Report of Discussion: 21 January 2025

21 January 2025

A Discussion was convened by videoconference. Deputy Vice-Chancellor Ms Alison Rose, N, was presiding, with the Registrary’s deputy, the Junior Pro-Proctor and the Deputy Junior Proctor as the attending officers.

Remarks were received as follows:

Remarks on the Annual Report of the Council for the academic year 2023–24

(Reporter, 6762, 2024–25, p. 152).

Professor G. R. Evans (Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History), received by the Proctors:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, there is a promise in this Report that the Council will show ‘greater leadership in the context of large-scale institutional and external change’. Talk of ‘leadership’ sits uncomfortably with Cambridge’s system of government by committee. The Statutes and Ordinances do not use the language of ‘leadership’ for the Council (or for other committees in the University including the General Board). The Regent House is the University’s governing body, but its powers are mainly deliberative and legislative.1

Statute A IV 1(a) makes the Council merely ‘the principal executive and policy-making body of the University’, giving it only ‘general responsibility for the administration of the University, for the planning of its work, and for the management of its resources’. It has just such ‘power’ as allows it ‘to take such action as is necessary for it to discharge these responsibilities’. It may ‘perform’ only such other ‘executive and administrative duties as may be delegated to it by the Regent House or assigned to it by Statute or Ordinance’. So can or may it do what this Report says it will?

There is a growing frequency in the Reporter of mentions of ‘leadership’ by individuals who are described as ‘leaders’ and even of their forming a ‘team’. The Regent House has not been invited to discuss or approve the creation of this body, but it surely warrants a Report justifying a departure from governance by committee to a form of oligarchy? The Reporter of 15 January carried the Council’s response to the Discussion of 10 December on the Office of Chief Financial Officer, in which I suggested that a Report on the place and character of ‘leadership’ in the University would be helpful in enabling the Regent House to clarify a definition. On the grounds that the Report under discussion had made its case for that particular proposal, the Council saw ‘no need for any additional Report’. Will it ever, and if so, when?

The University’s Risk Management Policy, scheduled to be reviewed this month, mentions a ‘Senior Leadership Team’ more than a dozen times, and confidently lists in a footnote its membership, at least for ‘the purposes of risk management’:

... the senior leadership team is defined as the Vice‑Chancellor, Pro-Vice-Chancellors, Heads of Schools, the Registrary, the Chief Financial Officer, the Director of Communications and the Director of Development and Alumni Relations.2

The Report we are discussing explains that an Away Day in March 2024 brought together ‘members of the Council, the General Board and the wider Senior Leadership Team’. It lists the same membership for that ‘Team’. It says that attendees that day had ‘recognised the need for strong leadership’ to ‘champion and bring coherence to the various initiatives’.

A Fellowship Programme for Emerging Academic Leaders was proposed by a Notice in the Reporter of 31 July 2024.3 Two decades ago the multiplication of Pro‑Vice-Chancellors required a series of Notices and a Report.4 If the holders of these new Fellowships are to have ‘portfolios’ with special responsibilities perhaps their creation should have had its own Report? I raised a concern about that under Statute A IX, first with the Vice‑Chancellor, then with the Acting Commissary. Before making his decision the Acting Commissary asked the University for further information. This was duly provided to the Commissary by the Council in a ‘Final response’ of the University to the Acting Commissary dated 23 December and duly copied to me.

The first issue the Council discusses in this response is whether or not the proposed Fellows would enter a new employment relationship with the University. The answer is no. Nor will the Fellowships be Offices. Had a Fellowship constituted a new Office a Grace would have been needed because an Office must be ‘established or specified by Statute or Ordinance’.5 The description of the Fellowships has since been revised to describe them as ‘Secondments’ and the Council says that existing contracts are simply to be ‘varied’.6

That still leaves no definition of the character of the claimed ‘leadership’ either of individuals or of the ‘Senior Leadership Team’. There are published Cambridge ‘leadership programmes’ at three levels for ‘senior leaders’ at Grades 10–12.7 Learning and Development give details of a ‘programme’ which ‘develops senior leaders to ensure we have individuals with the skills and attributes to fulfil senior roles’.8 Perhaps the Council will insist that Pro‑Vice‑Chancellors and others listed as members of the ‘Senior Leadership Team’ take that course, especially if each is to be entrusted with a ‘portfolio’ of specific responsibilities. Are these to involve ‘leadership’ in the specified area?

