President's weekly update
17 August 2023
Update on student recruitment for 2023/4, NSS outcomes and industrial action
As usual, I pause my regular messages during August while many of you will be away, on a well-earned rest. However, there are often some important developments to be aware of over the summer which I’ve covered in this update.
Student recruitment
Students received their A-level results this week. This is another cohort of students who have been greatly affected by the pandemic, so should be heartily congratulated on their achievements. Recruitment has been strong once again, reaffirming our appeal and popularity. Grades across the sector have returned to pre-pandemic levels, and while we have made allowances for this where we can, there are opportunities in clearing for a number of programmes.
Overall, we are close to our targets for undergraduate student recruitment, which are separate for UK and international students. As you know, we are a global university that carefully balances both UK and international students, seeking to attract all students, regardless of their background, who have the potential to succeed with us. The number of our places for UK students has increased in the last few years, despite the fact that fees don’t meet costs in many areas.
This is always a hectic time for all those involved in confirmation of student places and clearing and linked activities such as confirming accommodation for students that will be joining us. The huge task that these staff normally face has been greatly increased this year by the impact of our cyber attack. I am very grateful for their tireless efforts on behalf of all of us and our incoming students. Thank you all.
National Student Survey (NSS)
The NSS methodology changed significantly this year, including losing the final question on overall satisfaction, so comparisons with previous years are not really possible. There are positive outcomes including the levels of student response to NSS which increased significantly and congratulations to our Students’ Union which showed a much-improved positive score, above the sector average. However, we are still in the lower quartile for the sector, with assessment and feedback and student voice continuing to need significant improvement. We are now analysing free text comments and will be addressing areas where we have not performed well.
Industrial action
Many staff continue to work very hard to mitigate the effects of UCU’s marking and assessment boycott on our students. I am grateful to the staff who have now indicated that they will no longer be taking part in this action and will resume marking.
The UCU Higher Education Committee held an emergency meeting. Very regrettably they have said they will call further strike days in September and will ballot to continue industrial action when the current mandate expires at the end of September. None of us, especially our students, want further action.
Locally, we are talking with UMUCU on a regular basis, and will be working closely with them on key issues of casualisation and workload. Given that the USS pension benefits and costs are likely to be fully restored, the key concern of UCU is on pay. In addition to the average 5.25% national pay award (up to 8% for lower paid colleagues) that was made this year, we paid out one-off cost of living payments to staff averaging 2% amounting to about £12 million. About half of our staff also receive annual increments of about 3% of pay. The latest inflation figure is 6.8%.
UCEA, which negotiates pay on behalf of the university sector, has repeated that it has no mandate to discuss further pay increases this year. UCEA is proposing an independent review of the sector’s finances as some universities are facing real financial pressures and we are all seeing a decline in real terms income as, amongst other things UK student fees have remained unchanged for almost ten years while many costs have risen. I do hope that the more usual, and very important, collegial relations that define our University will soon be restored for the sake of all our community.
Update on response to the cyber attack
A great deal of work continues to mitigate the impact of the cyber attack and make our systems much more secure. There has been excellent progress in reopening portals, for example to UCAS and booking for student accommodation, which will be welcome news to our existing and new students. Our strategic partners are reconnecting to our infrastructure, and remote access to internal networks will be brought back, though with some limitations and additional security, as soon as they have been fully assured. While our systems are in a much better place, it will still take many months to complete the investigation into the impact of the incident; so, we continue to ask for your patience while colleagues work so hard to resolve the issues.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor