 Good morning, everybody. I welcome you all to the 23rd meeting of the Education and Culture Committee in 2015. I remind everybody present to ensure that all electronic devices are switched off all times because they can interfere with the sound system. I wouldn't like to have to give you a row in the middle of the hearing, so that would be helpful if you had them switched off. I welcome Liz Smith, MSP, who has joined us for today's first agenda item, which is around table discussion on the Higher Education and Govern Scotland Bill. I welcome Liz Smith. We have no apologies from members, so Liam McArthur, unfortunately, has been delayed by his flight from Orkney, but I am sure that he will join us soon. We have, unfortunately, had apologies from Professor Ferdinand von Brunsenski, who is unable to be with us this morning. First of all, I will start with a few words, if you do not mind, on the process. Obviously, the Higher Education and Govern Scotland Bill contains relatively few provisions—it is a relatively thin bill—but has generated a lot of comment and interest among the sector. We have published almost 300 submissions on our website, and I thank everybody who has contributed. Just for the avoidance of doubt, I tell everybody, because we have a lot of people who wanted to come along here today, that all evidence written and oral is treated in equal measure and is treated the same way. The purpose of today's meeting is to allow us to try and make some progress on the main issues arising from the bill, but bear in mind that we have conflicting views. A number of them have obviously been expressed out with us committee so far. I am hoping that everybody can get the chance to express their views this morning and make it clear their views on the bill and any changes that they see fit to suggest. You have all been notified in advance of a number of broad topic areas that we want to discuss. We will try to manage it so that we go through those three topic areas, but they do not cover all the other things that I am sure members and contributors want to discuss this morning. I am going to encourage some free-flowing discussion. I am happy to take comments from across the round table this morning. I am also happy for contributors to question each other, so I know that I am not sure if both sides of the argument have been in the same table yet, but maybe this is the first opportunity. If you want to discuss issues by all means, please contribute. If you want to question somebody else's submission or evidence, please do that as well. I will try to allow that as much as possible. However, I want to start with the first general topic that we sent you in advance. That covers the specific measures that are set out in the bill and asking whether they will rectify perceived weaknesses in higher education governance that have been identified by some participants here today and by some of the evidence that has been sent to us in written form. It is fair to say that all those with an interest in the sector consider that higher education institutions should be fully effective in their governance arrangements. There is no argument about that, but there is some disagreement about how we move forward in terms of the detail. It is also fair to say that the written submissions from a number of bodies, including Scottish Government, are not clear what the problems that are currently existing within HEC governance that the bill is seeking to address. However, others have clearly laid out that they believe that there are deficiencies in existing practice in a number of agencies such as transparency, democracy and, in fact, to do with pay and diversity issues. There are a number of issues that I am sure that you have read and written evidence. In order to get things started, I want to start by bringing in those who think that there are perceived problems and difficulties and to ask them to lay out why they think that that is the case and why they think that the bill should be taken forward and what they see as the merits and perhaps some of the problems with the bill if they see some changes that they would want to see as well. I will start with Mary Senior. Mary, if you want to outline some of your views, I will then come to the NUS, Emily, and then I will bring in chairs and the universities before I bring in any members. I know that members are keen to get any questions, but I will bring in our guests first and let them lay out some of the ground rules for the discussion. Mary. Thank you very much, convener, and thanks for the opportunity to speak to the committee this morning. I think that for UCU this is about addressing a perceived disconnect between staff and students and those at the top. I think that it is about ensuring decisions that universities make are scrutinised, that there is robust governance and that those who work and learn in universities, indeed, I think that we are very clear that universities are about education, learning, research, knowledge, knowledge exchange, and the people who are involved in that are staff and students. It is really vital that they feel connected to the key decisions and the strategy that the university and the higher education institutions are taking forward. That is why we are very supportive of most of the recommendations in the bill today. Indeed, we were very supportive of the von Prondinsky report, which was undertaken after a very thorough review of higher education governance in Scotland. This bill seems to address a number of those issues, including the election of a chair of a governing body and ensuring adequate staff and student and trade union representation on governing bodies, because we feel this will enable staff and students to better influence the decisions that are coming forward from the governing body and have a say in how this moves forward. Thank you, Mary. Emily. No, you do not have to touch it. Thank you. I am delighted to be here. Certainly, speaking from NUS perspective and our members' broad support for this bill, I think that I would like to focus on the principles that we believe are behind this bill and really move away. Hopefully, this conversation