The Council’s Minute 944 for 3 June 2024 records that the Fellowships were an initiative of the Vice-Chancellor in which the concept of ‘leadership’ was prominent. ‘The Vice-Chancellor presented an update on proposals for the leadership of sustainability at the University’:

She further suggested that the portfolio of the Pro‑Vice‑Chancellor (Education) be expanded to encompass academic leadership of sustainability, with some aspects of the original portfolio delegated to emerging leaders as part of a new academic leaders’ fellowship programme.

She ‘noted that these proposals reflected the discussion at the Strategic Awayday and feedback from members of the Regent House on the unsuccessful proposal for a new Pro‑Vice-Chancellor (Climate and Environmental Sustainability)’.9 Among the flysheets on that unsuccessful proposal of a sixth Pro-Vice-Chancellor one had argued that this task was ‘going to require leadership from right at the top of the University’ and the new post would be a way for the University to ‘recognise its leadership responsibilities’ in that area. Another saw it as needing ‘focused leadership from the centre of the University’ and ‘visible senior leadership’.10

The Minute records that in proposing the new ‘academic leaders’ fellowships’ the Vice-Chancellor suggested that the ‘idea of an academic leaders’ programme would also help with succession planning by building a strong pool of candidates for leadership positions within the University’. She ‘agreed to bring more detailed proposals to the next meeting for consideration’. However the Council did not discuss the Fellowships at its next (‘extraordinary’) meeting, which was concerned with the controversy about the Employer Justified Retirement Age. The Council’s Minutes for its ‘ordinary’ meeting on 15 July record that the Council merely ‘noted’ the proposals which were then published in the Reporter on 31 July:

983. Minute 944: Fellowship Programme for Emerging Academic Leaders (Paper No. 24.07.15.SI8)
The Council noted the proposals for a Fellowship Programme for Emerging Academic Leaders.

There seems to be unfinished business for the Council in that the Council failed to give the proposal for ‘senior leadership’ the promised detailed consideration on 15 July. That goes to the reasonableness of the decision to publish neither Report nor Grace on 31 July and the lack of published later Minutes of the Council to tell us whether it has returned to this beyond a mention of membership of the ‘team’ for the Chief Financial Officer in Minute 988.3 of 21 October.

A definition of the Council’s powers please before it goes ahead with its stated ‘leadership’ plans.

Dr W. J. Astle (MRC Biostatistics Unit):

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, in the Discussion on the Report of the Council on the office of Chief Financial Officer I queried the assertion of the Council that Statute F I 1(a) and Special Ordinance F (i) 1(a) grant it ‘sole responsibility for decisions about investments’, so that a Grace concerning finance ‘would not be binding on the Council if approved by the Regent House’.12 The Council, of which I am now a member, responded that it

agrees that the Notice should also have referred to the Council’s executive powers under Statute A IV 1(a) for the management of the University’s resources.3

I do not think Statute A IV 1(a) can save the Council’s argument. It grants the Council only the power to take such action as is necessary for it to discharge a general responsibility for the management of the University’s resources.4 For an Order of the Regent House to contradict Statute A IV 1(a), and therefore fall foul of Statute A II 1, it would have to obstruct the power of the Council to act in a way that made it impossible for the Council to discharge its responsibility for the management of the University’s resources.5 The Grace in question does not do that.6

Furthermore, Statute A II 3 assigns to the University (not the Council)

the powers of a natural person to acquire, manage, charge, deal with, and dispose of property, both real and personal, and to enter into and carry out any transaction relating to its property or otherwise in connection with the management of its affairs, so that it may exercise any power and may enter into and carry out any kind of transaction without limitation.7

Statute A II 4 states:

The powers in Section 3 of this chapter may be exercised at the absolute discretion of the University and shall apply to investment as well as to any other activity or function of the University.8

Under Statute A III 8, powers assigned to the University are exercised by the Regent House (not the Council):

Whenever it is provided that an act or thing shall or may be done or determined by the University, it shall be done or determined by Grace of the Regent House unless it is expressly stated that it is to be done or determined otherwise, provided that the Regent House may delegate by Grace to the Council or to another University body or authority to act on its behalf in such matters as it may from time to time determine.9

Remarks on the Annual Report of the General Board to the Council for the academic year 2023–24

(Reporter, 6762, 2024–25, p. 160).

Professor G. R. Evans (Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History), received by the Proctors:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, in its own Report the Council speaks of ‘the General Board leading on the academic side’ and of course the Board can ‘report to the University’ in its own right. It does that both in this Report and in the third Report to be discussed today. The General Board has the significant powers under Statute A V, which are to be employed on approval of the third Report scheduled for discussion today.

