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Report of Discussion

Tuesday, 18 January 2000. A Discussion was held in the Senate-House of the following Reports:

The Report of the Council, dated 13 December 1999, on the Composition of the Council (p. 237).

Mr T. N. MILNER:

Registrary, I wish to commend the proposals in this Report, especially those relating to short-contract, unestablished academic staff and assistant staff. Both make a vital contribution to the work of the University and it is right that they should enjoy representation at Council level.

I should like to support in principle the proposal for 'external membership' of the Council. Representation of this kind is normal in many universities in the United Kingdom; for example the University of Wales, of which the speaker is also a member, has on its Council persons appointed by the Assembly of Welsh Counties and the Lord President of the Privy Council. There are also members co-opted for their recognized experience in the fields of industry and commerce. They are additional to the 'internal membership'; namely certain University officers ex officio and the representatives of the Constituent Institutions, the Court, the Academic Board, the Guild of Graduates, the non-teaching staff, and the Organization of Students.

While recognizing that the proposed 'external membership' will bring advantage to the Council in terms of new expertise and differing perspectives, I am concerned to see that the Report proposes that the new 'external members' shall be appointed by Grace on the recommendation of a committee. Excluding the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor who sit ex officio, this will introduce an unelected element to the Council for the first time.

If the Report were proposing that the Council should have the power to co-opt two members, specially selected for their particular skills or experience and serving on the Council in an essentially advisory capacity for a short term of one or two years, then the suggested method of appointment would seem quite satisfactory. That is not, however, what the Report proposes. The Report describes in detail how the 'external members' will be recruited by public advertisement and how they will be expected to play a full role on the Council, participating in all aspects of the Council's work and serving a four-year term. They will also, it is proposed, become members of the Regent House. I respectfully put it to the Council that in these circumstances it might be thought more appropriate for the 'external members' to be elected from amongst the applicants by the Regent House.

Candidates for election to the Council as members of the Regent House have to supply a curriculum vitae to the electors. Could not the same arrangement be applied to the proposed 'external members'? They are to serve the same term on the Council as the representatives of the Regent House and could therefore be elected at the same time, without even creating the need for an additional ballot.

I presume that by using the term 'external membership' the Report refers to persons previously unconnected with the University? I must, in that case, question what appears to be rather a worrying omission in this Report, namely its apparent failure to accept a need for the University's non-Regent graduates to be represented on the Council (unless, that is, they are to be 'external members'; an idea which I find difficult to understand constitutionally). I remain puzzled as to why Cambridge is not utilizing this large and potentially willing pool of talent? Graduates enjoy elected representation and the potential for active participation in almost all other United Kingdom universities of note, so why not here?

While the right of non-Regents to participate in Discussions is highly valued by those of us who read the Reporter and take an interest in specific issues within the University such as constitutional matters or academical dress, Senate House Discussions are clearly not intended for expressions of opinion of a more general nature. Currently, however, Discussions present the only forum in which alumni have an opportunity to express opinion formally and publicly to the University. If the University were to make some provision for the representation of alumni in the 'internal membership' of the Council, I believe that this would not only further the work of the Council, the intended aim of these proposals, but that it would benefit the University Development Campaign and alumni relations as a whole. It would also create a valuable opportunity for pro-active involvement by graduates, rather than the purely reactive and specialized forum provided by Discussions.

Dr J. C. HORTON (read by Mr T. N. MILNER):

Registrary, I welcome this Report on the current composition of the Council and particularly the proposal that the Council include a member of the short-term contract staff. All universities in this country rely heavily on 'post-docs' (to use the vernacular) - very few, however, acknowledge their existence outside laboratory or library.

There is one aspect of this Report, however, which does trouble me and this comes from its use of the word 'external'. Nowhere is it explicitly defined, but its first usage is in 'Council…members external to the University'. This implies to me that an 'external Council member' is to be one who, up to the moment of appointment, is not a member of the University. If so, this has the rather bizarre result that members of the University not included in the categories listed in the Report's third paragraph will not be eligible to sit on the Council whilst non-members will be.

I am also a graduate of the University of Manchester. As a member of the Convocation - essentially equivalent to the Senate here - I receive voting papers every year to elect ten members of the Convocation to the Court, each serving for three years. Between two and five of these thirty are then elected to the Council. I am currently an employee of the University of Nottingham. From a recent Calendar, I see that Nottingham's Convocation elects two of its members directly to that University's Council. I understand that something similar applies at most of the pre-1992 universities. Cambridge is thus something of an exception. Given the quality of our graduates - and, indeed, eminence (see CAM and Cambridge, passim) - this is surely a waste. I should therefore like to see a fourth new class of Council membership, that of graduate members who are not eligible for election in any other class.

Given also the success of the Development Office in furthering contact with alumni, there can be no reason why Cambridge cannot maintain a voting list of interested graduates similar to that kept by Manchester or Nottingham or other universities. Over the last few years, the University has encouraged all of its members to take an interest in the University's affairs and long-term future. Here, surely, is a golden opportunity for it to show that it is serious in this wish, and views its graduates as a source of expertise and judgement and more than simply one of finance.

Dr C. T. MORLEY:

Registrary, I greatly welcome paragraph 10 of this Report, proposing representation on the Council of the assistant staff and short-term research workers, both groups valuable members of the University community.

I think that I can see what might be the Council's motives for introducing external members to the Council, and thereby putting an end to the University's status as a self-governing community of scholars. In the past, 'external perspective and external expertise' were contributed by some of the scholars themselves as a result of their previous careers, and by certain Heads of House among others. This is presumably not now thought to be enough.

However, I do wonder about the proposal in paragraph 9 to abolish the Consultative Committee, which has previously been a source of external input with comparatively wide membership. In the absence of that Committee, will those who desire special representation of the external world in the University's affairs feel that only two members of Council, how-ever carefully chosen, will be adequate to give full recognition to that external world in all its aspects?

Mr A. P. CONNELL:

Registrary, I believe that there is much in this Report - including the principle of external membership of the Council - which is entirely welcome. However, I qualify my welcome because I believe that the Report is deficient in two important respects.

First, I share the concern that Mr Milner has expressed about the means by which it is proposed that external members should be appointed. I say no more on this point than that I entirely support Mr Milner's position and that it should be remembered that independence, like justice, must be visible as well as real if it is to be respected.

My second, and chief concern, is that this Report does not go so far as it might to improve the composition of the Council because it does not propose the effective representation of the University's non-Regent graduates. This I believe to be a serious omission. The desirability of bringing an external perspective and external expertise to University business is rightly identified in the Report; but it seems to me that in seeking these qualities the University need look no further than its own alumni. Between them, the University's graduates comprise an enormous pool of knowledge, experience, and ability - perhaps indeed greater than that of any other university in the land. Yet, unlike almost every other university in the land, this University has no formal mechanism by which it can draw upon the abilities of its alumni. The inclusion in the Council - in addition to the purely external members proposed in the Report - of elected graduates would surely be of great practical benefit to the Council's work.

However, the benefit of such a measure would go further; it would help correct a misapprehension which is, I fear, held by many of my fellow alumni. Put crudely, this is that the University is only interested in our money; it seeks financial donations from us but excludes us from any role in the government of its affairs.

Now, I do not believe that that is how the University does see us; but that is how it looks. Let me contrast the position here with that at the University of London, of which I am also a member. Shortly after I received my London degree, a proforma letter arrived from the Chairman of Convocation, inviting me to join that body. Having done so, I am represented on the London Council by six members nominated by Convocation, and also by the elected Chairman of Convocation who sits on the Council ex officio. Thus, practical expression is given to the point, made in the letter to which I have alluded, that 'membership of the University … is both a life-long opportunity and a life-long responsibility'. The apparent message of the contrast between the two universities is clear: London values her graduates and invites them to take their part in the governance of the University; Cambridge, it seems to many, merely asks for their cash.

As I said earlier, I do not believe that that is an accurate representation of this University's view of its alumni; but I must say that were you to ask me for evidence to support my position, I would - at present - be hard pushed to provide any. The addition of elected representatives of the wider University to the Council would provide just that evidence; and it would enable this University, at last, to draw more fully on the abilities and experience of those whom it has nurtured.

Miss C. L. F. HAGGETT:

Registrary, having read this Report, I am left unsure as to whom precisely the term 'external members' refers. Is it to those people who have never had anything to do with the University, or does it include that wider section already affiliated to the University in the form of its own graduates, a group currently unrepresented on the Council?

When I recently graduated at the University of Aberdeen after a one-year Master's course, I was impressed to find that Aberdeen goes out of its way to encourage its graduates not only to use many of its facilities, including the Senior Common Room, but also to participate actively in its policy making and government. As a graduate, I am automatically a member of the General Council of the University, which meets twice a year under the chairmanship of the Chancellor to discuss University affairs. In addition, twenty-one members are elected to form a standing Business Committee of the General Council which acts on behalf of all graduates. Most importantly with respect to this Report, however, the General Council elects four Assessors to the University Court. At Aberdeen, the Court is both the ultimate governing authority and the executive body - in Cambridge terms a combination of the Council and the Regent House. Since the size of the Court at Aberdeen is comparable to that of the Council in Cambridge, my representation at Aberdeen is evidently significant.

I would like to think that as a loyal graduate of Cambridge University (an only slightly older institution) I might have similar opportunities for participation here. It occurs to me that I am one of an increasing number of Cambridge graduates who are also graduates of other universities. This will inevitably involve divided loyalties and consequently apportioned donations!

Professor M. SCHOFIELD (read by Dr N. J. B. A. BRANSON):

Registrary, I signed this Report because I agreed that it is appropriate to ask the Regent House what it thinks of the proposals put forward by the Council's Committee. That is all the Report is here to do. By its publication the Council are not endorsing the Committee's views, which I happen not to share.

What may strike other readers besides myself is not so much what the Committee say as what they do not say. To begin at the logical beginning, in paragraph 6 the Council state that 'in considering changes to the composition of the Council, the aim should be to improve its functioning and the contribution it makes to the good government of the University'. There is little evidence that the Committee have asked themselves any searching questions in this regard - not even the basic question: how well does the Council function at the moment? In this the era of self-assessment, the Regent House might have expected the Committee to have offered some reflections on that topic before formulating any proposals. I won't venture any comments about it of my own except to confess that, when a friend referred me to Noël Annan on Geoffrey Elton, I thought to myself how wrong Heraclitus was to suggest that all is in flux: the late Regius's 'patience was such that he even accepted membership of the Council of the Senate ...,'a body designed to teach men mortification of the spirit'' (The Dons, p. 93).

Another surprising and not perhaps wholly respectful omission is the absence of any discussion of the Consultative Committee, a body called into being - thanks to the Wass Syndicate - specifically with the object of obtaining the advice and assistance of distinguished people not in University life, although in practice mostly alumni. The Council's Committee want to abolish it. But not a word about why. Has the Consultative Committee worked well? How much benefit have we had from it? What are the pros and cons of replacing it with just two people - retired? not retired? - who will be expected unbelievably to commit 'substantial ... time and energy' not only to the work of the Council but to its committees where relevant (no hint of which these might be) and indeed to other bodies in the University (no hint of their identity either)? This sounds like nothing so much as pie in the sky, and pretty vague pie at that.

The Council's Committee also propose adding two further categories of membership: from the assistant staff and from employees of the University who are not members of the Regent House, e.g. researchers on short-term contracts. If you are keen on tokenism, it would be hard to find an example more unadorned and unabashed. The idea is to have just one member in each of the new classes, serving for just two years: meant - one supposes - to bat solo for a huge constituency, but never in long enough to get the speed of the pitch. Not cricket, I submit. When the ancient Romans worried about the problem of unrepresented constituencies, they didn't solve it by inventing a new category of 'Short-term Senator (Grade B)'. They did a bit of lateral thinking about their constitution, and created the brand new office of Tribune of the People, an officially-licensed whistle-blower who could exercise the right of veto on elections, acts by magistrates, and decisions of the Senate.

Registrary, I have argued that these proposals are flawed and perfunctory. Worse still, they communicate no sense of conviction. We should not proceed with them.

The Joint Report of the Council and the General Board, dated 13 December and 1 December 1999, on research services (p. 238).

Dr G. R. EVANS:

Registrary, this must be a good idea. We just have to make sure we twitch it into shape by doing the necessary hard work on the issues of practice and propriety which will become more urgent for us in the run-up to the Regent House's taking a decision whether to go ahead with the Cambridge-MIT Institute. Indeed this proposal is going to be central to the University's retaining control; see 'subject to the general academic policies of the University' (p. 239). I am sure that in the new spirit of openness and consultation which is beginning to be apparent in the Old Schools we shall be able to do that. There could, so easily, be an end to the battles of recent years.

The THES of 17 December carries a piece about an expensive dispute at the University of Nottingham. The High Court hearing is scheduled to begin this week. Biologist Simon Fishel earned a great deal of money as a consultant while in its employ and thus on its time, and the University wants it back.

He ran the Nurture fertility clinic at the University and worked with the IVF team which produced the first test-tube baby in the world. Definitely big leading player stuff. That generated a good deal of income for the University. But he also worked abroad as a consultant, where he had freedom to 'research new techniques that were forbidden in the UK by the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority'. He says this was public knowledge and that his Departmental head knew of it. The University says it was unauthorized and that in any case it owns the intellectual property rights in its employees' work.

Indeed it does, as Cambridge owns yours and mine. Such rights have normally not been enforced by universities in the past. But that is bound to change where serious money is involved. And that is where we need to be very clear what we are doing in the research services area.

Oxford has just published a set of useful guidelines on related matters, including requirements for declaration of interest, and if we can swallow our pride we might borrow from them. Oxford already has that in-house legal service which would enable us, too, to relieve our hard-working administrative officers of some of the drafting tasks which need that kind of input at an early stage.

The publication of the Oxford guidelines on conflict of interest almost simultaneously with the launching of the Cambridge-MIT venture makes a striking contrast of policy. Oxford is taking the road of caution, of pointing up the question what is the University and what is not, by requiring those with involvements beyond the duties of their posts to identify potential conflict of interest and to declare it. It intends actively to police the involvement of its employees in commercial activities. And before we all bristle at letting that happen here, consider whether it is in the interests of the University - especially the students - to pay full-time salaries to individuals who are giving a good deal of their time to something else.

Oxford will require its employees to get its express authority before they hold executive directorships and that authority will be given only exceptionally. 'Consent will be given only if the appointing authority is satisfied that the appointment will comply with the general conditions relating to the holding of other appointments'. 'For the purpose of this guidance, an executive directorship is one involving an active management role, whether or not including research, in the company concerned'. Administrative officers are to be restricted thus: 'Unless formally nominated by the University to do so, no administrative officer shall serve in a personal capacity as director or other officer of a company or commercial enterprise, the establishment of which arose out of or was connected with work done in the University, or any company or commercial enterprise in a contractual relationship with the University where the administrative officer was concerned or connected with the placing or negotiation of the contract in question'. Administrative officers 'shall decline to accept any director's fee' and 'shall be deemed to accept the nomination in the discharge of his or her duties as an employee of the University'. Administrative officers are not to hold shares in any company 'which arose out of or was connected with work done in the University' unless they buy them in the normal way after they have been listed on the stock exchange.

Oxford's guidelines identify areas of potential conflict of interest:1

2(a) 'The use of the University's research or administrative facilities to pursue personal business, commercial or consulting activities'.

2(b) 'any attempt to restrict rights governing the timing and content of publications, save in circumstances properly approved by the University to protect private, commercially sensitive proprietary information, and patentable inventions'.

2(c) 'involvement in externally funded activity which might infringe the right of a student engaged in the activity to complete the degree for which he or she is registered and/or to publish freely his or her findings (save in the circumstances referred to in (b) above)'.

2(d) 'a financial interest held by an individual (or by his or her immediate relative/s or household member/s) in an external enterprise engaged in activities closely related to that individual's line of research in the University: examples of such interests are paid consultancies, paid service on a board of directors or advisory board, equity holdings in or royalty income from the enterprise'.

2(e) 'a personal involvement in any company or commercial enterprise which is in a contractual relationship with the University or which is in the process of negotiating the terms and conditions of a contract with the placing or negotiation of the contract in question or with the research or other activity which the contract might cover'.

All these provisions are geared to clarifying where the University ends and the commercial enterprise begins. There is no notion here of the blurring of the very boundaries of the University, such as was glimpsed at the launch of the Cambridge-MIT project.

The new Director of Research Services must be given a proper University office, as must our Director of Personnel. He must have the standing of a member of the Regent House. He must be a fully-functioning member of the community, able to speak here to challenge me if I talk nonsense. Otherwise he will not be able to do his job. These new posts are of immense importance to the success of the radical reorganization of our administration which is afoot, and we must get this constitutional detail right from the outset. For it is not really a detail.

