APPENDIX 49
Memorandum from Parents Against Cuts at
Exeter (PACE)
1. INTRODUCTION
TO PACE
PACE (Parents Against Cuts at Exeter) is a campaign
group formed in response to the announcement on 22 November 2004
of the proposed cuts and closures at Exeter University. The members
of PACE are parents of affected students; parents of students
who believe their science degree programmes will be detrimentally
affected by the loss of chemistry; Chemistry graduates of Exeter
university now established in their careers in the UK and across
the globe; teachers in secondary schools, sixth form and FE colleges
and academics in other universities.
Our group consists, therefore, of individuals
with wide-ranging personal and professional views and expertise
covering both the national issue of science provision and the
specific issue of the closure of the Chemistry department at Exeter
University. Like Dr Ian Gibson, MP, as quoted in your press release,
the PACE campaign group `want to get to the bottom of recent closures'.
2. THE IMPACT
OF HEFCE'S
RESEARCH FUNDING
FORMULAE, AS
APPLIED TO
RESEARCH ASSESSMENT
EXERCISE RATINGS,
ON THE
FINANCIAL VIABILITY
OF UNIVERSITY
SCIENCE DEPARTMENTS
It is our view that the impact of the RAE ratings
system has severely damaged the financial viability of university
science departments. Overall the impact of HEFCE's research funding
formulae, as applied, has served to force the economic strictures
and ethos of a business model on academe which is both inappropriate
and highly damaging. Competition across and within university
departments is detrimental to research with winners taking all
and valuable research and exciting initiatives falling by the
wayside. The recent reduction in funding to 4 rated departments
has meant that the survival of some departments of national and
some international excellence has come to depend in part on the
personal career choices of an elite group of academics who are
regarded as having the potential to obtain large research grants
and, therefore, improve the RAE rating of a department in the
next round.
3. THE DESIRABILITY
OF INCREASING
THE CONCENTRATION
OF RESEARCH
IN A
SMALL NUMBER
OF UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENTS, AND
THE CONSEQUENCES
OF SUCH
A TREND
It is our view that there is no sound academic
or educational rationale for the concentration of research in
a small number of university departments. We would argue that
some of the most exciting and innovative research has emerged
from science departments now rated 4, and that a concentration
of research in a small number of very large departments will restrict
and reduce, rather than improve, the development of science in
the UK as a whole.
In addition, universities as a whole benefit
from being comprised of a rounded, comprehensive range of disciplines
and the consequences of the trend towards concentrating research
in a small number of universities will be an increasing number
of specialist universities, reduced provision of a healthy range
and mix of disciplines overall, and regional deserts in particular
subject areas.
4. THE IMPLICATIONS
FOR UNIVERSITY
SCIENCE TEACHING
OF CHANGES
IN THE
WEIGHTINGS GIVEN
TO SCIENCE
SUBJECTS IN
THE TEACHING
FUNDING FORMULA
It is clear that the teaching of laboratory-based
subjects is considerably more expensive than the teaching of library-based
subjects. Science subjects are of vital national importance and
the extra costs of providing an excellent teaching and learning
environment for science students must be recognised within the
teaching funding formula.
If the teaching of science is not provided with
the necessary extra funding, the logical consequences are that
institutions will cease to teach science and there will be an
even greater proliferation of `cheap' degree programmes covering
subjects that are not of national importance relative to science.
5. THE OPTIMAL
BALANCE BETWEEN
TEACHING AND
RESEARCH PROVISION
IN UNIVERSITIES,
GIVING PARTICULAR
CONSIDERATION TO
THE DESIRABILITY
AND FINANCIAL
VIABILITY OF
TEACHING-ONLY
SCIENCE DEPARTMENTS
It is our view that undergraduates in top-rated
departments, where research is given undue priority over teaching,
do not receive the best educational experience. In such departments
it is common for `top' academic staff to have frequent sabbaticals
and a light or nonexistent undergraduate teaching load. Such departments
also have large numbers of PhD students to whom a substantial
amount of the undergraduate teaching load is assigned.
We do not feel, however, that teaching-only
science departments are the solution to this problem. Science
students benefit greatly from being taught and tutored by research-active
scientists who are working at the cutting-edge of new developments.
Given the existing, and very serious, problems with promoting
the study of science, this aspect of the experience of science
students must be protected. This solution, in our view, is to
introduce regulations to ensure that an appropriate balance is
achieved between the focus on research and the focus on teaching
within departments. In this way, both staff and students benefit
from working in an academic community in a research-active environment
which interacts positively with a properly funded undergraduate
teaching programme.
