Board of Scrutiny

13 November 2003

Garden Room

Robinson College

Present: Mantas Adomenas, Stephen Cowley, Christopher Forsyth
(chair), Nicholas Holmes, Elizabeth Leedham-Green, Saskia Murk-Jansen, , David
Phillipson, Jennifer Rigby, John Spencer, Helen Thompson.

1.  Apologies

Timothy Milner and Roger Salmon.

2.   Minutes of the meeting of
30 October 2003 

The Board approved the minutes.

3.   Matters arising.

3.1 Administrative support

The Chair reported that he had
received no further reply from the Registrary.

3.2  Governance course

The Chair reported that he had
written to the leader of the course offering John Spencer as a speaker for the
session on 27 January 2004 and that he had received no reply.

Stephen Cowley reported that he had attended the session
on the course led by  Prof. Anthony
Edwards. Prof. Edwards had noted that he was concerned that some Ordinances did
not appear to have been updated after relevant Graces were passed.  The Board expressed its disquiet at this
state of affairs.

ACTION: Stephen
Cowley to contact Prof. Edwards and ask for a short briefing so that the Board
can pursue the matter with the Registrary on 27 November.

3.3 Meeting with the Registrary

The Chair reported that
he had written to the Registrary to ask for a written up-date on the
implementation of the Shattock andFinkelstein recommendations before the
Board's meeting on 27 November. The Registrary had acknowledged his letter and
promised to get back to him. He had since received no further correspondence.

ACTION: The Chair to renew the request.

3.4 Clarity of Council Papers

The Chair reported that he had
written to the Registrary to press for an early answer to the Board's previous
request and had received no reply.

3.5 Primate research facility at 307 Huntington Road

The Chair reported that
he had written to the Vice-Chancellor and circulated the letter to the Board.
Her secretary had replied and invited him to meet her, upon which the Chair had
suggested that he be accompanied by some other members of the Board. The Board
agreed that its delegation would certainly include the Chair and John Spencer
and that it would chose a third person when the date for the meeting was fixed.

ACTION: The Chair to write to the Vice-Chancellor's
secretary to arrange a date for the meeting.

4. IPR contracts

John Spencer presented his analysis of the issues raised
by the confidential documents submitted to the Chair of the Board about IPR
contracts. The Board agreed to raise the general issue of consultation between
Cambridge University Technical Services (CUTS) and inventors and the question
of what might constitute 'reasonable efforts' to secure an inventor's service
if and when the Board meets the Director of RSD.

5  RSD

The Chair reported that he had
received no reply to his letter to the Director of RSD.

Nicholas Holmes explained to the
Board how, in his judgement, RSD works. He identified issues for the Board to
pursue with the Director of RSD: (i) the status of the Cambridge Liaison Office
in relation to RSD; (ii) the speed of staff growth especially in the Technology
Transfer Office; (iii) the long-term funding of Cambridge Enterprise in view of
the significant number of staff on short-term contracts from DTI projects; (iv)
the negotiating strategy of the Contract Negotiation Group; (v) the efficiency
of the Technology Transfer Office; (vi) whether CUTS effectively protects the
University from legal responsibility for the actions of RSD.

6.RAM Report

The Board noted that the announced Report on RAM had, for
the moment, been withdrawn. It agreed that it would like to discuss issues
pertaining to RAM with the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for planning and resources. 

ACTION: The Chair to write to the responsible Pro-Vice-Chancellor for
planning and resources and ask for a meeting. The delegation from the Board
will include the Chair and Stephen Cowley and two others depending on
availability once a date is fixed.

7. Any other business

7.1 QAA report

The Board agreed to discuss the
QAA report at a future meeting.

7.2 Response of officers to requests from the Board

The Board noted that the Chair
had received a disappointing number of replies to his letters this term.

ACTION: The Chair
to compile a list of officers who have not replied to correspondence.

8. Date of next meeting: 27 November 2003