can move away from the hyperbole that has often been put out in the press in the past few weeks. Certainly, the areas that we feel are lacking in governance at the moment are more democracy, increased transparency and diversity on our governing bodies. I echo what Mary said. We believe that universities are academic communities and those stakeholders of these communities are staff and students primarily. They absolutely should be the ones leading the discussions and decisions that are taking place within our institutions. That is why we feel that such aspects of the bill, such as the elected chairs and other aspects that we would like to introduce as well, such as quotas for boards, are crucial to us and our members are supportive of those. Who from the university sector of the chairs would like to contribute? I join my colleagues in thanking you to invite us here today. We see this as a bill that is looking for issues that are already addressed. It is worth bearing in mind that the code exercise that created the SE code of 2012 and 2013 went to every university that talked to students and staff and identified what they wanted good governance to look like. As a result, 94 per cent of universities already have two elected members of staff in their governing bodies and 70 per cent already have two students in their governing bodies. Our perception is that the danger with this bill is that because it does not build upon the good governance that already exists and it introduces solutions that we think will positively damage good governance, such as accountability, we believe that this bill will set back the sector's on-going process of ensuring good governance. While it is entirely unintended, the consequence of this bill will be bad for a sector that contributes £6 billion a year to the economy and which, in international league tables, as recently as last week, five Scottish universities are on the top 200, three are on the top 100 in the world. Good governance is required to achieve that level of success, so we believe that in saying that this bill carries dangers, we are stating what is actually the case. Thank you very much. Professor Schocky. Thank you for letting me speak. I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed coming to Scotland because of the huge support that the Government has for higher education and for culture, which I think is fairly unique in the world. The intention of the bill and the goals that everyone is talking about, we absolutely share. We want democratic governance, we want transparency. We are a small institution and, indeed, around this table, we have one of the largest institutions with 50,000 students and one of the smallest, my own, with 1,000 students. I believe that we have students on our governing board. I meet with them on a regular basis. They were involved in the appointment of me as principal. As an entire small institution, our submission has been that we feel that all concerns are listened to. We are a small enough institution that we can work within the code to suit the uniqueness of being small, whereas a law would require us to do some difficult manipulation in order to be compliant with the law. We feel as a conservator that we are serving the democratic goals and intent very well and want to contribute to creativity and innovation as an arts leader. Professor Roche, can I bring you in at this point? Thank you very much for inviting us. In a similar position to Professor Sharkey, I came back to Scotland because of the environment. I have experience of three major universities being in the senior management, the Open University, the University of London and the University of Edinburgh. The environment here has been very positive. There has been a really good partnership between the Scottish Government and the universities since devolution. It has been very productive. One consequence of that is that I have served the German Government on their excellence initiative to give them advice on how to improve their universities. I have been deputy president of the French Government in Vaissement-Don-Lavineur, which is very similar. The partnership between the Scottish Government and the universities has given us innovation, creativity and, in the case of my own university, 47 new companies just last year created and has given us international links that have cultural benefits and economic benefits. It is very hard to perceive the governance problem here. We have got a very good code of governance. We are refining it. I am in an environment with two students on the governing body, five colleagues on the governing body, three alumni. The anxiety that we have in the university sector is that there are some very serious unintended consequences here. If this legislation goes through in the form that we see in front of us, it will not only weaken the autonomy of universities, but it will weaken the perception of the autonomy of the Scottish universities. As someone with a lot of international links, I find myself in the embarrassing position of getting letters from university presidents from other countries commiserating with me. This discussion is not just happening in this room. This discussion is being observed around the world. The perception around the world is that this bill, if enacted, will reduce the autonomy of the Scottish universities. In the case of the University of Edinburgh, it will weaken the accountability of our vice convener. We have a very good dual model, a rector elected by all the staff and students who presides at the court, and a vice convener who is appointed through an open and transparent process to the court. That dual model works enormously well. We have a historic senate, more than 400 years old, which is large, with 737 members on it. It has substantial student membership, substantial non-professorial membership, and it is highly effective. It promotes very serious debates and initiatives that come from the students, that come from the non-professorial staff, go through our senate and get adopted. Again, if this bill goes through, we will be asked at Edinburgh to disenfranchise to remove the democratic rights of five, six of those on our senate at the moment. The partnership is such a success story between, at the moment Scotland has proportionally more universities in the world top 200 than any country in the world. The University of Edinburgh does better than any German university. Any German university. Obviously, there are unintended consequences, but when one looks at the unintended consequences, they will undoubtedly damage the autonomy that is vital to success. In your own briefing notes from Spice, the OECD documents that are cited there are extremely clear on this point. Thank you very much. I want to come back to Robyn, if you do not mind. Robyn, could you give us a contribution? The first thing that I want to say is that universities in Scotland are very well managed, and I think that we should be clear that this is not about the quality of the leadership or the staff. I worked in the sector for 13 years and we are blessed with a very large number of good people. Where I think the problem lies with this is the assumption is that democratic debate within the university system should take place only in its governing body. Once you have a governing body, that is the only site where the future of an institution can be discussed. I do not think that that is helpful. Universities are generational institutions. They are not institutions that are run for 10-year periods. They are institutions that are run for 100-year periods. We do not really have a mechanism that allows most staff, most students a way to discuss the purpose, the future and the strategy of the university. I personally would go further. I personally think that we should go to a fully democratically or stakeholder court and have that discussion as something that is undertaken by the whole university all of the time as a community. I think that what that does is that it gives you an immediate focus whereby in the electoral cycle people can stand as candidates for the governor of a university, a chair of a court of a university and in that process people can hear what they think the view, their view of the future is. Different views of the future of a university can be discussed and debated in an open forum with staff and students. We have excellent managers and excellent leaders in our universities. One of the things that we have seen in recent years is that when you have a governance model that selects too many people who are too similar, good people make bad decisions. There is very little evidence that suggests that less diverse governance is better governance. An enormous amount of research is being taken around the world now about organisational development, which suggests that diversity in your governance is not only normal nowadays, it is helpful and it is good. Particularly things like ensuring that you have a right for staff who understand the university, bits of the university better than managers do, to have an automatic role in the governance of that university in every university and a steady way is important. I want to pick up the point about autonomy. We have got to be clear here the difference between autonomy for a university from government and autonomy of a small management group from everybody else. I do not see that there is any way that you are saying that there should be a democratically elected element of the governance of a university, but it is for the staff and students to make the decision about how that democratic outcome occurs affects the autonomy of a university. It may affect the autonomy of a senior management team, but it does not affect the autonomy of a university. I do not see that. I do not understand what the unintended consequences are. It seems to me that we already have elected leaders of university courts and it works very well. It should be something that is systemised across the university sector to create a focus for debate about what universities are now and going forward. It is very interesting the point that you make about the general direction of universities and perhaps your perceived lack of involvement. Certainly, at Heriot-Watt, when we devised our last strategic plan, this was a process that involved every student and every staff of the university. Our student union ran the table on every occasion, but it was a broad consultation. We particularly consulted on the values of the university, the vision and the mission of the university. The Senate has a key role to play in that, hearing the voice of our academic colleagues, where they want to go in terms of excellence in learning and teaching and research. The code also, certainly from our university's point of view, we are very supportive of this code. We have appointed a principal recently and we have appointed a chair of court, both since the code was published. Particularly for the appointment of the principal, the requirement of the code to consult and get the views of all members of staff and all students of the university was fully fulfilled. We got some excellent feedback from our students and our colleagues on those key issues of direction of the university. The students were not shy in expressing a view about where they felt the future leader of the university should take the vision and mission and the delivery of that. Universities are much more inclusive than perhaps is perceived. I think the code helps us and that respect requires us to be much more inclusive. I think there is a fantastic spirit and embracing of the code across the university and with my fellow secretaries we are all working very hard to ensure that we do that. The inclusive collegiate nature of a university has always existed. It underpins the existence of a university and that is a day-to-day activity in our university. Thank you very much. I am not a university representative. I just want to make that absolutely clear. I am president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh from the 6th of October last year. This is the anniversary. I have a number of relevant roles but I will start with what I have not done. I have worked for the open university in Scotland but I have not otherwise been an employee of a Scottish university and I regard the open university as