6. THE IMPORTANCE
OF MAINTAINING
A REGIONAL
CAPACITY IN
UNIVERSITY SCIENCE
TEACHING AND
RESEARCH
In our view it is vitally important to maintain
a regional capacity in university science teaching research. The
closure of the Chemistry department at Exeter University is not
only highly damaging to the education and future career prospects
of all of its existing science students but also deprives future
science students of the possibility of attending their local university.
The South-West will become a wasteland in terms of Chemistry teaching
and research. The closure of the Chemistry department at Exeter
University is in direct contradiction to its claim to promote
Widening Participation. PACE members who are science teachers
in schools and colleges in the South and South-West of England
are particularly angry about the effect on their students who
will be deprived of the option to study at the regional university
of their choice. These teachers are dismayed to see that one of
the effects of the announcement of the closure of the Chemistry
Department at Exeter University is that current students are interpreting
this to mean that Chemistry is no longer valued and not worth
studying. If science departments are concentrated in an ever smaller
number of large universities this may well be the message taken
by students across the UK.
7. THE EXTENT
TO WHICH
THE GOVERNMENT
SHOULD INTERVENE
TO ENSURE
CONTINUING PROVISION
OF SUBJECTS
OF NATIONAL
OR REGIONAL
IMPORTANCE; AND
THE MECHANISMS
IT SHOULD
USE FOR
THIS PURPOSE.
PACE members are heartily sick of receiving
the same `there is nothing the government can do' message in response
to our letters to the DFES. Education in science is an issue of
national importance. The need to promote science and to engage
and excite our young people about science is fully recognised
and the government can, and should, intervene when individual
institutions act in ways that further exacerbate the decline in
science. Institutions are totally dependent on the funding received
from the government, via HEFCE, and to claim that universities
are `independent, autonomous bodies', as the DFES endlessly reiterate,
is a nonsense.
As to the question of the mechanisms that could
be used, given the grip of the business model that HE now finds
itself within, we imagine that safeguarding science will have
to be done by financially-based strategies which give institutions
no choice but to comply.
8. CLOSURE OF
THE CHEMISTRY
DEPARTMENT AT
EXETER UNIVERSITY
PACE ask the committee to consider the specific
issue of the closure of the Chemistry Department at Exeter University
which cannot be fully explained by the problems with the provision
of science education nationally.
8.1 Consultation period and time-scale of
decision-making process
The proposed closure of the Chemistry department
was announced on 22 November 2004 and was ratified by the Council
of Exeter University on 20 December 2004. After the Council meeting
on 20 December, the Vice-Chancellor announced that this represented
the university's final decision.
Some staff members within Exeter University
were made aware of a hole in the budget when it was noticed in
late September 2004. There was no proper consultation with or
within the affected departments nor was there any consultation
with outside bodies or individuals in order to investigate alternative
solutions to the financial problems. It is our view that the cuts
and closures were forced through with undue haste and without
due consideration by or consultation with those affected by them
or those who could offer alternative solutions.
8.2 Premature action to persuade Chemistry
students and staff to leave Exeter University
Chemistry staff were encouraged to consider
a voluntary severance package and Chemistry students were encouraged
to consider transferring to another university before the closure
of the Chemistry department was ratified by Council on 20 December.
(Annex A—letter to Chemistry students dated 10 December
2004).
8.3 Council members put under undue pressure
to vote for the cuts and closures
The minutes of the meeting of the Council of
Exeter University on 20 December 2004 show that the Vice-Chancellor
told Council members that "if members did not support the
proposals they needed to offer realistic alternatives rather than
simply vote against"". (Annex B—Minutes of the
meeting 04.70 Refocusing the University) (Not printed).
Given the lack of time for consultation on this
matter, it is our view that this was an unacceptable, and inaccurate,
statement and that Council members should have been free to vote
against or to refuse to vote on the matter and that, as the supreme
governing body of the university, Council should have deferred
the decision until a full review of the whole situation had been
undertaken.
8.4 Financial Mismanagement at Exeter University
We believe that the finances at Exeter University
have been mismanaged and that this, rather than the RAE funding
issue, is the real reason for the closure of the Chemistry department.
The Chemistry department was a thriving, successful department
with healthy and growing student recruitment and was highly likely
to achieve a 5 RAE rating in the next round, even without the
proposed review of the RAE and the protection of science subjects.
There are many aspects of the management and
presentation of the financial situation that warrant scrutiny
including the evidence PACE has that the accounts presented to
both Senate and Council members in order to justify the closure
of the Chemistry department were inaccurate. In addition, the
University's commitment to expenditure on new capital projects
has left it with an increase in the cost of debt maintenance of
£2.6m each year with payments to cover the £18m overspend
on the new Holland Hall of residence accounting for over half
of this. Such costs are continuing unchecked while the institution
loses an excellent and vital science department.
