Paper reference number: sert Number"
FOIA Status: Open / Exempt
University Assembly
Minutes of the meeting held on 27 November 2015
Present: Professor B Cantor; Professor W McCarthy; Professor S Congdon;
Professor R Parkin; Ms J Marshall; Ms A Phillips;
Professor C Oltean-Dumbrava;
125 members of the Assembly.
Apologies: Prof G Bradshaw and 52 Assembly members
In Attendance: Mr M Rollinson (Secretary to meeting)
1.15-16 Welcome from the Chair of the Standing Committee
NOTED:
1.1 That the Chair of the Standing Committee welcomed the Vice-Chancellor, Deputy Vice-Chancellors, Pro Vice-Chancellors and colleagues to the Assembly;
1.2 That the minutes from the Assembly meeting held on 30 April 2015 were available from the Governance website.
2.15-16 Report from the Standing Committee of Assembly held on 15 October 2015
NOTED:
2.1 That there were two vacancies for Senate members and a vacancy for a member of Professional Services on the Standing Committee;
2.2 That the University Secretary had carried out some research across the sector and Bradford appeared to be the only institution with a Standing Committee; the future of the Standing Committee would be considered further at its next meeting following further research and consultation;
2.3 That the Standing Committee had confirmed that the University Assembly and Faculty Assemblies were an important element of the democratic discourse of the University;
2.4 That the following issues had been considered at Faculty Assemblies;
· University financial position;
· University national and international strategy;
· Governance issues
· Recruitment and Marketing (including tariff scores);
· Restructuring, reorganisation and physical relocation issues
· Communications;
· Workload model;
· League Tables;
· NSS;
· REF outcomes;
· New programme developments (including overseas);
· IT issues;
· Open Access (presentation from Library and RKT Office)
· HR Service Now
3.15-16 Vice-Chancellor’s Address
NOTED:
3.1 That Council had approved the University Strategy and ten year Development Plan, including Mission, Values, Objectives and Themes;
3.2 That the intention of the initial part of the ten year plan was the repositioning of Bradford as a high quality, research intensive, international Technology University;
3.3 That the plan included ambitious student number growth targets (from 12,000 to 15,000 students) and exciting new campus development proposals;
3.4 That in the past year, the University had recruited a new Chancellor, Chair of Council, new Council and Executive Board members to augment the University’s existing talent;
3.5 That the University’s performance in a variety of league tables had improved, and most recently the University had entered the World Top 100 Universities under 50 years old;
3.6 That the University has not recruited to its student number targets; in the previous two years, the University had dealt with under-recruitment through a series of ad-hoc measures. This year, a more strategic approach was being taken and this is outlined in more detail in response to one of the questions submitted to the Vice-Chancellor; this approach included enhancing management processes to achieve better outcomes at lower cost;
3.7 That the implications of a range of recent government and sector wide developments was still being assessed; this included the Higher Education Green Paper (including the proposed Teaching Excellence Framework), the Nurse Review of Research Councils and most recently, the Comprehensive Spending Review;
3.8 That an extensive programme of events to mark the University’s 50th anniversary in 2016 had been arranged, including the Bradford Global Achievement Awards and the Installation of the new Chancellor (February 2016), a Chinese Graduation Ceremony and alumni event (April 2016) and hosting the World Technology University Network and Congress (September 2016).
4.15-16 Questions for the Vice-Chancellor
4.1 Strategic Development Programme
NOTED:
4.1.1 That the following question had been forwarded to the Vice-Chancellor in relation to the Strategic Development Programme;
“What is the timescale for saving the £11 million, what is the financial plan, the changes resulting of it and the timescale for each change and how will the changes be communicated at each stage to all members of staff”.
4.1.2 That Professor W McCarthy, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Operations) responded;
4.1.3 That the aim of the Programme was to ensure adequate resource and an appropriate environment to deliver the University Strategy;
4.1.4 That the intention was to create a 4% surplus to enable sufficient headroom for investment to realise the University’s strategic ambitions (this equated to £5m annual surplus based on the University’s annual turnover of £130 million);
4.1.5 That the above was a three year target and Executive Board had established an interim target of £3 million by the end of 2016/17;
4.1.6 That, as noted above, the University has not achieved its recruitment targets and when the budgeted surplus for 2015-16 (£1.2 million) and the two year impact of under-recruitment were taken into account, the University faced the challenge of finding £11 million of recurrent financial improvements by the end of 2016/17 ;
4.1.7 That the programme to achieve the necessary financial improvements comprised three parts, immediate cost controls, strategic savings projects and targeted income growth; whilst this was challenging, other sectors had dealt with comparable issues successfully and other Universities had recently launched similar savings programmes;
4.1.8 That continuing to deal with the issues arising from under-recruitment through ad-hoc initiatives was likely to result in strategic drift;
4.1.9 That the strategic savings programme would build on existing initiatives and workstreams (eg in relation to student administration, marketing and recruitment and IT capacity and capability) to deliver improved quality at reduced cost, for example by removing duplication and enhancing processes;
4.1.10 That targeted income growth would need to be robust, realistic and credible (for example by focusing on academic areas where there were genuine prospects of growth;
4.1.11 That it was anticipated that the three strands would generate the £11 million required; in recognition of the scale of the challenge, the University intended to engage with an external delivery partner to ensure effective implementation and realisation of the programme;
4.1.12 That in order to ensure delivery, all members of staff would need to be engaged and effective communication would be essential.
