All entries for October 2018

Student Numbers for the new academic year

Welcome week has passed very successfully and there has been lots of positive feedback from students; returning students are now mostly back although many PGT and PGR are still arriving. It will be a few weeks before we can finally confirm numbers but enrolment data suggests that

• Home UG (FT) will be slightly below target.
• EU UG (FT) will be comfortably ahead of target.
• OS UG(FT) will be a little ahead of target.

So, overall, with respect to undergraduate numbers it looks like we will probably have around 150 more students than the original targets suggested. At PGT level

• Home and EU PG (FT) will be below target – and particularly so in the case of home students.
• OS PGT (FT) will be significantly ahead of target.
• For PGR students, we are slightly behind target but enrolment does tend to be more spread out.

Overall, we’re expecting to be several hundred ahead of target in terms of PGT students which means that ARC will be well placed to meet its income targets.

Post-18 Funding Review

You will recall that in February 2018, the UK Government finally announced its plan for a review of post-18 Education with the lead for evidence gathering being taken by a Panel under Philip Auger. The review was expected to address broad issues relating to accessibility to all, value for money (for students and taxpayers), choice and competition and skills development. It was also expected to deliver changes that would be neutral in terms of their impact of the public sector deficit and on debt. The outcome of this Review is likely to be somewhat delayed and significantly complicated by the ONS Review of the accounting treatment of student loans. The outcomes of the review will be binding on Government and could (in practice) have a major implications for the funding of HE. This is because the current treatment of student loans allows interest receivable from those loans to be counted as income, even though only a proportion of such income will ever be received. Thus, it has been widely argued that the current arrangements may be overstating government income.

Current thinking is that the ONS review will change the way in which student loans are accounted for; it’s expected that this change will reduce the extent to which interest receivable can be treated as income. The result will be a negative impact on the public sector deficit (perhaps as much as £8bn) and debt which will in turn limit the options for the Post-18 Review. Most commentators are suggesting that the most likely outcome in terms of fees and funding is some form of cut in the standard unit of resource via a cut in headline fees (perhaps with an extension of Government support for more expensive subjects). We should have a clearer idea of ONS position by then end of the year but any consequent changes to funding arrangements are more likely to be announced in the new year.

Fundraising Masterclass

The Development team, led by Matt Ferguson, are organising a master class to provide members of the university community with a better understanding of how philanthropy works and how the team can support the university's strategy. The session will cover following points:

• Building a culture of big gift philanthropy at Warwick: the difference between Major and Principal Gifts
• The cultivation timeline, and how the Development's Team designs donor strategy
• Briefing Support
• How we develop a case for support
• The difference between donor-led and project led opportunities
• The role of academics and senior volunteers in building networks
• Active listening and emotional intelligence
• Case studies in transformational gifts

If you would be interested to attend, could you contact my PA, Sharon McGladrigan, in the first instance. Dates will be confirmed in due course once we’ve assessed the level of interest.

Brexit Update

This isn’t an update of the progress of negotiations but rather an update on some of the work being done at University level. We continue to monitor Government announcements that are relevant to research funding and to Erasmus and to explore implications of different scenarios. This includes consideration of the impact on recruitment of a change in fee regime and options for mitigation.

In many respects, the position for staff is a bit clearer. Currently, about 12% of our staff are EU nationals (around 800 people). From 1 July 2021, EU citizens and their family members in the UK will be legally required to hold or have applied for their continued residency in the UK. The government recently published their Statement of Intent for a ‘settled status scheme’ which outlines the process for EU nationals in the UK to apply for permanent residency (settled status) post-Brexit. The deadline for applications to the settled status scheme (for those resident in the UK by the end of 2020) will be 30 June 2021. The University is looking to introduce a reimbursement scheme to cover the costs of settlement fees for European employees who wish to secure their long-term status in the UK, once the UK leaves the EU. More details will follow shortly.

New Director of Commercial Services

During August, a number of you joined me for lunch with the University’s new Director of Commercial Services, Rupert Lawrie. This provide to be a good opportunity for Rupert to get to know more about the academic side of the University and I think he got some useful feedback about some of the issues that concern many of you. There was particular discussion around the cost of booking events and conferences. This prompted some discussion around managing between peak and off peak periods and in particular, the potential to secure more attractive rates for events organised at off-peak times (such as weekends). Several HoDs suggested that if rates were attractive, there might be interest in scheduling events over the weekend. To this end the conference team has created the attached packages, which I hope will be of interest. If anyone has further questions on this specifically then they can contact Emma Willis E.Willis.1@warwick.ac.uk 

In addition several colleagues suggested that they would be interested in trialling a weekend conference where facilities were not charged but the delegates were paying a higher individual delegate rate which included the costs of the conference e.g. rooms, food, drinks etc. We would also be interested in testing this with a couple of trials, so please do contact Rupert if you’d like to discuss further.

Faculty Admin Directors

Many of you will be aware that the Faculty of Arts appointed a Faculty level Director of Administration (Diana Stonefield) a couple of years ago. The Faculties of Social Science and Science, Engineering and Medicine have now followed suit appointing Jackie Clarke and Ruth Cooper respectively. These roles will work closely with the Faculty Chairs to support enhanced engagement between Departments and central professional services as well as providing additional support for Faculty related projects and initiatives. The precise roles will vary across the faculties to reflect local circumstances, but these are roles that are intended to be complementary to (and supportive of) existing departmental arrangements.