaged in this confused plan for the Council to go right ahead to 'mechanisms' to ensure that their 'policies' at least are going to be 'implemented'. The poor old Vice-Chancellor won't be creating any mechanisms for his policies. They will die on their feet, unimplemented.
So what happens when we join 'executive' with 'management'? The Governance Committee can dimly see that they are getting into deep waters here. 'The Council accept that this clause might be taken as implying a qualification to the account of the role of the Council itself specified in the Statute'. Lapidary, that. Masters of prose composition. Have to hand it to them. They have a solution. Give the new Chief Executive Vice-Chancellor 'the necessary authority to discharge these responsibilities directly or by delegation'.
But that is not what the proposed Statutory amendment says. It says he shall be 'responsible' not that he shall have authority. And responsibility is defined by the OED (they do definitions so much better in Oxford) as 'a charge, trust, or duty'. Now I would be much less negative in my comments if this Report evinced that kind of atmosphere. A Vice-Chancellor with a sense of stewardship, regarding himself as the servant of the University, with a trust or duty, that kind of Vice-Chancellor I might get on terms with. But one who thinks responsibility means power, no.
A number of the responses ask pointedly about the future of the General Board (p. 957, p. 979, p. 1030, p. 1062). Whatever becomes of that extraordinary proposal to change the Statutes to accommodate the now anomalous Secretary General, there must be a question whether we still need this power-group. The question of the Vice-Chancellor's continuing Chairmanship of the General Board is, surely, best addressed by abolishing it.
I turn now to the proposals about the Pro-Vice-Chancellors (p. 947). More 'policy-development' for them, together with the 'interpretation and monitoring of practice'. It is not clear whether they are to resemble the Vice-Chancellor in the chameleonlike ability to be both academic and academic-related officers. They are going to chair committees, notably ones the Vice-Chancellor would otherwise be chairing. As his 'delegates'? As his 'deputies'? It doesn't say. Well, it does, but only that the Pro-Vice-Chancellor who is going to ensure 'implementation and co-ordination of the agreed and approved policies of the Council' will do so on 'delegated' responsibility 'under the Vice-Chancellor' (not 'from'?). And it is not his power to delegate surely. It is the Council's. Or is it?
The Pro-Vice-Chancellors are, according to the proposed new Statute D, IV, to be the creatures not of the Regent House but of the Council. Their appointments are not to be graced but made by the Council. For their duties too there will be no need to go through all that hassle with Graces. They can just be 'determined' by the Council, or the Vice-Chancellor. If by the Vice-Chancellor, will he be 'delegating' any of his duties to them? If that is not what he is doing he is defining the duties of the office. Where does he get the powers to vary the actual duties of these University offices? Where does the Council get that power? They cannot do that for any other office. Other officers have duties defined in the Statutes and Ordinances and they enter into such office by signing the book (Statute D, I, 4).
'The mode of interaction among the Vice-Chancellor, the Pro-Vice-Chancellors, and the Chairs of the Schools needs to be articulated in much more detail before it can be assessed' (p. 960). It certainly does. And see p. 959, p. 963, p. 964, p. 967 (asking about 'roles, boundaries, and working methods'). How can the draft Statute changes make any sense when none of that has been thought through?
The eight ordinary members of the Regent House are to be shrunk to four, and I seem to have read somewhere in this Report that an enlarged Regent House justified multiplying the number of signatories required to call a ballot by five. This is the class of membership which has been shrunk to vanishing-point to make way for additions of puzzling constitutional significance. We shall cease to have an elected Council. We shall have a Council heavily weighted with placemen.
There is concern in the responses that the central administration is greedy for more staff at the expense of provision at the Department/Institution level (p. 969), and that it is often out of step with the 'local' situation (p. 970). The comments of the Management Board of the Unified Administrative Service bear no signature, but there is that 'I' (p. 986). Own up, Registrary, 'supremo in charge of everything' and attender at the Governance Committee meetings (p. 1061). Did you consult all your multitudinous underlings before writing that? How do you think these proposals will address the 'colossal failings, managerial in nature' of recent years (p. 1021, p. 1031, p. 1033).
(p. 945) 'The Report cannot propose a complete solution to all the University's governance problems, but it is an essential step forward in dealing with them'. Well, we can certainly agree with the first part of that sentence, but the second? This is surely a recipe for a complete and utter mess, for more secrecy and less accountability, for 'responsibility' to become a word still further evacuated of all meaning in the University.
You will observe that this Report contains nothing about the plans progressively to curb and shrink Discussions. That will no doubt be coming along in the next tranche of proposals signalled at p. 945 at 'others will follow', along with a presidential title for the Vice-Chancellor (Council Minute 196).
These proposals will not 'work'. They will create a further set of disparate power-bases in the University. Without a Vice-Chancellor of towering ability they will be a disaster for Cambridge, already hugely in the red (yesterday's Times), and how are we to guarantee that someone fit for the office is going to get it?
