Policy and Resources Committee Minutes 21 January 2020

Minutes of the meeting of the Cardiff University Policy and Resources Committee held on Tuesday 21 January 2020 in the Council Chamber, Main Building at 13:00

Present: Mr Alastair Gibbons (Chair), Professor Colin Riordan, Dr Carol Bell, Mr Tomos Evans, Professor Kim Graham, Professor Karen Holford, Dr Steven Luke, Professor Stuart Palmer, and Ms Jackie Yip.

Attendees:        Professor Rudolf Allemann, Professor Amanda Coffey, Ms Deborah Collins (Secretary), Ms Katy Dale (Minutes), Ms Alison Jarvis, Professor Damian Walford Davies, Mr Rob Williams and Mr Simon Wright (agenda item 13).

Apologies:        Professor Gary Baxter, Mr Dev Biddlecombe, Mr Thomas Hay, Ms Jan Juillerat, Ms Susan Midha and Professor Nora de Leeuw.

613 Welcome

The Chair welcomed all to the meeting.

614 Apologies for absence

Apologies were provided by Professor Gary Baxter, Mr Dev Biddlecombe, Mr Thomas Hay, Ms Jan Juillerat, Ms Sue Midha and Professor Nora de Leeuw.

615 Minutes of previous meeting

A correction was noted to minute 601.08 which detailed “NHS” rather than “NUS”. It was agreed the minutes of the meeting held on 7 November 2019 (paper 19/299) could be signed by the Chair, subject to the amendment noted.

616  Matters Arising

There were no matters arising.

617  Declaration of Interests

The Chair reminded the Committee members of their duty to disclose any potential conflicts of interest and asked if there were any declarations.

618 Report from the Vice-Chancellor

Received and considered paper 19/300, ‘Vice-Chancellor’s Report to PRC’. The Vice-Chancellor introduced the paper.

Noted

618.1        that the student admission figures were very positive and that a large amount of effort had gone into the admissions process; Professor Allemann noted the contribution of Professional Services colleagues in the process and the cooperation of schools;

618.2        that it would be of benefit to hold or increase tariff going forward; it was confirmed this was the University’s intention but was dependent on a number of external factors;

618.3        that the University did not set a limit for the number of students across the whole institution but was aware of the limitations of room sizes, residences provision and teaching provision which impacted each school;

618.4        that the number of research awards had dropped and this fluctuation was expected, due to the ongoing uncertainty over Brexit and the impact that large awards had on the figures;

618.5        that the University was investigating ways to report on research topics associated with the announcement of the climate emergency and the University’s aim to be carbon neutral; the Vice-Chancellor was discussing the possibility of a Welsh-wide endeavour with the Welsh Government and the University was looking into publicising the large amount of research done in sustainability topics;

618.6        that it was hoped data on teaching quality would be available for the Committee shortly, following the roll out of changes to module evaluation data across the institution this academic year; the University was investigating the possibility of mid-module evaluation and whole programme evaluation to map trends.

619  Report from the Estates and Infrastructure Sub-Committee

Received and considered paper 19/301B, ‘Report from Chair of Estates and Infrastructure’. Dr Steven Luke introduced the paper.

Noted

619.1        that a further meeting of the sub-committee had been arranged to feed into the meeting of Policy & Resources Committee on 3 March 2020;

619.2        that the executive team was confident in the management of the large estates projects and this continued to grow as the review of risk developed;

619.3        that a sponsor framework had been designed to ensure sponsors of estates projects were aware of their role and accountability;

619.4        there had also been a shift within the Estates team to allow the Head of Department to focus on the new building projects; the University was also looking to continue to improve the skill set within this department;

619.5        that it was important for a review of the recently vacated spaces to be carried out to ensure these are being used efficiently; it was confirmed discussions on this are commencing to gather data and generate ideas;

619.6        the positive outcomes of the Physical Learning Spaces project and the recommendation to look into specialised learning spaces as the next step.

