13 March 2003 Minutes

Boardof Scrutiny

Minutes of the MeetingHeld at 12 Noon on

Thursday 13 March 2003at Selwyn College

Present: Stephen Cowley, Christopher Forsyth, David Howarth, RobinLachmann, SusanLintott (for the second half of the meeting), Robin Lachmann, Jack MacDonald,Timothy Milner, Oliver Rackham, John Spencer, Helen Thompson.

Apologies: Elisabeth Leedham-Green, Jennifer Rigby.

1)Minutes of the meeting of 27 February 2003. These were not yet ready for circulation.

2)Governance and the Discussion. Sir Alec had made a statement at the beginning ofthe Discussion; it was noted that he appeared to be tired. A number of membersof the Board noted that there seemed to be an implied threat in Malcolm Grant’sspeech that if the University failed to act in a certain way then HMG might acton its own. It was agreed to write to Anne Campbell MP on the matter ofGovernance.

There was a discussion on external members ofCouncil, e.g. as regards the Audit Committee and in particular its Chairman. Itwas agreed to write to the Council indicating that the Board was (as indicatedin its response to the governance proposals last year) in favour of externalmembers on Council. However it was concerned as to how such members would bearrived at. It was in favour of elections rather than appointments by acommittee (in order to dispel any notion that the appointee were place man orwomen). There was a discussion as to what the HEFCE audit letter might contain,and whether or not it might have prompted certain recent actions (e.g. over thecommittee structure). There was a decision to ask for a copy of the letter.

Therewas a discussion of the position of the Chairman of Council. It was noted thatsplitting the roles of leader of the Council and Chairmanship of the Councilmeetings had apparently worked well.

3)The Financial Working Party Report. It was agreed that the Chairman would, on behalfof the Board, ask for the “studies” to the Report. If necessary he would quotethe Statute that states the Board can have access to such official documents.There was a discussion of a possible annual savings round, e.g. a process bywhich budgets are initially cut by, say, 2% and then a justification has to bemade for the budget to be restored. It was noted that many of the importantdecisions that will be necessary have, in effect, been delegated to the RAMcommittee. It was noted that departments, etc. would possibly be significantlyworse off by the non-payment of interest on internal accounts (a saving of£2.6m). There was a discussion of the top slicing of College payments, and asto how the University ensures that the College’s are delivering value formoney. It was noted that the summary published in the Reporter had a differenttone and feel to the full Report. It was agreed to refer to this in our annualReport.

4)Planning for the 8th Report. There was a discussion as to what we wish tocover in our annual Report. The Report needs to be ready for the summer meetingof Council. It was agreed that, inter alia, we need to cover the FWPReport and other aspects of finance such as the deficit (the Chairman, SusanLintott and Jennifer Rigby will cover this), the RAM, governance and thecommittee structure (the Secretary will liaise with the aforementioned), theseeming lack of strategy in the University (e.g. as regards student numbers andthe impact on the BoGS and the Colleges), and the performance of the RSD (anycomments should be sent to the Secretary). As regards RSD it was agreed thatthe aim to increase the size of overheads is commendable; however a number ofcolleagues of members of the Board had raised questions over efficiency (e.g.provision of the wrong address, administration of the EU grants). There wouldbe a need to cover IPR, possibly touching on the earlier IPR decision over externalcontracts. There was a discussion as to whether there would be need to revisitthe question of certain principal officers, however it was agreed that a longsection on CAPSA/CUFS was probably not needed. The issue of Reports and Gracesand buildings and land would need to be covered (Christopher Forsyth).

5)Any other business. There was a discussion of the sale of property inTrumpington Road. There had been a newsgroup discussion as to whether theUniversity had permission to sell all the property since a number of Graceswere concerned.

Itwas reported that the NW Cambridge site was still in the green belt in therecently announced draft of the local plan. The University would have todemonstrate a need if it wished to build there. There was a discussion aboutthe University’s possible plan of selling off the New Museum’s site.

Therewas a report on the meeting with SAWAG.

6)Date of future meetings. It was agreed to meet on 24 April and thenfortnightly thereafter until the end of term.