UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

INFRASTRUCTURE STRATEGY DUAL ASSURANCE, 21 April 2011

PRESENT: David Allen, Peter Lacey, Jeremy Lindley, Hugh McCann, Jill Williams

  1. Truro Residences

It was noted that the University was near to reaching a position on the residences in Truro but was not yet ready to come forward. The financial numbers were being considered by the Dean of PCMD before a final decision was made. Meanwhile the legal documentation was being progressed and there may be a need to hold a meeting of the Standing Committee of Council in early May to look at this.

  1. IT

Michele Shoebridge and Sally Wilcox would be invited to sit on Infrastructure Dual Assurance meetings so that IT was integrated with Infrastructure more effectively.

  1. Simon Cain

Infrastructure DA wished to record their thanks to Simon Cain for his work on the Infrastructure Fund. Simon would be leaving the University to take up a position as Financial Controller at Thomas Westcott.

  1. ISG – June

Another meeting of ISG would be required in June in order that all project requests could be handled before the summer.

  1. Items for consideration at the meeting of the Infrastructure Strategy Group were discussed as follows:

Construction Costs Benchmarking Study

The report provided to ISG was very good. It was noted that more attention needed to be paid to the revenue consequences of capital spend and maintainability of equipment. The benefits of standardising equipment should result in cost efficiencies.

The report would be treated as a policy document along with the refurbishment benchmarking document. Combined with the revenue consequences and maintainability these would make an excellent suite of documents to steer future infrastructure development.

Learning and Teaching Space needs

  • The report indicated that the University had sufficient space to meet the needs for the next 5-6 years. However the analysis confirmed that the potential combination of increased contact hours and increased academic staff numbers created a potentially significant pressure, which needed further evaluation both with Colleges and overall.
  • A proposal was being brought forward for teaching spaces in the Old Library.
  • The current utilisation of space was 33% for Streatham and 31% for St Luke’s. There was demand growth for smaller rooms. The sector average was 32% and HEFCE good level was 35%. Cornwall utilisation was very high.

Infrastructure Fund

A list of IT investment priorities was to be brought to the next meeting.

ESI would be moved in to ‘achieved’ status following the current status report.

Tranche 2 Profile

The re-profiling would bring forward IT investment and Learning and Teaching investment, and would push back investment in the Great Hall and Business School. This did not affect the overall envelope.

Sports Facilities

During the development phase of the Sport Facilities project it would be critical to explore how any proposal will be made attractive to external sources of funding. A mini Masterplan would be created for Sport Facilities.

Refurbishment of Old Library

This project could free up seminar space in other buildings that could then be used for staff accommodation.

Forum

Concerns were raised about the Forum programme and the completion of the reception. Programme revision J was due to be issued by SRM shortly and this would be interrogated and commented on by Davis Langdon.

Any Other Business

The Hong Kong Government were asking for expressions of interest to develop a campus that would hold 8,000 students at Queen’s Hill; a former British Army barracks in Hong Kong. The University was considering, in partnership with INTO, putting forward an expression of interest.