All entries for Tuesday 25 June 2019

June 25, 2019

Provost's Update #17 (June 2019)

ARC Planning

We are coming to the end of the annual planning round. Alongside the usual pressures on costs, this year’s plan has had to accommodate the effects of the next round of USS contribution increases and the impact on the Science Park of significant reductions in rental income. FPSC has set a target gross margin for ARC of 29% but the latest draft version of the plan would currently fall short being less than 28%. If all academic departments were able to meet their Gross Margin target, ARC would easily reach the 29%. That will not happen this year but it will be part of the medium term target for ARC as a whole (in the same was as it is for individual departments). The ARC surplus in the plan is up plan-on-plan from last year, but not by enough to meet the challenges of a difficult planning environment. If student number projections are met, ARC should be within £0.5m of its target income. The Plan is now being finalised and will be presented to Senate and Council in July. We are processing the bids to the Strategic Investment Fund and the outcome of this process should be known within a couple of weeks. It might be worth noting that the we’ve done some work to look it “savings” that have arisen as a result of changes to delegations and planning within ARC and the figures thus far suggest that we have been able to reduce the number of business cases required for decision making to about half of what they were in 2016-17 (ie by about 200). In addition we will be accounting for the cost of professional invigilators within ARC for the first time this year and we hope this will further ease workload pressures in some areas of the academy.

Student Recruitment Strategy

SROAS and Marketing have been working over the past academic year to develop a Student Recruitment Strategy to support the Strategy 2030 vision to achieve a student population of 32,000. The external context currently presents major threats, but the challenging period created by changes to demographics will end by the early to mid-2020s, which will present opportunities, both for growth and also for increased selectivity. There is evidence to show that taking a strategic approach to student recruitment does work, and although the University has experience growth in the past, this had been unplanned. The purpose of the Strategy, in addition to meeting the overall University target for student numbers, is to ensure balanced growth through a more diverse domestic and international student community. Further work will be done to analyse competitor information about international recruitment to ensure a better understanding of where the opportunities may be. SORAS has been refreshing the University’s overseas agent network and providing more structure and direction as well as looking to develop a more coherent approach to working arrangements including in relation to information flows, commission rates and other forms of support for recruitment. And as a reminder, we know that prospective students are particularly keen to talk to academic colleagues and often don’t have access to the opportunities presented by open days. Formal recruitment missions do provide such an opportunity, but there are also options to engage with recruitment during normal travel (perhaps via counselling sessions with agents). So if you do have colleagues who are travelling and might be willing to help with recruitment, do please contact SROAS.

University Bookshop

For a number of years, the book shop in its traditional retail format has been losing money as a consequence of changing patterns of book buying and competition from online providers. We have reluctantly reached the conclusion that the level of use is no longer sufficient to justify the subsidy required. The physical bookshop will, therefore, close at the end of this academic year but there will be pop-up facilities available during the academic year and other forms of merchandise will be available via Rootes. Further details will be available in due course but students will be able to order and receive course texts and staff will still be able to buy books via the University. The aim is to retain he ability for books to be purchased but without some of the overheads associated with operating a permanent physical facility.

Update from CSAG

Ramphal Lecture Theatre (R0.21) – Work to replace the seating and instate a robust writing surface should now be complete. Social Sciences Ground Floor CTTR refurbishments – Major refurbishment to 8 teaching rooms on the ground floor of Social Sciences will be undertaken to replace and upgrade furniture, lighting, AV, heating and air handling during the summer vacation period. Student Opportunities Hub – A temporary Student Opportunities Hub would be created in the unit currently occupied by the Bookshop, to operate until completion of the Sports Centre redevelopment, when the PG Hub would relocate to the Sports Centre, and the Opportunities Hub would move to the former PG Hub space in Senate House. Hairdressing Salon (SU Social Building) -The hairdressing salon unit had been allocated to the Students’ Union for expansion of Curiositea. CTTR Study Space – The Oculus had been made available as an open access study zone for the summer exam period. This had been communicated to students and was well received. In future years, prioritisation of study space would be included in the initial timetable construction, in order to better utilise available space. Timetable Improvement Programme – The Personalised Timetable Programme was complete. Lib 1 conversion – Post completion of the Sports Centre redevelopment, Lib 1 would be converted into informal student study space with food reheating provision, subject to identifying suitable space in the vicinity for retail and/or study space provision. Library refurbishment – The RIBA Stage 2 design for the upgrade of basic infrastructure, reinvigoration and expansion of the study environment had been completed, and the project would now progress to Stage 3 design.

Admissions and Recruitment

SROAS have started to look at forecasting numbers for confirmation and the current picture is suggesting that overall we might be around 200 below target for HEU UG before clearing and around 100 over on international students. Plans for a clearing presence are under development although it would seem that we will be looking for relatively low numbers in clearing and in selected areas only. As ever, our clearing activity will need to balance carefully between considerations of entry tariff and the needs of particular courses. For PGT programmes, applications, offers and accepts are all running ahead of last year, although it is more difficult to assess what numbers might finally look like. Finally, looking forward, the open days on Friday and Saturday are heavily over-subscribed and we are no longer taking registrations.

Work on Academic Processes

You will be aware – from earlier consultations around probation – that the academic process review group is continuing to work on a number of HR issues. In particular, we have been looking at the implications for study leave policy of the changes that were made last year to career paths and job titles and we hope to shortly provide updated guidance on study leave which will make it clear that study leave opportunities are option to staff across all career pathways. We have also been looking at probation arrangements given the current diversity in practice across R&T, T and R pathways. There are different views about the merits of 3 v 5 year probation for R&T contracts but the current model has received strong support from HoDs . We are currently looking at options for developing probation arrangements for other staff groups which will provide better support for their career development than is the case currently. I will keep you updated but we will need to engage in discussion with UCU and so the process of change will be a bit protracted.

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