Pay Gaps Revisited

The eagle-eyed amongst you might have spotted that the University recently published its annual pay gap report; if you haven’t seen this, it’s available here. I’m not going to repeat what the report says but what I do want to do is share a bit more data and insight.

First as context, pay gaps directly compare (for all grades) the hourly pay of staff across different sub groups. We are required to report pay gaps by gender but we have also chosen to report our ethnicity and disability pay gap. The Gender Pay Gap has changed little since our first report in 2017; the Ethnicity Pay Gap is showing signs of improvement while the Disability Pay Gap has deteriorated. For the first time this year, we have also calculated a Sexual Orientation Pay Gap (but we have not yet started to report this). I’ve summarised our figures in the table below. The percentages indicate the extent to which pay for men exceeds that for women, (and white staff v ethnic minority, not disabled v disabled and heterosexual v LGBT+).

	31 March 2017	31 March 2018	31 March 2019	31 March 2020
Gender GAP
Mean gender pay gap in hourly pay	26.5%	26.0%	25.9%	26.8%
Median gender pay gap in hourly pay	23.4%	25.3%	24.7%	23.3%
Ethnicity
Mean ethnicity pay gap in hourly pay	8.6%	6.9%	8.2%	7.4%
Median ethnicity pay gap in hourly pay	7.2%	5.1%	4.2%	5.7%
Disability
Mean disability pay gap in hourly pay	11.4%	12.8%	13.0%	17.9%
Median disability pay gap in hourly pay	9.9%	13.3%	14.0%	18.6%
Sexual Orientation (LGBT+)
Mean LGBT+ pay gap in hourly pay	-	-	-	-2.7%
Median LGBT+ pay gap in hourly pay	-	-	-	4.1%

The University’s Pay Action Group has undertaken extensive analysis to understand more about the nature and causes of our pay gaps. It’s a complex picture – there are lots of factors that affect pay levels and progression. But we’re taking initiatives in a number of areas and I’ll say a bit more about this at the end of this blog.

If we look at gender pay initially and make some comparisons across grades, we see the following:

Mean Gender Pay Gap	2018	2019	2020	% Female (2020)
FA 1	-0.5%	1.6%	2.7%	73%
FA 2	-0.5%	4.7%	3.2%	50%
FA 3	0.9%	2.1%	2.7%	73%
FA 4	0.0%	1.3%	2.2%	65%
FA 5	1.1%	2.1%	2.9%	57%
FA 6	0.6%	0.8%	6.8%	52%
FA 7	0.8%	2.1%	2.1%	49%
FA 8	1.1%	2.5%	3.1%	42%
FA 9	5.6%	8.2%	12.4%	26%
CLINICAL	10.3%	26.1%	28.1%	40%
Grand Total	26.0%	25.9%	26.8%	52%

There are currently some marked gaps in Clinical roles, at FA9 and also at FA6; in other areas the gaps are much smaller. But the lower grades are dominated by women and the higher grades are dominated by men. This is sometimes described as vertical labour market segregation. Not surprisingly, if women are disproportionately in lower paid roles and men are disproportionately in higher paid roles, then small differences for individuals within will become a larger pay gap overall.

The table below looks at this in a different way and asks “what happens if we simply equalise salary with all grades (and for sub sets of grades)” – and the resulting pay gaps are in the first column. It also asks “what happens if we equalise the proportions of men and women across all grades” – and the results are in the second column”.

	Pay Gap when salaries are equalised within grades	Pay Gap when staff distributions are equalised within grades
For all grades	22.37%	6.42%
For bottom 3 grades	26.01%	21.35%
For top 3 grades	24.41%	15.25%
For top 3 & clinical grades	23.75%	14.55%
For middle 3 grades	21.87%	24.95%

What this tells us is that if we want to address the gender pay gap, we need to address the uneven distribution of staff by gender across different grades and we will have to do this at all levels – we can’t just focus on subsets.

The problem of vertical labour market segregation also plays a role in other pay gaps. For both disability and ethnicity, there is a similar challenge; disabled and ethnic minority staff are disproportionately represented in the lower grades.

	BAME	White	Pay Gap	% BAME
FA 1	£8.75	£8.59	-1.81%	26%
FA 2	£9.45	£9.64	1.98%	11%
FA 3	£10.33	£10.61	2.69%	15%
FA 4	£12.15	£12.36	1.72%	13%
FA 5	£14.09	£13.96	-0.93%	18%
FA 6	£17.93	£18.42	2.64%	26%
FA 7	£23.39	£22.92	-2.05%	17%
FA 8	£28.46	£28.61	0.53%	13%
FA 9	£55.09	£50.59	-8.89%	10%
CLINICAL	£59.56	£50.02	-19.07%	25%
Grand Total	£19.45	£21.02	7.45%	18%