Minutes of the Council Meeting on 20th December
meeting show that the University management acted impulsively
to the concerns raised by Auditors at a committee meeting on 18th
November 2004. At that meeting, the Auditors were reportedly unable
to sign off the accounts with an unqualified opinion, until the
University had met certain requirements concerning the management
of its financial affairs in 2004/5 and 2005/6. The Audit Committee
wanted Council and Senior Management to be aware that
— financial covenants with the Banks
must not be broken again
— the credibility of senior management
was at stake
— a detailed implementation plan should
be drawn up
8.5 Chronology
On 18th November, the Audit Committee heard
the Auditors' concerns about the financial situation. On 22 November,
the University announced that the Chemistry Department would close.
On 1 December the Senate met to vote on the closure proposals
and the measures were voted through. On 16 December the Audit
Committee met again and the Auditors' were satisfied that "sufficiently
robust measures were being taken to sustain the institution as
a `going concern' ". "Sufficiently robust measures"
are taken to be "closures". At some stage it became
known to Senior Management that the Auditors would approve the
accounts as long as Council approved the SPRC's recommendations
on restructuring and expenditure reductions in 2004-05.
The Council met on 20 December and the proposal
to close the chemistry department was voted through. It seems
that the University announced closures in reaction to the Auditors'
concerns and to preserve the credibility of senior management.
Satisfying the short-term requirements as stated by the Auditors
and preserving the credibility of senior management, rather than
the long-term future of Exeter University, were clearly the highest
priorities in this situation.
Moreover the closures were announced on 22 November
before approval by Senate and ratification by Council. This begs
the question of whether the University acted reasonably and legally,
with respect to its contractual obligations and moral duty to
the students and staff.
8.6 The future for science at Exeter University
In the document "Imagining the Future"
Exeter University set out its proposals for the future of science
at Exeter University which includes the new School of Biosciences.
It is our view that these plans are fundamentally flawed. (Annex
C—Letter from Dr Hoggett, Chair, Biochemistry Board of Studies).
A paper produced by the staff of the Chemistry department which
also explains why the future plans are flawed and sets out a detailed
and viable plan for the future was dismissed by the senior management
team.
The minutes of the Council Meeting of 20 December
report the Vice Chancellor's statements on: "the need to
build on excellence in [science]" (The RAE rating of Chemistry
at Exeter was of "Quality that equates to attainable levels
of national excellence in virtually all of the research activity
submitted, showing some evidence of international excellence.")
and that a critical mass was particularly important in the Sciences,
to provide a rich collective research environment and a large
body of knowledge for teaching, followed by and , in complete
contradiction to, the motion to close the chemistry department,
with the consequent cessation of chemistry teaching and research.
8.8 The current treatment of students affected
by the closure of the Chemistry Department
Given the distress and disruption caused to
Chemistry students by the announcement of the closure of the Chemistry
department, one might have thought that Exeter University would
at least ensure that affected students would be properly informed
and supported as they try to make the right decision about how
and where to complete their degree programmes. PACE are appalled
by the way affected students are being treated. The minutes of
the Council meeting of 20 December show that Council members were
told that "particular care would be taken in the University's
dealings with the students affected, bearing in mind that the
University had a contract with each student, and indeed a moral
duty, to deliver an experience at least equivalent to the one
that would have been experienced had the proposed changes not
come forward" (Annex B p.7, point [i]). To date, Exeter University
are singularly failing to do this and PACE can present numerous
case studies which describe the current experiences of affected
student to support this statement. For example, students who wish
to remain at Exeter University for the duration of the Chemistry
degree programme on which they enrolled, are not confident that
their degree will be accredited by the Royal Society of Chemistry
and the university are unable to give this assurance.
In addition, science students who are not currently
directly affected by the closure of the Chemistry department,
including those studying Biological and Medicinal Science, are
very concerned about the future RSC accreditation of their degrees.
The RSC are unable to confirm accreditation of any Chemistry degrees
or degrees with a Chemistry component after June 2005 because
Exeter University is currently unable to provide details of their
future provision.
8.9 Conclusion
In conclusion, PACE members are grateful for
the opportunity to present this memorandum to the committee and
hope that our views on the national issue and on the specific
issue of Exeter University will be valuable to the committee's
deliberations. We sincerely believe that a full investigation
into the decision-making and consultation process which led to
the ratification of the cuts and closures at Exeter University,
together with detailed scrutiny of the accounts and accounting
procedures, is the very least that is warranted.
Should the committee decide to recommend policy
that will result in more science departments being closed in English
universities, then the PACE campaign group respectfully request
that the committee also recommend policy that will regulate the
way in which these closures are achieved and the way in which
affected students are treated.
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