I have a concern about the competence and diligence of this new Standing Committee. What I see on the few committees on which they allow me to serve does not reassure. It has to be admitted that watchdog skills on our committees are poorly-developed. The members of committees tend to be busy with other matters and surprisingly compliant with any suggestion put before them, for academics whose professional business it is to 'question and test received wisdom'.2 In practice appointments to such committees leave power in only a few hands. That de facto oligarchy can be potentially as dangerous to clarity, openness, accountability, and high standards of decision-making as the more monarchical structures in other universities. A very great deal is at stake, especially in the Cambridge-MIT arena.

I might have said 'area'. There are some concerns we should be watching in connection with the development of the West Cambridge Site, and I hope the new Director will take a fresh look at the issues. Do we want the journey into Cambridge from the M11 to resemble coming into Oxford through the Cowley car factories? I grew up in the overcast streets of the industrial Midlands, with uncles working on the production line; I know the 'feel'. Although we should not be creating a Black Country, we should be doing its silicon equivalent.

It was remarked in evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology only a year ago that: 'There are some massive problems, for example, in the case of Cambridge on planning permissions'.3 'Will they be going out to Cambridge and saying: you have got to sort out the local planning authority, or what?', it was asked. Mr Foster commented that, 'Ministerial clout can be pretty helpful if one is really going to address seriously issues like planning permission'.4 Sir Alec Broers added at another session, 'I have been acting in a private capacity in trying to see some of the negative planning decisions around Cambridge reconsidered ... We have been working with the Government and the one in Hinxton is being reconsidered'.5

So direct Government intervention is to be expected. I am sure the Vice-Chancellor will want to clarify the proprieties of his own role.

'Cambridge high tech companies...have university origins at some remove', stated the University's 'memorandum' to the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology for the hearing of 1 February 1999. 'The University participates in seed capital funds, including the Quantum Fund and Cambridge Research and Innovation Ltd'.6 Speaking in evidence to this memorandum (whose drafting and authority remain obscure), the Vice-Chancellor admitted to activities which invite closer scrutiny: 'The Cambridge Network started with a group of about four or five of us; it now has a board of about 20 or 30'. Us? As with the planning intervention, the Vice-Chancellor needs to be clear in his own mind whether his involvement with this Network is deemed to be official or personal.

In the light of the seriousness and profundity of the questions the new Cambridge-MIT enterprise raises it seems unwise to allow it to go forward in the absence of a regulatory framework designed to protect the integrity of the science, which in the long term must be more important than short-term commercial benefits.

Universities, including ours, need codes of good practice and instruction in the implications of those codes. 'Our group frequently raised regulatory concerns', commented the Treasury Report to the Paymaster General on the Financing of High Technology Businesses (p. 27). Even Monsanto pays lip-service to a recognition of 'the importance of well drawn up and administered regulation' and an insistence that where there is direct negotiation with ministers or civil servants 'all our meetings are a matter of public record', and 'there is nothing secret about them'.7

It may be essential to place some distancing mechanism between universities and their industrial spin-outs if they are not to compromise their charitable status. In Germany, the Fraunhofer Institutes provide 'an intermediate institution half-way between the academic world and the companies that are attracting work into them'. But evidence from the association of industrial liaison officers indicated a preference for a direct interface between academia and industry, and where that is the model no intermediary exists to act as a watchdog.8

Even where there are protective devices, it is not easy to ensure that they work. Watchdogs may snooze on the hearthrug. The will to keep them licking hands instead of using their teeth may be strong. Mrs Helen Millar spoke with feeling about her own appointment to a committee in her evidence to the Select Committee's inquiry into genetically modified foods:

'As I understand it, the committee decided they wanted a consumer representative ... they were asked to nominate people and that is how I got there. Not a very open process ... I would hope if the committee is restructured there would be more open advertising and a proper selection process. I have to say I just got a letter'.9

The identification of 'acceptable' names, even where there is in principle advertisement and an opportunity to apply for places on a committee, remains a complex mystery. (We might even try the latter here, instead of letting the Committee on Committees do it all behind closed doors.)

Oxford is to place trust in a Conflict of Interest Committee. It is too soon to say whether it will be possible to avoid these pitfalls there.

Dr Andrew Millar in the British Biotech inquiry and Dr Puztai in the inquiry over genetically-modified foods acted as whistleblowers. Protection for whistleblowing is a regulatory device in itself, but the need for whistleblowing is a sign of the failure of regulatory systems. The worst-case scenario is that our potentially world-leader Cambridge-MIT project will come down with a bump in an embarrassing tangle of broken promises, debt, accidental improprieties, and scientific discredit.

A permanent national committee on standards in the commercial exploitation of academic research might be of real value at this critical juncture in the development of mechanisms of technology transfer and spin-out application of science in industry. Let us be leaders here and get all this attended to under the new régime of the administration of our research services.

1 Oxford University Gazette, 9 December 1999.

2 Education Reform Act, 1988, s. 202.

3 House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology, Minutes of Evidence, 16 December 1998, HC 17-v, p. 176.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid, 1 February, 17-viii, p. 236.

6 Ibid, p. 223.

7 Scientific Advice to Government: Genetically Modified Food, HC 286-ii, 10 March 1999, pp. 79-80.

8 HC 17-vii, 27 January 1999, p. 210.

9 HC 286-i, 3 March 1999.

The Joint Report of the Council and the General Board, dated 13 December and 1 December 1999, on new arrangements for additional, discretionary pay awards to non-clinical academic and academic-related officers in non-professorial grades and to the holders of analogous unestablished posts (p. 240).

Professor M. SCHOFIELD (read by Dr N. J. B. A. BRANSON):

Registrary, academic staff of the University have clamoured long and loud for more promotions; and more there are, have been, and will be for them. Academic-related staff are a quieter body of people, and nothing much has been coming their way. The provisions recommended in the present Report will, it is hoped, do something to remedy that situation. (It covers also discretionary payments for academic staff other than Professors not at the top of whatever scale they may happen to be on, and also holders of analogous unestablished posts.) As a member of the Council and the General Board involved in the production of this Report, I should stress that those bodies are aware that it represents only a small first step in improving arrangements for recruitment, retention, and reward of academic-related staff. They recognize that there are a range of other important and closely-related issues which need addressing pretty urgently - as the Report I hope makes clear enough. Let me mention a couple of examples.

First, there is at present a good deal of mystery surrounding the grading structure of offices in the University's administrative service. Why are some people and some offices graded as Administrative Officer, but others as Assistant Registrary? Or some as Assistant Registrary and others as Senior Assistant Registrary? Perhaps somewhere answers are available to these questions. But one might be forgiven for entertaining the suspicion that criteria are not as robust or transparent as they could be. The central bodies have work in hand on a role-scoping analysis scheme which should assist in improving the situation. Development of the scheme needs now to be given high priority.

Second, in making proposals about discretionary payments the Council and General Board have felt obliged to make some working assumptions about the connected matter of the promotions system for academic-related staff, particularly regarding the question of whether promotion is or should be available to the holder of a particular office on the strength of outstanding performance alone, without any substantial increase in responsibility. It is unfortunate, for at least two reasons, that to the best of my knowledge, this Report is the first occasion when the central bodies have spelled out anything like a detailed rationale of how they view the ground rules in this area. (i) Though the topic of discretionary payments is an important one, promotion is a bigger subject and one more fundamental to the structure and indeed existence of the careers which colleagues holding academic-related offices might aspire to have. In a more ordered world the central bodies might therefore have tackled promotions procedures first, in their own right, before dealing with the secondary matter of discretionary payments. (ii) What is said about criteria for promotion in the Report has been said without much in the way of consultation.

The Council and General Board have therefore expressed the ground rules they are operating with in the matter of promotions simply as their own expectations, and have left a degree of vagueness ('in most cases', 'normally', etc.) in their formulations. As they acknowledge in paragraph 2, priority also needs to be given to producing a Report on promotions procedures for academic-related staff after an adequate consultation exercise, for the consideration of the Regent House.

The main reason for having undertaken only a rather swift and limited consultation on discretionary payments is implicit in what the Council and General Board say in the Report (paragraph 38). They think it right to try to get on as quickly as possible with doing something to improve the rewards available to academic-related staff, now that some of the major concerns academic staff have articulated about their own career prospects have been met. Of course, it is important that those affected should be content with what is proposed. Academic-related staff ordinarily regard it as inappropriate that they should speak in Discussions (or that is my impression), but I hope that if any have felt inhibited from doing so this afternoon they will convey their views to Heads of Departments or members of the central bodies by other means.

Dr C. R. CHIPPINDALE:

Registrary, I am one of the three Assistant Curators in the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and therefore one of those to which the new merit payments scheme will apply. It is offered to us as an improvement in opportunity for advancement parallel to that awarded UTOs by the creation of a Senior Lecturer grade. I see our roles in the Archaeology and Anthropology Faculty as closely analogous to those of Lecturers in its three teaching Departments, a point to which I will return.

Now both the new proposals are in place, we can see differences in treatment. A UTO in one of our teaching Departments on the standard career grade has the title of Lecturer, and is paid on scale steps going up to 22. A Curator in the Museum on the career grade has the title of Senior Assistant Curator, and is paid on scale steps going up to 18. The promotion opportunity now in place for a UTO is to receive the title of Senior Lecturer and move from step 22 up to between steps 25 and 27. The opportunity proposed for a Curator is to have no change in title and to move from step 18 up to step 19 or 20.

So the outcome is this. The difference between a UTO and an Archaeology and Anthropology Curator each at the top of the standard scale is 4 steps; the difference between a UTO and a Curator each at the bottom of the merit scale will be 6 steps; the difference between a UTO and a Curator each at the top of the merit scale will be 7 steps. But there is the proviso that a Curator will only reach that second extra step to 20 in 'very exceptional cases', so the difference will more often be 8 steps. Also, UTOs get the title of 'Senior Lecturer', which is a valuable recognition expressed other than in cash terms; and it is also expressed publicly while merit awards are confidential.

One way of summarizing the changes is that the new scheme enlarges the disparity in treatment between UTOs and Curators within our Faculty, further disadvantaging the latter.

Annex 3, setting out how the merit scheme will be conducted, says: 'The basis on which applications from the holders of academic-related and administrative offices should be considered will on the whole be more straightforward in that such offices involve a single field of activity, e.g. administration, librarianship, museum curatorship, technical, and computer support.' This follows the present procedure which makes the same statement and attempts to assess us in that same way. It is a sign that those who drew up both the old and new schemes are unaware of just what it is that we Archaeology and Anthropology Curators do. It is not true, Registrary, that our work involves a single field of activity, that of museum curatorship. We do curate; we also, I remind the University, research, and we also teach. In other contexts the University acknowledges those roles and indicates the level of skill and responsibility at which they are carried out.

As regards research, we are eligible to apply for personal Readerships and Professorships. I applied for a Readership last year for the first time; my application was unsuccessful, as many are; but the feedback I received from the Promotions Committee indicated that it was seen as an application with merit, and I was encouraged to reapply in the future. In the last RAE I was one of the research group of archaeologists in the University which was graded 5*. I have just reported my recent publications to the co-ordinator for the Archaeology submission to the next RAE; my list is stronger this time than it was last.

As regards teaching, I supervise Ph.D. students and the thesis work of M.Phil. students. If one were to look at the marks M.Phil. students working with me have achieved in their thesis work over the last couple of years, you will see records as good as any in the Department of Archaeology. For some years I was joint co-ordinator of one of the Department's M.Phil. courses, a role then taken by another of the Museum's Curators. So it is not the case that our teaching is at a lower level than that which Lecturers do. We do less teaching than Lecturers, because we have the central curatorial work as well, but not to a lower standard of responsibility or skill.

The merit scheme applies to some 89 identified groups of University staff in varied Departments. Most of those I know nothing about, which is why I have talked today only about that group in my own portion of the University whose circumstances I know, and why I have illustrated my remarks with only mention of my own individual position. But what is evident in the list is a clear division between sheep and goats. Some are on scales matching those of Lecturers; those consistently are to be eligible, just as Lecturers are, to move up by three to five steps from step 22 to steps 25 to 27. Others are on scales not comparable with Lecturers, often, as in our case, on lower scales; these are eligible for promotion by one step or two steps only, in our case with the proviso that the second step will rarely be awarded. Why is this division being made? By what criteria?

I have not been able to ascertain, either from the references in this Report, or from the account of the scheme given to potential applicants for merit payments, or by personal enquiry of the Old Schools, just what is the number of steps presently available to us through merit awards. There are indications it is three steps. If that is the case, then the proposal to reduce it to one step (and only very exceptionally two) defines us as a group of goats decidedly put at a new disadvantage in these revisions whilst sheep receive larger benefits. There are no grounds for that: we do much more in curating, in research, and in teaching that did the holders of these posts a decade ago when the old scheme was created.

In the Report, the Council and the Board emphasize that these arrangements have not been devised to provide a comprehensive solution to the problems of recruiting and retaining staff in areas where the University has to compete with the private sector. A different approach is required for that, and it will have high priority. My group of University staff are museum curators, University researchers, and University teachers in subjects outside the sciences: this is not an area where the University competes much with the private sector, so we can expect no benefit from that quarter. Having been sorted into the goats this time, we can anticipate being re-sorted as goats a second time in the future, when those whom the private sector more obviously competes for are in turn rewarded.

The problem the University hopes to address with its merit scheme is in retaining its skilled staff who are in mid-career and in the middle grades. That is particularly important for the University's several museums, where long-term continuity of staffing is a great asset in the Curators' knowledge of the collections, and a turnover of staff whom the University fails to retain is damaging.

We Curators have a salary shortfall in relation to UTOs at present standing at £4,644 annually. The merit awards as proposed provide a mechanism for that to increase to £7,192 annually. This is a difference in real money to be multiplied by the number of years one serves the University. Like many in the University who research in arts and in field-based studies, like Archaeology, outside the hard sciences, I find myself having to fund costs arising from my research work for the University from my earned income. I chance to be one of a certain number of archaeologists in the University who has received the honour of election as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, the most prestigious of our professional bodies, and a membership extended only by invitation. It was offered to me in light of what I have done whilst an archaeologist here at Cambridge, the only university where I have worked long-term. Today I am resigning my Fellowship of the Antiquaries, because I can no longer sustain paying its reasonable subscription in relation to my salary. Resigning it is professionally damaging to myself, and in a small way to the University - a small way only since the University has so many honours. And to do so hurts. There is already cause for our morale to be low, and there is cause in the proposals made in this Report for it to fall lower.

Mr A. J. RABAN:

Registrary, I speak as Director of the University Careers Service. There is a great deal to be welcomed in this Report, but there is one point on which I would like to ask for further consideration. It concerns the allocation to List A of Annex 1 to the Report of certain offices from which it may in practice be difficult for post-holders to be promoted. In certain Departments, like my own, some of the junior administrative grades which appear on this list are used for quite specialist roles which would not normally be found outside the Department. If, as is also the case in many small Departments, no similar jobs exist at a higher level (or, even if they exist, turnover is very limited), there is no way in which excellence of performance can be rewarded by promotion to an existing post or vacancy. The recourse is therefore to create an office at a higher grade, but this is a different - and more radical - step than justifying an extra increment on an existing scale. The financial implications for the University or Department are much greater - and the rewards for the individual commensurately much higher. There is at least a theoretical possibility that individuals may be disadvantaged if their Departments are unwilling to take this greater step.

I would agree with many of Professor Schofield's remarks on the issue of promotion versus discretionary awards, as a way of rewarding performance, but as an immediate remedy, I would hope that the Council and the General Board would consult Heads of Departments to determine whether some of these specialist offices should be transferred to the 'B list' before the two lists are finalized.

Dr G. R. EVANS:

Registrary, this Report is signed by a still more modest number of members of the Council than appears. Dr Thornton's name should not appear on the list; she was absent from the Council meeting. Perhaps that can be attended to, for the sake of the accuracy of the historical record.*

Once again there has been some unfortunate short-cutting. The Report came to the Council 'ready' for signature and after a few minutes' desultory discussion, at which a number of anxieties were expressed by several of us, it was rather uncertainly agreed to publish it. That is no basis on which to move towards a Grace and I trust no Graces will be put until this has gone back to the drawing board.

This is an example of the degree to which the General Board has previously sought to have its head and do things without reference to the Council, but it is particularly glaring when the Council are asked to co-sign such a fait accompli. I hope under the new régime of openness and co-operation we are now happily entering these tendencies to totalitarianism on the General Board will come naturally and unforced to an end.

For this document contains policy statements, which ought to have been properly discussed by the Council.

The whole direction of change towards differentiation is a recipe for the breakdown of the old relative contentment that even if we were not very well paid, we were all in the same boat. Many thought the discretionary payments scheme was to be abolished.

The present document confuses the genuinely urgent question of provision for assistant staff with the complex questions which now attend the remuneration of academic staff. So the first thing I would have said if the Council had had a proper chance to have any input into this Report was that we ought to attend, in the interim, to the needs of assistant staff and then undertake a proper overhaul of the overall picture.

'Without any change in duties or responsibilities'. The old rule was that as one became a Reader or Professor one was released from burdens, so as to dedicate oneself the better to the pursuit of knowledge. But now we live in the era of repeated assertions that we 'need' a new Chair to provide 'leadership' in a Department, so high office seems to carry additional responsibility in some cases and not in others.

From the - apparently - standard letter being sent to unsuccessful applicants for the professorial pay increments:

'In Cambridge, Professors are also expected to contribute fully and well to all the relevant aspects of the academic work of the University. Whilst the meeting of these standard expectations by its Professors is something the University does not take for granted … it, however, does not of itself justify the making of a supplementary award'.

If I were one of these Professors, I should be wondering how this bit squares with the assertion in the present Report that it is a matter of principle that no additional responsibilities need attach to being a Professor for the Professor to be a credit to Cambridge.

We must start to read our materials for consistency. And that means getting our policy clear so as to know what we are trying to say.

Again, a policy question: what are these 'problems of recruiting and retaining staff where the University has to compete with the private sector'? I do not think it has previously been stated quite so baldly that we were trying to out-pay the private sector. Market forces may be real, but we should not assume that it is right to deal with them by outbidding the market for some while proportionately still further undervaluing those of our staff who happen to work in other kinds of field. This again is the Council's business, not that of the General Board.

Again, there has been no policy decision to make the Senior Lectureship merely the next step on a ladder. It is meant to be a different kind of thing from these promotions to Readerships and Chairs. So it does not follow that all those stuck year after year at the top of the Lecturer scale ought to have to apply for a Senior Lectureship in order to improve their financial lot in life. Those who believe the old Lectureship retains some dignity and do not wish for a Senior Lectureship will, on this plan, be allowed no means of increasing their salaries.

There is no clear dividing line between these payments and promotion. Paragraph 13 says that an officer might either be given 'increments on a permanent basis' or 'be promoted to the next higher grade of office if there is no discretionary step or range of increments above the top of the scale'.

The relationship between the University Assistant Lectureship and the University Lectureship (paragraph 5) is - like the equivalent in other universities - technically quite different from that between the Lectureship and the 'senior' offices.

At paragraph 14 we read that although candidates are to apply, this would not preclude their new academic line-managers 'from encouraging individuals to apply'. And 'potential applicants' are 'advised to consult' their local baron (humanities) or big leading player (sciences) 'about the strength of their case'. So this is going to be a completely open and fair competition, then, with no system of handicapping?

There is going to be a financial constraint on the numbers of discretionary awards. Is that also to be the case for the special secret extra payments for the favoured Professors?

I move to the documents the candidate has to submit. What is this about 'the officer's contribution to the agreed objectives of the institution'? The feedback letter to Professors about supplementary payments speaks, in a similar vein, of 'recognition of evidence of an outstanding contribution to the work of the University and the furtherance of its aims'. That seems to require our academic staff to do what they are told in their research. They had certainly better not take to asking awkward questions in the Senate-House. We are going to be Discussing the aims of the University (I hope with a capital D) in connection with our new Mission Statement. I hope freedom to 'question and test received wisdom' without ruining one's prospects will be restored among us. I would be quite keen on that, personally.

Paragraph 22: The apologia for Appointments Committees needs scrutiny. There is talk of the 'central bodies' favouring these devices. The matter has not been discussed by the Council. I would like to know who decided on 'the increased role that has been assigned to [Appointments Committees] in matters concerned with performance, for example, reappointments, temporary upgradings, and promotion to University Senior Lectureships'. Still more power in the same few hands?

The Awarding Committees are to get written reasons (paragraph 25) but we are not going to give the applicant the dignity of seeing them. But we shall have to. The new Data Protection Act comes into force in March. Feedback (paragraph 25) 'should be presented orally' (no written text for the candidate to rely on then?) and 'with a view to helping the officer to form a view on those aspects of his or her performance and contribution which he or she needs to address if there is to be a reasonable prospect of obtaining an additional increment or increments in a subsequent exercise'. A recipe for reinforcing our present compliance culture? Our Professors themselves are left in the dark by their own standard feedback letter.

Confidentiality of awards (paragraph 26) raises again the problem of the situation we are getting into with our mix of secret payments to some and published salary-spines for others.

Why are applicants for discretionary pay to be allowed only three attempts before having to leave off for a year (paragraph 16)?

I hope the Regent House is beginning to see with horror the consequences of its letting the General Board get control of the further reform of the promotions procedures for Readerships and Chairs. It is planned (paragraph 34) to cease reporting to the Regent House on these matters too. This is the thin end of a constitutionally very important wedge, at the end of which the Regent House will lose its present power of veto and its right to be consulted before any major decision is taken in its name as the governing body. The tyranny of incompetence will grow .

To prove to you how disastrous it would be to let the General Board get away with any more cock-ups which you cannot control, let me draw your attention to items in the new Promotions Procedures, 2000 (the Green Book). For we are moving further and further away from the key principles the Regent House built into the system in the reforms of 1996. We were promised transparency (!).

One principle was that candidates should be given a fresh start, with files empty of the old piles of references. That was overridden in the second, Purple Book year, on the argument that referees, who are obliging the University for no fee, are irritated to be returned to year after year for comments on candidates whose promotion they have been urging for years. Without notice, it has now been decided that Faculty Committees may decide to reselect referees from a previous year (3.3 (iii)). So the referees will be irritated anyway and the candidates will continue to suffer from the continuance in their files of the references which did not get them promoted on previous occasions. Faculty Committees can reselect referees they know to have been critical in the first instance. The author of the PR4 or PP4 is no longer writing independently but in full knowledge of a Committee policy about the exploitation of the existing references.

The Chairman is required to 'ensure that all decisions taken by the Faculty Promotions Committee are in accordance with the principles of fairness and natural justice by adherence to sections 3, 4, and 5 of this booklet. But the nemo iudex principle has been dealt with in section 2.

The procedures do not meet the basic requirements of the audi alteram partem rule, which requires that there be an opportunity for the candidate to present his or her case fully. Candidates may not submit evidence (for example, in the form of reviews). Candidates may not require that decision-makers read or even know their work. Candidates may not know of criticisms made of their work so as to have an opportunity to answer them. Candidates are not allowed an interview. The appeal procedure is logical and legal chaos in audi alteram partem terms.

And there has been a change to the detriment of candidates at 7.10 in that the reasons the candidate gets for the outcome of an appeal is no longer the same document as the once which goes forward with any recommendation from the Appeals Committee.

10.4 contains a provision for the number of promotions to be subject to a limit of expenditure. That policy has now been changed and this paragraph should be amended accordingly.

In the standard letter, referees are still being given a notional proportion for Professorships in Cambridge, although that figure is no longer meaningful with the move from limitation by cost to the principle of promotion on merit in 1999.

Attendance by all members is not required at the Faculty stage, but it is required at the General Board stage (8.9). On the other hand, contrariwise, Faculty Committee members now have to create individual evaluations, but the General Board Committee members do not have to do so (9.4). So we are apparently now at last requiring each member of some Committees, but not others, to form his own evaluations and write down his own reasons (5.13). And this key change is not signalled in the incomplete 'summary' of changes on p. 5.

The candidate will have a right to 'have communicated to him in an intelligible form', under the new data protection legislation, (i) the data held, and, (ii) 'information as to the source of the data', and 'where the processing by automatic means of personal data of which that individual is the data subject for the purpose of evaluating ... for example, his perfomance at work ... has constituted or is likely to constitute the sole basis for any decision significantly affecting him', he has a right 'to be informed ... of the logic involved in that decision-taking'. So feedback is going to have to improve by leaps and bounds. (Data Protection Act, 1998, s. 7 (1)) 'Intelligible form' alone is going to give our Committees some headaches.

Even those references are not going to continue to be protected. They cannot continue to hold material from referees without seeking the authors' consent to show them to us and even if it is refused, 'communicating so much of the information sought ... as can be communicated without disclosing the identity of the other individual concerned'. So take the signature and letterhead away, and you should get the text. 'In the United States people are suing referees who have written rude things about them'. (Andrew Charlesworth, quoted in the THES, 14 January 2000).

Under Principle 4 of the new legislation, we shall be allowed to insist that inaccurate information is rectified, blocked, erased, or destroyed. And that includes 'expression of opinion which appears to the court to be based on the inaccurate data', whether or not the information has been received from a third party. So the pig's ear of the forming of those evaluations and comments about us on the Promotions Committees had better become a silk purse before 1 March.

Right, so what about the contents of my file, then? I give notice now (and I believe that printing this speech counts as acknowledging that I am giving notice under the new Act) that I want to see everything on the first day I am legally entitled to do so, please. A rethink on those Green Book rules about confidentiality? Or this year's procedures could break down under the load of requests under the new Act. This is yet another respect in which the General Board has proved not to be reliable in making its revisions out of sight of the Regent House.

We need to get all procedures overhauled and on to the same level of fairness and thoroughness and, please, out of the hands of an individual, even if he has an Advisory Committee. (Names for that published in advance, please, with the procedures.) And an end to amateurish and untrained decision-making must now be in sight.

The confusion and opacity of this present Report (like the mess in the Green Book) is caused in part by the lack of consultation, which is admitted at paragraph 38. The argument that because 'it is desirable to proceed with these proposals rapidly', there is no need to consult is an extremely dangerous one. I am sure there will be challenge if these Graces are put.

* Editorial Note: Dr Thornton signed the Report by circulation.

The Annual Report of the Council (Reporter, Special No. 8).

Dr G. R. EVANS:

Registrary, the Report refers to 'all the matters for which Council are responsible' (paragraph 3) It skims the surface of dark depths of which I have given the Regent House a number of glimpses during the year. I hope the Council will continue down the track of seeking to get a grip on the nature of their responsibilities (paragraph 8).

'Finance', for example, has only a small slot here (paragraph 6). I shall have something to say about that and 'Audit' on the Report on the Annual Abstract of Accounts. For now I just point to the words 'essential financial savings' (though we do seem to have unlimited money for certain purposes). And to 'positive restructuring' (or the creation of patchy gaps in our staffing with some carrying two jobs or more?) (paragraph 6). Why not take the risk of putting both sides of the picture in future Council Reports? We do not have to be bland. Is it not closer to the truth that there was some internally contradictory 'planning' and inadequate consultation and we did a bit of this and a bit of that, with rather puzzling results.

Paragraph 9: 'attention has been focused on the role of the Head of Institution and the assocated need for clarification of the University's internal line-management arrangement'. The Regent House needs to watch this one, on two counts. Line-management and collegiality are ultimately not compatible. 'Collegiality', I find, needs a gloss. It is not about having Colleges. It is the principle that the members of a body are all equal and have an equal say and an equal vote in their common affairs. I fully accept that effective running of things sometimes needs a speedy decision and I can see for myself that busy, but uninformed and constitutionally sometimes apathetic colleagues, can at times fail to 'be there' as decision-makers with a full grasp of the issues. When some of those same colleagues are given powers as line managers over others, the wires of accountability can become crossed to the point of tangle.

Paragraph 28: Staff development has got to begin to take in the need to train Heads of Departments and Chairmen of Faculty Boards: about the structures of the University's governance; the rationale of our constitution; their duties and responsibilities under current employment law towards those over whom they have powers; and those basic rules of fairness no one had taught Professor Peter Clarke about. (I am trying to discover whether this year's General Board members of the Faculty Promotions Committees with special responsibility for procedural matters have been taught anything either.) I could a tale unfold but since it concerns other people's problems with the baronial potentates and the 'big leading players', I will refrain.

Continuing Education (paragraph 13) gets left too much out of our affairs. It has been ahead of us in trying to deal with the needs for procedures for student complaints and appeals. The paragraph on student matters is much out of date now. We are at last making some progress, I hope, in these neglected areas. Perhaps in future years the students might come rather earlier in this Report, as though we put them first, as I believe most of us do.

The concluding sections (paragraphs 34-6) gloss over our most contentious present questions. Estates and buildings are attended to at paragraph 23. I am glad to see that the Regent House is to be consulted about the forward movement of the massive expansion of the University and city which is now projected. I hope we shall be let in on the parts of this scheme which will bring MIT, Microsoft, and all those industrial partners further and further into our space and inside our academic buildings and our academic lives and work. We need to think hard how far some form of merger of interests and activities between the two universities is desirable, even if it is practicable, or where we might be going with GlobalInternet U Inc. Microsoft, already in an advantageous position with its existing enterprise in Cambridge, coughs apologetically for attention. One of our physicists made the link between the two and with 'the potential to compromise the freedom of all the University's academics', in a letter to the Independent, published on 13 January.

A senior figure in the UK university world, quoted in the Independent on 6 January 1999, said, 'Gordon Brown was blackmailed. MIT is getting an enormous amount of money from this. They're being given the equivalent of one British university's annual turnover. They will try to generate business for themselves out of what they develop here. I'm sure they will make a killing'. The Independent on 6 January 1999 commented, 'Livesey confirmed that £45m - more than half the total - would be going to MIT. It is clear that was a ball-park figure demanded by MIT as part of the initial agreement. One business school expert described the £45m as a management fee. But Livesey denied that. 'It is a bonanza for MIT', said the business school expert. MIT's Chancellor, Lawrence Bacow, explained that the reason MIT was getting more money than Cambridge was because curriculum materials would have to be rewritten for the British market. That would take staff time. In addition, some teaching would be done simultaneously in the US and the UK, requiring the creation of distance learning materials'.

The word 'partnership' occurs in The Innovation-Exploitation barrier,1 but in the context of the fostering of partnerships between higher education and industry, not between higher education institutions. A question put on behalf of the Select Committee on Science and Technology in December 1998 pointed up the lack of detailed planning: 'To transfer words into action does need mechanisms of some sort...Have you given any clues as to the mechanisms that would be used?'.2

Let me end with another sentence from Dr Padman's letter to the Independent, because it is central to what I most want to say in this series of speeches on several of a set of nine Reports all set down for Discussion at a single session. (May I suggest that next time that happens we publish the intention to adjourn and continue if necessary, with dates, in advance, so that would-be speakers can get their diaries organized?) The letter says: 'What is, effectively, the 'demutualisation' of the University, with control passing from its academics to its officers, should concern all who believe in the academy as a home for scholarship and education rather than as yet another business opportunity'.

I have reason to hope that that 'demutualisation' can now be checked and that academics and officers can start to pool their resources. Why not list in the Reporter and on the University's web page topics of 'work in progress' with an invitation to members of the Regent House to ask by e-mail for copies of ongoing drafts of Notices and Reports, so as to make their contribution to the debate, and so that nothing comes before us for Discussion without warning. The students could enjoy that advantage too. Certainly we have to put an end at once to the further movement of decision-making entirely behind the scenes which is being attempted in the Discretionary Payments Report. So let us learn from this Annual Council Report and see strong, clear, purposeful, and speedy movement in the direction of co-operative endeavour.

1 Cm 3786 para. 7.

2 House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology, Minutes of Evidence, 16 December 1998, HC 17-v, p.171, Question 812.

Ms L. A. MARINACCIO:

Registrary, I am speaking today in an attempt to emphasize the vital importance of items 31-33 of the Annual Report of the Council which pertain to Student Matters.

Last October, I filed an appeal with both the Department of History and the Board of Graduate Studies. I have yet to be informed of either the results or where my case is in the process. As a self-funded, overseas student, I am anxious to resolve this matter as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the current procedures are not transparent. The current procedures outlined in the University Statutes and Ordinances are inadequate and fail to offer the student sufficient recourse in the event of a complaint or appeal.

I cannot make comparisons to procedures in other Universities in Britain. I can, however, make comparisons to the two Universities I attended in the United States: the University of Virginia where I received my B.A., and George Mason University where I received my M.A. Student complaints and appeals procedures in both institutions are well-documented and clearly detailed. These complaints and appeals are dealt with in an open, student-driven procedure. That is, student complaints and appeals are directed by, and run by students. A transparent process is required by law, by state law.

In fact, whenever describing my current experiences at the University of Cambridge to my former professors and collegues, they universally express patent disbelief. Let me be clear on this point - they do not believe my story because they cannot comprehend a situation in which a University of international calibre would fail to have clear and comprehensive student-driven complaints and appeals procedures.

It is vital that the University embrace a comprehensive procedure for student complaints and appeals which outlines clear steps the student and Faculty must follow once a student complaint or appeal has been filed. Otherwise, students will continue to waste valuable time, as I have, in seeking redress for their grievances.

I therefore urge the Committee to wholeheartedly support the development of a comprehensive and transparent student complaints and appeals procedure for both graduate and undergraduate students. I would also emphasize the vital importance of the development of a Student Charter.

Registrary, I thank you for your time.

The Annual Report of the General Board (Reporter, Special No. 8).

Professor P. LIPTON:

Registrary, in introducing the Annual Report of the General Board, I speak as a member of the Board and Chairman of the Work and Stipends Committee.

Members of the University will have seen that the Report comprises both a record of achievement of which the University can be proud, and a substantial agenda of work in progress for the Board and its Committees. The theme for much of this Report is quality across the board - in teaching, in research, in our staffing and pay policies, and in decision-taking and day to day management. In discharging its responsibilities, it is fitness of purpose, taking account of academic and educational values in the Cambridge context, which is at the forefront of the Board's thinking. I would like briefly to highlight some features of this Report.

In the area of teaching quality assurance, the Board continues to resist the growing burden of external scrutiny and to press for the 'lighter touch' to be applied, given our outstanding record of results. In order to enhance our quality assurance arrangements and our staff development provision, work is well underway, in consultation with Faculties and Departments, on the development of an in-house programme of preparation in academic practice that will equip staff for membership of the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education.

The Report summarizes the steps that have been taken in implementing the overhaul of the University's pay structures, with the aim of improving recruitment and retention, as well as rewarding commitment and achievement. The completion of this programme represents a major challenge for the new Personnel Committee, which will be charged with developing a coherent strategy of personnel policy and practice across all staff groups.

In research, the Board have put in place arrangements, building on past experience, to ensure that institutions are properly supported in readiness for the Research Assessment Exercise in 2001 and to ensure that units of assessment are appropriately strengthened.

The concluding paragraphs of the Report detail an impressive but not comprehensive record of the University's success in gaining additional funds competitively from the funding Councils, the Government, and external donors. These and other successful projects are recognition of the confidence of those bodies and individuals in the quality of the University's academic programme and in the ability of its staff to respond positively to the challenges facing the higher education sector.

Dr G. R. EVANS:

Registrary, the first paragraph of this Report is about the purposes of the University. They seem to have got tangled up in the drafter's mind with quality assurance speak. I think, roughly, the idea is that we are trying to foster education, learning, and research as the Statutes require. If there is a message here to the QAA watchdogs, I doubt if they will understand it because the way we have expressed ourselves lacks that clarity and power which is the mark of real intellectual quality. A paradox.

The Report contains another, at paragraph 4. 'As in other areas the Board is aware that high-quality governance and administration can only be achieved if there is a clarity about the purposes and role of both policy-making committees and their administrative support set in the contexts of the overall University's aims.' A General Board which can pass that heavy, ugly, and opaque sentence for publication cannot command our respect as leaders of our teaching and research enterprise. [There is a bit of confusion about our convention that the Board are plural, which is very catching.]

May we please have the full Report we were promised of the muddled supervision of our health and safety regulations which led us into criminal convictions this summer (paragraph 2)? The court did not accept the University's pleas of 'not guilty to the general management charges', as the Council's Report makes clear at paragraph 22. The 'not guilty' charges were left to lie on the file and will rise up again if we commit another offence. I am glad to learn that 'significant changes' are being made 'to the line management accountability for health and safety'. But what happens to Professor Blundell under the line management accountability arrangements we had in place at the time? I would like to bet that a more junior figure would not walk away while the University carried the legal costs and merely brushed up the broken fragments fussily behind him. I have no quarrel with Professor Blundell, whom I do not believe I have ever spoken to. I seek merely to make a point about taking accountability seriously. For if we give ever greater powers to our new 'line managers', we must also be prepared to take seriously calling them to account. I know from what our scientists tell me that we have a record of which we ought to be ashamed in taking care with dangerous substances. Our students may be at risk. I for one know too much to be reassured by paragraph 2.

Paragraph 3: The General Board seems to think it is a policy-making body. 'Meetings of the Board will set the broad framework of policy'. That is the Council's job, under the Statutes and Ordinances. They also seem to think they do not have duties to 'review the detailed discussions held by their committees'. I invite them to read Statute K, 9. But even without that requirement, it could not be safe to take policy decisions and then trust others to carry them out without review. Not in this University, on the showing of recent years .

Paragraph 7: Cambridge has hitherto relied upon the tradition of pastoral care provided by the Colleges to provide students with help when they have complaints. College Tutors do work of immense value here, but it is becoming increasingly unsatisfactory in the modern world where the student has clear and growing contractual rights for them to be expected to provide such a service without training and without clear procedures to follow. It is also impossible for them to deal effectively under our existing structural provisions with complaints involving the Faculty or Department and therefore the University. In the late 1990s the Nolan Committee, the Dearing Committee (Recommendation 60), and the Quality Assurance Agency pressed for the creation of complaints and appeals procedures for students. Cambridge finds itself one of the last universities to tackle this task as a whole and the need for us to do so is therefore urgent. I do hope we can make this a flagship project for the new style of co-operation and openness and let the students in on the task from the beginning, letting the complaints and appeal provisions take shape by consultative methods. I also hope there will be no defensive moves to protect 'territory' on the part of the Colleges or of the existing working parties thought to be working away behind the arras on assorted parts of the task. Let us muck in and do it together.

Paragraph 31: Has it struck anyone that the 'role analysis and job evaluation' method of deciding what to pay us runs clear counter to the 'personal achievement' route and that both pathways are muddied by the large footprints of the big leading players as these Abominable Snowmen obliterate others' footprints in the rush to special higher payments.

Paragraph 32 is another example of the steady movement to do things out of sight of the Regent House. I had a number of conversations with the former Secretary General in which I tried to make him understand that a 'University-wide consultation' means asking the Regent House and not just sending memos to Heads of Departments and Chairmen of Faculty Boards. I hope we shall get a chance to discuss this project; those of us who have had a teaching qualification for over thirty years might like some professional recognition for it here.

Paragraph 33: Staff development ought to extend to the top. Who is appraising the Vice-Chancellor is always a good question I find in my work for the Council for Academic Freedom and Academic Standards. Upward appraisal is overdue. Just let me loose on some of the leaders of our community with a clipboard, and with a tape-recorder to catch their answers.

Paragraph 35 and following paragraphs: These promises to short-term contract staff are going to continue to ring hollow unless we overhaul our whole pattern of career expectation for scientists here. What would be the actual cost of paying statutory redundancy payments rather than continuing shamefully with waiver clauses? This will all become more urgent with the advent of the Cambridge-MIT institute.

Paragraph 39: 'The BBSRC have recently started to seek assurance in connection with any relatively long-serving contract research staff for whom funding is sought in grant applications'. The BBSRC now want, it seems, to see open-ended contracts become a reasonable expectation for relatively senior members of our short-term contract staff. (The name of our leading research scientist, the unfortunate Dr William Griffin, wafts interrogatively on the air. I believe the reference number is BBSRC E05971.)

Paragraph 40: The equal distribution of loads is all very well. But what of those persistently excluded by their Faculties and then punished for failing to make an equal contribution? Importantly, for the fulfilling of the purposes of the University, there is the question of the contractual volte-face. Under the old tenured contracts, which many of us who remain unpromoted still enjoy, the presumption - and it is still there in the Statutes and Ordinances - was that a University Teaching Office expressly protects one from overload so that one may foster education, learning, and research. The new presumption is that one must be doing a minimum not a maximum. That is an extremely important silent change. (Another policy decision by the General Board? Has any one but me noticed what has happened here?)

Paragraph 42: Equal Opportunities. May I seize the moment to offer, not for the first time, to contribute to the 'Springboard' courses which are supposed to be designed to encourage women to play a full part in the life of the University. They do not appear to see me as a suitable role model. And that interdisciplinary centre for Gender Studies (paragraph 43) seems a bit ahead of itself when other interdisciplinary work is still not being allowed to find its place in the University's structure. Who thought that would be a good idea? Who called for it? Why is it getting preferential treatment over the much bigger general crisis over interdisciplinary work in our Faculty-strapped structure?