	Disabled	Not Disabled	Pay Gap	% Disabled
FA 1	£8.67	£8.63	-0.49%	6%
FA 2	£9.66	£9.64	-0.20%	10%
FA 3	£10.45	£10.58	1.23%	7%
FA 4	£12.30	£12.34	0.32%	6%
FA 5	£14.93	£13.93	-7.19%	6%
FA 6	£17.15	£18.31	6.35%	5%
FA 7	£22.17	£23.04	3.75%	4%
FA 8	£28.01	£28.56	1.91%	3%
FA 9	£51.40	£51.36	-0.07%	3%
CLINICAL	£27.30	£52.92	48.41%	3%
Grand Total	£17.27	£21.04	17.90%	5%

When looking at the ethnicity pay gap we also need to consider sub-groups – and this year we have disaggregated the ethnicity data as shown below.

	Black	Asian	Mixed	Other
Mean ethnicity pay gap in hourly pay	27.8%	2.7%	12.1%	10.0%
Median ethnicity pay gap in hourly pay	25.5%	1.7%	1.7%	-3.0%
Proportion of staff in when divided into 4 groups ordered from lowest to highest pay
Q1	4%	11%	2%	1%
Q2	2%	13%	2%	1%
Q3	1%	14%	2%	2%
Q4	1%	10%	1%	1%

This highlights that the relatively low overall ethnicity pay gap hides considerable variation across groups with the mean and median pay gap for staff from a Black background being significantly higher than that for other ethnic groups; again, its significant that staff from a black background are underrepresented at the higher grades within our staff base.

Having outlined to nature of the problem, let me say something about the work that is being done to address this – and this work is being scrutinised by Council, Remuneration Committee, UEB and is being overseen by Pay Action Group. We’ll soon be publishing our Pay Action Plan and that will give you more detail; the dominant focus is on addressing the problem of vertical labour market segregation – so trying to ensure we do as much as we can to get a more even representation of staff across all grades. And that means looking at how we do recruitment and how we need to improve that process to eliminate any possible biases (whether conscious or unconscious); it also means thinking about how we support and enable career progression, particularly for those groups who are underrepresented at more senior levels (training and development, job families and promotions processes). And of course we need to continue monitoring the nature of the pay gaps, the variations that exist across our diverse areas of activity and we need to be willing to make adjustments when we identify clear cases of inequity. And we need to encourage staff to continue to declare their status with respect to ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation. We can only analyse pay gaps when we have the data on individual protected characteristics.

Chris Ennew

Provost

Please click here for a PDF version of this blog: Pay Gaps Revisited

Execblog Resource : 12 Apr 2021 11:27 |  Tags: Provost |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Doing More to Understand the Experience of Disabled Students

I’ve often thought that Universities do not always make the most of academic insights into the policy and management issues that we wrestle with. That’s not because we don’t value them, but rather because academic research often has greater visibility externally than it does internally. So I was particularly intrigued to hear about some of the work being done by a colleague in Warwick Business School looking at the employment experiences of disabled people. Partly as a result of this work, Kim Hoque was appointed to the Centre for Social Justice’s Disability Commission and the introductions and connections that he made, gave us the opportunity to understand more about the work that the Commission was doing.

The Commission is particularly concerned to understand issues relating to the education and employment of disabled people and our discussions with members of the Commission (and the evidence that we finally submitted) gave us the opportunity to reflect on the challenges that we face and the value of the initiatives that we have put in place. As recent studies have shown (see for example the Policy Connect Report – Arriving and Thriving), disabled students in higher education continue to experience disparities in continuation, attainment and graduate outcomes. Many disabled students still struggle to fully access teaching and learning in the way that they need. They often face greater administrative burdens than non-disabled students because they must request, organise and often fight for the support they need. And they may miss out on the full range of extra-curricular and social activities that are such a valued and valuable part of the University experience. If you ask our students, they will tell you that we still have a lot of work to do at Warwick to address these issues.

Our evidence to the CSJ’s Disability Commission focused specifically on the student experience; a particular theme was the importance of information and advice to facilitate successful transitions from school to University and from University to employment. At Warwick, we try to work with Schools, both to raise aspirations and to ensure there is an understanding of the type of support that is available - whether at Warwick or at university in general. We work with students and our careers (student opportunity) team to support with the transition to employment – working with organisations that encourage disability confident employers (e.g. MyPlus) and encouraging students to think positively about disability disclosure, marketing their skills that are related to living with a disability – resilience, adaptability and perseverance. Whilst many major employers now have good resources for disabled staff, supportive staff networks and a positive attitude, graduate employment outcomes for disabled students remain an area of concern.

