Report of Discussion

Tuesday, 31 October 2023

A Discussion was convened by videoconference. Deputy Vice‑Chancellor The Rt Hon. Lord Smith of Finsbury, PEM, was presiding, with the Registrary’s Deputy, the Junior Proctor, the Junior Pro‑Proctor and nine other persons present.

Remarks were made as follows:

Twenty-eighth Report of the Board of Scrutiny, dated 29 September 2023

(Reporter, 6714, 2023–24, p. 52).

Dr S. L. D. Falk (Girton College and out-going Chair of the Board of Scrutiny):

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, it has become customary for the out‑going Chair of the Board of Scrutiny to introduce its annual report to the Regent House. On the occasion of this Twenty-eighth Report, that honour falls to me.

The Board of Scrutiny was established in 1995 to ‘ensure the accountability of the Council (and through it of the other central bodies) to the Regent House’.1 Most of its members are elected from the Regent House, and it serves the Regent House. Every year, on behalf of the Regent House, it scrutinises: the Accounts of the University; the Annual Report of the Council (including the Annual Report of the General Board to the Council); and any Report of the Council proposing allocations from the Chest. The Board has the power to consult any relevant official documents or accounts, except those of the University Press and Assessment Department. It also may require to speak with any University officer, including senior officers. We spoke to a lot of them this year – you’ll have to read our Report to find out who they all were – and we were grateful for their willingness to share their experiences with us.

This has been an unusual year for the leadership of the University, with an Acting Vice-Chancellor – to use his preferred metaphor – ‘passing the baton’ from Professor Toope to Professor Prentice. In our Report the Board thanks Dr Freeling for his openness, and we have similarly been encouraged by our early interaction with Professor Prentice.

While there have been three Vice-Chancellors, there have also been three Chairs of the Board of Scrutiny during this academic year, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank my two predecessors, Professor Jocelyn Wyburd and Professor Richard Mortier. Both had to relinquish the position upon appointment or election to another senior post within the University, which reflects their commitment to the important duty of governance. It also – if I may be permitted a moment of marketing to anyone considering standing for election – demonstrates the opportunities membership of the Board may bring.

The Board’s Report is, of course, only as good as its members, and I would like to thank all my colleagues for their contributions across the past year. But perhaps even more important than the Board’s membership is the direction it receives from the Regent House. Although our scrutiny of the University is mostly top-down, we also aim to identify issues of significance that are not being addressed at the level of the Council and General Board. But twelve members cannot cover 150 Faculties, Departments and other institutions, unless matters are brought to our attention by members of the University. That can be done directly, through the Board’s website, and we welcome such communication. Or – perhaps more powerfully – an issue can be raised through the governance processes of the University. Remember, just ten members of the Regent House can raise a Topic of Concern, which generates a Discussion like this. And any member of the University – students, graduates and employees of all sorts – can make their voice heard at a Discussion.

This year’s Report makes nine Recommendations, just as last year’s did. In an Annex to our Report we quote briefly from the Council’s response to each of last year’s Recommendations. We have also added a sentence or two of our own in reply; happily, we have mostly been able to be positive about the responses. On the other hand, the Council’s Notice in response was regrettably delayed to the end of January; we are grateful that the Council’s revised timetable will enable it to be considered sooner this year.

I will not repeat what our Report says, but a few words of summary may be helpful. While we find many parts of the University to be in good health, there remain risks and challenges, not least in Estates and – especially – Human Resources. As her annual address on 2 October showed, the Vice‑Chancellor is well aware of these challenges; we look forward to seeing how her response develops.

Perhaps less noted are the challenges posed by a lack of cohesion and, in some parts of the wider University, a lack of accountability. We highlight a few areas where matters that may sometimes be considered to be beneath the level of the Council, or to be the prerogative of some autonomous part of the University, have the potential to redound on the reputation of the whole.

In closing, I would like to repeat our gratitude: to all those senior officers and Board members already mentioned; but above all to the members of the Regent House who take the time to engage in governance. To you right now, reading the Reporter; you who vote in ballots, who sign Graces and initiate Topics of Concern, who stand for election to the Council and, yes, to the Board of Scrutiny. On you the democratic accountability of the University depends.

Professor R. M. Mortier (Department of Computer Science and Technology, Christ’s College and former Chair of the Board of Scrutiny):

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I wish to make three remarks on this Report. I should note that I was a member of and then chaired the Board of Scrutiny for part of the last academic year until I had to stand down in June upon my election to the University Council. I make these remarks in a personal capacity; they represent no-one’s views but my own.

First, I commend colleagues on producing a pithy Report and particularly for the innovation of including last year’s Recommendations together with the Council’s responses and a brief commentary in an Annex. It always struck me that one weakness of the Scrutiny process was that it relied a little too heavily on individual members’ memories as to what had happened previously and why, and of any commitments made as a result. Bringing to the foreground the commitments made by the University Council to the Regent House in response to the Board’s Report seems to me to be a very sensible move.

Second, following from that point I note from this year’s Report and the response to the final Recommendation of last year’s Report, that there still seems to be a disappointingly aspirational element to commitments made by the Council – and perhaps other Boards and Committees – to produce and respond to Reports by set dates. An example mentioned in this year’s Report is the long-anticipated Report on the management of future crises. This originated from a Discussion on a Topic of Concern in July 2020 (Reporter, 6587, 2019–20, p. 563) triggered by various decisions taken in response to the coronavirus outbreak, which generated responses from Council in July 2021 (Reporter, 6627, 2020–21, p. 768) and commitment to a Report by the end of the 2022–23 academic year. That Report has yet to appear. This year’s Report of the Board of Scrutiny further notes that publication of a considerable amount of other information necessary for good governance of the University by the Regent House has become rather sporadic and inadequate. I hope that this situation can be improved, perhaps beginning with a more timely response to this year’s Report of the Board of Scrutiny than was achieved last year.

Third, one thread I pick up from this Report and others is the rising cost of Administration, in both financial and human terms. Chest allocations continue to increase and hiring and retention of staff into many roles and several Divisions remains difficult. This Report briefly discusses the financial side, particularly the ongoing aspirations for the Enhanced Financial Transparency (EFT) portion of the Finance Transformation Programme. It appears that it will be very unfortunate indeed financially if these aspirations are not realised. However, I wonder what progress is being made in the Re‑imagining Professional Services project, one of the few remaining University Recovery Programme projects that continues to sit alongside EFT. As developments such as EFT, or UIS’ (very welcome) Defragmentation of the Digital Estate, continue to make progress they will surely have the de facto effect of re‑imagining how related professional services are provided. In light of this inevitability, are we sure that the University is grasping this significant and potentially traumatic process?

I would like to close by thanking particularly, not least on behalf of my eyesight, the University Draftsman and her Team for re‑instating publication of the Reporter in HTML format – I at least find it far far easier to read it on a range of devices as a result.

Dr R. V. L. Doubleday (Centre for Science and Policy, Christ’s College and current Chair of the Board of Scrutiny):

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I was a member of the Board of Scrutiny last year, and as such, contributed to the Report under discussion. This year I chair the Board of Scrutiny, and in these remarks I want to highlight two themes of the 28th Report that I expect the Board will return to in the coming year, and which are the collective responsibility of Regent House and the Council.

We are rightly proud of the University’s self-governing traditions and institutions. The devolved nature of the University enables the academic autonomy and creative culture that we cherish. However, as the introduction to the Board’s 28th Report notes, it is vital that the University has in place the ‘necessary capacity for strategic thinking’ to support informed long-term thinking and wise decision-making.

Many of the Report’s individual recommendations are instances of the need for this collective long-term thinking. From the arrangement of undergraduate supervision to the size and shape of the postgraduate community; from the management of the estate to the achievement of the University’s net zero goals; from the provision of online courses to the University’s overall research strategy. All these recommendations call for deliberation so that we can collectively work towards the University’s mission to serve society through excellence in education, learning and research.

Which brings me to the second underpinning theme. That of the functioning of the University’s self-governance. The Board’s Report calls on the Regent House, the University’s governing body, to ‘think about and engage in governance’. It also calls on the Council to improve the regularity and clarity of its communication to the Regent House of vital information such as the Financial Statements and the Annual Reports of the Council and the General Board.

I hope the Board’s work will continue to contribute to long-term strategic decision-making and to enlivening the self-governance of the University. Progress on one, of course, depends on the other. And I look forward to engagement from both the Regent House and the Council in the year ahead.

Professor R. J. Anderson (Department of Computer Science and Technology and Churchill College), read by the Junior Proctor:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I am surprised at the moderation of this year’s Report by the Board. While the allocations to academic departments are ‘flatlining’, in the Board’s own words, the allocations to the UAS are growing rapidly and pushing us into deep deficit. The Board complains that we don’t have the mechanisms for the Regent House to understand and oversee what’s going on.