Professor A. W. F. EDWARDS (read by Dr F. H. KING):
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I was absent abroad at the publication of this Report and I am not back for the Discussion. I will therefore have to study it during the Long Vacation and offer any comments at the second Discussion planned for October. But even without a knowledge of its content I can say that I think it would be ill-advised to put forward any substantial and probably controversial proposals affecting the government of the University and the functions of individual officers, particularly of the Vice-Chancellor, during the period in which a successor to Sir Alec Broers is being sought.
2 Vice-Chancellor's annual address, 1 October 2001 and http:// www.msnbc.com/news/761203.asp?cpl=1
Professor B. HEPPLE:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I'm not going to read a prepared speech because in my view this type of discussion is antiquated and ineffective. The University's website should be available for speeches of the kind we have just heard and Discussions should be much more clearly focused. For example, I think, as I have seen in many other universities, there should be an opportunity for the Vice-Chancellor, at least once a term, to make an oral report to the Regent House explaining what is going on in the University and then to be subject to questions and comments from members of the University. On an important Report of this kind there should be something like a committee stage in the Houses of Parliament in which we could take each proposal in turn and hear comments on them instead of having rather generalized remarks of the kind I'm afraid we have heard today.
But I did want to contribute on the question of the role of the Colleges in the governance of the University. I welcome the reassurances in the Report that the Council wishes to maintain and enhance the collegiate nature of this University. We should remind ourselves that the functions of the Colleges include undergraduate recruitment, all undergraduate admissions, pastoral support for undergraduates and postgraduates, financial support for students, residential accommodation, substantial support for the supervision system, including the appointment of College Teaching Officers, the provision of essential facilities for University Teaching Officers, and support for postdoctoral research particularly through junior Research Fellowships. It is an absolutely central part of this University and I welcome the suggestion in the Report that there may well be scope for extending the formal College representation on other University bodies than the Council in future. But why the delay? The revision of Statutes should put committees such as the Joint Standing Committee, the Senior Tutors Committee, and the '3 + 3' Personnel Committee on a more formal basis so as to ensure that this co-operation is maintained and developed. There are several other University bodies where a more formal role for the Colleges could be recognized. There is a good model in the Information Technology Syndicate which supervises the Computing Service. This includes two nominees of the Senior Tutors' Committee and also a nominee of the Bursars' Committee because of the role of the Computing Service in supporting College computing. If the General Board is to continue to have responsibility for the academic affairs of the University and to deliver quality in teaching it would follow in my view that there should be representatives of the Senior Tutors' Committee on the General Board and not merely on its Education Committee. Just to take one recent example. The General Board has decided that vacation grants for compulsory field courses are to be abolished at least for the time being. This is surely a matter which would not have been announced unilaterally if Senior Tutors had been represented on the Board and could have conducted wider consultations with Departments.
Another way in which the role of the Colleges could be better recognized is to ensure that one or more of the new Pro-Vice-Chancellors is a Head of House. I welcome the greater flexibility now proposed as to the terms and conditions of service of the Pro-Vice-Chancellors so as to allow a serving Head of House to take on this role. In my view a regular rotation of Heads of Houses as Pro-Vice-Chancellor would be desirable.
I would like just to make one other comment and that is in response to my colleague Professor Baker in relation to the expansion of the Regent House to include unestablished academic and academic-related staff and representation on the Council for assistant staff. In my view these are well-founded proposals for a number of reasons, not simply the experience of other universities.
First of all, it seems to me that it remedies the disconnection between unestablished and established staff, and between academic staff, and non-academic staff which has led to the 'them and us' culture in this University; and this is much more pronounced in this University where there is more hierarchical structure than I have experienced in the four other universities in which I have worked.
Secondly, Professor Baker makes a point about the unestablished staff being employees who would be beholden to their superiors. It is true that many of them are on short fixed-term contracts although that position will shortly be changed in important respects by the Fixed-Term Contracts Directive which is being implemented in this country and which will make it impossible for people to be on renewed fixed-term contracts for longer than a total period of four years. But established academics are also employees. The position of all academic staff is of course protected by the Education Act 1988 in respect of their academic freedom and even established staff, although appointed to the retiring age, are beholden to their superiors for promotion and for other benefits. It seems to me to underestimate the calibre of our unestablished staff to believe that they would meekly sign documents or support a particular view simply to gain advantage in the University. The distinction between the academic established staff and the unestablished staff seems to me if it ever was true to be of diminishing importance and we should not seek to continue it.
A further point is that we of course have students represented on the Council. Most of them are here for only three years. If they are represented why should not those who in many cases devote their whole working lives to this University not be represented (and I apply that to the assistant staff as well)? Finally, I think the experience of other universities should not be discounted. It is true that we may be at the top of the academic league tables but let us not be complacent. With regard to the external members, of course, every institution should be aware of the dangers of having placemen on their bodies who are not really independent scrutineers of what is going on. But I would hope that this University by a rigorous selection process and an open process would choose the right people who would not bring discredit on the University; on the contrary they would enhance the quality of our decision-making. We will need a high degree of commitment to the University, I've seen this myself on some University committees like the Finance Committee and I believe that it would be of great value to the Council to have such members.
Dr J. P. DOUGHERTY (read by Dr S. J. COWLEY):
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I speak first to the constitutional questions such as the role of the Vice-Chancellor, composition of the Council, and so on. I will refer at the end to the question of the number of signatories required for certain actions by the Regent House.