The General Board’s supervision of the University’s exercise of its degree-awarding powers is surely one of its most fundamental responsibilities. The Reporter of 15 January carries sections announcing revised Regulations, though those had already come into effect (from 1 January). These concern the ‘Award of a lower degree for certain doctoral degrees’ and Regulations for the award of the M.D. degree.

The latter is a special case because of its importance to those who seek registration by the General Medical Council, which allows a limited number of attempts at a qualifying examination for would-be doctors.1 The General Board has approved amendments to the regulations for the degree of Doctor of Medicine to allow approval of the M.Sc. degree in lieu of the M.D. degree.2

It proposes this for the sake of consistency with a cluster of other doctorates, the Bus.D., Ed.D., Eng.D., Ph.D. and Vet.M.D. The Report of the General Board on the introduction of a Doctor of Business Degree in the Judge Business School (Reporter, 5 May 2016) proved controversial. It promised that ‘the academic standard of the degree’ would ‘be comparable to the Ph.D.’ but the Bus.D. would be ‘relevant to practice, facilitating transformational leadership in organizations’. It was claimed that the Cambridge Bus.D. would differ from ‘the practitioner doctoral degrees, among them the DBA (Doctor of Business Administration)’ offered by other business schools in being ‘targeted at individuals’ with a high ‘level of experience’. With a £230K fee there were expected to be very few. So it proved. Its current students are three, admitted respectively in 2020, 2022 and 2023.3 In the Discussion of 24 May 20164 it was suggested that the then Secretary of the Education Committee would be heard saying sotto voce. ‘What is this that roareth thus? Can it be a Doctor Bus?’ and the committee would have ‘dissolved into laughter’. The Bus.D. has survived any such merriment.

Now the General Board has ‘on the recommendation of the Postgraduate Committee in consultation with the relevant Degree Committees’, approved ‘the amendment of the regulations for certain doctoral degrees to streamline the process and timeline for awarding a lower degree’. The Bus.D. is listed along with the Ed.D., the Ph.D. and the Vet.M.D., all to become Masters degrees. In the case of the M.D. degree the lowering is to the level of an M.Sc. Technically this did not need a Report but perhaps a lowering of the standards of existing degrees deserved a Report of its own.

On approval of the recommendations in the General Board’s other Report to be discussed today, degree courses are to be amended (revising an existing M.Phil. course in Public Policy),5 and created (a new M.Phil. course in Digital Policy). Special Ordinance B (i) does not list named M.Phil. courses in either named subject. Is it intended to tidy that up? The Department of Politics and International Studies is apparently to lose its existing course to the new Department, which will be left to develop its own Ph.D. programme.

In response to recommendations from the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, the General Board’s Education Committee established a ‘task and finish’ group to review options for the introduction of examination resits, and exceptional first sittings. The group issued a consultation document in Lent Term 2024. So far there is a Response dated October 2024 seeking to balance the needs to protect and academic standards to make allowances for student circumstances. This confirms that there is ‘no plan to introduce a standard re-sit opportunity’ for students who have ‘failed their exams unaffected by illness or grave cause’. It notes ‘other concerns’ raised about ‘the current system of exam allowances’, and the ‘challenges’ in addressing them, including the maintenance of academic standards and the resource requirements. A ‘revised package’ to be developed during Michaelmas is being consulted on this Term from 13 January to 28 February with the intention of its being implemented from the next academic year. Perhaps the General Board will explain where this has got to in a Notice in due course, with reference to the way ‘fit to sit’ is to be correlated with ‘fitness to study’?

Dr W. J. Astle (MRC Biostatistics Unit):

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, this Report, and the accompanying Report of the Council may contain the first mentions in the Reporter of the so-called ‘Damselfly incident’, a cyber‑attack that has severely disrupted research and teaching in the School of Clinical Medicine over the past year. The Council were told about it at an Extraordinary Meeting held on 6 March 2024.1 Reports appeared in the press from 27 March.2 Given the seriousness of the incident, shouldn’t a Notice have been published by now to explain the situation to the governing body?

Following a cyber-attack in October 2023, which continues to affect its services, the British Library published a frank ‘cyber-incident review’, the purposes of which was

to ensure a common level of understanding of key factors that may help peer institutions and other organisations learn lessons from the Library’s experience.3

Does the University plan a similar report?

