President's weekly update
28 January 2021
You will have seen the news that, aside from the exempt programmes and students with particular personal circumstances which require them to be on campus, students should not return to campus and most teaching will remain online until at least 8 March.
I attended several meetings of the Russell Group and Universities UK (UUK) with other UK vice-chancellors. All are experiencing the same challenges as us in managing student expectations, are getting many demands from students for more in-person teaching, and seeking to meet the needs of accredited courses including student placements. Staff from across the University are considering how we can catch up in-person teaching when it is safe for most of students to return to campus, and how we can support our students who are also missing out on the wider University experience that they would normally expect. We believe we already have perhaps the highest investment in student (and staff) mental health and wellbeing support and we are now increasing this further.
At the Russell Group we also met Lord Karan Bilimoria, Chair of the CBI and a great supporter of international partnerships and international student recruitment. With UUK, we discussed the ongoing evaluation and consultation on the USS pension which is proving very challenging given the wider financial situation and the real concerns about inter-generational fairness with many younger staff pulling out of USS. We are continuing discussions to seek the best outcome for our staff which is also affordable and acceptable to the Pensions Regulator.
Patrick Hackett, Registrar, Secretary and Chief Operating Officer, Robert Fraser, Finance Director, and I met with the Chair of our Board and the Chairs of the Board sub-committees to discuss our five-year financial projections which as I have reported previously, are extremely challenging. Prior to COVID we had already identified the need to generate further surpluses to invest in our core activities. Most major income streams (UK undergraduate fee income, government teaching grant and research indirect costs) are declining in real terms, while our costs are rising faster than inflation. In the current year we have additional income due to exceeding targets for student recruitment - largely not as a result of our own planning, but because of the very late change in A-level grades. However we also have a significant loss of income, mainly from student residences, but also from conferences, catering etc, extra costs due to COVID and additional support where we have over recruited students. We have a number of transformational programmes planned and in progress including for example, the Student Experience Programme and are also looking at further means of income generating and delivering efficiencies to ensure that we are financially sustainable and can reinvest in our core goals.
Our Board Audit and Risk Committee met this week. We reviewed our latest TRAC (transparent approach to costing) which assesses the cost of all our activities and in line with the comments above, shows an increase in the deficit on several core activities. We also discussed our latest Risk Register, which underwent a major refresh in 2020, particularly to include the major risks posed by the pandemic but also to recognise increasing risks of cyberattacks, costs of pensions and impacts of Brexit.
The vice-chancellors of the five Greater Manchester (GM) universities (Salford, Bolton, MMU, RNCM and ours) met with the nine principles of the GM Further Education Colleges, to discuss how we can collaborate more effectively. This was timely as it took place just as the government released its white paper on post-16 education. We are now planning a GM-wide workshop to develop several collaborative projects.
I chaired our External Relations Group where we discussed our communications plan, notably to enhance student communication and use of social media, our external stakeholders action plan survey and measures of our external reputation.
I joined a webinar held by the Industrial Strategy Council (ISC, of which I am a member) on ‘levelling up’ - international examples which may be of value to the UK. I am chairing a joint ISC and Council for Science and Technology group looking at how we might ‘level-up’ research and development activities and funding in the UK.
We will shortly be seeking nominations for membership of the University Senate. Given the importance of Senate as our principal academic authority, I would strongly urge staff to consider putting themselves forward. Further information will be available from Monday 1 February.
The week commencing 15 February has been designated as ‘meetings-light’. Staff have been working incredibly hard in these difficult times and we all need to create some free time when we can. I appreciate that many of you will be busy over this week and some meetings will have to go ahead, but where possible try to avoid any that aren’t urgent.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor