Court news

At its February meeting, the Court focussed on the University's strategy for dealing with the financial challenges facing the sector.

Finance
The Court took the opportunity to take stock of the University' s financial position going forward. With the sustainability review one year old, and with good progress being made against savings targets , the University now needed to make further progress in reducing core costs and to focus more on the income targets contained in the review and the Strategic Framework, in particular postgraduate recruitment and research overhead recovery. The Court also considered the wider higher education context for Scotland. Against this background it was clear that the existing savings and income targets would only allow the University to achieve a break-even position, and therefore further cost reductions were necessary to enable the University to achieve a 3% surplus. The Court learnt that the Senate had discussed these issues fully, and it was reassuring that the Senate recognised the University's position and had agreed, amongst other things, to work through the Colleges and Schools to refine the academic aspirations and priorities of the institution, and also to focus on achieving the income generation targets contained in the sustainability review and strategic framework. It was the Principal's view that the institution could tackle the issues it faced whilst at the same time continuing to grow. The Court emphasised the need for staff to understand the financial environment in which universities now operated.

Voluntary Severance
The Court received a report detailing the success of the voluntary severance scheme in achieving savings. 110 applications had been approved by the Senior Management Team, and this amounted to a full-year saving of £3.45m. Alongside the voluntary severance scheme, the University was continuing to exercise rigour in the approval of new posts and it was also reviewing its retirement profiles and delaying appointments in year as further means to save costs. The Court approved proposals to extend the scheme until 31 October 2008 in order for the University to realise at least a further £3m of savings. The Court recognised that the first phase of the scheme had disproportionately elicited more applications from support staff than from academic staff. It therefore accepted that in the second phase there should be a greater focus on encouraging applications from the academic staff.

Estate Strategy
The Court heard a presentation from the Secretary and the Director of Campus Services, introducing the draft of the University's Estate Strategy. The strategy, when complete, would be submitted to the Scottish Funding Council and thereafter reviewed on an annual basis. The strategy laid out the University's priorities for its estate over the next ten years, including the maintenance of existing buildings, the more effective use of space, improved environmental sustainability as well as more generally the estate's contribution to the University's overall financial sustainability. The focus of activity over the period of the strategy would be on Ninewells and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, but with a more general commitment to extensive backlog maintenance across the city campus.

Ninewells
The Court approved a capital authorisation proposal from the School of Medicine for improved teaching and learning accommodation at Ninewells, subject to the University's maintaining its overall borrowing levels within existing forecasts. The first phase of the project would see the extension of the Clinical Skills Centre into space vacated by the NHS Surgical Day Care Unit as well as the conversion of library space into flexible small group teaching areas.

Employment Statute
The Court received a paper outlining the process whereby the Scottish pre-1992 Universities proposed to revise the governance instrument covering aspects of the terms of employment of academic staff. At the University of Dundee, this instrument was Statute 16 - Academic Staff. It was proposed that the universities would enter into discussions collectively with the University & College Union on replacing the employment statute. The intention was to agree an enabling statute, under which secondary employment procedures could operate and be updated on a more regular basis.

Miscellanous
The Principal congratulated Professor Michael Ferguson on his award of a CBE in the New Year's Honours List. Professor Ferguson, along with Professor Roland Wolf, had also been appointed to the Scottish Science Advisory Committee, a body established to provide independent advice to Scottish Government Ministers on strategic scientific issues. The Principal also reported that the University had received the first results of the most recent wave of the International Student Barometer, a survey of international students and their experiences. The feedback had been very positive, and the University had been placed eleventh out of 84 British universities taking part.

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