While Warwick, like many other institutions, has a genuine commitment to supporting disabled students, it remains the case that both external and internal policies and practices create challenges that are not faced by non-disabled students. For example, the Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) provides support for costs related to studying that arise because of a disability of any type. It’s not means tested and has a value of up to £25,000 per year. But changes in 2016 to control costs mean that many decisions around provision are based more on the lowest quote than on the preferences of the student. We argued strongly in our submission to CSJ that there is a pressing need to look again at the operation of DSA to ensure it genuinely delivers to the needs of students. And it’s not just DSA that needs work – we need to look carefully at our own policy and practice to identify the ways in which we may, unintentionally, be creating unreasonable barriers that make it harder for disabled students to succeed. Unless and until we do, we will not be able to create the necessary climate that will enable our disabled students to realise their full potential.

Chris Ennew

Provost

Execblog Resource : 04 Mar 2021 11:14 |  Tags: Provost |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Pay Gap

Gender Pay Gap reporting was mandated in 2017, and in the university sector this reporting has encouraged clearer acknowledgement of inequalities, and has raised many questions about their source. Last autumn, blog posts from the Provost, the Director of Social Inclusion, and the Co-Chair of the Race Equality Task Force introduced and discussed the institution’s latest pay gap data. In the subsequent Pay Gap Report 2019, Warwick extended the reporting to include pay gap data for ethnicity and disability. As Chair of the Gender Task Force, I welcome this opportunity to consider the intersections of these protected characteristics. Although we have incomplete datasets (as staff disclosure of protected characteristics is voluntary), there is still work we can do at institutional level to determine where improvements to policy and process may deliver the most scope to reduce inequalities.

At Warwick, the gender pay gap - the difference in hourly pay between the total population of women in the workforce and the total population of men in the workforce - is substantial. It is clear that the institutional pay gap is driven to a significant extent by demographic differences across the grades, with 68% of staff in the lowest pay quartile being female, and 64% of the staff in the highest pay quartile being male. If we were to ignore demographics, and simply consider rates of pay for women and men at the lowest grades, then the hourly rates are close to equivalence. It would be easy to overlook the upper middle quartile for pay, where there is almost no demographic difference by gender (49% female, and 51% male), but the data show that the average hourly rates for Grade 7 and above are higher for men than for women. Recognizing that there is a salary spine within each grade, are there demographic profile differences within these grades? What if recent efforts to encourage gender diversity have resulted in a scenario where there are plenty of women entering the career pipeline at Warwick, and we just need to wait until they have had an opportunity to progress through the grades? In 2018, 21% of Warwick’s professors were female; this rose to 23.4% in 2019. Is it just a matter of time until the pay gap is eroded? I don’t believe it is this simple, as the demographic differences are long-standing, and because snapshots of a population at a single point in time do not tell us about career trajectories, about the rates at which employees progress in the sector. These trajectories may have a critical story to tell.

Is gender a significant factor in career progression? If so, why? The catalyst for the Athena SWAN Charter, and the rationale for its original focus on women in STEM, was the observation that for early career academics in STEM disciplines, taking maternity leave led to an irrevocable setback in their research career. It was a cause for concern, as the sector was losing exceptionally talented individuals as a consequence. An academic researcher needs to be visibly established and respected for the quality of their work in order to sustain and progress their career. They will benefit from giving seminars at leading institutions and presenting work at high profile conferences, from using international facilities, building networks, working at a range of institutions, and establishing leadership of a research group. Until recently the majority of research funders have determined academic career stage (and thereby eligibility for many highly competitive grant schemes), by the number of months and years elapsed since an individual gained their doctoral status. Historically, the sector has tended towards quantifying academic success in terms of publication volume and grant income, and to looking for evidence of recent impact, leaving little or no space to take (or to account for) career breaks. The metrics-based culture has dis-incentivized part-time working, making it untenable for many until they approach retirement. In recent years, with a growth in understanding about how Diversity and Inclusion can improve organizational performance, it has become easier for staff to discuss these issues openly. It has made it possible to question systems that disproportionately exclude groups with protected characteristics, to challenge practices that reduce the talent pool available to an organization.

Against this backdrop, I welcome the recent substantial changes to the academic promotion process at Warwick. Studies within, and external to, Warwick have shown that women are more likely than men to postpone applying for promotion until they are sure of success, and there is also evidence that women are disproportionately likely to take on (and retain) time-consuming roles requiring a high level of collegiality [1]. The move to a points-based promotion system, enabling individuals to self-evaluate prior to making an application, the permission to apply in successive years, and the opportunity to put forward evidence and showcase positive impact from the full spectrum of roles undertaken by academic staff, has enabled high performing staff with more diverse portfolios to progress. Such revision of the processes fundamental to career development and progression are a key step in reducing the pay gap for the long term.

