President's weekly update
26 January 2023
Discussions with our Students’ Union
We had one of our regular meetings with officers of the Students’ Union. A major topic of discussion was student hardship, particularly in light of the minimal increase to the government maintenance grant for students that was recently announced. As part of the Russell Group, we continue to lobby hard on this topic, as it seems especially unfair that students from Wales have been given an uplift of close to current inflation, while for English students it is only 2.8%. We have made cost of living payments to all our students. To date, nearly 43,000 students have been invited to claim a payment through NatWest PayIt and over 38,500 have been paid. This has been achieved thanks to working closely with our Students’ Union.
We also discussed the cost of our student residences. We have some of the lowest-priced residences amongst comparator institutions. In addition to the costs of running the residences, we have to spend quite a lot of money on maintaining and replacing old facilities. For example, we are beginning a £20m programme of refurbishment work in residences this summer and spent £90m of our own money on building Unsworth Park. Unlike most private accommodation, our rents include all fuel costs, catering for some halls and 24/7 pastoral care and support. We have not passed on the big increases in costs this year for energy and food.
The Students’ Union made the valid point that we need to better explain the University’s finances, for example the University does not make a ‘profit’ as we are a charity. Any income that is not spent in year, goes straight back into essential investments for the benefit of our students such as study spaces, teaching rooms, library, IT services.
Forthcoming strikes are a major concern to students, and we told the Students’ Union officers about the mitigations we have in place to help ensure students can progress and graduate as they expect and deserve to.
Digital Futures
This is one of our cross-University platforms. At the Digital Futures Board this week, we had general updates and great presentations on digital, blended and lifelong learning. We had equally excellent presentations on Creative Manchester (another of our platforms), and Createch, the digital component of our creative activities.
External Relations Strategy Group
Another regular meeting considered the various new external measures of success, our next external stakeholders review, the continued progress we have made since the last, very positive, stakeholder review, plans for our bicentenary in 2024 and international activities.
Convention of the North
This was held in Manchester with about 1,000 business, civic and political leaders who attended break-out sessions and speakers including Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, and Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove. We supported the event, had a great stand in the exhibition hall (with one of our robots that attracted great interest) and are publicising the discussions.
Welcoming new staff
At an online event to welcome new staff from across the University, I spoke of the current challenges that many sectors are facing, inflation and its impact on staff and students, staff vacancies, which are now starting to improve but are still increasing workloads for some, and industrial action. But I also talked about our many recent successes and the great people who work at the University. They asked me about our plans for environmental sustainability and equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).
Oddfellows Hall
We held a Senior Leadership Team meeting in Oddfellows Hall at the North end of MECD. It has recently had a major refurbishment and is a great venue for meetings. It’s also a proud reminder of our heritage, with rooms named after our key historical links.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor