Notices

Calendar

2 July, Wednesday. Scarlet Day. Congregation of the Regent House at 10 a.m. (General Admission).

3 July, Thursday. Scarlet Day. Congregation of the Regent House at 10 a.m. (General Admission).

4 July, Friday. Scarlet Day. Congregation of the Regent House at 10 a.m. (General Admission).

5 July, Saturday. Scarlet Day. Congregation of the Regent House at 10 a.m. (General Admission).

9 July, Wednesday. Ballot of the Senate for the election of the Chancellor, online voting opens at 10 a.m.

12 July, Saturday. Ballot of the Senate for the election of the Chancellor, in-person voting in the Senate‑House (see below).

15 July, Tuesday. Discussion by videoconference at 2 p.m. (see below).

16 July, Wednesday. Ballot of the Senate for the election of the Chancellor, in-person voting in the Senate‑House (see below).

18 July, Friday. Ballot of the Senate for the election of the Chancellor, online voting closes at 5 p.m.

Discussions (Tuesdays at 2 p.m.)	Congregations (at 10 a.m. unless otherwise stated)
15 July	2, 3, 4 and 5 July (General Admission)
	24, 25 and 26 July

Ordinary issues of the Reporter for the remainder of the 2024–25 academic year will be published on 9 and 30 July 2025. Issues will only be published on 16 and 23 July if needed for urgent items of business. The first issue of the 2025–26 academic year is currently scheduled for publication on 24 September.

Discussion on Tuesday, 15 July 2025

The Vice‑Chancellor invites members of the Regent House, University and College employees, registered students and others qualified under the regulations for Discussions (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 111) to attend a Discussion by videoconference on Tuesday, 15 July 2025 at 2 p.m. The following item will be discussed:

1.Joint Report of the Council and the General Board, dated 30 June 2025, on student membership of the General Board (p. 695).

Those wishing to join the Discussion by videoconference should email UniversityDraftsman@admin.cam.ac.uk from their University email account, providing their CRSid (if a member of the collegiate University), by 10 a.m. on the date of the Discussion to receive joining instructions. Alternatively contributors may email their remarks to contact@proctors.cam.ac.uk, copying ReporterEditor@admin.cam.ac.uk, by no later than 10 a.m. on the day of the Discussion for reading out by the Proctors,1 or may ask someone else who is attending to read the remarks on their behalf.

In accordance with the regulations for Discussions, the Chair of the Board of Scrutiny or any ten members of the Regent House2 may request that the Council arrange for one or more of the items listed for discussion to be discussed in person (usually in the Senate-House). Requests should be made to the Registrary, on paper or by email to UniversityDraftsman@admin.cam.ac.uk from addresses within the cam.ac.uk domain, by no later than 9 a.m. on the day of the Discussion. Any changes to the Discussion schedule will be confirmed in the Reporter at the earliest opportunity.

General information on Discussions is provided on the University Governance site at https://www.governance.cam.ac.uk/governance/decision-making/discussions/.

Office of Chancellor: In‑person voting arrangements

Further details of the arrangements for in‑person voting in the election of the next Chancellor are now available on the Chancellor election 2025 website.1 In‑person voting will take place in the Senate‑House in Cambridge as follows:

•Saturday, 12 July, from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. (UK time (UTC+1)); and

•Wednesday, 16 July, from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. (UK time (UTC+1)).

Both the Senate-House Yard and the Combination Room will be closed on those dates. Access to the University Offices will be from Trinity Lane. Only members of the Senate voting in-person in the election and other authorised persons will be allowed to enter the Senate-House Yard during the voting period.

Report of the Council recommending the budget and allocations from the Chest for 2025–26: Notice in response to Discussion remarks

26 June 2025

The Council has received the remarks made at the Discussion on 16 June on the above Report (Reporter, 2024–25: 6787, p. 610; 6790, p. 687).

Professor Evans asks whether the Report ‘hints at’ the abolition of the Chest. The Council’s Notice published in July 2022 communicated to the University that Chest allocations would cease once a replacement for CUFS, the University’s current accounting and financial management system, is in place (at that time expected in 2025, now expected in 2027).1 The Council reported to the University in December 2022 on preliminary changes to the Statutes and Ordinances that would prepare the ground for – but not at that stage commit the University to – removal of the Chest as a budgeting mechanism.2 The Planning and Resources Committee (PRC) agreed at its meeting on 4 December 2024 that the Finance Transformation Programme could proceed to develop the new finance system without the Chest accounting methodology, consistent with the Council’s communications with the University since 2022. A further Report is likely to be published in the spring of 2026. The physical Chest has been returned to the Registrary’s Office at the Old Schools.

Both the Council and the Finance Committee are scrutinising very closely the trends in non-academic staff growth summarised by Dr Jones. That scrutiny encompasses the entire University, but with a particular focus on the central professional services. The UAS response to the immediate requirement to reduce operating expenditure by 5% has included a vacant period of six months for each post that becomes vacant, pending a fuller review of the opportunities to achieve sustainable, ongoing reductions in expenditure without jeopardising the University functions acknowledged by Dr Jones.

Mr Allen and Dr Cowley both make remarks about the expected benefits of the University’s investment in the principal change and transformation programmes. Each of these – to a greater or lesser extent – creates the conditions for the University (Schools, institutions and the central bodies on which they are represented) to take decisions that can control and reduce expenditure. Better information following the implementation of EFT will inform decisions that are expected to achieve both revenue and cost improvements. The financial forecasts must, however, be circumspect about the savings – direct or indirect – that will be achieved, unless and until the Council is confident that the University wants to and will take advantage of those changed conditions.

Dr Astle observes that the staff data – published as part of the fuller set of business information that is shared with the Regent House alongside the Budget and Allocations Report – are not as granular as in some prior years. This business information is the same set prepared for the PRC and the Finance Committee to inform their consideration of the draft budget, and is also used by other University bodies (for example the Councils of the Schools) to inform their decision‑making. The Council is satisfied that it is appropriate to share a consistent, single set of business information across the University, rather than reintroduce old formats specifically for the Budget and Allocations Report. As Dr Astle notes, fuller information for interested members of the University is available on the University’s Tableau server.

Dr Cowley suggests that reductions in non-Chest operating expenditure will only be applied to the specific sources of funds that are in scope of the 5% levy on income. The expectation of a 5% reduction in overall operating expenditure (excluding research grants and contracts) is unaltered from the previous Report. As the current Report explains, there is no recent precedent – and therefore limited mechanisms – for the central University to impose controls on non-Chest expenditure in Schools and institutions. Two specific mechanisms have been agreed to encourage non-Chest savings, but this does not mean that expenditure from other non-Chest sources of funds should not also be reduced. Dr Cowley suggests that the Report does not make clear the destination of the levies collected via these mechanisms; in fact the Report specifies that the forecast income is reflected in the financial forecasts as an increase in forecast Chest income, consistent with the existing indirect cost charge (ICC) on certain non-Chest sources of funds. The PRC has agreed a materiality threshold of £500k for trading income, with the consequence that the levy will not be applied to the first £500k of trading income in any department; and has also agreed a small number of exemptions, principally where the University has contractual arrangements with funders that do not allow for these mechanisms.

Dr Cowley expresses concern about the role of the Resource Management Committee (RMC), relative to the period to 2014 when he was a member of that committee. Both then and now, there is a substantial overlap between the membership of the RMC and the PRC; two of the five Pro-Vice-Chancellors, the Heads of School and the student member are members of both committees. The potential benefits of discussion among a smaller group, as indicated by Dr Cowley, must be tensioned against a risk that other members of the PRC – which (informed by the Finance Committee) sets the planning guidance for the operating budget, and recommends a budget to the Council – are excluded from that discussion.

Dr Cowley asks about the impact of the activities that have been supported via the Surplus Improvement Fund (SIF). Previous Reports have noted that the SIF has principally been an enabler of growth in Master’s-level postgraduate students. This growth is reflected in the University’s fee income, and in its fee income forecasts. As noted in previous Reports, this has generated some net financial benefit to the University, but the scale of that benefit is modest in view of the overall change required to reach a sustainable operating surplus.

The Council is submitting a Grace (Grace 2, p. 696) for the approval of the recommendations of this Report.