ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY & COLLEGE UNION

Minutes: Committee Meeting
Date: 15 August 2012 Time: 1pm
Venue: New King's NK10

In attendance: Alex Arthur, Godfrey Brown, Alan Fenwick, Anja Finger, Mike McConnell (Chair), John Montgomery, Adam Price, Fiona Stewart , Mark Whittington

Apologies: Terry Brotherstone, Isobel Ford, Andrew Fraser, David McCausland, Mike McConnell, David Healy, Steven Lawrie, Andrew MacKillop, Nathan Morrison, Ben Marsden, , Ruth Payne, Alysia Reid, Christine Sands, Rachel Shanks, Jacqui Tuckwell,

Minutes: Alan Fenwick

1.  Welcome. Mike McConnell welcomed everyone to the meeting.

2.  Minutes. Unavailable.

3.  Retirement of Dominic Houlihan. A card is available for signing. His leaving do is on Monday 10 September at 4.00pm in the Linklater Rooms.

4.  Updates:

(a) July General Meeting on Palestinian issues. The meeting passed off without incident. Dave Black, A representative of the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign was present. It is intended to invite Dr Karolin Hijazi to bring issues to a quorate committee meeting.

(b) REF: Head office comments had been received. Mackie,Godfrey and Mike have met Phil Hannaford, Caroline Inglis, Steve Logan, Margaret Ross and Marlis Barraclough. The response to our comments has so far been positive, but it will be necessary to monitor the position. Steve Logan intends to issue a ‘Macdonald’ -style statement that exclusion from the REF process will not be detrimental to career progression.

(c) Trades Council: Mike McConnell attended a special meeting of ATUC, Brian Carroll (the new chair) chairing to discuss financial irregularities which occurred while Sultan Feroz was secretary. It was well attended and lasted for three hours. The new treasurer (Natahan Morrison, AUCU member) presented statements & e-mails which seemed to indicate that George Edmond and Sultan had redirected £70K from Trades Council funds to keep the Social Club operating, from which they potentially took salary. Sultan had presented false audited accounts. The ATUC appears to have lost all its savings and HMRC have sequestrated the assets of the Social Club. Sultan attended the meeting and defended his position. The matter is no longer confidential and has been reported in the media and the ATUC has now reported matters to the police. The new officers are committed to getting things operating again.

(d) Appraisal: Mackie has been attending as a member of the review committee. The University's management is looking at ways of making the process more meaningful, but there are concerns that the proposals will come down to performance appraisal, and then to performance-related setting of pay. There will be a link between appraisal and promotions. Discussion ensued and it was suggested that if the system is going to come in anyway, then if during an appraisal, targets are set for promotion, promotion must follow when they are met. Mike commented that the other campus TUs appear to regard performance management positively as a way of improving their way of progression.

(e) Academic-related issues. Concerns were raised that staff were being recruited into posts at lower grades with the responsibilities of incumbents at higher grades and discussion ensued about how new posts are evaluated. Examples of good practice were also discussed.

(f) AUSA: Mike and Godfrey met the new officers and had a long discussion. Gordon Maloney was in attendance thus providing continuity with two previous administrations. Topics covered were personal tutoring and TUPE of the Sports Village staff employed by the University. They seemed sympathetic to AUCU concerns.

(g) Advising: The survey showed that the membership was strongly in favour of the status quo. – 1) Advising / personal tutoring not to be mandated, 2) an honorarium should be retained but is not necessarily important to all members. There was a good response. Mike requested approval to send the whole survey to management to be tabled for discussion and commented that he did not think it was possible to attribute comments to individuals. It was suggested that we need a clear picture to take to JNCC. The matter was approved provided the document is anonymised.

(h) Spatial Planning: Five members have left and the department is in disarray. Five new posts were created, with the expectation that at least three would be filled by staff in post but the University's expectations were not fulfilled. It is proposed to raise the matter at PNCC and note that it could have been better handled.

(i) Changes in the University Administration: A report was due on the 1st August and currently there is a lack of information. The process has lasted for 12 months.

(j) Sports & Exercise: The present AU members of staff are potentially to become employees of the Sports Village. Some may leave, some may continue under TUPE conditions. It leaves the University with no in-house sports provision – almost a unique situation - although a service agreement will be in place. There is concern that the proposal from ASV at the minute is to focus on elite performers.

(k) Geosciences: Some progress has been made on payments for field work and it is expected that students will now get paid appropriately. There is outstanding concern over H&S training and insurance cover. A student member (of AUCU) agreed to meet Caroline Inglis and detailed these matters. The matter is now to be raised with Kathy Fowler (CoPS) and a positive outcome is expected.

(l) Promotions: It was reported that a member had been supplied with incorrect documentation for her appeal. The member had applied for a professorship and should have been granted a readership but the University have so far refused to grant this. It appeared that the promotions panel thought they had discretion to ignore scoring.

(m) Redundancy: Staff who are unsuccessful with an internal application have been told they can reapply via external advertisement. It appears to be a way of side-lining the redeployment process. Christine Sands offered to seek written clarification of this.

(n) Other matters: It was reported in the P&J that Steve Logan was in favour of the UTG development. He was reported as speaking on behalf of the University. This was inappropriate. The report was based on a meeting of ACSEF where he expressed a personal opinion. Godfrey pointed out that there is no register of interests for the University.

(o) AUCU Pensions Officer (Mark Whittington) was given approval to attend the next pensions meeting on the 3rd September.