4.2 Research Support
NOTED:
4.2.1 That the following question had been submitted to the Vice-Chancellor;
“What is the University policy for new academics that have joined the University of Bradford in terms of funding their research support? Is there any internal grant scheme? Some universities give seed funding to those newly joined to start and develop their research and this varies from £5,000 to £30,000.”
4.2.2 That Professor R Parkin, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Knowledge Transfer) responded;
4.2.3 That the University was putting in place an appropriate research environment and research strategy; there had been meetings with all Associate Deans (RKT) and a meeting with professors was scheduled for 7 December;
4.2.4 That a range of measures were being put in place, including sabbaticals, equipment support and support for early career researchers.
4.3 Routes to professorship
NOTED:
4.3.1 That the following question had been submitted to the Vice-Chancellor;
“Does the University have/ will have a promotional route up to professorship for staff who take a leading teaching and administrative role for running of programmes and in doing this provide a Teaching Excellence Framework. If so what are the criteria?”
4.3.2 That Professor S Congdon, Pro-Vice—Chancellor (Academic) responded;
4.3.3 That the question raised was a sector wide issue;
4.3.4 That the criteria for promotion were demonstrable evidence of excellence in research, teaching and leadership;
4.3.5 That the importance of teaching excellence would be reinforced by the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework;
4.3.6 That the criteria for teaching excellence included curriculum development and development of technology based learning.
4.4 Work based learning
NOTED:
4.4.1 That the following question had been submitted to the Vice-Chancellor:
“How do we meet the challenge of putting work based learning into all degrees?”
4.4.2 That Professor G Bradshaw, Pro Vice-Chancellor Learning and Teaching had prepared a response but was unavoidably absent from the Assembly meeting;
4.4.3 That Professor Bradshaw’s response would be posted on the Governance website.
4.5 Additional questions
NOTED:
4.5.1 Professor M Rattray asked a further question about the Strategic Development Programme, the need for rapid change and how the need for effective communication would be addressed;
4.5.2 That in response the Vice-Chancellor advised that the Strategic Development Programme would be relabelled the Bradford Excellence Programme and would be coordinating approximately 20 different work streams;
4.5.3 That the Board leading the Programme would be issuing a fortnightly update; a dedicated website was planned and a variety of briefings and presentations would take place; the critical importance of two-way communication was recognised and the Head of Communications, Ms E Bridge would be leading on the communications plan;
4.5.4 Professor M Bloj asked a question about the Academic Workload Balancing Model;
4.5.5 That in response Professor S Congdon advised that a Task and Finish Group (including representatives from each Faculty) overseeing development and implementation of the model had met over the past eight months.
4.5.6 That the Group had reviewed practice across all Faculties and Schools; this had revealed inconsistency and variability but had identified some good practice (for example in the School of Pharmacy and some areas in Engineering);
4.5.7 That there was a need, for example, to understand delivery hours per module , and assessment and allocation of research grants to inform the model;
4.5.8 That the University was seeking a software partner to facilitate implementation and a timeline to secure a partner (including a tender process) had been developed;
4.5.9 That discussions were planned with the University of Nottingham in January 2016 to share their experience of the Workload Model;
4.5.10 Ms P Naughton asked a question about the impact of the movement towards increased tariff scores on the University’s student socio-economic composition;
4.5.11 That, in response the Vice-Chancellor commented that this was a complicated issue and recognised that for some students, tariff score may not be a true reflection of their progression and success;
4.5.12 That in increasing its required tariff score, the University was moving back to space in the market which it had previously occupied;
4.5.13 That in the past the University had accepted some students with low tariff scores who had not progressed and this was not good for either students or staff;
4.5.14 That a consequence of increased tariff scores was an improvement in retention;
4.5.15 That the University’s record in terms of “value added” was a good one and the University would keep this area under close review;
4.5.16 That metrics for the Teaching Excellence Framework were likely to include “value added” and socio-economic status;
4.5.17 That the University remained committed to local outreach work and fulfilling its responsibility to help talented local young people;
4.5.18 Ms R McCarter asked a question about the University’s approach to Technology Enhanced Learning in the context of its ambitions to become the Technology University of the North;
4.5.19 That in response, the Vice-Chancellor and Professor S Congdon advised that this was addressed in the Learning and Teaching Strategy;
4.5.20 That the University would seek to replicate good practice (for example in its Distance Learning MBA) in rolling out further distance learning programmes in a judicious way, building on initiatives from programme teams;
4.5.21 That Executive Board had approved enhancements to Wi-fi provision to enable the provision of Wi-Fi access points across the campus;
4.5.22 Ms F Cameron asked a question about the current external perception of the University;
4.5.23 That in response, the Vice-Chancellor commented on the improvements in League Table performance, improved REF outcomes, increased tariff scores and , most recently, the award of the prestigious Queen’s Award Anniversary Prize in recognition of the University’s world leading work in the field of dementia research;
4.5.24 That the above developments were helping to create a virtuous circle, reinforcing improved external perception of the University:
4.5.25 Professor M Bloj asked a question about the availability of Research Information Software;
4.5.26 That in response, Prof R Parkin advised that details and options were being scoped and subject to cost, appropriate software would be acquired.
5.15-16 Any Other Business
NOTED:
5.1 That there was no other business
6.15-16 Date of next meeting
NOTED:
6.1. That the date of the next meeting would take place on 27 April 2016 at 1.00 pm.