Yet the problem lies in plain sight.

The Allocations Report (Reporter, 6706, 2022–23, p. 782) disclosed how administrative budgets have been increasing. The UAS made do with £51.2m in 2020–21 but by 2023–24 needed £72.8m, while the UIS allocation climbed to £40.1m from £24.2m. In that period, academic departments had to make do with an annual increase of only 3%. Imposing the same discipline on the administration would have cut about £30.5m, over half of the proposed Chest deficit of £48.5m.

It is shocking that the UAS can hike its budget by 42% and UIS by 65% when we have a substantial and growing deficit. Most of the deficit is due to their failure to live within the same discipline as the rest of us. Yet all the Board seems able to do is to wring its hands.

The spendthrift behaviour of the Old Schools is structural. Let me explain.

I spent twelve years on the Council and I’ve seen budget discussions in the Finance Committee, the Planning and Resources Committee, the Council and the Regent House. The reason for the cost disease is simple: our committee structure has evolved to enable the Old Schools to escape financial discipline.

Every year, they write a draft education budget which proceeds to the Resource Management Committee, where the Chairs of the Schools hammer out a deal. This proceeds to the Planning and Resources Committee which adds representatives of Non-school Institutions, such as the Library, UIS and Building Services. At this point, the Registrary of the day slaps her or his budget on top of the Schools’ and Non-schools’ budgets to get the draft allocations. The Schools support it as they’ve done their deal, and the others want to eat too. The report then goes to Council, which has a built-in majority for the Vice‑Chancellor.

Given our committee structure, the only body that can push back is the Regent House. If the bloat and waste continue in July 2024, Members should call non placet and demand a vote. This was done once before. As a vote cannot be held until Michaelmas Term, the administration would be on short rations until Christmas at least. This would concentrate minds, and move the issue to the top of the agenda. The fly-sheets leading up to the ballot could then explore the arguments for our academic and other priorities, and see which can attract democratic support.

Dr W. J. Astle (MRC Biostatistics Unit), read by the Junior Proctor:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, the Board of Scrutiny is to be thanked for producing another excellent Report.

Over the last decade, many of the Board’s Reports have noted concerns about pay and conditions in the University.1 There are signs now that the University risks a general crisis of staff recruitment and retention. The Council cannot argue it has not been warned.

In October 2022 members of the Human Resources Committee pointed to ‘an urgent problem that would require urgent action’.2 In December 2022 the Committee considered the results of a ‘pulse survey’ of staff which showed ‘better pay was the top-rated concern for all [staff types]’. This was ‘underlined by … exit survey data, which indicated that more staff were now dissatisfied with pay and benefits than two years ago’.3 Despite the concerns of the HR Committee, the salaries and stipends the University paid this month were more than 3% lower in real terms than those it paid a year ago.

What are the consequences? We read in the Board’s Report that this year ‘questions of recruitment to the Estate Division again arise’. ‘Senior officers in the Division reported that the task of hiring professional staff with the necessary skills is hampered by … uncompetitive salary structures in an expensive city.’ We learn moreover that, ‘in common with other areas of the University, the recent past has been a difficult time for the University’s Research Services, which has faced issues of staff retention and a high caseload’. Reasons no doubt that the University held ‘its first ever jobs fair’ on 4 October, which ‘largely focus[ed] on our wide range of professional services vacancies, which are the beating heart of the organisation and without which we could not deliver our research and teaching’.4 Vacancies were advertised in ‘Administration, IT, Finance, HR, Project Management, Technician roles, Cleaning, Catering, Animal Technicians, Facilities and Trade roles (e.g. Building Technician, Electrician, Plumbing)’.5

How big is the pay problem? Take, for example, from the positions presently open on the University’s Job Opportunities website, https://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk. A Building Custodian appointed this year to spine point 22 (Grade 2) will earn £22,214 per annum. If pay had grown with CPI inflation since 2008, he or she would expect to be earning £25,777 per annum. A Glass Washing Technician appointed this year to spine point 29 (Grade 4) will earn £25,742, but would have earnt £31,508 on the 2008 pay scale adjusted for inflation. An Administrator appointed this year to spine point 37 (Grade 6) will earn £32,332, rather than £39,915. A Senior Bioinformatician appointed this year at spine point 45 (Grade 8) will earn £40,521, rather than £50,563. Over fifteen years the pay of Assistant and Academic-related staff has fallen by an amount equivalent to two grades of the salary scale in real terms.