Now, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, diversity issues that have scope to widen the pay gap have been accentuated. For example, surveys in the UK population identified significant disparities by gender for employment and caring responsibilities [2]. A study of impact in the wider community found that where women and men had equivalent jobs and shared parenting responsibilities, women in these households disproportionately absorbed childcare and home schooling responsibilities, continuing paid work for their employer, while more subject to frequent interruptions than men [3], resulting in extended working days and a highly fragmented working environment. Concerns surfacing in the academic community were highlighted by an article in May reporting a startling drop in research paper submissions from women, while there was a significant increase in submissions from men [4]. Warwick ran an institutional-level COVID Support Survey in July to obtain a quantitative and qualitative understanding of the challenges being faced by all staff, and to identify groups facing particular issues. Summary information from the survey was shared on Insite, and the findings are now being used by the central teams and by heads of department to better support staff as we go forward into an uncertain year.

Looking to the forthcoming academic promotion round in January 2021, we recognize that staff who intended to apply this year may be concerned that their case has been adversely impacted by exceptional challenges since the spring. We are therefore encouraging senior staff to volunteer as Promotion Advisors, to provide a point of contact for promotion candidates who will welcome additional support and guidance during the application process. This scheme has been developed over the summer; if you wish to be involved, please to contact the Provost Chris Ennew directly for further information. It is clear that many staff with protected characteristics have been particularly vulnerable to adversity arising from the COVID-19 situation, and the work we can do now to support colleagues will help mitigate the impact in our community.

Prof Jo Collingwood

Gender Task Force

23Sep20

References

[1] C. Guarino & V. Borden, Faculty Service Loads and Gender: Are Women Taking Care of the Academic Family? Res High Educ (2017) 58:672–694, DOI 10.1007/s11162-017-9454-2

[2] Fawcett Society Briefing, Parenting and Covid-19 – Research evidence, August 2020 https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/parenting-and-covid-19

[3] A. Andrew et. al. How are mothers and fathers balancing work and family under lockdown?’ IFS Briefing Note BN290, 2020, https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/14860

[4] A. Fazackerley, Women's research plummets during lockdown - but articles from men increase, The Guardian, 12^th May 2020 https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/may/12/womens-research-plummets-during-lockdown-but-articles-from-men-increase

Execblog Resource : 19 Nov 2020 12:12 |  Tags: Provost |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Pay Gaps and the Merit Pay and SPRR Processes

Towards the end of last year, the University’s Pay Action Group (PAG) published a series of blogs that examined our pay gaps in relation to gender, ethnicity and disability. Those discussions highlighted some genuine concerns about our current position as well as the challenges of trying to bring about real and long lasting change. We are working to explore a range of changes to policy and practice in order to understand how the University can address its pay gaps. For example, we have supported and encouraged new training and development initiatives, we have identified a number of changes to the University Recruitment policy and we are working on approaches to encourage more individuals to self-declare in relation to ethnicity and disability to ensure that our measurement is more accurate.

Understanding what our data tells us is an important part of the work of PAG; having looked at pay gaps in earlier blogs, we have been keen to consider other aspects of how individuals are rewarded. Most recently we have been looking at some of the outcomes of the Merit Pay process and Senior Pay and Remuneration Review (SPRR) to see if we can get a better understanding of how these processes work in relation to certain protected characteristics. These are both annual processes that reward individuals based on a judgement about their performance during the previous year. Merit pay applies to colleagues in grades FA1 to FA8 and SPRR applies to colleagues at FA9.

The Outcomes of SPRR

The table below shows participation in SPRR by gender since the 2016/17 review period. Participation in SPRR is voluntary and is an individual (rather than a manager’s) decision. The data show that while there is a markedly larger eligible male population, participation rates have been (on average) a little higher for female staff.

The distribution of performance ratings by outcome and gender is shown below. The distribution by outcome is broadly similar for male and female staff, although in the last two years, a slightly larger proportion of female participants have received the higher ratings.

The next two tables consider participation and grading on the basis of ethnicity. We use an aggregate grouping – BAME – because the relatively small numbers at FA9 make further disaggregation difficult. Currently, the BAME group is 9% of the Level 9 population – 50 staff in total. Apart from 2017/8, the differences between the two groups are small, but looking over the entire period the level of participation in SPRR by BAME staff looks to be a little lower than for white staff.

There is quite a bit of variability in the distribution of outcomes by ethnicity and, of course, the small BAME community at FA9 means that a change in the position of one or two individuals can have quite a big impact. Having said that it is noticeable that a rather smaller percentage of BAME staff were graded as excellent or outstanding in 2018-19 when compared with white staff.

Merit Pay Outcomes

The merit pay population is much larger than the SPRR population, covering all staff in grades 1-8. While there is some variability in nomination rates across grade and across area, on average, around 30% of staff are nominated for Merit Pay awards. Moderation processes are used to challenge nominations with a view to ensuring that there is fairness across the community.

Looking at merit pay nominations by gender, the graph below shows that this year 33.7% of eligible women were nominated compared 27.5% of eligible men. The female nomination rate has gradually decreased whereas the male nomination rate has increased slightly since 2017/18.

The next graph shows that the percentage nomination rates for those of white ethnicity has decreased since 2016/17. BAME nominations have marginally increased since 2016/17. The nomination rate for those who have not previously disclosed their ethnicity has increased significantly since 2017/18.

Moving on to disability, nominations for staff who declared that they have no known disability have slightly decreased over the years whilst the nominations for those with a declared disability are essentially unchanged. For those who did not disclose, the nomination rate has increased significantly (7.7%).

The change over time in the nomination rate for part-time and full-time is marginal, however it is worth noting a significant difference (around 7%) in nomination rates between these two groups of staff.

Finally, looking at staff group, the graph below shows that nominations for academic staff have increased for the 2018/19 review period whereas the nominations for professional staff has decreased by 5.6%. For the current year, there is a difference in the nomination rate of 4.9% between Academic and Professional Services Staff.

So, what can we learn from these numbers? Well for SPRR there is more variability in outcome by ethnicity than there is by gender – and numbers for disability are too small to allow any analysis to be undertaken. For gender, the simple male/female comparison suggests few differences but for ethnicity the recent outcomes look to be more favourable for white staff.

When we consider merit pay there are more marked variations in relation to protected characteristics and these need to be looked at more closely. And we will be reviewing the operation of the merit pay arrangements following this analysis and based on feedback from a number of different groups within the University.

There are still significant numbers of staff who do not declare their ethnicity and/or disability; without knowing the characteristics of the non-declaring staff we can’t be sure how reliable our analysis. Accordingly we will be exploring options for encouraging more staff to declare to ensure that we get the best possible understanding of our position and identify the changes that we might need to make.

Finally, it’s worth noting that what this analysis doesn’t do is consider issues of intersectionality – it looks only at single characteristics by themselves and future analysis will need to dig deeper to consider, for example, links between gender and ethnicity or links between work pattern and disability.

Chris Ennew

Provost

Execblog Resource : 23 Apr 2020 10:47 |  Tags: Provost |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Green Week: Thinking about our Climate Emergency

Green Week is our annual celebration of the environment, and a time when we work with partners in the region to promote some of the great activities that are happening to help us all to be more sustainable, in our day-to-day lives. It’s also an opportunity for us to focus on the future courses of action that we need to take as individuals, as communities, and as organisations. Indeed in the period since we declared our Climate Emergency we’ve seen the emergence of a number of important initiatives which include de-carbonising our electricity usage and increasing re-use and recycling through initiatives within Campus and Commercial Services.

There is a huge range of activities to take part in over the course of Green Week – from ‘swap shops’ where you can exchange clothes for new ones, to a Green Fair at the end of the week. There really is something for everyone, so make sure to get involved and book onto events happening across our campus this week.

With all this activity on campus around all things sustainable, there couldn’t be a better time to start talking with you about some changes to our travel policy and to our investment policy. Both of these changes have been encouraged by the Climate Emergency Task Force which met for the first time in January. Its role is to provide advice and facilitate better co-ordination of the University’s actions to address a climate emergency, and business travel was one of the first things it considered. Whilst we are still working out specific details, I’d like to give you a feel for what’s coming up.

Upcoming changes to our Travel Policy

We are moving to a situation in which the normal expectation would be that train is used for journeys that are within Great Britain or are around six hours. This would encompass destinations such as Paris and Brussels, as well as Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

We also plan to introduce our own internal offset mechanism for flights. To enable us to do this quickly, we will be introducing a simple system. There will be two levels – one for flights within Europe and one for flights beyond. An internal charging mechanism will be put in place and the funds collected will be used to support on-campus initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint. The aim would be to implement this at the start of May (the beginning of Q3 of the financial year), but in terms of train travel, the new arrangements can start straight away for new bookings. You’ll be hearing more about this soon.

Upcoming improvements to Socially Responsible Investment

We are looking to move to a more proactive approach to the management of our investments so we more actively target our investments in the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) arena where companies are seeking to have a more positive impact on the environment, and where there is a commitment to more socially responsible practices. The Investment Sub Committee keeps the University’s Socially Responsible Investment policy under review, and is in the process of finalising the new approach and agreeing the details.

This all represents a good start to fulfilling our Climate Emergency Pledge, but there is a great deal more to do. I greatly look forward to working with our community to fulfil our responsibilities to help combat climate change through our individual actions, our research and teaching, and how we run and develop our university.

Chris Ennew

Provost

Execblog Resource : 03 Mar 2020 10:42 |  Tags: Provost |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The impact of further Industrial Action

As colleagues will no doubt be aware, the UCU recently announced that there will be further industrial action taking place from 20 February. The strikes will escalate over the course of four weeks:

• Week one - Thursday 20 & Friday 21 February
• Week two – Monday 24, Tuesday 25 & Wednesday 26 February
• Week three – Monday 2, Tuesday 3, Wednesday 4 & Thursday 5 March
• Week four – Monday 9, Tuesday 10, Wednesday 11, Thursday 12 & Friday 13 March

This will be the second period of industrial action in the last six months, and my previous blog back in November outlined the various ways in which Warwick shares an agenda – from our work with the ‘Pay Action’ and ‘Warwick Anti Casualisation’ groups, through to paying the Living Wage Foundation rate for all of our staff.

One of the key elements of the dispute at the moment is around the future valuation of the USS scheme. This is complex, and vital work. My view for the past several years has been that it is very important to secure the defined benefit element of the scheme. Currently, a series of proposals around governance are under discussion, following a detailed and excellent report by the ‘Joint Expert Panel.’ We as a sector need to secure the implementation of those recommendations. That is one central reason why compromise on all sides is necessary.

Recently UUK, UCU and USS have met in tripartite talks to consider the options. Even though we have the immediate prospect of industrial action, it is vital that there is space for discussions and for compromises to secure this vital strategic goal of a USS pension scheme with a major defined benefit element. I am doing whatever I can to support that goal.

It is regrettable that we are setting out with further action that will impact our students’ experience of university life – something which we can all agree is so important. It is particularly concerning to me that action is continuing into term two where it will be felt all the more keenly by our students as they prepare for their exams and for life after university.

In addition to our responsibility to our students, we have an important civic role in our region as a large employer. We are a much-needed regenerating force that stimulates our local economy, and we are one of the most respected HE institutions in the UK.

I will continue to respect the legal right for industrial action from union members and, while I will always remain impartial, I understand the significant frustrations involved. But I once again urge for swift resolutions to this prolonged dispute and for UCU, UUK, USS and UCEA to come to agreement for the sake of our students, our standing in the community, and for the public’s faith in the UK’s HE sector.

Execblog Resource : 18 Feb 2020 10:17 |  Tags: Vice-Chancellor |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A personal view from VC Stuart Croft on the day before Brexit

Tomorrow, at 11pm, the UK will be leaving the EU.

It is not the outcome that I wanted personally. But it is to be our new reality, and we must do all we can to make the best that we can of that new reality.

We must have a firm resolve that, while Brexit may appear to threaten decades of partnership with our European neighbours, we remain European at heart and are actively planning decades of future proactive partnership.

The first element of that is to continue to be open to our staff and students that we are entirely committed to that future as a European focused University. I can announce today that we will establish a new programme of funding so that staff faced with visa or other immigration costs following Brexit, for themselves or their immediate family, can claim up to £5000 in support. More detail will be available in the coming days.

Our student numbers from the European Union are very encouraging, and we must continue to be open to those students in the future. And of course, we must back Erasmus+ fully while also preparing for how we can not only maintain exchanges, but increase mobility options in the future for students across Europe even if the government eventually decides that the UK should not remain in Erasmus or its successor.

Second, we must find ways to support research across the continent. Research is of course not national, it is global. We have enormously strong research links across the continent, and we will continue to ask government to associate with Horizon Europe or, if not, to create straightforward funding schemes to be able to work closely with our partners across Europe. This is particularly important for our early career researchers. We have around 200 such colleagues here at Warwick and they deserve to have access to these networks and research links in the future that so many of us have had in the past.

Third, of course we are deeply embedded in the new EUTOPIA alliance. This is not to overturn existing links in departments and schools, but is instead a way of growing a partnership across the whole university in mobility, joint education, and joint research. EUTOPIA is one of the three European University Alliances with a British partner. It is an important platform for our future.

Brexit is a highly emotive moment for many of us. The past three and a half years of uncertainty have been difficult for everyone, whichever side of the Brexit debate you stand on. But not a day has gone by when I haven’t been reliving the memory of when a public group in Stratford-upon Avon asked me not to abandon Europe and the Europeans that call our university and our region home. And I can assure you now that I have no intention of doing so.

Although I recognise the inevitability of the UK’s departure from the EU tomorrow, I also know that we have to make the best of this situation for our university and all of our staff and students, and also for our city and our region, and that is where I will be focussing my efforts in the future. It is possible to be a European university in a country outside the European Union and we are going to prove that.

Best Wishes,

Execblog Resource : 30 Jan 2020 09:31 |  Tags: Vice-Chancellor |  Comments (14) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Playing our role in combating climate change

We have known about climate change for decades, we’ve talked about it for decades but there is now a very real pressure on all of us to act. And a very clear message that it is the next decade that will be crucial if we are to stem the global rise in temperature. Back in September 2019, the University of Warwick joined other universities and organisations locally, nationally and globally in declaring a Climate Emergency, and highlighting the role we must play as an organisation, as a community and as individuals.

We’ve committed to zero net carbon from direct emissions and from the energy that we buy by 2030. We’ve also committed to zero net carbon from our direct and indirect emissions by 2050. Our new buildings are low energy and more space efficient and we recycled building materials where possible. And while it may not be very visible, we have already reduced our carbon emissions from energy usage by 33% per staff and students FTE, and by 40% by unit of floor area since 2005/6. We have also reduced water consumption by 27% per staff and students FTE over the same period. But we’ve also grown over that period and so the impact on overall energy and water consumption is less dramatic. As we look to 2030 our challenge is to reduce our carbon footprint while still enabling planned growth.

We are delighted to see so many staff and students changing behaviour and processes to support the University in reducing our carbon emissions, but there is much more we need to do. The next national Global Climate Strike is scheduled for Friday (29 November), and for members of our community that are motivated to get involved with others from around the world to combat climate change, there is much that you can get involved in.

We are taking part in an amazing new national recycling competition called Recycle League, competing against 11 different UK Universities to see which of us can improve our recycling rates the most during November. We’re reducing food waste through TooGoodToGo and trialling BorrowMyCup with the SU to reduce the waste from disposable cups.

Our ‘Cut the Flow’ ambassadors are running a photo competition on Instagram to raise awareness of water and energy consumption. You can take part by uploading an image or creative poster that illustrates your efforts to save water or energy (or, indeed, both!) using #CutTheFlow2019 and if you win, you’ll get £20 on your Eating at Warwick card.

And on Thursday 28 November 2019, staff and students from across the University that have a passion for sustainability are coming together at a sustainability Summit event. Joel Cardinal, Head of Energy and Sustainability at the University, will be joined by other groups at Warwick to explore different strategies – technical, organisational and behavioural – to underpin the carbon targets for 2030 and 2050.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank and congratulate the volunteers that collected eight tonnes of food surplus from halls of residence as students moved out, and donated it to local food banks. The group also collected other leftover items and held a ‘pay as you feel’ sale at the start of term, which raised a fantastic £3,596 which was donated to a local environmental charity.

In addition to these student and staff led initiatives, we also have a responsibility in combating climate change through our research and teaching, and how we run and develop our university. We continue to work with partners and colleagues outside the university to embed ambitious innovative sustainable development into our region, utilising more efficient fuels, transport and energy generation methods.

Just this week, WMG welcomed industry speakers and academics to campus to attend the Very Light Rail Conference. Very Light Rail is a lower cost, zero emission option for sustainable transport, that we believe could create modal shift and encourage people to leave their cars at home.

And in September we launched our Institute for Global Sustainable Development; Warwick’s hub for transdisciplinary research on global sustainable development that will enable transformative change in global sustainable development. This Institute sits with our Global Sustainable Development degree programmes which offer a multidisciplinary curriculum that addresses sustainability in its broadest sense.

Sustainability is vitally important to the University, and that there is a lot of work under way to progress us towards the commitments we have made. But so much more is needed if we are going to meet the challenge we have set ourselves. Some actions may be easy and obvious (though not necessarily cheap) – buying green energy, reducing the use of cars, increasing use of public transport. Some interventions will be more of a challenge – changing consumption patterns or reducing the amount of space we use. And while it may sound clichéd it will be something that requires a commitment and a willingness to change from all of us.

Thanks

Chris Ennew

Provost

Execblog Resource : 28 Nov 2019 18:22 |  Tags: Provost |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Update on industrial action

As colleagues and students will know, we have been through a series of national ballots about industrial action. Legislation requires trades unions that wish to ballot about such action to achieve an absolute majority and a turnout above 50%. Both Unison and Unite did not achieve that threshold in terms of turnout, but UCU has done so over two separate issues: pensions and pay.

UCU has now confirmed that they will hold strike action on 8 consecutive working days from 25 November – all of week 9, and most of week 10. They will also take action short of a strike from the 25^thon an ongoing basis, that is, without an end date. UCU also reserves the right to take further industrial action in the new year.

This national industrial action will affect 60 universities across the country at the same time. We at Warwick are not directly involved in the negotiations on any of the issues over which there is strike action. Over pensions, we are represented by UUK. On pay, we are represented by UCEA.

The pay issue is a wide ranging one. UCU nationally asks universities to take action on pay gaps – across a range of characteristics, including gender. At Warwick, we have a Pay Action Group that is working hard to find ways of closing gaps that have arisen around the country (and more widely) for long term structural reasons and this group has already engaged with UCU locally. UCU also ask for more work to be done on casual contracts. At Warwick, we are working closely with UCU and with Warwick Anti Casualisation on a framework which responds to this for implementation in 2020. Nationally, UCU asks Universities to do more on addressing differentials in workloads, and absolute workloads. Everyone acknowledges that this is difficult in the context of an increasingly highly regulated environment, where additional work is created by external bodies such as the Office for Students. At Warwick, we have begun work on a workload framework that is comparable across the university. On pay, UCU argues that levels are too low and that universities have not matched the cost of living rises. At Warwick, where we pay the Living Wage Foundation rates, we have argued for higher national rises than those that have been achieved in negotiations.