I perfectly understand that expansion in the University's activities, in both teaching and research, and the enhanced 'audit culture', and other things, place new burdens on both governance and administration. There are more tasks for committees, some of them novel, and more work for non-academic staff. With this in mind, I believe the Regent House will be receptive to evolutionary changes introduced to keep control of the situation, and to increases in governmental and administrative posts.
What is proposed now is in a quite different league. But no real justification for such major changes is offered. Nor are we told how the specific changes would improve anything, in a way that could not be achieved by more modest operational changes. The Council seems to have spent the last five or so years in a 'bookburning' mode, evading the Statutes and the Regent House by creating numerous unestablished senior posts. They got themselves into utter disgrace over CAPSA, then tried to salvage something from that by saying that the failure points to the need for some of the changes now proposed. But no such implication can be discerned: the failure was of a few officers, not the system. Meanwhile a Governance Committee has been slaving away for several years to produce a very terse Report that we are expected to approve while it remains unclear what improvements it would make. It looks more like navel-gazing to me.
The government of a university has been compared both with Cabinet government and with that of a business. Neither of these is a close analogy, but as universities are increasingly to be run as businesses, let us consider that case. The Vice-Chancellor is the head of a university and its academic and administrative leader, in a broad-brush way. He should be regarded as the Chairman. He should not be the Chief Executive, as that is the job of the Registrary. And although this is the subject of a separate Report and Grace, I believe that the Secretary General and Treasurer should, respectively lead the Education mission and the Finance and Assets stewardship. The temporary problem that seems to be encountered here ought not to be reflected in changes of Statute that would otherwise have been differently framed or not at all.
The suggested changes in the composition of the Council, now amended, amount to leaving class (a) (Heads of Houses) and class (b) (Professors and Readers) unaltered at four each, and reducing rank-and file members (class (c)) from eight to four to bring in others. I see no good reason why the Regent House, as Electors, should assent to this.
As for Discussions, the alleged subversion of these has occurred in the Discussions of Reports issued by University bodies, which make up by far the bulk of them. I myself do not approve of the abrasive style or personal attacks that have been heard, or of any departure from the topic. But lack of discipline here should be dealt with by the Chair. If we are to introduce external Chairmen, perhaps we should think of this for Discussions rather than the Council. I would suggest inviting Betty Boothroyd to show us how. None of this has to do with Discussions on a topic of concern, which are in any case very few. The recent examples have been rather helpful and given opportunities for many speakers to contribute. So I believe that increasing the number of signatories is irrelevant and unnecessary.
Similarly, no case has been made for the increase for the signatories of Notices of non-placet or amendments to Graces. In particular, for amendments, I would like to point out that last year, in the vote on the Unified Administrative Service, four amendments were put forward and in due course they were approved by large majorities, rejecting both the original proposals and the status quo. One must conclude that the outcome is an improvement. It would not have been possible if the number of signatories had been 25 rather than 10, since the matter arose with very short notice in the examination period.
I recommend the Regent House to reject the whole of this package. As a former Vice-Chancellor might have put it, let's send this team back to the pavilion and put a new one in to bat.
Dr M. J. RUTTER:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, the Report from Council on governance certainly contains some significant changes to the way in which this community of scholars governs itself. Change and evolution are surely necessary to ensure this University's continued success in the centuries to come, but there are some points within this document which seem to merit more discussion than they are likely to receive over the Long Vacation, or even in the first week of Full Term in the new academical year.
The aim of ensuring that the management structure of the University is better defined, and that the managerial difficulties suffered by the CAPSA project are not repeated, is laudable. That the proposed reforms will achieve this is less clear.
The increase in number of Pro-Vice-Chancellors is certainly justifiable, but will it be clear which of the Pro-Vice-Chancellors or Vice-Chancellor is responsible for major projects, or will responsibility fall more easily into the gaps left by these multiple stools?
Addressing anomalies in the membership of Regent House is a worthy pursuit, although I fear that anomalies, like the poor of the world, will always be with us. The precise manner in which these anomalies are to be addressed I find strange.
Firstly, it is proposed to expand the membership of Regent House, a strange aim. The larger the membership of such an organization, the more its powers need to be delegated to smaller subcommittees for purely pragmatic reasons. One possible lesson from CAPSA was that there were too many small, powerful committees with too little accountability to Regent House. That position would surely worsen with a larger Regent House: one only has to look at the much reduced powers enjoyed by the Senate for a recent historical precident. The proposed reduction in the number of Members of Council elected by Regent House is a further indication of the likely decline in the power of Regent House. A proposal to reduce the size of Regent House would seem more logical.
That Regent House should wish to welcome a significant number of new members who are members neither of Colleges nor of Faculties I find strange. If no College or Faculty can be found which is prepared to give someone a vote in its governance, why should the University?
It is claimed that there are vast numbers of disenfranchised research workers clamouring at the doors wanting to get in to Regent House. The small number of responses in personal capacities to the Registrary's request for comments on the governance proposals suggests this is not so. If there is a community of the disenfranchised, it is probably our alumni, many of whom retain a great interest in their Alma Mater and are generous in supporting it: a sort of voluntary taxation without representation.
There are those who claim that a snobbish element in Regent House wishes to continue to exclude the 'unwashed' of the unaffiliated unestabilished researchers. I doubt this is so.
My concern is not that they are the 'unwashed', but that they are the uninterested. Those passing through this University, staying for a mere three or four years and not making any strong College or Faculty connections, tend to remain in a remarkable state of ignorance about the University, and are not necessarily therefore the best people to participate actively in its governance. The test of long-term commitment to the University they fail.
Finally, like so many others, I would address that often-mentioned item of raising the threshold for calling for Ballots and Discussions. Ballots are anonymous. Calls for same are not. In my experience, unestabilished staff are very reluctant to make public political statements within the University, fearing that they may make enemies who will obstruct their preferment to more established posts.
Even if Regent House were to be expanded as Council suggests, the number of members who are likely to be prepared to sign a call for a Ballot or Discussion would not rise significantly, and therefore the steep rises suggested in the thresholds are entirely inappropriate. They would serve one purpose: to restrict the power of Regent House to call to account other parts of the University's governance.
Such is the thinking which enabled CAPSA to go so badly wrong. Parts of this Report appear to make another CAPSA more likely, not less likely. It should therefore be considered at more length before being brought back to Regent House; certainly at more length than the timescales proposed.
Dr J. C. HORTON (read by Mr T. N. MILNER):
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, liking to begin with a favourable comment on a Report, I note with pleasure the eleven words in brackets in paragraph 14, sub-paragraph (i). Other aspects of it, however, are less attractive and I intend to mention three.
First, the Council proposes to offer 'other' members of the Regent House (i.e. other than Heads of House, Professors, and Readers) four representatives. Nowhere in the Report do I find acknowledgement that this represents a 50% cut from the present figure of eight. Bearing in mind that it is this category of the Regent House that will be enlarged by inclusion of various unestablished contract staff, the per capita reduction is in fact greater than 50%. Those unestablished staff to be enfranchised may wonder quite how generous the Council's offer actually is.
Next the Council has noted the discontent engendered by suggesting the number of signatures to call a Discussion or vote on a Grace be increased from ten to fifty. It is now to offer the Regent House a choice between ten, twenty-five, and fifty. It fails, however, to answer the criticism that, used on average twice a year, this procedure is hardly abused nor that small Departments would have difficulty collecting a large number of signatures regardless of the ease of communication that we now enjoy.
Finally, I come to the (so-called) 'external' members of the Council. Though we now read of the procedures for advertisement and short-listing, it is still the case that these three persons will be appointed by the Council. When virtually all other members of the Council take their place there after an election (should the number of candidates standing exceed places vacant) - including, interestingly, the Chancellor - these three will always suffer from the suspicion that they are merely placemen, chosen for their willingness never to rock the boat.
Much of the justification for these 'external' members comes from the 'other universities do it' argument. A number of responses to the consultation paper, however, note that something else done by other universities is the inclusion in their councils of their own graduates chosen democratically by the graduate body. The Report is silent on any role to be played by Cambridge graduates in University governance. Instead, as more than one respondent noted, the University apparently values its graduates for little more than their money. This impression could be dispelled and, at the same time, the 'external' members given legitimacy were they to be Cambridge graduates elected to the Council by the votes of their fellow graduates.
Mr T. N. MILNER:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I should also like to comment on the proposed composition of the Council and in particular on the proposed 'external' members. The Report defines the term thus: 'The expression 'external' was used to indicate persons not currently engaged in teaching, research, or administration within the University, not to exclude the possibility or rather probability of alumni being considered for this role, nor to imply that alumni are not in another sense 'internal' to the University'.
While I am gratified to hear that alumni are perceived as the principal source of these new members, this use of the term 'external' seems unhelpful. Alumni are not 'external' to the University and given that these new Council members are to be appointed by the University and not by some independent body, I would suggest that the term 'external' is misleading even in relation to candidates who are not alumni. The term 'lay' member, which also appears in the Report, would seem a rather more accurate expression of what is planned and perhaps the 'external' tag could now be dropped? Since the possibility of having 'external' members on the Council was first proposed in an earlier Report in December, 1999, I have researched the composition of the councils in a number of UK universities. An 'external' member seems to be more usually a member appointed by an independent body such as a city or county council or a member 'ex officio' such as the local MP or Lord Mayor.
The proposed recruitment process, i.e. public advertisement followed by committee selection, does have risks attached to it. A College submission highlights the danger of the proposed 'external' members becoming, or at least being perceived as, '... creatures of the administration ...'. It goes on to suggest that although no doubt selected for their distinguished achievements elsewhere, for the 'external' members '… membership of the Council might form just a single string in the bow formed by a large portfolio of responsibilities …'.
There does seem to be some danger that this scheme will simply add to our Council persons of apparent individual distinction who might in other circumstances serve as Heads of Colleges, rather than adding a genuinely fresh element to the Council. Furthermore, unlike Heads of House, they will lack a clear constituency in the University to give them authority and to hold them accountable for their actions, or for that matter, inactions.
That alumni expressed considerable interest in governance during the consultation process is clear from the published responses and it is noted in the Report at Section 23(d). It is worrying, therefore, that the Report seems to have left unanswered repeated calls by alumni for some actual representation on the Council, or at the very least, the nomination of the 'lay' members by some appropriate alumni body such as the Cambridge Society.
In 1989 the Wass Syndicate acknowledged that the Senate, the body to which most alumni belong by virtue of their degrees, had '… symbolic importance in that it provides a focus for continuing membership of the University…' and furthermore that this was of especial significance at '... a time when the University needs to forge closer links with its alumni and is likely to call on their support more than in the past.' (Wass Report, Reporter, 1988-89, p. 624).
If those considerations were important in 1989, then I would suggest that they are even more so now? Unfortunately the old caricatures of reactionary alumni emerging from the misty fens to vote against the admission of women and in favour of compulsory Greek still seem to be alive and kicking in some quarters long after the originators have gone to their graves. One sincerely hopes that this is not a view of our alumni that is widely held.
Given that many older universities, including all the ancient Scottish universities, have a convocation or similar body to enable interested graduates to remain actively involved in university affairs and to appoint some 'lay' members to their councils or courts, I think that the competing claims of an elective process must be carefully examined. This may be the right moment to re-assess the role of the Senate and perhaps also that of the Cambridge Society? I do not suggest that the candidates for 'lay' membership of the Council should be drawn only from alumni active within the Cambridge Society. It must, however, be appropriate for some of the University's most committed members and supporters to have a formal and substantive role in appointing some members of the Council and in holding them to proper account. I cannot see how the claims of assistant staff and students can be accepted in this context and yet those of alumni be reasonably denied.
Dr A. MCFARQUHAR (read by Dr D. R. DE LACEY):
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, in spite of being entitled to contribute to Discussions for some four decades, my comments on the Report on governance are both a debut and, probably, a swansong: I trust they will be considered relevant. My apologies for my absence on the day of my daughter's graduation.
This Report is well constructed and plausible. The changes it proposes in our constitution seem at first sight modest; the Chairman of the Council to be an outside appointment; the Vice-Chancellor to be a contracted CEO, no longer chairman of the Council; and the number of the signatures required to promote a ballot/Discussion to increase, less modestly, by 150 to 400 percent.
The provenance of the Report is somewhat bizarre. It started as a proposal by two senior members ostensibly for discussion and consultation. In mid-consultation the Press Office promulgated the proposals, presumably under instruction and with explicit consent of the Vice-Chancellor, as if it were fait accompli. The Report, not substantially modified after consultation or incorporation of written responses, which the Council had little time to consider, is now put before the Regent House as a document ratified by the Council which, presumably unanimously, supports its conclusions. This indicates a sloppy approach to administration, characteristic of the CAPSA catastrophe and reflecting our current malaise not much related to governance and constitution.
The Report's recommendations do not deal with the problems which supposedly brought it about, as much cogent College comment emphasizes. Namely disasters which followed the introduction of a computerized accounting system including the alleged incompetence of the consultants and the failure to monitor progress through internal administrative control.
The administrative officers responsible are unwilling to be accountable or to offer their resignation. The Council refuses to consider disciplinary procedure. Two Council speakers rule out any thought that senior members could be called to account, and this seems to attract some sympathy within the University comprising mainly gentle folk. This culture does not engender confidence that a future Vice-Chancellor/CEO might be held to account by contract as is proposed. Costly administrative failure has been due to accident or incompetence or some combination of both. This has led to a Report which proposes insidious changes in our constitution involving a move towards exactly the corporate governance currently in disarray in the United States revealed by the collapse of Enron, Andersen, and WorldCom, with many to follow in the UK and the US.
Disintegrating company governance involves similar failure to control accountants and managers through contract, with tacit complicity of directors, internal and external, supposed to represent company owners. This is just what we have experienced in Cambridge. The relation between ownership and control has broken down under the system of corporate governance which the Report is advocating. The authors of the Report could not have been expected to anticipate these crises in corporate governance, which have rocked the financial world, especially as they have been forever academics with little intimate experience of how corporate governance really works in practice as opposed to theory. We now need to take account of these events.
The ambivalent treatment of Colleges in the Report is unbelievable. One moment Colleges are an integral part of the University, the next the University is to be subject to radical reform as a separable entity. It is hard to avoid the conclusion the motive behind the undue haste is to railroad the introduction of line management untrammelled by College considerations, before the next Vice-Chancellor is appointed, to a University celebrated for its bottom up collegial and democratic governance.
Consistent with the sloppy and partial approach, the Report is based on assertion rather than evidence and on prejudice rather than genuine consultation as much of the written responses indicates. Moreover, the conclusions of the Report are largely unrelated to the real issues, namely failures of management and administration, not Governance as most Colleges comment.
Cambridge does not need outsiders on the Council/Board. Their putative talents are already abundant among Heads of Colleges and Departments. We are already over endowed with groups which provide checks and balances. We do not need, and facing a deficit fit to destroy us, cannot afford, an expensive cadre of Pro-/Deputy Vice-Chancellors acting as part-time amateur administrators, willing to be diverted from their vital research and Department responsibilities, to assist the Vice-Chancellor in policy implementation. As superstars in line for Vice-Chancellor here, or there in due course, they are unlikely to mess in administrative and accounting detail and will need an army of assistants to support them but not budgeted for in the proposal. Everyone who knows the University knows that executive and administrative work done by academics is done largely by their secretaries. The full cost to the University is unlikely to be under 1.5 million euros.
Meanwhile such a cadre will develop a policy momentum of its own: the Council will be relegated even more than at present, to a role of ex-post-facto assent. The Vice-Chancellor will be preoccupied with external affairs (as opposed to internal ones which a Pro-Vice-Chancellor is to control) presenting the acceptable face of academia to potential sources of finance likely to be harder to find in a decade or more of economic stress.
The Report proposals are not directed at the symptoms associated with the CAPSA catastrophe but are more in line with the fat cats syndrome associated with collapsing corporate governance.
Academic initiatives should be generated within Faculties budgeted in the Schools, co-ordinated by the General Board, and approved by the Council. They better not be created by deus ex machina academic planners, past their sell by date, under the protecting shroud of a predominately nominated Council of cronies. We need competent administrators, not part-time Professors - manqué managers - dabbling in administration with little experience of either. The Council should appoint its best chairman in the circumstances. Whether this is the Vice-Chancellor (who might well prefer not to be Chair) or not is less important here as Council and Vice-Chancellor will sink or swim together: They can always be relied on to stick together as responses to recent accidents have demonstrated.
The current trammels of the University reflect the struggle between management and ownership in contemporary corporate structure. Another example of governance failure is the NHS where the new managers, appointed to subvert consultant power, cannot be controlled, and which is now described as a Punch and Judy show reflecting current party politics. As usual the University follows some decades behind but that should help avoid governance mistakes rather than repeat them.
The owners of the University, the Regent House, are too preoccupied with their research or disenchanted with University politics to take much interest. This gives a big advantage to the operators driven by the political aphorism that we must do something. As one College says, and others imply, our governance is not sufficiently broke (even if the University is) to need fixing and our Number One status not entirely unrelated to our perceived anarchy.
A world renowned Vice-Chancellor cannot be controlled by contract - too embarrassing to sack just like those responsible for CAPSA. As with top management in business, accidents happen, the boss goes barmy, which make change essential. Do we want to expose ourselves to the golden handshake for loss of earnings for seven years? Our pre-Wass collegial system of two years as Vice-Chancellor and Chairman of Council meant it did not matter much who got the job. This produced a series of outstanding Vice-Chancellors associated with volcanic changes in post-war education and Cambridge's as best university in UK. So better to appoint for a short period subject to renewal. After all successful appointments are less predictable than the accident of events. Some are accredited with attracting funds when individuals and institutions are flush and anxious to divest - unlikely in the coming decade when a major problem will be to retain best staff on derisory salaries in the face of unmanageable debt. This is more likely to be achieved in a collegial rather than managerial environment.
Most vital is the need to maintain or increase the elected component of the Council and not reduce it to 26, or is it 35, percent as the Report seems to require. If we need more outside expertise to leaven the dough of academe we could provide two places for alumni to be elected by Regent House. Nominated outside appointments will be cronies of those with power to appoint and unlikely to contribute to checks and balance.
It used to be understood that members of Council were elected to consider the best interests of the University. They are not to be mandated like trade union delegates to advance special pleading. They may be restricted to a special group to ensure that experience is represented in Council reflections, but not to protect vested interest of that group, although some malingering in that direction is inevitable. College positions need not be restricted to Heads and should be elected transparently as are Professors and Readers. It is up to the Colleges to decide whether they are best represented by a Senior Tutor or Bursar or Head and vote accordingly. Given this we should consider increasing College places not reducing them. The seminal contribution from Colleges to evidence in the Report contrasts with the parochial special pleading of some other institutions. The gerrymandering enfranchising alternatives for Council representation are myriad and merit careful consideration as part of any review of governance.
The Report was produced very rapidly so it is not surprising the research methods do little credit to the University. It is more a political document based on arbitrary prejudice supported by assertion. The short time allowed for consideration constrains any response to counter assertion, as College response illustrates.
The theory of corporate governance is so divorced from practice, as illustrated by daily company revelations, as to be useless. Comments in the Report that support was found for their conclusions in unspecified academic institutions smack of fait accompli based on gossip: 'They note also the testimony of colleagues who have worked in such institutions that an independent Chairman can be highly effective in giving the Vice-Chancellor appropriate support'. That would be enough to refer a seriously examined Ph.D. dissertation.
The Report ignores overwhelming College objection to most of its recommendations presumably because of a Freudian slip revealing a perception that Colleges are an embarrassing side-show separable from improving University management and governance.
No alternative structures are considered. There is no assessment of apparently successful structural reform, introduced gradually over a decade, in our most similar institution, the Other Place.
If our current structure is ponderous in relation to a quick decision environment, we need to consider contemporary alternative structures. The US system with devolution of power to Deans is one possibility. If we need a more commercial institution to absorb short-term research funds and do more commercial research, there are many examples like the Stanford Research Institute. This leaves the core of the University to pursue longer-term research and teaching with staff on different contracts on a less unstable financial base.
So back to the drawing board to consider alternatives in the context of our impending bankruptcy, financial relations with government and between Colleges and University. Are we to remain, for the foreseeable future, a nationalized industry dependent like Railtrack on Government subsidies for survival? These issues are more vital for our future than shuffling towards a discredited corporate governance structure.
Dr D. R. DE LACEY:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor:
Three things make earth unquiet, and four she cannot brook. The godly Agur counted them and put them in a book - Those Four Tremendous Curses with which mankind is cursed; but a Servant When He Reigneth Old Agur entered first.
My major concern with this Report is not that the task is unnecessary but that it focuses attention in entirely the wrong place. Agur may be right about the dangers of civil service power, but we are misled into thinking we can solve our problems by addressing the question, 'Who should Rule?' The major focus of the original consultation, and consequently the essence of these proposals, concern restructuring of Council and Regent House and empowering our executive. As an aside the statutory rulers of this University are to be sidelined and disempowered.
Perhaps this is the inevitable result of naming the committee 'the Governance Committee'. But it would be tragedy if an accident of nomenclature were to destroy the chance of restoring sanity to our organization. For few would deny that we need it. And for all its hoary ancestry, the question 'Who should Rule?' is simply the wrong question, as Karl Popper showed in the abstract and as Dr Thompson (pp. 1053-56) shows in detail. It is the wrong question, and we are offered the wrong answer.
Wrong because there is an implicit assumption of a number of rival interests in the University each of which must be 'represented'; so that we need to open up new categories of Council membership. But if a member of Council who is not a Computer Officer, or a theologian, is altruistic enough to represent me, I do not see why the same person could not represent unestablished staff, or outside interests as already experienced by many Heads of Houses.
Wrong next because these proposals fly in the face of the serious argument of Parkinson's Law. Just how many extra staff are necessary to support all the staff necessary to support the Vice-Chancellor (Sections 7-10)? As well as the Secretary General and Treasurer, on top of shiny new Directors of This That and The Other, Academic and Administrative Secretaries, we are told that as many as five new assistants are needed, in the person of Pro-Vice-Chancellors; all of these with all the paraphernalia of their own individual secretariats. And just how much are these new amateur administrators going to benefit the University, in what little time they have to spare from the prime activity of propping each other up?
Wrong third because there is no way of assessing the validity of this brave new world before we are asked to nod it through. Where is the case argued for the specific numbers, time-scales, qualifications proposed? Where is the justification for requiring the same number of signatories for Requests for Discussions as for Calls for Ballots and Amendments to Graces? And why no concrete discussion of whether electronic signatures (as for instance e-mails generated from within the dot cam domain) would be acceptable if the number were to be increased? Most seriously, how can we hope to assess the specific statutory proposals in this Report, when almost everything depends on as-yet-unwritten Ordinances?
It is a great pity that no reference was made in the Report to the newsgroup set up by a member of Council and a member of the Board of Scrutiny. Reading news may of course be a minority sport; but so possibly is reading Web pages or the Reporter, and so certainly is attending Discussions. Dr Leedham-Green (p. 1035) highlights the problems of informed discussion among Regents (I am not sure that her 'apathy' is the right term); a newsgroup is the ideal medium for such discussions (in a way that a website simply cannot be) and I hope more members of Council and the Governance Committee will join in the discussions there before the next Discussion on October 8. When I examine Tripos scripts, I assume that an answer which does not address the question on the paper can gain at best a third-class mark, and for that it must be a very good answer to some valid question. I fear by this criterion Council would not even merit an Ordinary Allowance. Please would they try again before October?
Mr W. P. KIRKMAN (read by Mrs S. BOWRING):
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I have set out some personal views in a written submission on these proposals, and do not at this stage wish to elaborate on them.
My comments today are made in my capacity as Secretary of the Cambridge Society.
As people will have seen, several Branches, and individual members, of the Society have made submissions. The Executive Committee of the Society, which is responsible for the management of its affairs, has also submitted a proposal which was inadvertently omitted from the published responses.
I am assured that it will appear in a supplementary set of responses, but as it concerns the important issue of external membership of the University Council I think it appropriate to draw attention to it now.
The Cambridge Society has suggested that it should provide one of the three proposed external members. This would be consistent with the view expressed by several respondents that non-resident members of the University - 'its alumni' - should play an active part in ensuring its continued success.
It is clearly important that anyone chosen as an external member should have appropriate skills and experience, should be genuinely independent, and should be able and willing to give the necessary time to the task. There is obviously a risk, in the words of the submission from Emmanuel College, that the University would wish 'that external members of the Council should be drawn from a distinguished group of people who had risen to the top of their respective careers. The danger is that for such people, membership of the Council might form just a single string in the bow formed by a large portfolio of responsibilities'.
The Cambridge Society's submission makes it clear that the Society would wish to seek people with appropriate skills and experience (which does not of course necessarily mean people who have risen to the top of their respective careers), and people who would be willing to do the job conscientiously. We have stated that if we could not find such people, we would not suggest inappropriate candidates.
