President's weekly update
22 February 2018
The University and College Union (UCU) has asked its members to take industrial action in relation to proposed changes to the future benefits structure of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) pension scheme. A large part of the UK university sector will be affected by this in the coming weeks. At our University around 2,000 of our 12,000 staff are members of the UCU.
While the University aims to minimise the impact of the industrial action, it also recognises the rights of individual members of staff to take industrial action. We will endeavour to maintain normal operations and are advising students to work on the basis that their studies will continue as normal unless they are told otherwise. This means that they should attend scheduled teaching, complete and submit assessments by the relevant deadlines, and continue to plan for any examinations. The University will not benefit from strike pay deducted from staff and will use it to the benefit of students. Information about the industrial action for staff and students is available and being regularly updated.
The proposed pension changes and industrial action were discussed in detail at the Russell Group of Vice-Chancellors last week. Pension funds like the USS, which offer an element of defined benefit pension, have come under increasing financial pressure with both deficits and the cost of future service increasing significantly, in spite of additional payments by employers and employees.
I attended a Russell Group meeting of Vice-Chancellors where we discussed the pending review of education for over 18 year olds in England that has just been announced by the Prime Minister. It has been speculated that this review could recommend a reduction in fees for some university undergraduate courses. For universities like ours this would have very serious consequences because the cost of undergraduate education is almost exactly the same as our income from undergraduate fees.
We also discussed the likely impact of Brexit on universities, the government’s position on international students and the need to better explain the activities and benefits of universities. The new Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, Sam Gyimah, attended part of the meeting. He said that Brexit, the review of funding of universities and delivering the increase in research spend were amongst the areas he would be looking to address over coming months.
At our Board of Governors meeting, in addition to the routine business and reports, we updated the Board on progress and planning for our North Campus, reported on the External Stakeholder Survey, and Professor Martin Schröder, Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering, gave an update on his Faculty, including the ongoing discussions about potential changes to the current structure of the Faculty.
The Board meeting was preceded by an ‘informal briefing’ on what we are doing to improve the experience of our students. We heard impressive presentations about MyLearning and other Library resources and heard from student volunteers in the Library. Board members then heard from students in smaller groups. They reported back on a range of issues that were raised such as mental health, sporting facilities, varied quality of teaching, the cost of sandwiches and out of hours access to our buildings. Board members said how positive and articulate our students were and how much they valued their experience at the University.
In the School of Law we met only two students, who were very articulate and polite. They asked about University finances, student safety, transport and capital expenditure. In the meeting with staff we heard of many of the successes in the School of Law but also real concerns about the proposed changes to the USS pension scheme and the impact of industrial action on our students.
We held a special event to present the University’s Medal of Honour to Dr Maria Balshaw who recently stood down as Director of the Whitworth and the Manchester Art Gallery to take up the position of Director of the Tate.
I met Lord O’Shaughnessy, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health, who visited Manchester to hear about evolution of the health budget, partnerships between the health and social care providers, the University and regional government and the huge opportunities that devolution provides for innovative approaches to health care.
I attended two sessions of our Inspiring Leaders Programme this week to talk with attendees about the work they have been doing on vision and direction for the University. We discussed the need to make ‘difficult choices’ and the desire for wider engagement. I was keen to hear their views on how this engagement can be effectively delivered and would welcome comments from any staff on this important topic.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
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