Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-171)
PROFESSOR DRUMMOND
BONE AND
BARONESS WARWICK
OF UNDERCLIFFE
26 OCTOBER 2005
Q160 Tim Farron: Interestingly enough,
you will have noted that Oxford and Cambridge do not feature here
and it would appear that their students were actively encouraged
not to respond. What do you feel about that?
Professor Bone: I have no comment
to make on whether they were actively discouraged or not. I simply
do not know the answer to that.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe:
I do not know the answer to that either. Anybody subject to a
survey has criticisms of the methodology, but where a survey is
well constructed, where it offers students clearer, more accessible
information, I think it is helpful. I am sure Drummond is absolutely
right, everybody will be looking at the outcome of the survey
and seeing how they can improve, because they want to be as attractive
as possible for students. I think they will be looking at the
outcome of the judgments on teaching and seeking to do something
about it.
Tim Farron: I am sure that is so. There
is a strong proportion—I would say we are looking at the
majority of HEIs here—that are listed. I have never thought
Oxford and Cambridge students were particularly reticent and bad
at participating, so one can only think there is something under
the surface here, and it just is a shame that people are not prepared
to be assessed on things that they might not be so confidently
strong on. But you are not going to respond on that and I understand
why.
Helen Jones: We have noted your spirited
defence of Oxford and Cambridge.
Q161 Tim Farron: Indeed. I have a
final point, if I may, Chairman, which relates to one of the issues
of concern that came out of the student survey and certainly a
concern facing many students and also the communities in which
universities have their sites; that is, of course, campus closures.
We recognise that institutions have autonomy and should have autonomy
and need to respond to market pressures, and that sometimes you
will need to expand an institution, sometimes there will be a
retraction, and sometimes a new course will be developed and sometimes
a course will be phased out. I understand, that but I wonder if
you recognise that there could be a severe impact—obviously
on the students who are involved, but also the staff, and sometimes,
when it is a campus closure, on a whole community that that institution
serves. Will Universities UK be looking to try to set up protocols
that institutions which belong to UUK will be able to follow when
it comes to going through the process of course closures and campus
closures?
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe:
I think certainly UUK is a repository of good practice. I do not
know that we had imagined setting up a protocol for autonomous
institutions but good practice is certainly something which we
do see it our job to disseminate. We were very pleased with the
way HEFCE reported on the subjects that were in danger, if I may
put it that way. We now have a voluntary code, as you know, whereby
we will be giving early warning to the Funding Council if there
are difficulties. I take very, very seriously the question of
regional consultation, I have to say. I think that is a very fair
and very strong point that I think should be a part of university
good practice, that, where they are thinking of closing something
or indeed closing a whole campus, it has to be the subject of
regional consultation—and not just with other HE institutions
in the area either, which is sometimes what that means, but with
the local councils, with the development agencies, with the Learning
and Skills Council. I take that point.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe:
Looking back on what I recall of closures of campuses, they are
often very prolonged. They are decisions which take a very long
time and it is often the length of time rather than the lack of
notice that can be a problem. I am sure that from an organisational
point of view we are anxious to provide a means for members to
alert those who might be affected. That could be the Funding Council
but it certainly could be the local community. The links between
institutions and local communities, Regional Development Agencies,
Learning and Skills Councils and so on, all these links mean that
what is going on in an institution is very much more likely to
be shared than used to be the case.
Professor Bone: I can certainly
provide the Committee reassurance that this subject has been a
matter of considerable debate and concern in UUK over the last
year or so.
Q162 Mr Marsden: Student satisfaction,
of course, is quite closely related to staff satisfaction in universities
at all levels, and I would like to draw you on a little bit in
that area. Professor Drummond Bone, right at the beginning, when
we were talking about where the fees income was going to go, you
talked about modernisation of the pay structure. Do you still
have concerns, notwithstanding that, about structural shortages
within the teaching profession at university? Perhaps you would
like to illustrate where you think those lie.
