THE UNIVERSITY

VICE-CHANCELLOR

• Biography
• Curriculum vitae
• Speeches and articles
• Messages to staff and students
• Vice-Chancellor's senior executive team

Speech to Support Staff Conference

1 July 2010

However, before articulating those challenges, I want to remind ourselves of just how far this University has developed in the last 10 to 15 years. Before analysing those last 15 years, it is important that we reiterate that this was a university that had a superb reputation for teaching and research stretching back over the whole 100 years of its existence. What has happened recently was built on the shoulders of our past students and staff. The scale of change, however, is quite breathtaking. Our student numbers have increased by 49% from 10,866 in 1995 to 16,204 in 2009. Our percentage of home undergraduates has dropped and our percentage of postgraduate and overseas students has risen. So not only have we expanded our student population significantly, but its nature has changed with a higher percentage of postgraduate and overseas students. In 1999 the University’s turnover was £130 million, last year it was £373 million. Our research contracts had increased in the same time from £43 million to £101 million and the amount coming from research councils – the most competitive funding – had increased from £17 million to £43 million. During this period the asset value of our University had risen from £300 million to £540 million. Essentially, in the period I am describing, this University has doubled in size which means it has doubled, or more, in complexity, not least with the amount of new legislation with which we have to conform.

Let’s look at the Estate in more detail. Since 1995, I have calculated that we have spent about £500 million on improving our estate either through refurbishment or new build. We have new Engineering buildings. We have basically created a whole new Chemistry Department, invested hugely in the facilities in the Medical School and the animal house and we have recently extended that to new facilities in the Social Sciences and in Arts and Humanities. There’s a new Sports Centre and new facilities at Coombe Dingle and our Nanoscience building is absolutely state of the art. We have invested heavily in super computing. We made a fantastic purchase of the old Children’s Hospital on St Michael’s Hill which will stand us in great stead over the next few decades. Senate House has been transformed into a modern office building which we can use much more efficiently. There are numerous other smaller improvements such as the ground floor of the Arts and Social sciences library, which have made a real difference to the experience of both staff and students.

It is important to compare this with the previous 20 years 1975 – 1995. I have checked the records and during those 20 years, because of Government policy, we did not build a significant new building in that period. Furthermore our Estate was becoming more and more rundown. In summary, we have made unprecedented investment in our Estate which has rolled back the consequences of years of chronic under-investment. Perhaps the best symbolic representation of this is how wonderful the Tower of the Wills Memorial looks now that it has been cleaned. It represents the re-invigoration that the estate of this University has seen. In fact a local taxi driver told David Alder, our Director of Communications, that the University was the first thing he told any passengers about and that he loved to drive them up Park Street and point out the tower to them in its new, refreshed state.

Let’s move onto the academic enterprise. We remain the most popular full service university in applications per place and get fantastic students – as we have always done. The average A level grades on entry are 3 grade As. Our graduates are highly desirable to employers and we remain on every recruiter’s shortlist. Our academics have always been top rank and they take their teaching seriously. We have become more sensitive to our students’ needs and work closely with them to fulfil those. Bristol has always strived to do that and of course it’s never perfect, but we are committed to making it as good as possible and to keep up our historically high standards. We are highly placed in both global league tables. Our academics continue to perform ground breaking research. Every year for the last ten years we have had at least one new FRS and in one year we had three. I know of no provincial university that gets anywhere near such consistent verification of individual scientific excellence. Much of our work has global impact – look at the transplanted trachea derived from stem cells, look at our work in Public Policy, at our Quantum Information group, at the work on developing a low cost mechanism to discover if water is polluted – to name but a few. The overall impact of this is shown by our performance in the Research Assessment Exercises. The outcome for us in 2009 was our most successful and that success ensured an addition £6 million of research support – absolutely crucial now. It also underlines a very important truth – you always get rewarded by doing your core business well ie teaching and research in this case.

But a university isn’t an academic environment alone. The support services are unrecognisable from those in 1995. As a generalisation they have moved from a civil service model of provision to a highly professional, customer orientated set of services. Consider the work that has been needed to support that building and refurbishment programme. We should remind ourselves of huge changes in our workforce – for example, the very successful introduction of Reward and the Positive Working Environment Initiative which won a global award last year. Our Finance staff have become much more outward looking and committed to providing real time information. Our libraries are being transformed and the provision of IT is moving apace after years of under-investment. We have a very successful fund raising campaign and our Public Relations is unrecognisable from ten years ago. Our Research and Enterprise Directorate has a national reputation for excellence and innovation. Alongside all of that we have continued our excellence in teaching support and in student support in its many manifestations. This is particularly true for those staff working in faculties and departments. Our legal teams have risen to the challenge of the huge increase in their workload. Seeing the staff all meeting and overcoming these challenges has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my time here at Bristol and they should all be very proud of the services they provide and their importance to the University.

Rest assured, this is not a valedictory and I’m not about to leave the University especially in this, one of its hours of need. However, I am going to be describing a different set of challenges and a different world going forward and I thought it was very important to remind ourselves just how well set the University is after the last 15 years or so and just how much change there has been inside it which, I would argue, means we have not only sustained our recognised excellence but increased it.

I feel it is important to stress one very important point now. Whilst I will be describing challenges to you; the central strategy of the University remains unchanged. We remain committed to being a globally recognised centre of excellence in teaching and research that runs itself effectively. Our fundamental ambitions remain unchanged and undimmed – challenges may slow down our journey but they do not deflect us from our path. We are not going to change into some entirely different institution and I’m absolutely clear that the very strongest position we can take is to remain true to our central values and ambitions. To exemplify that let me mention future investment in our Estate. We had planned approximately £600 million over the next 10 years and have had to rein that in to about £420 million – but it is still £420 million, a very significant amount and we have the money in the bank to help us do that. By the time we get to 2020 we will have invested £1 billion in this University in just over 20 years – it is still onward and upward. It is very important that everyone holds on to that notion over the next few difficult years.

So, what are the challenges? Well, you would have had to be living on a desert island for the last two years if you didn’t know them yourselves. We are already aware of a cut of approximately £1 billion from Government support for Higher Education and, following the emergency budget, there will be further cuts which could take us up to or beyond 25% of the Higher Education budget i.e. above and beyond £2 billion. Furthermore, other sources of income such as research contracts and industrial income are subject to the same recessionary bite. This has been combined with recent high cost inflation through salary settlements and additional pension payments. After years of plenty we are going to face five or so years of famine. My major problem is that I cannot yet tell you how, where, when and to what degree these cuts will fall. As Vice-President of Universities UK, I am heavily involved in defining our position and helping with the responses to suggestions that come forward in the debate. What I can tell you is that nothing is clear so far and that Government is exploring solutions other than just visiting cuts equally throughout the sector. These have been foreshadowed by Dr Cable in his speeches about student numbers and differing forms of educational provision. We may be a little clearer on the amount of cuts by the middle of July, but we will not be clear about the details until the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) is published on October the 20th. I will be delighted when we are certain because then we can really plan how to address them.

However we cannot just wait until October the 20th. We need to do those things that will benefit us whatever the outcome of the CSR.

1. We need to look at additional income streams. We have done this and clearly increasing our percentage of overseas students is a major potential. Current estimates report that we will have over 250 more overseas students next year than last. Of course those students will have to be looked after properly, we are not going to be doing “pile ‘em high” teaching but it will be a welcome additional income stream. Identifying other income streams that can be increased quickly is more problematic.
2. We need to cut our costs. Between March 2007 and March 2009, our core staff numbers increased by 2% and the cost of employing them including pension payments increased by 19%. That is simply unsustainable, even in the short term, which is why we have been decreasing staff numbers in both the academic and support areas. We have a financial target, set prior to the funding cuts, of £15 million. It is painful to get there, I’m fully aware of that, and we are trying as hard as possible to do that as considerately as humanly possible. However, we cannot avoid it or the consequences that fall on remaining staff. This is happening throughout the University. I have compared the size of our senior team to other Russell Group universities and it appears to be the smallest. However the retirement of Professor Len Hall as Pro Vice-Chancellor (PVC) and Alison Allden’s promotion to Chief Executive of HESA has presented Derek Pretty, David Clarke and me with opportunities to restructure our team. As from December 2010 we will be one PVC less and that, combined with Derek’s restructuring, means we will have saved 15% of our salary bill. The work of that PVC doesn’t go away and we are planning how to reallocate it, so I am experiencing at first hand what many of you are also experiencing.
3. We need to run our business as efficiently as possible. In times of plenty, we all just use the growing income to fund our structures. That is now not possible. Many of you have pointed out to me that there was inefficiency and duplication in the way we structured our Support Services. Support Service Review is addressing that. Efficiency reviews are also occurring in academic provision as well, particularly around the number of degrees and how they are organised. Again, I appreciate that this is not easy and there is still not clarity but, as usual in this University, great care is being taken by all staff to ensure we get it right.
4. Finally we must scenario plan actions that would need to be taken if we are faced with acute and deep cuts. That we have done and we feel we could manage a very difficult cut but again that would not be without pain.

Until we know for sure the nature, timing and placing of the cuts, it is essential that we push on with the actions I have described above and maximise their impact. Furthermore, it has been made plain to me from the very highest echelons of Government that if we do not demonstrate that we are successfully doing the things I have described, there will be no sympathy for the sector. We can’t just behave like Oliver Twist – we will get further consideration of our case if we show that we are putting our own house in order. And, of course, we are not different from any other part of the public or para-public sector. I know of Ministries that are being asked to seriously model 35% cuts to their budget.

So, is it all doom and gloom? No. I repeat we are well set to face these challenges. Firstly, we know where we are going. We are not changing our strategy. We are a high quality university to which students want to come. We are already addressing our cost issues and are preparing for the future. Responding to these threats means that we can think of ways to improve not only the student and staff experience, but also how we run the business, that we may have thought of as off limits before. By not shirking from the challenges, I am clear we will be in a strong position to benefit from the upturn when it comes, which it inevitably will. I am also absolutely clear that changing ourselves so as to continue to provide the financial headroom to continue to invest will have the most powerful effect. We are not having another 20 years of no investment.

Someone recently pointed out to me that:

“The first action for successful survival is to abandon all hope of rescue.”

There’s a lot of truth in that. The future is in our hands – I know we have the staff and the commitment to seize that challenge and emerge stronger, to emerge as a university that you will continue to be proud to say you belong to.