We may play the same game using the Research and Academic staff categories. A Research Assistant appointed this year to spine point 34 (Grade 5) will earn £29,605, rather than £36,529. A Research Associate appointed this year to spine point 39 (Grade 7) will earn £33,966, rather than £42,346. A University Assistant Professor appointed this year at point 49 (Grade 9), will earn £45,585 rather than £56,909. She will need to accumulate eight years of experience before service increments return her pay to 2008 levels, providing of course that those increments are not eroded by further real terms pay cuts.

Since 2018, the University and College Union (UCU) has engaged in regular bouts of industrial action over pensions, pay and working conditions. The ongoing failure of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) to resolve the pay question meant that the 2022–23 academic year culminated in the crisis of a marking and assessment boycott. In March, the Council, perhaps guided by UCEA in anticipation, proposed to mitigate the effects of a boycott by degrading the standards that applied to last summer’s University Examinations (Reporter, 6692, 2022–23, p. 462). Although the Regent House acted to protect the academic integrity of the University by rejecting the proposals (Reporter, 6700, 2022–23, pp. 667–673), the General Board used what it regarded as its existing powers to allow final meetings of the Examiners to take place without all Examiners being present; the Registrary accepted and published incomplete class-lists (Reporter, 6706, 2022–23, p. 773).

The Council has refused, in response to a request in a Discussion and in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act, to publish a list of the final meetings of the Examiners affected by the allowances of the General Board on the grounds that this might lead to the identification of the Examiners concerned (Reporter, 6710, 2022–23, p. 881). But the Regent House has ultimate responsibility for the academic standards of the University and the exercise of its Degree-awarding powers. It is difficult to see how it can discharge its responsibilities without understanding exactly what the General Board has allowed. Please will the Council publish the fullest possible information, in statistical form where that is necessary to avoid identifying individuals.

Last week University staff represented by Unite were on strike. They plan to walk out again this week and next week. Further industrial action by UCU members this academic year seems inevitable unless the pay dispute can be resolved.

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

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, it is good to see that the Board of Scrutiny has seized on the Vice‑Chancellor’s statement in her first Annual Address that ‘academic excellence underpins all that we do and is vital to the maintenance of the University’s global reputation for research, scholarship and education’. It ‘looks forward to seeing how this influences the Vice‑Chancellor’s objectives’.

A Vice-Chancellor new to the University and to English higher education in general will have to familiarise herself with the underpinnings of both. It is therefore helpful that the Board of Scrutiny draws attention to a need for the (surely overdue) review of the consequences of the constitutional changes of the last two decades. It points in particular to ‘the operation of the Council’ itself, the ‘delivery’ of the arrangements for ‘senior academic and professional leadership introduced’, and the implications for the appointment of future Vice-Chancellors. A Report on the proposal to add a sixth Pro‑Vice‑Chancellor comes up for Discussion next week.

The ‘operation of the Council’ at its meeting in July has left the University with significant unfinished business over the Employer Justified Retirement Age. It voted by majority against seeking to spare those UTOs due for dismissal this September. The Board points to ‘a risk of the subsequent deliberations extending into 2024–25 before the matter is settled’ and calls for a statement of what the EJRA Review Group ‘has achieved in the five months since it was established’. It has only recently sent round questionnaires. The Board urges speed in getting on with it.

As the Board notes, this is only one example of unfinished business in review of the University’s workforce. It regrets the further delay of the much-postponed ‘review of unestablished posts which it had previously agreed to launch in Lent 2023 in response to a recommendation of the Board’s 27th Report’. When is this review actually going to happen? It is considerably complicating the problem of the less favourable treatment of those appointed to University Offices with their required retirement date while the unestablished may stay as long as they like.

I understand the Pro‑Vice‑Chancellor for Education will be convening a strategic discussion this year on both staff and student workloads, with a ‘task and finish’ group to be approved by the Council and the Colleges’ Committee this term. How soon can this ‘finish’? UTOs have a current minimum requirement to give only thirty hours of lectures a year1 though they must under Statute C I 4 ‘promote the interests of the University as a place of education, religion, learning, and research’, as required under the Schedule to the Oxford and Cambridge Act of 1923. The introduction of ‘teaching‑only’ UTO posts in the form of ‘Teaching and Scholarship’ may need some further thought. Any reduction of student workloads would presumably mean a move to nine-week terms, perhaps with the insertion of a mid-term ‘reading week’. It will be remembered what happened when an extension of the Easter Term was suggested. I remember two attempts, both defeated.