Professor Bone: There is no question
about that, we do, and they lie I suspect in the regions where
one would expect. Economists, for example, are extremely difficult
to come by; lawyers can be extremely difficult to come by; some
categories of engineers increasingly can be difficult to come
by; people in computing science in certain areas—not across
the board, but in certain areas of computing science—can
be difficult to come by; and I suspect there are other areas which
I just cannot think of off the top of my head. Mathematicians
are quite difficult in the UK as well. So there is a real shortage.
There is also a demographic problem looming, and there is increasing
competition, because of a demographic problem in the States, from
the United States as well. Again, one of the problems that we
have is not just the base level of salary but the fact that, in
trying to attract people from other countries, the UK is an expensive
place to live.
Q163 Mr Marsden: What is the answer
to that? The one obvious answer all the way round is more money.
I am well aware of that, and no doubt you would like to get your
begging bowl out to HEFCE now. The other issue is how universities
themselves are able to use their existing funding more effectively
to tackle some of these issues. I know the maximum line has been
removed in terms of staff recruitment at professorial level and
so on, but are there more things you could be doing as institutions
or UUK could be doing to tackle and focus on the shortage areas?
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe:
I am thinking of the new framework agreement, which has been negotiated
through the Universities and Colleges Employers Association with
the university unions, which introduces a greater degree of flexibility.
I think that is going to be very important in ensuring that we
can respond to changes in the marketplace. That does not necessarily
mean that in 10 years time or six years time economists will be
the group that it is most difficult to recruit. I think introducing
a degree of flexibility into the process will be helpful. We are
in competition, particularly for our scientists and engineers,
with organisations or companies that pay a great deal. But it
is not only pay: it is the ability of the institution to be able
to provide particularly in the research area, the research environment
and the teamwork and the support that good researchers, excellent
researchers, require when they want to teach in a university or
want to work at a university. So I think there is more to it than
pay.
Q164 Mr Marsden: Sure, I would accept
that, but do you not also have an issue, particularly in the sciences,
of the fact that in the universities you still pay pretty low
rates for many of the crucial support staff, not least the technicians,
who need to keep the show on the road?
Professor Bone: Yes, that is a
real problem. I think there are a number of issues. At the top
end of the professorial market, if I could put it that way, salary
really is not the issue, it is resources. There is no question
about that. The difficulty is somewhere in the middle, if I can
put it that way, where retention is a real problem. You get city
companies and so on and big multinationals approaching our staff
and it is very, very difficult to get them back. The flexibility
that Diana has spoken about will help there. But, let us not kid
ourselves either: it will introduce problems into the system as
well. There are some institutions, it is quite clear, who will
be able to pay more now that we are effectively in a local bargaining
situation than other institutions and that is going to create
an issue as well.
Q165 Mr Marsden: Even where you have
a situation of teaching staff and academics where there is not
a particular problem in terms of recruitment into the profession,
there are concerns, are there not—particularly going back
to student satisfaction, in terms of teaching—that the incentive
balance is skewed in universities towards research and against
teaching by the nature of the RAE and the nature of many of the
other funding regimes? I know many younger academics in particular
feel frustrated that some of the things they would like to do,
in terms of social inclusion, in terms of relating to schools
and other institutions—some of the outreach work, for want
of a better word—does not get an automatic recognition.
It certainly does not get an automatic recognition in terms of
the pay cheque or the time they are allowed to do that sort of
thing. Are there more things—and I am not talking about
opening up the RAE question, because we know the situation there—that
UUK could do to send out to its members some more welcoming suggestions
in that area, or more things that universities themselves could
do to balance things more in favour of teaching perhaps and less
absolute focus on research?
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe:
Perhaps I could address that in a slightly different way by saying
that in our submission to both the last Comprehensive Spending
Review and certainly the next one, our highest priority is support
for teaching infrastructure—and, indeed, for pay, but support
for teaching infrastructure—in the sense that the additional
resource that has been provided for universities through the last
funding round has been heavily weighted towards research. It has
been enormously welcome but it has meant that the support that
can be provided for teaching has lagged behind and certainly we
see that as a key priority in our representations to government.