a national university with a Scottish arm. I have however been involved with universities in England, in Ireland and in the USA. I have held governance roles in three of them, being a staff member in one on what they call council court. I have been on senior management role as a senior manager role in another council and so on. I have appointed three vice-chancelors, one of them in a Scottish university. I have a strong international reputation. I am frequently invited to lecture abroad, receive awards and things like that. I want to start by addressing some unintended consequences, which for me are really scary. Starting about the time of the referendum but picking up momentum now with this legislation, when I am abroad I find people saying to me what is happening to the Scottish university, what is the Government there doing with the implication that there is interference, not quite articulated the implication that there is suppression of critical thought. That is not a word that you want to get abroad. That will be devastating for the SNP and the Scottish universities but it is growing and it is out there already so please everybody take care. I also want to say a little bit about the Irish universities because I believe that what was proposed here has been modelled on what happened in Ireland. The Scottish universities are fantastic, they lift Scotland in a way that you do not see in many countries. The Irish universities are a bit sad, muted. Trinity College Dublin has a fantastic history, full stop. The Irish universities are not lifting Ireland and a lot of that is due to bad decisions arising from curious governance arrangements. I would urge caution in that respect as well. I think that perhaps as much I want to say at this point maybe when we come to some of the other questions. Thank you very much and Jennifer. I am the chair of Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and I wanted to pick up the issue in relation to diversity and again to share with others that a diverse governing body is one that is effective and one that we would all seek to achieve. Through the new code we have, through across the university, made different commitments. We certainly, RGU, made a commitment to 40% of gender within the next two years. It is challenging. We are an 18 member board, 12 are independent members, four staff and two students. We have taken steps in our recent advertisement for new board members to be very clear that we are seeking diversity. We have agreed that we will pay in terms of expenses to cover any costs or loss of earnings to ensure that we are more open to a wider range of governance and board membership. In terms of our commitment to getting a diverse board and a diverse governing body, we share that a diverse body is and will support good governance in the future. It is very much enshrined in the code and the commitment across the university and higher education sector. I think that everybody has now had a chance to speak at least once apart from members of the committee. I am going to start to bring them in and I have got Gordon MacDonald. I just wanted to ask about an earlier point that Mary Senior raised, which was the disconnect between staff, students and those at the top. In preparation for today's session, I had a look at one of the universities in my area and I had a look at who was represented on a number of the committees. There are ten committees and there are four committees that have no student representation or no obvious staff representation. They include the audit committee, the investment committee, the remuneration committee and the risk management committee. I have got three questions. My first question is why would there be no representation on the committees of staff or students and is this typical of all higher educational institutions? My second question would be should students and staff be represented on all committees? My third question is more specific. It is about remuneration committees. The committee of Scottish chairs issued a guidance note on the operation of remuneration committees. It says that effective governance is vital to the success of Scotland's higher education institutions and the remuneration committee is an important part of that governance framework. The reputation of higher education can be damaged by pay packages for senior staff that are perceived to be out of line with pay and conditions elsewhere. The NUS highlighted that the relationship of the lowest paid member of staff and the highest paid member of staff was 16 to 1 on average. I looked at the institution from its freedom of information request that the answer last year was 19.5 to 1. Looking at the progression in one year from 2013 to 2014, the number of staff went up by 1.4 per cent, but the number of staff being paid over £140,000 went up 18 per cent. Is it acceptable for the pay ratio between the highest and lowest paid members of staff to be so high? My three questions are why there are no representations of staff and students on all committees. Should staff and students be represented on all committees and is it acceptable to have a staff pay ratio of 21 between the lowest and highest paid members? I am happy to take the first two structural questions. I do not know which institution you are talking about, but it does not matter. The question of who is on what committees is a question for the governing body. On the governing body, there are staff and students. Indeed, in my own institutions, there are six members of the academic staff, three student representatives and two elected employee representatives. In fact, we have become the last university in the UK to have a lay majority when the regulations were changed very recently. There is a broad spread of representation across governing bodies. I would say that there is a very good argument for not having too many members of the governing body on the audit committee. I regard my university's audit committee as the policeman. Other people look into what is happening in TELUS. You have a balance to strike. You need to know enough about the university to be able to understand how it works. At the same time, you have