None of this is of course to say that at Warwick we are perfect. It is to say that there are shared agendas and that some progress is being made.

On pensions, we at Warwick have argued strongly for the maintenance of the defined benefit scheme in USS, and indeed our voice was a lone one for some time amongst universities in the last dispute. UCU now argues that the pension contributions that have been increased by USS in order to retain defined benefits should not be met on the long agreed formula of 65:35, employer to employee. Instead they argue that the totality of the increase should be met by the employer.

I have tried to set out all the issues openly and without any attempt at judgement. Industrial action has been called and has been called legally. I regret it greatly. It will impact on our students in a negative way. It will impact on staff pay in the run up to Christmas in a negative way. It risks bringing rancour to our campus.

We would all very much like to see a shared agenda, such as that I have set out above, become the basis of negotiation between UUK, UCEA and UCU. Industrial relations disputes always end at some point: it would be good to focus on that end point as soon as possible. We are constrained in what we as a university can deliver on our own; because we must work through joint bodies such as UUK and UCEA where there are a range of opinions, and where some universities are struggling financially. But also, because to act alone, to break out of national frameworks, would be also opposed by UCU. That does not mean that we are powerless. We can and must seek to work with all those involved, including UCU, UUK and UCEA to come to agreement. I hope that others will take that view seriously.

Execblog Resource : 12 Nov 2019 09:25 |  Tags: Vice-Chancellor |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Committing to change…..

I was in West Bromwich on Friday night for the football match. Quite appropriate really, as we are announcing our honorary graduands for the January degree ceremonies, one of which is the West Bromwich Albion great, Brendon Batson. A man of enormous footballing talent. More importantly, a man who has fought against racism his whole life with dignity and determination. The first black footballer to play for Arsenal, he went on to be one of the three superstar black footballers for the Albion at a time when Britain was an obviously racist place. He tells his own tale of being attacked, verbally and physically, because of his skin colour. As a child as well as a man. He tells of bananas being thrown onto the football pitch at black players to symbolise the rejection of their humanity. How things have changed. Half the Aston Villa team on Friday night was non-white. When my club won the European Cup over thirty five years ago, none of the players were black. Brendon has been at the forefront of that change, leading the ‘Kick it Out’ campaign.

Then again, that things have changed does not mean that they have all changed for the better. Bananas are rarely thrown at footballers now. But racist abuse has been written on bananas at this university in recent times. Our own students tell how other of our own students have made ‘monkey noises’ at them. And since the European referendum, a minority have used Brexit to again bring back racist language and in some cases, even attacks. Racist language has become more audible. We are undoubtedly going to be obliged to host a racist speaker on our campus, invited by members of the university, at some point in the future, because of our absolute legal responsibility to allow freedom of speech. Racist words weigh more heavily on their targets than on others.

This reality is important when we consider issues such as the BBC report on Friday that white academic staff at this university are paid more than non-white. We do have real issues to address, that I will discuss in a moment. But this report stems from a simple, and profoundly incorrect and damaging analysis. From freedom of information requests, the BBC created some calculations. They should simply have asked the question. The issue is around pay gaps. This is different to equal pay, where two people must be paid on the same scale for the same work. Pay gaps focuses on categories of people. This year the government introduced a gender pay gap reporting requirement. Warwick has one of the highest. This reflects some deeper truths. If you divide the 6600 staff at the university into quarter according to pay, two thirds of lowest paid colleagues are women (partly this is also a reflection that we do not outsource important work such as cleaning). If we look across our top level, grade 9, professorial equivalent, only one in five is a woman.

Using the same methodology, we can see that there is a gap of 15.5% for academic staff pay, and a gap 6.9% if looking at all of our staff. Again, it is important to remember that this is not an equal pay measure; rather a measure of who is where in the organisation concerned. For us, there are two deeper truths. First we have too few non-white colleagues at professorial equivalent level; currently around one in ten. Second, on the academic side, we have significant numbers of non-white staff paid at lower levels. But this is in fact good news. If we agree that we want to have a more representative professoriate, we need an active ‘pipeline’ of staff. Currently, 28 per cent of our early career researchers is non-white. Working with those colleagues, supporting and encouraging, what an extraordinary difference those colleagues will make to the look and feel of this university over the next ten years.

Brendon Batson has shown how to combat racism by his own career and actions; and so it is a great moment to be able to honour him. And to take that inspiration both to combat racism and the structural inequalities of our world.

Execblog Resource : 12 Dec 2018 08:54 |  Tags: Vice-Chancellor |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem