Reports

Report of the Council on the period of appointment for the next external member of Council

The Council begs leave to report to the University as follows:

1. There is a vacancy for an external member of the Council from 1 January 2020 (see p. 5). This Report proposes an amendment to the period of appointment of the person to be appointed by Grace to fill that vacancy.

2. The standard period of appointment for a member of the Council in class (e) (external members) is four years from 1 January. In the event of a casual vacancy before the end of that period (when, for example, a serving member decides to step down early), the period of appointment of the new member is the remainder of the period served by the previous member. The reason for these arrangements, which are common to many University committees, is to maintain staggering in the appointments of members, so that only some of the members are expected to leave – and new members join – at predictable intervals.

3. The Council, on the recommendation of its Nominating Committee, has agreed to propose that the period of appointment for the next external Council member should be the remainder of the term of the departing member (from 1 January 2020 until 31 December 2020) plus the standard four-year term. The process undertaken by the Nominating Committee seeks to identify people with considerable leadership experience who are willing to volunteer their time to support the work of the University by becoming a trustee. Such people are in demand and therefore offering an appointment of only one year is likely to discourage some good candidates from putting themselves forward. There are also practical considerations: the nominating process takes several months and would have to start again next year, well before the new appointee had completed one year as a Council member.

4. The provisions governing the period of appointment of Council members and the handling of casual vacancies are in Special Ordinance. When provisions previously in Statute were transferred to Special Ordinance in 2014 on the recommendation of a technical review, it was agreed that no changes would be made to Special Ordinance without the publication of a Report (Statute A III 5, Statutes and Ordinances, 2019, p. 5). The one-off arrangement of a longer than standard period of appointment in this case therefore requires a Report (whereas a similar arrangement concerning the setting aside of a provision in Ordinance only requires a Grace).

5. The Council recommends that, notwithstanding Special Ordinance A (ii) 1(c) and 3(e) and Special Ordinance A (vii) 1(b) (Statutes and Ordinances, 2019, pp. 66 and 69), the period of appointment of the next person appointed by Grace as a member of the Council in class (e) be for five years from 1 January 2020 (or for the remainder of that period if the appointment takes effect after that date).

24 September 2019	Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor	Anthony Freeling	Edward Parker Humphreys
	Sam Ainsworth	David Greenaway	Richard Penty
	Madeleine Atkins	Jennifer Hirst	Andrew Sanchez
	Alessandro Ceccarelli	Nicholas Holmes	Jason Scott-Warren
	Poppy Cockburn	Fiona Karet	Mark Wormald
	Stephen J. Cowley	Christopher Kelly	Jocelyn Wyburd
	Sharon Flood	Mark Lewisohn