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, , DavidPhillipson, Jennifer Rigby, John Spencer, Helen Thompson.

1.Apologies

Timothy Milner and Roger Salmon.

2.Minutes of the meeting of30 October 2003

The Board approved the minutes.

3.Matters arising.

3.1 Administrative support

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

3.2Governance course

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

Stephen Cowley reported that he had attended the sessionon the course led byProf. AnthonyEdwards. Prof. Edwards had noted that he was concerned that some Ordinances didnot appear to have been updated after relevant Graces were passed.The Board expressed its disquiet at thisstate of affairs.

ACTION: StephenCowley to contact Prof. Edwards and ask for a short briefing so that the Boardcan pursue the matter with the Registrary on 27 November.

3.3 Meeting with the Registrary

The Chair reported thathe had written to the Registrary to ask for a written up-date on theimplementation of the Shattock andFinkelstein recommendations before theBoard's meeting on 27 November. The Registrary had acknowledged his letter andpromised 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 hadwritten to the Registrary to press for an early answer to the Board's previousrequest and had received no reply.

3.5 Primate research facility at 307 Huntington Road

The Chair reported thathe 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 hadsuggested that he be accompanied by some other members of the Board. The Boardagreed that its delegation would certainly include the Chair and John Spencerand that it would chose a third person when the date for the meeting was fixed.

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

4. IPR contracts

John Spencer presented his analysis of the issues raisedby the confidential documents submitted to the Chair of the Board about IPRcontracts. The Board agreed to raise the general issue of consultation betweenCambridge University Technical Services (CUTS) and inventors and the questionof what might constitute 'reasonable efforts' to secure an inventor's serviceif and when the Board meets the Director of RSD.

5RSD

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

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

6.RAM Report

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

ACTION: The Chair to write to the responsible Pro-Vice-Chancellor forplanning and resources and ask for a meeting. The delegation from the Boardwill include the Chair and Stephen Cowley and two others depending onavailability once a date is fixed.

7. Any other business

7.1 QAA report

The Board agreed to discuss theQAA report at a future meeting.

7.2 Response of officers to requests from the Board

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

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

8. Date of next meeting: 27 November 2003