President's weekly update

24 February 2022

Government response to Augar

The government has announced that fees for UK undergraduate students will stay at the current level for a further two years until 2024/5 (which is of course a decline in real terms), but potentially fees for most Foundation years will be capped at £7,500. They have also announced an additional £900 million over three years for further teaching support and changes to student loan repayments for new students starting in 2023. They will initiate a consultation about minimal entry requirements, potential number caps on some programmes and life-long learning entitlement. Obviously, we need to await further details.

Ukraine

We will all be increasingly concerned about the situation in Ukraine and we are particularly mindful of the direct impacts on our staff, students and wider stakeholders.

USS Pension

The latest short consultation of employers on the UCU proposals for the USS pension has now closed. UUK has reported that over 92% of the membership (over 98% by weighting of numbers of members) reported that they were unable to support the UCU proposals and remain committed to the original proposals put forward by UUK. This aligns with our own reply to the latest consultation.

The Joint Negotiating Committee, which is comprised of equal numbers of representatives of UUK and UCU voted against supporting the UCU proposal and in favour of the UUK proposal, based on the casting vote of the independent chair. Full details of the changes, which will come into effect in April 2022 can be found on StaffNet. A recent change is that the proposed reduction in cap on inflation for benefits to 2.5% has been reversed after a consultation with employers.

Whitworth Art Gallery

You may have seen some speculative media coverage on our Whitworth Art Gallery. We have issued a public statement, which strongly refutes the claim that we have in any way suppressed academic and artistic freedoms.

New Chief Finance Officer

I am delighted to announce the appointment of Carol Prokopyszyn  (pronounced Prock-o-pish-in), our new Chief Financial Officer, following a global search.  Carol will be joining the University on 6 June 2022.

External Relations Strategy Group

We heard some of the detail of our biennial external stakeholder review. This has been running since 2005 and seeks the views of leading decision makers, locally, nationally and internationally in government, business, funders, community leaders. It is carried out by an independent organisation. As I reported briefly last week, the results were the most positive we have received. Respondents give scores and make comments and both were highly favourable. Particularly notable was the much wider spread of positive comments about our research, teaching, business engagement and innovation, civic partnerships and our campus. While there remained many positive responses to our work in science, engineering and health, it was good to see this time how many also praised our activities in humanities and particularly noted our Museum.

Meeting with staff

In one of my regular meetings with a small group of staff from across the University, I heard positive comments about our reputation, social impact, interdisciplinary research including our Research Beacons and platforms (Digital Futures, Sustainable Futures, Creative Manchester and the newly developing Health Equity), our library and our resources such as our amazing datasets. Several commented on the very impressive way that our staff have pulled together to meet the challenges of the pandemic.

As usual, I asked for all their concerns, which as is commonly the case, related largely to our systems and processes such as IT, People and OD, Finance. I explained that this was largely due to outdated, inefficient and poorly functioning systems, which we are expending a great deal of money and effort to replace. This should bring about major improvements. Inevitably many wanted more spending on a range of things such as academic, PS and technical staff, so we discussed how spending on one area means cutting another when we have finite funding. They also commented on the pressures and difficulties that our staff working in student residences and our security staff had faced during the prolonged periods of lockdown. Thankfully, these now seem to be improved though work is ongoing.

Meeting with student reps in residences

This was very different to our meetings with Hall reps last year when many were concerned about support during lockdown, the behaviours of a few students and the increase in external criminal and anti-social activity within our halls. This time students raised concerns about some facilities, costs and maintenance, but also that they want more opportunities for in-person events.

Finally

I hope that you have managed to have a slightly more relaxed time during our meetings light week.

You may have seen that we have returned to the top position for the university that is most targeted by leading employers for graduate recruitment.

Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor

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