Report of Discussion: 16 June 2026

Tuesday, 16 June 2026

A Discussion was scheduled by videoconference. Deputy Vice‑Chancellor Lord Woolley of Woodford, HO, was presiding, with the deputy for the Director of Governance and Compliance, the Junior Proctor and the Senior Pro‑Proctor as the attending officers.

Remarks were received as follows:

Remarks on the Report of the Council, dated 3 June 2026, recommending the budget and allocations from the Chest for 2026–27

(Reporter, 6827, 2025–26, p. 510).

Dr D. R. H. Jones (Christ’s College):

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I would like to draw your attention to Paragraph 19 of this Report. For ease of reference, I quote that paragraph as follows.

19. The Resource Management Committee met regularly during Lent Term 2026 to review expenditure plans in Schools and institutions and for centrally administered funds. Planning submissions from each UAS division were reviewed individually, and the RMC was satisfied that each division has credible plans to reduce its expenditure in 2025–26 and to sustain those reductions in 2026–27. The RMC accepted for its part that further, material reductions in professional services expenditure are unlikely without structural and organisational change within the University’s professional services (including those not part of the UAS), which would enable greater rationalisation and economies of scale.

In the Discussion of last year’s Report (Reporter, 6790, 2024–25, p. 687) I pointed out that over the previous five years there had been a massive expansion in UAS posts of 487, but a decrease in academic posts across the University of about 250. I suggested that the Council should exert direct control over the UAS, freezing staff numbers, rationalising and optimising performance, and in the medium term reducing staff numbers. I also suggested that the savings from this exercise should be used to restore the ratio of administrative to academic staff to 50:50 (as is the case for Exeter, Glasgow, Imperial, King’s College, Queen Mary and UCL).

I am encouraged to see that the RMC is considering the need to achieve ‘further, material reductions’ in expenditure, although ‘these are unlikely without structural and organisational change’. This is consistent with the Annual Report of the Audit Committee (Reporter, 6809, 2025–26, p. 198, Paragraph 6.4), which includes:

transformation programmes, which are expected to deliver efficiencies through redesigned processes and improved systems ... Success will depend on ... addressing cultural challenges associated with new ways of working ... significant effort required ... importance of maintaining momentum.

So, both the RMC and the Audit Committee appear aware of the problem, but nowhere do I see the urgency and action needed to correct the imbalance on any defined timescale. As Trustees, the Council needs to take ownership of this process and drive it forward. It should also ask itself how it allowed this imbalance to develop in the first place.

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

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I am a member of the Council, but these remarks are made on my own behalf. Statute A X 4 states that ‘A Report of the Council, or of any other body that has the right of reporting to the University, shall be signed by those members of the reporting body who agree with the Report’.

Disagreement with a Report implies a preference for an alternative. In the case of a proposal for a legislative change, that alternative is likely to be the status quo. In the case of a proposal for a budget, what it means to disagree is less obvious, because, as Stephen Cowley wrote in his note of partial dissent on the 2020 Allocations Report, ‘the University needs a budget’.1

Given that need, I believe the Regent House ought to approve the recommendations of this Report. Nevertheless, to explain my failure to sign, I note that the nominal increase proposed for the aggregate of the line items corresponding to the academic part of the University (the Schools, the Library, the museums, Professional and Continuing Education and the Centre for Music Performance) is about 1.7% lower than the nominal increase proposed for the aggregate of the line items corresponding to the operational side of the University. There may be several good short-term reasons for this, some of which are described in the Report. However, the concerning long-term trend is illustrated by comparison of the 30% increase in the size of the academic staff (1659 to 2162) with the 127% increase in the size of the administrative staff (1084 to 2463) that occurred between 2014–15 and 2024–25.2

Remarks on the Report of the Council, dated 3 June 2026, pursuant to Special Ordinance A (ii) 7 (exchanges of Professorships)

(Reporter, 6827, 2025–26, p. 513).

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

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I am a member of the Council, but, again, these remarks are made on my own behalf.

In Paragraph 3 of this Report, the Council explains its reason for rejecting the amendment, which would require the Regent House to approve by Grace any proposal of the General Board to move a person between Professorships. The Council states that:

it does not agree with the proposers of this amendment that the Regent House is an appropriate body to make decisions on the academic standing of an individual for election to a Professorship.

This misses the point spectacularly. Obviously, any Professor who is the subject of a prospective exchange will have the academic standing for election to a Professorship, because she or he will already be a Professor. The reason for insisting that an exchange be approved by Grace is to ensure that the General Board has a justification for dispensing with the requirement for an open competitive election to the recipient Professorship; it is not to allow the Regent House to make decisions about the qualifications of the person concerned. If the amendment is approved, the General Board will propose any exchange for the Regent House to approve.

The Council seems to be under the impression that the Regent House is an inappropriate body to make appointments to Professorships and that it is not involved in the appointment of individuals to Professorships at present. But in the case of a single-tenure Professorship ‘established for a particular person by Grace,’ no other body appears to have the power under the Statutes and Ordinances to make or to authorise an appointment (once the Professorship has been established).1 When the Regent House approves the recommendation of the General Board in an annual promotions Report that ‘Professorships be established for each of the following named persons for one tenure’ it is presumably approving both the establishment of the offices and the appointment of the individuals into them (as separate acts). If this is so, then there is an extant precedent for the Regent House approving proposals of the General Board for appointments to Professorships. If this is not so, then perhaps the Council might explain in response which body, other than the Regent House, makes appointments to personal Professorships and under what statutory authority.

The 2014 Statutes, which came into force following a technical revision,2 included new Statute C XI 3, which reads:

Detailed provision for the procedure for election or appointment to Professorships shall be made by Special Ordinance, made on the recommendation of the General Board.

The only mention of appointments to personal Professorships in the Special Ordinances is in Special Ordinance C (vii) B 1(b),3 which excludes elections to ‘Professorship[s] limited to the tenure of one Professor only, if established for a particular person by Grace’ from the provisions of Special Ordinance C (vii), apparently creating a self-referential paradox. Notwithstanding the self-reference (which perhaps needs tidying up), is this a provision for a procedure for appointment? If it is, then appointments to personal Professorships are indeed made by Grace. If it is not, then all appointments to personal Professorships since 2014 have presumably been made in contravention of Statute C. Although the employment security of these Professors is assured by the 30-day limitation on invalid acts provided for by Statute A IX 1(c), to address concerns about future appointments, it might be prudent to remove any ambiguity from the Special Ordinances.

If Recommendation II of this Report is approved, then the General Board will appoint an advisory committee for the purpose of recommending an exchange of Professorships. What exactly will this committee be advising? That the General Board has a justification for dropping an open election? How can it be any kind of assurance that a committee appointed by the General Board has advised the General Board that everything it wants to do is above board?

Given the weaknesses of the case made, I suggest that the Council’s decision to withhold authorisation of the amendment should be rejected by the Regent House.