620  Report from the Investment and Banking Sub-Committee

Received and considered paper 19/302B, ‘Report from Chair of Investment and Banking’. Dr Carol Bell introduced the paper.

Noted

620.1        that the Committee had reviewed the Cardiff Innovation Campus business case and the indicative figures presented at that time; the Committee approved the request and encouraged the University to source additional funding and undertake a lessons learnt exercise;

620.2        that the Committee had received a strong presentation from Sarasin on the stewardship aspect of their investments;

620.3        that the process to tender for the Bond Repayment Fund investor had started and over 15 investors had expressed an interest to date.

621  UEB decisions made under Delegated Authority

Received and noted paper 19/303B, ‘UEB Delegated Authority’.

622  Pensions Update

The Chief Financial Officer provided an oral update on this item.

Noted

622.1 that a second JEP report had been issued at the end of 2019; this looked into the governance of the USS scheme, the valuation methodology, calculation of liabilities and the options for parties to consider;

622.2        that the Chief Financial Officer had met with the internal actuary group and they were supportive of the second report;

622.3        that UUK, UCU and USS had agreed to meet 5 times in January 2020 to address questions arising from the report;

622.4        that by the end of January, UUK, UCU and USS hoped to issue a shared purpose statement for the scheme and shared valuation principles for the 2020 valuation;

622.5        that UUK intended to issue a questionnaire to employers at the end of January to gather inputs for the formal response to the second report;

622.6        that the aim was for the valuation to be completed by the end of summer 2020; this would allow for the contribution requirements to be reviewed and submitted in advance of the June 2021 deadline;

622.7        that the University was currently in a period of industrial dispute with the unions over pay and pensions; another period of strike action is expected;

622.8 that around 800 employees had been involved with the strike action at the end of 2019; the impact on students had been reduced from previous periods of industrial action due to better preparations and colleagues declaring they would be on strike;

622.9        that the local pensions scheme had undergone a triennial valuation which took effect from March 2019; this had shown an increase in the deficit; the University had engaged Mercers to advise on this.

623 Finance Report (Financial Management Accounts)

Received and considered paper 19/304B, ‘Finance Report’. Ms Alison Jarvis introduced the paper.

Noted

623.1        the current full year forecast predicts an improvement from a budgeted £0.2M deficit to a surplus of £2.7M, driven by the significant over-performance in student recruitment numbers;

623.2        that the December accounts had now been produced and these reflected a similar position to that contained within the paper;

623.3        that the report removed the costs associated with the increase in student numbers (e.g. additional support) from the increase in income through tuition fees;

623.4        that attention was now focussed on planning the budget for 20/21 to achieve the required surplus;

623.5        that was well as teaching provision, it was important that other considerations for student support (e.g. mental health) are included in the provisions for increased student numbers;

623.6        that the University was ensuring there is teaching provision for students and schools were monitoring staff:student ratios;

623.7        that the research income figures were as per budget but the split between pay and non-pay costs had varied.

624   CIC Business Case

Received and considered paper 19/305B, ‘CIC Business Case Update Paper’. Professor Karen Holford introduced the paper.

Noted

624.1        that final costs based on a fix priced contract were expected on 27th January and would be taken to Council on 10th February; this would allow for the clean room works to be instructed by 17th February;

624.2        that the paper requested an increase to the budget of £23M;

624.3        that the executive were confident that the figure presented in the paper, although not final, was close to the sum expected to be presented to Council in February; a sizeable contingency had also been included for he remainder of the contract;

624.4        that the final budget would include exclusions; the executive would be meeting with Bouygues to split the risks of these items once the final costs were issued;

624.5        that under section 4.5, the cleanroom cost figure for Jan-20 should be £23.789m;

624.6        that there were some critical issues left to resolve and this left the University vulnerable;

624.7        that it was pleasing to note the contractor is cooperative and keen to work with the University;

624.8        that it was important to ensure there were no areas of ambiguity following agreement of final costs;

624.9        that the University were working closely with the contractors to ensure confidence in the final figures;

624.10      that there were legacy issues from the previous design contractors and the University were encouraged to collect evidence of this now, to allow lessons learnt to be more accurate;

624.11      that the Committee encourage the University to carry out a lessons learnt exercise, to ensure detailed design and phasing is completed ahead of contract agreement and contracts allow for exclusions and possible price escalation;

624.12      that at present, there were no further grants on the horizon;

624.13      that the University was encouraging a holistic approach to research across the institution and this new building would help emphasise this.

Resolved

624.14      to recommend to Council approval of this paper;

624.15      for members of P&RC to be informed ahead of the Council meeting in February if there was a drastic increase in the final costs;

624.16      for experts on the building to attend Council in February to talk members through the design and function of the building.

625 Education Service Business Case

Received and considered paper 19/306, ‘Education Service Business case’. Professor Amanda Coffey and Mr Simon Wright introduced the paper.

Noted

625.1        that this paper focused on teaching and learning and ensuring a resilient and agile service for students and staff across all academic departments and between Schools and Registry;

625.2        that meetings had been held with academic and Professional Services staff across all schools and outcomes had centred on ensuring consistent and effective ways of working;

625.3        that schools were very engaged with and supportive of the project and were working on proposals to be brought forward;

625.4        that the project aimed to release time academics spend doing administrative activities, reduce costs, improve visibility of student enquiry points and simplify the student record management system;

625.5        that it was expected quarterly reports would be issued to UEB to show progress of outcomes and implementation; it was also hoped a proxy measurement would be seen in the organisational measurements scores within the NSS and through the annual quality report.

Resolved

625.6        to approve the request for initial investment of £2.88M.

626 TRAC Return 2018/19

Received and considered paper 19/307B, ‘TRAC Return 2018/19’. The Chief Financial Officer introduced the paper.

Noted

626.1        that work had been done to improve the accuracy of the workload model; this affected the comparison data with previous years;

626.2        that the recovery of costs relating to Publicly Funding Teaching had dropped by 1% from last year to 97.3%; this was as the income for this element (i.e. tuition fees) had not risen but the cost of providing the teaching was rising with inflation;

626.3        that the recovery of costs for “other” had incorrectly included the impairment of the CSC joint venture; this impairment would be drawn out as a separate item and the recovery of “other” costs would revert to 104%;

626.4        that in regards to research, postgraduate research was providing more income that institution own funded or funding from the European Union; the University would look into the details for schools in this area;

626.5        that indirect charge-out rates provide the best income from research grants; the University was continuing to work to improve the margin of recovery on research income as this area reflected the greatest shortfall especially when compared with peers;

626.6        that the Margin Sustainability and Investment (MSI) metric had reduced as this was based on a 6 year average and reflected the deficit reported over the last 2 years;

626.7        that the data within the report could provide a powerful tool for future forecasting if it could be analysed by school;

626.8        that it would be difficult to gather accurate data on how academic time is actually spent in comparison to the Workload Allocation Model.

Resolved

626.9        to endorse the TRAC 2018/19 return to be submitted.

627  Update on CSC

The Chief Financial Officer provided an oral update on this item.

Noted

627.1        that the Chief Financial Officer had met with IQE at the end of 2019;

627.2        that it was expected the shareholder agreement would be extended by 18 months-2 years;

627.3        that IQE had carried out a resource review at the end of 2019 and this would impact on the finances for 2020;

627.4        that there were no concerns over IQE’s equity at this time.

628  Update on International Study Centre

Professor Rudolf Allemann provided an oral update on this item.

Noted

628.1        that the lease had been signed with the Students’ Union;

628.2        that the Students’ Union had commenced work in the building;

628.3        that the timeframe for completion was tight and the University were working hard to bottom out any remaining issues.