Report of Discussion

Tuesday, 5 November 2013

A Discussion was held in the Senate-House. Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor John Rallison was presiding, with the Registrary’s deputy, the Senior Proctor, the Deputy Senior Proctor, and three other persons present.

The following Reports were discussed:

First-stage Report of the Council, dated 14 October 2013, on the restructuring of space and refurbishment of the basement, ground, and first floors of the Department of Genetics on the Downing site (Reporter, 6321, 2013–14, p. 35).

No remarks were made on this Report.

Report of the Council, dated 21 October 2013, on changes to Ordinances arising from the Technical Review of the Statutes (Reporter, 6322, 2013–14, p. 42).

Professor G. R. Evans (Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History), read by the Senior Proctor:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I have expressed concerns here before about the wisdom of introducing Special Ordinances, but that is now to happen if the Privy Council consents, so I will say no more about that, except to draw attention once more to the possible implications of moving the protections of Statute U down a legislative level. This has been done in other universities required to embed the Model Statute in their statutes under Education Reform Act 1988 s. 202. The consequence has been a gradual erosion of the protections intended by Parliament, making it much easier to dismiss academic staff. The Regent House would have to consent of course, but then it would have to be paying more attention to Reports to the University than the number of speeches made in this House recently would suggest, or it might not notice.

I hope others will have something to say about putting a ‘mission’ statement into the Statutes. Oxford has in its current Statute I, 3,

The principal objects of the University are the advancement of learning by teaching and research and its dissemination by every means.

I do not think this is at all exemplary but at least it is dignified and does not smack of the PR-speak of current fashion, which can be expected to date and make Cambridge look silly.

Mention of Oxford takes me to a hope that Cambridge will avoid two consequences of reworking its statutes which have become apparent in Oxford. This will be the second wholesale rearrangement of the Statutes in a generation. The Wass statutes took some getting used to. One had to learn afresh where provisions on particular points were to be found. This will now have to be done all over again.

A consequence of not readily being able to put one’s finger on the domestic law on a particular matter can be that rules made below the radar of Reports to the Regent House may accidentally create conflicts within the legislation, No-one had noticed one of these in Oxford since 2009, when a high-profile controversy brought it to light. In Oxford, as in Cambridge, the University’s legislative governing body has to approve allocation of substantial parts of its estates. When in 2012 it was decided to allocate the Old Indian Institute to the Martin School and move the History Faculty Library into the Radcliffe Camera, disrupting the existing collections, no Resolution about the allocation of space was put to Congregation, as would have been expected under Statute XVI, A, 4. Enquiries were made into the reason for this and it emerged that although the Statute sets a requirement for a Resolution based on a particular ‘overall floor area’ the measurement applied was one of ‘net usable area’, a phrase adopted as a Buildings and Estates Committee (BESC) ‘regulation’ in 2009. Naturally that device of measuring only some of the space could be used to ensure that Congregation was not asked about an allocation, as the Senior Proctor noted in a letter of September 2012 to a member of Congregation who asked about it. It has taken until last week to obtain a statement through the internal Appeal Court that this committee-derived form of words ‘never became part of the domestic legislation of the University’ but ‘nonetheless, the BESC definition has since 2009 been consistently applied by BESC and by PRAC in allocating property pursuant to Statute XVI’. It is to be hoped that a proposal to change the Statute will now be put to Congregation so that Congregation can decide whether it approves of this new wording and wants its statute to speak of ‘net usable area’, potentially denying it the chance to approve many allocations of portions of its estates.

This affair has also brought into prominence the danger that a reworking of the statutes can have unintended consequences. Chartered universities have recourse to their Visitors if their statutes need interpreting. Post-1992 universities are subject to the Interpretation Act 1978. Whereas in Cambridge since the 1850s, the law of the land has fixed the process for seeking interpretation of the statutes, which the University has now power to change (as in the current Statute K, 2), Oxford did not attend to this need until 1913. It retains the power to change the requirements for seeking interpretation of the statutes. It amended its provision in 1969 on the recommendation of the Franks Commission and again under the current ‘post-North’ statutes, now a dozen years old. All that time, general questions about interpretation of the statutes could be raised with the Vice-Chancellor by members of Congregation or since 1969 by any member of the University.

Although Congregation was told in 2001 that the Working Party which drafted the new statutes ‘wishes to emphasise that it has taken the constitutional laws of the University as it finds them, or as it believes them to be’ (Supplement to Gazette, 25 July, 2001), and made no substantive changes unless the law of the land required it, the Appeal Court has now found that the ‘general right to open up questions of interpretation’ has been taken away. Because of a quirk in the wording whose origins may be traced in the deliberations of the Working Party on a particular student disciplinary matter, only those with ‘a genuine right or interest that will be affected by the outcome’ may now seek interpretation of the statutes or regulations of the University. So Oxford apparently now stands alone as a university where no general question about interpretation of the statutes may be raised.

Congregation may be surprised to discover this and it may, one hopes, be minded to restore the old general rights by creating a Resolution. But the lesson is that reworking and rewording Statutes is a dangerous game if fundamental provisions can so easily be lost because no-one thought something through.

Dr S. J. Cowley (University Council and Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics), read by the Deputy Senior Proctor:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, before I address the two issues I wish to air, I would like to thank both the review group and its administrative support for the work that they have done on this Technical Review. In particular, I would like to congratulate them on keeping to the spirit of the original intention, i.e. that the review was primarily a tidying-up exercise, rather than revision of substance.

The first point I wish to make concerns the proposed inclusion in the preamble to the New Statutes of the Mission Statement, i.e.,

The mission of the University of Cambridge is to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

During the correspondence with the Privy Council Office it was agreed that this would be proposed to the University. It has now been so proposed. I hope that it will be rejected. There are apparently technical legal reasons for rejecting it; as a Mathematician I do not understand these, but I gather that the University is in some sense a person and by including this statement this useful standing might be jeopardized. However, to my mind the main reason for rejecting the inclusion is that it is unnecessary. According to Wikipedia, a ‘Mission Statement’ should guide the actions of the organization (but that should be done by the Council and the Regent House), spell out its overall goal (surely being a university is enough), and provide a path, and guide decision-making (so no independence of thought then). It is not needed, although if the Privy Council Office wants a snappy description of what the University is up to, I refer it to Statute D, II, 4 where it is stated that

It shall be the duty of all holders of University offices ... to devote themselves to the advancement of knowledge in their subject, to give instruction therein to students, to undertake from time to time ... examining of students .., and to promote the interests of the University as a place of education, religion, learning, and research.

My second point concerns the method of revising or repealing Ordinances, now that Special Ordinances exist. To revise or repeal a Special Ordinance there must be a Report. For an Ordinance this is not the case, although conventionally there have been Reports when certain Ordinances have been revised or repealed. It has been agreed at the Council that the introduction of Special Ordinances will not change this convention, and in the Report of the Council on the Technical Review of the Statutes (Reporter, 6272, 2011–12, p. 747) it is stated that

Changes to Ordinances might also require a Report, a Discussion, a Notice, a ballot if called, and a Grace depending upon their significance but, as presently, discretion could be exercised by the Council or the General Board, as appropriate, to promote minor changes by a Notice and a Grace.

However, in my nearly seven years on the Council I perceive that there may have been a drift in what is viewed as a ‘minor change’. It would be good if this drift ceased. If not, then I think that it might be important to move certain of the material that is currently in Ordinances (or which it is proposed be moved from Statutes to Ordinances) to Special Ordinances. In particular, I have concerns over the membership of certain bodies (e.g. the Regent House, the Audit Committee, Faculty Boards), appearing in Ordinances. For instance, sometime ago there was a thought that the membership of the Audit Committee might be changed by Notice rather than Report – a thought thankfully eliminated. Hence I hope that at some point the Council might ask the current working group, or another, to review the distribution of material between Ordinances and Special Ordinances.

Second-stage Report of the Council, dated 21 October 2013, on the project to fit out additional laboratory space at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute building (Reporter, 6322, 2013–14, p. 49).

No remarks were made on this Report.