Q166 Mr Marsden: It is about academic
recognition as well, is it not? What incentive is there for a
young science lecturer at a university to go out and do an open
day in, say, a socially disadvantaged area of schools or to promote
science, or for a young historian, for example, to do a similar
sort of thing? There is not anything formal in the progression
process or the promotion process in university that assists those
people, is there?
Professor Bone: Yes, I think there
is. I cannot speak for all universities but most universities
employ a balanced scorecard approach to promotion. Typically,
it is divided into three—and in some cases there are other
things taken into consideration as well: certainly teaching; the
administrative load undertaken in university; and research. In
most universities it is an equal number of points for each and
that is roughly how it works. But, nevertheless, I understand
the remarks you are making. In university HR departments now,
particularly because of the discussions we have been having about
the new framework which involves equal pay for equal work, there
is a lot of awareness of the necessity to value people's work
in different ways. I think the situation is improving, but that
is not to say there is more to be done. I think you will find
that most universities are employing some kind of scorecard approach
which does involve teaching and promotion.
Q167 Mr Marsden: Obviously you can
do things at the margins, but, to some extent, inevitably these
things are going to be dictated in the amount of funding which
is distributed via the RAE as opposed to via other processes.
Are you happy or content that the changes have taken place and
will take place over the next RAE assignment in 2008 are sufficient
and adequate to reflect many of the concerns that have been previously
expressed about getting the balance right between teaching and
research?
Professor Bone: As a question
near the end of the session, that is a very big question. I think
I would, at the moment, quite frankly, like to leave the RAE stone
unturned. It has taken an enormous amount of trouble and discussion
to get us where we are. We are now only three years or two years
away from the submission date of the RAE—October 2007 the
census date. I think there will be room for a great deal of discussion
following the RAE. If you mean has the new format of the RAE rebalanced
things towards teaching, then I cannot say that it has.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe:
That was the point I was going to make. I do not know that the
RAE has specifically addressed that issue. It seems to me that
is an issue that can only be addressed by looking at the outcomes
of the way in which universities determine their promotions. I
am not even sure whether it would be possible to judge that by
outcomes. I do not know what statistics are kept. Because it is
a balanced scorecard approach, I do not think one normally in
those circumstances draws out particular elements to determine
whether one was given more weight than another. It might be quite
difficult to get at, but certainly there is a perception. I accept
that there is a perception.
Q168 Mr Marsden: There is a problem
of universities allegedly buying in bright young professors or
for that matter bright older professors and simply having them
there because of their publications to ratchet up the RAE scorecard
and not actually contributing to the teaching in the university.
That is going to still be an open question, is it not?
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe:
As a result of the RAE.
Q169 Mr Marsden: Yes.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe:
I suspect that must be the case. Yes, I suspect is the answer,
but there is not a huge amount of evidence that there has been
a major shift in terms of poaching from one institution to another.
Professor Bone: The trouble about
that—
Q170 Mr Marsden: Perhaps we should
leave this stone unturned.
Professor Bone: No, Diana is absolutely
right, but one of the issues is how much universities are actually
paying people who do not move because there is an approach. I
think there is a real issue there. However, I do not think many
of these chairs who may be brought in because they are good researchers
are given carte blanche to do research. Often good researchers
are good teachers as well and want to teach.
Q171 Helen Jones: Thank you very
much indeed. We are going to wrap it up there. Professor Drummond
Bone, Baroness Diana Warwick, thank you very much for coming before
the Committee today. You have given us some very interesting evidence
and it is very nice to have had an English literature specialist
in front of us for once, Professor. That is my abuse of the Chair!
We do not get many of them. We are extremely grateful to you for
the evidence you have given to us today, some very interesting
things which we will mull over in the future.
Professor Bone: Thank you very
much, and, through you, the Panel.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe:
I wonder if I might also say that I think I made a mistake, in
that I said the inquiry we are doing on part-time is due next
year and in fact it is next year. It will be towards the end of
the academic year.
Helen Jones: Thank you very much for
that correction.
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