Pargraph 45 reminds me to ask again when we are going to be allowed under the new enlarged Data Protection Act to see the contents of the paper as well as electronic files they are keeping on us. Why not begin to ask and see what they will show you? From March you will be able to get all sorts of things, if they have not acted on that internal memo suggesting it might be prudent for Departments and Faculties to search through the files and shred documents. Not illegal, but shame! They have, I believe, a duty to make these papers, which may have been unfairly damaging us for years, known to us before they destroy them. For they do not destroy with them the consequences to individuals of their having previously been in existence.

Paragraph 50: Again we have the assertion that the expenditure of well over a million pounds on those proleptic appointments for the RAE was cost-effective last time. Again we have no evidence to support this and the repeat extravagance of doing it again this time. Our Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the RAE finds himself unable to continue. We wish him well for a full restoration of his health.

Why is this Report not the same text as we passed for publication on the Council on 13 December? On whose authority was it changed? I have asked before what rules govern the alteration of texts passed for publication after they have been signed.

The Abstract of Accounts for the year ended 31 July 1999 (Reporter, Special No. 9).

Dr G. R. EVANS:

Registrary, the paragraph on Audit (paragraph 20) in the Council Report speaks of the 'entrenched weaknesses in management information systems', and uses the expression, 'on the basis of the information available to it'. It is worrying that the fact that the Annual Report of the Council is always so far in arrears means that we have had another bite at the Annual Accounts since the period to which this paragraph refers, and we still do not seem to be very much further forward on dealing with the problem that the Treasurer is not given information which would make a complete audit trail possible. Those two new members of the Council on the Audit Committee do not of course include me. (My name might as well not be on the Council list when the Committee on Committees does its oligarchic business of selecting who are to sit around the tables.)

Our lack of a joined-up audit trail puts us in danger of losing our charitable status and of sanctions from HEFCE for not spending public money responsibly. It should be emphasized that this is not the Treasurer's fault, but the fault of the system, in that it does not automatically give her the information, does not provide her with lists of our spin-out companies, or lists of our commercial enterprises. Nor does she have a full list of embedded commercial ventures in University premises - which is going to grow increasingly important with the MIT project.

'We are still trying to pioneer this embedded laboratory',1 said Cambridge's Vice-Chancellor to the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology in February 1999. I expect he was referring to the then Microsoft plan to take space in our new computer laboratory. That has now fallen through, I understand, because Microsoft needs more space. But the idea has certainly not gone away.

Another witness was a step ahead of the Vice-Chancellor in his description to the Select Committee of the evolution of a structure. He set out a series of graded options or stages. The first is the science park. The second is an 'incubator unit on campus'. 'We now want incubation in amongst the University laboratories as the first step', he suggested.2

That means a 'use of shared facilities',3 with all the attendant problems of determining a university's liability under health and safety legislation, of the risk of loss of charitable status again, of conflict of interest, of unclarity about ownership of intellectual property. Sir Alec Broers wrote in the University's alumni magazine, Cam, in the autumn of 1999 of the West Cambridge site of so much planning dispute: 'Its innovative mix of university departments and charitable and commercial research centres could easily materialise even faster than we now imagine'. But unless time is taken to think through the implications, it can do so only at huge risk of future catastrophe to the integrity of the University and its capacity to fulfil its statutory purpose.

I do not seem to be able to get the Council interested in any of this, even though our auditors are sending out warning signals about our continuing failure yet to meet even the minimum standards now required; and HEFCE would not be amused if they came among us for an inspection at the moment. I have seen that happen in other institutions and I have seen it lead to reports of the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee and a great deal of public shaming of the responsible individuals. That will include the members of the Council, so I hope they are listening.

The word 'cronyism' I was not allowed to use last term was used by the Independent on 6 January. The same newspaper on 13 January had a piece on the new Report of the Neill Committee. It 'said ministers should keep a record of contacts with lobbyists who seek to influence their decisions and should be more open about commercial sponsorship deals to allay fears that companies can 'buy influence''. Let us keep lists too. I believe it to be extremely important that the Vice-Chancellor, the Pro-Vice-Chancellors, senior officers, and indeed all of us should keep a record of all such dealings. I myself make a practice of informing the Registrary of all relevant 'contacts' in my work on behalf of the Council for Academic Freedom and Academic Standards. It is not burdensome (except perhaps to him), and at least it means that one need fear nothing coming to light which is not already known to the University.

On 19 November 1999, Sir John Boyd, speaking his mind about a National Audit Office Inquiry, is quoted in an NAO Press release as saying, 'Public bodies should not use taxpayers' money to avoid dealing with alleged poor performance'. Is that what we have been doing? We have been running up legal bills rather than address the need to run things properly and to call to account even quite senior persons when they fail to discharge the functions we have entrusted to them.

Our expenditure on legal fees and bank charges (should these not be disjoined in future accounts?) this year is £549,000. I understand the lion's share of this is the bank charges.* That is an awful lot of salary or student fee money. Before it is alleged to be all my fault, remember that I (trustingly) withdrew my victimization case in December 1998 on the Vice-Chancellor's as yet unfulfilled assurance, and saved what would have been another £50,000 to add to that. We all know what I cost the University this year because I won leave to appeal about that in the Court of Appeal in October when they tried to get every penny of it back. That (nearly) £10,000 is a tiny proportion of this giant bill. It says a good deal, I believe, that the Executive Committee, accepting that they would be wise to bow to the criticisms in the judgement of the Court of Appeal, appear not to have been interested in allowing me to have back the few hundred pounds it cost me in court fees and paying for transcripts to make the appeal. A trifle mean? A trifle petty? Hinting at the fury of an Executive Committee baulked of their prey? For had they not been so greedy to get their pound of flesh in the summer, I should not have needed to go to the courts again about it.

And are the students going to get the £3,200 I paid in August, and which I have said I will not take back, for a hardship fund? Or is the University going to hang on to it to defray that portion of the more than half a million pounds which goes to our lawyers. The words 'drop' and 'ocean' will be in your minds. But that sort of sum is not a drop in the ocean to an impecunious student - or indeed to a University Lecturer not fortunate enough to be in receipt of discretionary or supplementary payment.

We have had, since I and another, separately, invoked Statute K, 5 on the rules governing conduct of litigation on behalf of the University, a working rule that a figure of more than £15,000 for legal expenditure requires the ratification of the Council. They, under the Statutes and Ordinances, carry responsibility - and probably personal liability - for this vast sum. Not once has the Council been required to take such a decision. Yet we have got piecemeal to this giant figure. Something has to be done.

They will not let me serve on the Executive Committee, but if they did I should be pressing for the negotiation of fixed fees and the bringing in as a consultant of someone such as the leading costs draftsmen who got in touch with me in shock when they read the Court of Appeal judgement, and offered to assist the University in putting its legal fees house in order.

I hope - and understand - that my suggestion made on an earlier date in this place that we follow Oxford in constructing for ourselves an in-house legal service, will now be actively and purposefully taken up.

May we have an exact figure for the expense of the management bonding weekends in Derbyshire to which the Vice-Chancellor takes away the Pro-Vice-Chancellors, senior officers, and a few members of the Council - selected on no clear principles - such as Sir David Harrison, to discuss University policy outside Council meetings and with the full Council not present. (Unaccountably, no-one seems to want to bond with me.) I am sure they all enjoy the country walks in the good clear air instead of spending the weekend with their families. Such weekends sometimes include playing boy scouts in the woods; but not our grown up 'leaders' I am sure.

* Note: I am now told that it is preponderantly legal fees on one accounting basis, but not on another.

1 House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology, Sir Alec Broers, Evidence 1 February 1999, HC 17-viii, p. 236.

2 House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology, 27 January 1999, HC 17-vii, p. 210.

3 The Innovation-Exploitation Barrier, p. 4, para. 8.

No remarks were made on the following Reports:

The Report of the General Board, dated 1 December 1999, on the establishment of a Professorship of Nonlinear Mathematical Science (p. 257).

The Report of the Faculty Board of Biology, dated 15 November 1999, on the regulations for Part IA and Part IB of the Medical and Veterinary Sciences Tripos (p. 257).

The Report of the Faculty Board of Social and Political Sciences, dated 25 November 1999, on the regulations for Part II of the Social and Political Sciences Tripos (p. 282).


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Cambridge University Reporter, 26 January 2000
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