Report of Discussion: Tuesday, 26 June 2018

Tuesday, 26 June 2018

A Discussion was held in Room 7 of the Mill Lane Lecture Rooms. Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian White was presiding, with the Registrary’s deputy, the Deputy Senior Proctor, the Senior Pro‑Proctor, and two other persons present.

The following Reports were discussed:

Report of the General Board, dated 6 June 2018, on the establishment and re‑establishment of certain Professorships

(Reporter, 6510, 2017–18, p. 692).

No remarks were made on this Report.

Report of the General Board, dated 6 June 2018, on Senior Academic Promotions

(Reporter, 6510, 2017–18, p. 694).

Dr J. E. Morgan (Faculty of Law and Corpus Christi College):

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, first I must congratulate all those whose promotions were recommended in the Report (several from my Faculty and my College). I was not one of the disappointed applicants, although I will doubtless apply for promotion in future and duly declare my interest.

I wish to raise the question of budgetary restraint once again. The Report states (at para. 7) that the cost of the promotions announced will be c. £722,479 in the first year. This is a considerable item of additional expenditure. Am I right to suggest that a balancing consideration is the retirement of some existing holders of personal Chairs (and the other senior offices)? So while 37 new Professors have been created by this Report, some other Professors will surely have retired, meaning that the total number of Professors in the University has increased by a number smaller than 37. If I am right in this, there are off-setting cost reductions because when the holder of a personal Chair retires, their post will usually be filled at the University Lecturer level, at a correspondingly reduced salary (the underlying Lectureship reviving on the Professor’s retirement). In other words, it is too simple to say that total expenditure on academic salaries has necessarily increased by £722,479 as a result of the Report. Given what I say next, I think the net figure is important.

On the wider question of affordability, I wonder how many of the disappointed applicants (47 across the three senior offices) were turned down for promotion because of budgetary restraints, even though they had met the required academic standard? The Report does not say.

The Council of the University has implicitly accepted that financial rationing of promotions continues (as it has since 2006).1 Regarding the points forcefully made by Dr du Bois-Pedain in a recent Discussion criticizing this rationing,2 the Council has ‘noted’ her remarks (in its Notice of 20 June 2018).3 Such a bland response is insufficient. The University must renew the commitment that it made in 1999 to promote all deserving applicants ‘without budgetary restriction’.4

Does the Council accept that remuneration is increasingly falling behind the cost of living in Cambridge? Of course I accept that the University is not an entirely free agent when it comes to national pay negotiations. Yet it cannot entirely escape responsibility for many years of below-inflation pay increases (i.e., real-terms pay cuts – of 21% since 2010). Recent changes to USS pensions cannot be seen as anything other than an outright pay cut, and as we know there is worse to come. Again, Cambridge University cannot act unilaterally regarding USS. But one area in which the University has complete institutional autonomy is promotion of its academic staff. There is no external reason for it to deny promotion to any member of staff who meets the required standard. There are many obvious reasons to commend such an approach. Is it really unaffordable? Could we be told what would have been the additional cost to the University if it had promoted all who reached the required standard in 2018 (and in every year back to the (re-)announcement of rationing in 2006)? If rationing is to continue – and I hope not – could the University at least be told how much money is saved by the self-imposed limit on promotions?