There are also questions involving both staff and students urgently raised by the threatened Boycott of Supervisions this term. As the Board points out, this is not merely a College matter, though noting ‘that some Colleges increasingly struggle to recruit new UTO fellows who are able to deliver high-quality undergraduate supervisions in some subjects’. This too, it suggests, needs review, jointly with the Colleges’ Standing Committee. It even suggests looking at the ‘potential for joint appointments’, on which it might perhaps be wise to look closely at Oxford’s experience.

The Board of Scrutiny also expresses concerns ‘about the extent of change going on in the University’, under the ‘Recovery Programme’. On that the latest published ‘report’ seems to be that of 2021–22.2 The Change and Programme Management Office, says the Board, ‘made a good start in sequencing the order of implementation of Transformation Programmes to match the availability of resources and support; meanwhile, a number of projects originally in the Recovery Programme – originally thirteen projects – have transitioned to business as usual’. Meanwhile, it seems that the Change and Programme Management Office is offering 81 ‘training’ courses.3 This surely needs a Report to the University so that the Regent House may satisfy itself that these projects benefit from sufficient oversight, give value for money and contribute sufficiently to the goal of academic excellence.

Another area, and one of great importance, where the Board ‘recommends that the General Board’s Education Committee (GBEC) establish a regular review’ concerns the ‘part-time accredited and non‑accredited courses offered by the University or its subsidiaries’, asking for ‘clear differentiation between providers’. That ought to be covered by the Ordinance on Diplomas and certificates open to non-members of the University.4 These must be approved by the General Board and easy access to a published list would be helpful. Continuing Education currently lists 133 ‘non-award-bearing courses’.5 Are all these reputation-enhancing for the University?

How will all these ‘reviews’ help the Vice-Chancellor frame her ‘objectives’? I see that the Board invited her as its guest at its meeting on 5 September when the following topics were discussed:6

(i)The Vice-Chancellor’s first impressions of the University and her short-term priorities;

(ii)Any identified shortcomings in the support available;

(iii)How her academic background in psychology and prior administrative experience has shaped her leadership style;

(iv)Recent issues such as pay and pensions, recruitment and retention, and the EJRA;

(v)Challenges relating to the availability of resources within the University;

(vi)The effectiveness of the University’s decision-making processes and the collegiate system.

(vii)Longer-term priorities for the remainder of her tenure.

As she reads back through the Annual Reports of the Board of Scrutiny, the Vice-Chancellor will have noticed how many times it has had to make a recommendation before the recommendation was acted upon. Perhaps its present concerns about the arrival of Senior Leadership is one ‘objective’ for her to address when it comes to ensuring that the delays are tackled. It doesn’t seem to have done anything to help so far, merely introducing a notion of hierarchy foreign to the democracy of the Regent House as the University’s governing body.

Mr J. D. Fong (Girton College), read by the Junior Proctor:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I wish only to remark that the traditional ‘print’ format of the Reporter would have considerable advantages over a hypothetically more ‘dynamic’ digital format which perhaps I infer from the 28th Report of the Board of Scrutiny as being potentially in the works, insofar as the static print format gives certainty that the contents of the Reporter are stable, fixed and therefore authoritative, both now and also for any future readers. There is no concern that notices or items may be added or removed after first publication. Furthermore, the weekly publication schedule avoids the need to check regularly for more frequent updates, like on an electronic news website where there is a continual flow of new items rather than discrete volumes and issues, which makes it a much easier publication with which to keep up to date.

Dr M. K. Szuba (Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics), read by the Junior Proctor:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, let me begin by commending the Board of Scrutiny for their hard work.

Regarding the present Report, I very much agree with the statement that the ongoing review of the EJRA at the University appears to have so far lacked if not momentum, then transparency. Given how important this issue is to many, I do hope this will be improved soon.

In the future, I would very much like to see the Board keep a watchful eye on the large central services like the UAS and the UIS. While there are obvious advantages of centralisation (or, to use the apparent term of choice nowadays, ‘defragmentation’) it also brings risks. Between that and the reported large financial investments in some of the central services, I think it is very important to make sure these services continue to deliver.