Following the attack on the Clinical School, University Information Services and the Clinical School Computing Service (CSCS) have apparently struggled to encourage users to convert their machines to ‘University Managed Desktops’ (UMDs), a new requirement to connect to the University wired network. UMDs grant administration rights (and therefore system control and data access rights) to UIS, raising concerns about user autonomy, privacy and security.4 User concern about the wisdom of central administration may have been amplified by the fact that Damselfly affected all those personal computers centrally managed by the CSCS, reputedly because the CSCS administration rights were centrally compromised.

Remarks on the Report of the General Board on the establishment of a Department of Public Policy (Bennett School of Public Policy)

(Reporter, 6764, 2024–25, p. 196).

Professor G. R. Evans (Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History), received by the Proctors:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, this Report proposes to replace an Institute with a Department, and position the new Department within a Faculty by inserting ‘new regulations for the Department of Public Policy in Chapter IX of Ordinances’. The creation of a School requires a Special Ordinance while Ordinances are needed for Faculties and Departments and ‘other institutions’ which are ‘placed under’ the General Board’s ‘supervision’.

The Statutes and Ordinances thus contain rules about Schools, Faculties and Departments. However they have a scattergun approach to ‘institute’ and its forms, which appear well over five hundred times, either as a verb or a noun (including ‘institution’). That looseness of usage is illustrated by the wording of Statute A V in setting out the General Board’s powers to ask the Regent House to create Schools:

On the recommendation of the General Board the University may at any time by Special Ordinance institute one or more Schools. There shall be placed in each School such Faculties, Departments, and other institutions as the University may from time to time determine by Ordinance.

Perhaps we may safely take it that an ‘institute’ is an ‘institution’ but that only imperfectly clarifies the constitutional position of this one. Statute A V carefully defines certain other terms. ‘Faculty’ shall ‘denote a body of persons associated in accordance with the Statutes for the purpose of furthering the study of a subject or subjects’, and ‘may be instituted by Grace on the recommendation of the General Board’. It must be assigned to one or other of the Schools. ‘Provision shall be made by Ordinance for the membership of Faculties and for the composition of Faculty Boards.’

This new Department is to be a ‘hub’ within a School, the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences but also – ‘across all Schools’ – it is to become a ‘policy arm’ for the University and a ‘convening power’. Neither a ‘hub’ nor a ‘policy arm’ appears to be recognised by the University’s constitution yet. Should either gain a place? Would that not need definition of several other concepts labelled in this Report’: ‘advancing research’; ‘public policy’; ‘driving change’; ‘resonating’; ‘global stage’?

How far does giving it Officers strengthen the constitutional case for the creation of a new Department? University Offices may be ‘established or specified by Statute or Ordinance’ (Statute C I 1) and this Report proposes two possible new ones, namely ‘two Bennett Lectureships’ or ‘such other named teaching offices (including more Bennett Lectureships and/or Professorships) as the Managers shall determine’. Four ‘academic officers’ are to be ‘reassigned to the new Department from the Department of Politics and International Studies’, including the holders of the existing Bennett Professorship of Public Policy and the Professorship of Public Policy. Essentially, these are to continue the work in which they are currently engaged.

Its ‘Managers’ are to have administrative responsibilities for ‘the administration of the Fund and the application of its income’. They appear to have academic-related responsibilities though they are academics: the Head of the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences, who shall be Chair, the Chair of the Faculty of Human, Social, and Political Science, and the Head of the Department of Public Policy. The Head of the Department shall ‘be responsible for the direction of education and research in the Department’, but also for ‘the management of the necessary resources’.

The powers of the Managers are apparently to extend to the creation of further posts:

Bennett Senior Visiting Fellowships, the holders of which shall be appointed by the Managers, in accordance with criteria and for a period of tenure and a stipend determined by the Managers, the stipend within a range approved from time to time by the General Board, with one or more Fellowships being appointed from the income of the Fund in any financial year

In view of the controversy prompted by the plan to create Fellowships ‘for Emerging Academic Leaders’ which was published as a mere Notice in July 20241 it would seem wise for further thought to be given to the adoption of the term in this context. Fellowships traditionally belong in Colleges not in the range of University posts.

An Advisory Board ‘shall include at least four external members who have experience of government, policy and business’, to ‘advise the Head of the Department and the Faculty Board on policy for the future development of the Department’. There is also to be an Executive Committee constituted under terms of reference and membership approved from time to time by the Faculty Board ‘to advise the Head of the Department on matters concerning the staffing, resources and administration of the Department’. Regulations will need to be adjusted, though that of course does not in itself require the express permission of the Regent House.

Nevertheless perhaps it will be worth the Regent House seizing any opportunity to give further thought to the constitutional position of an ‘institute’?