Professor R. NEEDHAM (read by Mrs S. BOWRING):
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I have two comments and a suggestion.
One concerns the appropriateness of having an outside Chairman of the Council. I am a member of the Council of two other universities. I have been most impressed by the outside Chairmen who have evidently gone to great efforts to grasp their subject matter, and who know when not to intervene if the business is too academically technical. I can see no reason why Cambridge should be any different. Simply to assume that what works elsewhere will for esoteric reasons not work here is comfortable but not valid.
Secondly, some sceptics say that Cambridge does not need reform to its governance because it works by itself. Most of the time it does, and it should. The times when it does not are when better governance is needed. We have experienced recently the escalation of an IT problem to a major hiccup partly as a result of indecisive behaviour and unclarity of authority. Other issues have related to buildings. I shall never forget how I, having been banished to the corridor as an interested party, heard the rest of the University Grants Committee burst into loud laughter when given a dead-pan account of Cambridge's attempts to handle problems with the History Faculty building. It is when things do not go well that good governance matters.
Finally, is there a case for slightly changing the title of the Vice-Chancellor to emphasize the importance of the office? To call him or her 'Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive Officer' is perhaps redolent of a rather different type of institution, but 'Vice-Chancellor and Principal' is eminently respectable.
Professor M. SCHOFIELD:
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, like Professor Hepple I have not prepared a screed, although I fear I shall be less fluent than he was.
We've heard a lot about the Principle of Unripe Time this afternoon, and of course all of us subscribe to it and act on it when it suits us. For my part I think that it is not appropriately applied with respect to the proposals of this Report. We are looking for a new Vice-Chancellor, as various speakers have commented. The analysis that underlies the proposals of the Report is that the office of Vice-Chancellor as presently constituted is overburdened, and I have not really heard any arguments this afternoon which suggest that that analysis is mistaken - unless, that is, one is to accept the argument of those who suggested that what we want is many more people involved in governance, directly elected to committees which (the suggestion seems to be) will work without much overlapping membership but will somehow pull together: that's quite hard to believe.
If the analysis is correct that the office of Vice-Chancellor is overburdened, then I for one cannot see how we are to attract a person to the office of the right sort of quality if we turn around and say: 'That is our view, but we are going to do absolutely nothing to support the office of Vice-Chancellor by the creation of, for example, Pro-Vice-Chancellorships' (which is the general solution in all other major universities with whom we may compare ourselves); or: 'We are going to do absolutely nothing about it until you've had a year or two in post coping with the horrendous problems that we've got to face. You'll just have to grin and bear it - and then, after a long period of debate (which you can be assured, Mr Vice-Chancellor, will be acrimonious and back-biting), only then can we do anything about it.' I think that's an unacceptable scenario.
One or two speakers have held up to us the example of the University of Oxford, which has been praised for taking a very long time in thinking about its new governance arrangements. Well, they did take a long time. I have found myself having conversations with two members of their newly constituted Council in the last week, and both of them put it to me that their governance reform was not a total success. In particular, it was suggested to me that the relationship with Colleges is not really appropriately dealt with by those proposals, and that it was a great mistake to abolish the General Board and have Heads of Division on the Council (which is what they now have in Oxford). Why? Because Heads of Division dominate the discussion and the other - duly elected - members do not get much of a shout. And so I think it is actually quite a good idea for us to keep the General Board and not a bad idea to spare the Chairs of the Councils of the Schools from membership of the Council. One thing Oxford are considering is increasing the number of external members, since they have found the contributions of the two external members they have very valuable and want to enhance that. I personally think that is the direction we should be looking in.
Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, since I had a hand in composing some of the prose in this Report, turgid though it may be in places, I feel I should point out a factual error. In paragraph 25 it says the need for the Vice-Chancellor to remain a member of the Council has not been questioned. That statement is false, as you will find if you refer to p. 1060: apologies to Ms Katy Whitaker, who did indeed propose that the Vice-Chancellor should not be a Council member. Otherwise, Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I would like to stress that in approving this formal Report (which may indeed be the precursor of future Reports: it is only 'final' in the sense that it is the completion of the first round; the end of the beginning, if you like), in addressing its responsibilities in putting together this Report, the Council tried very hard to listen to the various points of view expressed in the consultation process. And I think that a fair-minded reader of the Report will see that we have done that. We have been responsive to the concern about the reduction of the Heads of Houses category that was in the original proposals. We have been responsive to the view widely expressed that it would not be a good idea to have Chairs of Councils of Schools on the Council. And we have responded to the concern that if we do have lay members or external members on the Council, then there should be a rigorous and open selection mechanism. If you can bear to re-read the thing again you will find that there are other instances where we have tried to adjust to the views that have been expressed. I personally think that the governance consultation has been a very healthy thing for the University. It is probably the first time that the Council has proceeded in this way; and we really do get a sense of what people think, so that we can take stock of it in further deliberations on these matters.
I will bring these unscripted remarks to an end, if I may.
|
Previous page
|
Table of Contents
|
Next page
|
Cambridge University Reporter, 17 July 2002
Copyright © 2002 The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars
of the University of Cambridge.