Senate Report by Ian Francis

At the start of the June meeting the Principal expressed his sadness at the death of Professor Geoffrey Hunter and his admiration for the brave and dignified manner with which he faced the latter stages of his illness. The Senatus stood in silence as a mark of respect and to honour his life and work.

In his report the Principal indicated that the University had been unsuccessful in its recent attempt to appoint a Vice-Principal (Educational Development). He intended to widen the search and to reconvene the appointing committee at a later date. He also reported that he intended to ask the Court to proceed to advertise the second post of Vice-Principal (Research & Enterprise) during the summer. The selection process would again be handled by a joint committee of the Court and Senate. It was agreed that the two Senate representatives should be Professor J Belch and Professor R A Kennedy with discretion for the Principal to invite Professor Tickle in view of her distinction in research, to join the committee.

The Principal also reported on the University's strategic priorities and its financial position. Future planning should have, at its centre, effective learning and teaching, world class research, and flexible working across disciplines and with its sister institutions.

The major areas for resourcing were estates, human resources, information management and technology and finance. In estates there were large capital investment plans for SRIF, for improvements to teaching accommodation, for residence improvements with a balance to be struck between in-house and external provision (upon which no decisions had yet been taken), for the relocation of the faculty of education & social work on the main campus and, more generally, for equipment and campus maintenance.

In the area of human resouces, the big issues were pay and grading, staff development and planning the future size and shape of the workforce. On information management, a major report driven by Dr M Coughtrie and Mr R J C Watt would be considered by the Court later in June and thereafter would be made widely available to members of the University. On financial matters there was a balance to be struck between progressive and prudent attitudes. The Court was seeking to maintain a surplus of between £1m and £1.5m in order to support the capital programme and some discussion would be required on the precise figure to be adopted. While an expanded capital programme was vital it was also important to restrict borrowing to a reasonable and prudent level.

New developments were also taking place in student services: more coordination and improvements in the student environment and in external relations where there needed to be a sharper edge in the University's interaction with the external world. In addition the organisational structure was changing following the review of central services, which had placed responsibility on directors for moving things forward.

Generally the University was operating in an unfavourable financial environment. It needed to be bold enough to take tough decisions as well as building on its success and achievements. Change was necessary in order to meet the needs of staff and students and to be able to invest in the teaching and research infrastructure which had been relatively neglected in the past.

After updates on progress with the centre for learning and teaching and the work on the introduction of semesters and modules the Senate moved to the most contentious item on the agenda. It was invited to nominate members to serve on a redundancy committee and an appeal committee should the Court, at its meeting on 24 June, contemplate redundancy given the likelihood that the University would be unable to meet its target surplus.

The view was expressed that this proposal was premature. There had been no discussion of the adequacy of the voluntary severence and early retirement scheme; the University was predicting a surplus for 2002/03 not a deficit and there had been no formal discussion of alternative strategies to avoid redundancy nor formal consultation with the trades unions. In any case, compulsory redundancy should be a last resort after all alternatives had been explored.

The Principal pointed out his view that it would have been verging on dishonesty if this issue were to be raised at Court with no mention of it having been made at this Senate meeting. The finance committee had been tracking the results of the early retirement scheme and the Court, in June 2001, had recognised that the scheme might not achieve the University's objectives and that therefore alternatives might have to be considered. The current Court policy was to avoid compulsory redundancy and that policy had not changed. However, the target savings had not been made by the voluntary scheme and Court might therefore contemplate changing current policy.

The Senatus was invited to indicate its opinion on the issue of nominating members to serve on putative redundancy and appeal committees should Court decide to go forward under Statute 16 at its meeting on 24 June. The Senatus decided on a vote of 24 to 22 not to proceed with nominations at this time.

The meeting ended with two significant retirals being noted. Firstly Huw Jones, who had been a distinguished member of the University for more than forty years and had been an excellent Dean, balancing effectively the sometimes conflicting demands of advocacy for his faculty with the overall good of the University. The Senatus joined the Principal in expressing its thanks to him and its best wishes for the future.

Secondly David Swinfen, who had served the University for almost forty years in a variety of capacities from head of department to Dean and latterly as an excellent Vice-Principal. He had shown great sensitivity in handling staff and student problems, had overseen three successful mergers and had demonstrated leadership in relation to learning and teaching both locally and nationally. On a personal level he had been a tremendous source of good advice and wise counsel to the Principal. The Senatus joined the Principal in expressing its thanks to him and its best wishes for the future.

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