to be distanced from the university that you have prepared to take a completely different view. The investment committee, I do not know what it does. I chair the investment committee in my institution, but the people who are on that are completely external to the university. They are professional fund managers who are providing expertise on investment matters. We report to the finance committee who have staff and students on it. It is very much a question for each individual university. The Scottish chairs take the view that the staff and students are and should be involved as fully as the governing body thinks it is appropriate to be. That is what defines it. The second question is, as a matter of course, should there always be staff and students? I think that the answer has got to be what is the committee doing, because we are looking for expertise, but all of these committees, I believe, you will find report to the governing body on which there are staff and students. In relation to principles pay, the reality, ladies and gentlemen, is that the funding council imposes on us, the members of the governing body, not the university, the obligation of sustainability. Paragraph 17, the financial memorandum, imposes on us personally. We have to run the institutions in the best way that we think we can. That means that there are people who are paid at different rates, there are people who, some members of the public think, are paid too much, but we have got to fulfil our obligation of securing sustainability and the evidence, as Professor Ashay and others have pointed out, we are doing that. It would be quite wrong to impose some standard multiplier that would reduce the accountability of the governing body for securing the sustainability of the institution. I could come in on the actual operation of renumeration committees, and the code has really helped us in this respect. It has given us much more guidance about how renumeration committees should operate. For example, it is required that the chair of court no longer chairs that committee, and we have implemented that. It requires that we have a co-opted independent member who is not a member of court, with the expertise that David refers to in the area of reward, informing the decisions around that table. The terms of reference of the renumeration committee are agreed annually by the court. There are of course data protection issues here that we have to guard carefully, but at least in my institution, the full court, including our staff and students, receive a report of the reward levels. Granted, it is in bands, but they are fully informed of all of the decisions of the committee. In addition, pay in universities is really well-publicised, and vice-chancellers, there's a league table of vice-chancellers pay, which appears every year in the Times Higher Education. It uses very sensible benchmarking data from UCA that the whole sector uses. In addition to that, in our published accounts, all of the salaries are openly displayed for everyone to be aware of. The new guidance from the committee of Scottish chairs has also been warmly welcomed. It's very new, it's only a couple of months old, but we are well on the way to adopting that as well. Governance is an area that evolves over time in all organisations, not just universities. We are particularly moving forward in opening up the transparency around areas such as pay, which we understand are sensitive. Gordon MacDonald raised three very good questions and really helped to illustrate this disconnect that staff and students feel from those leading universities. No-one is questioning that Scottish universities are not good because they are, but what we're saying is that they could be so much better if staff and students and trade unions were fully involved in how they operate. A number of people have commented on the governance code that was introduced over the last number of years. I'd really like to remind the committee that trade unions and students weren't involved in the initial stages and certainly in terms of the drafting of the code. It was only when we gave evidence at this committee with Lord Smith and pointed out this anomaly that we actually got to meet those that were drafting the code, that we felt that there was this real disconnect. In terms of the reputation of the sector in Scotland, my colleagues in England, Wales and Northern Ireland actually look at Scotland with envy in terms of the commitment to education and the interest in governance and the fact that we have this desire to do better. We see that as a very positive thing. In terms of principal's pay, we still have concerns about transparency. When a principal in Scotland can get a 13 per cent pay rise while staff are getting 2 per cent and we have no reason or no explanation as to why somebody is getting 13 per cent where the rest of staff are getting a 2 per cent pay rise. That's the difficulty. In previous years, a principal got a 24 per cent pay rise while staff were getting a 1 per cent pay rise. Again, we did not get the explanation as to why that was happening. UCU does a regular freedom of information request to universities to ask for the minutes of remuneration committee meetings to try and get a sense of why principals are being awarded the pay rises that they are. Scotland tends to do better than the rest of the UK however it's still not great. Two thirds of Scottish universities HCI's refuse to provide full details of the committee that set their principal's pay. Four refused to send us the minutes. All we're asking is for an explanation as to how decisions are made about the salaries of those at the top. It's important that this is looked at and scrutinised and that goes to the nub of why this bill is important. David, do you want to come back on that? Two points. First of all, a correct matter of fact, the SPICE document on this matter reports, convener. A staff and student were represented on the working group. I went to a meeting with the previous cabinet secretary and Alan Simpson who sat on the Von Pyninski report on Ewan Brown and the previous cabinet secretary suggested to us that we should have a rector or ex-rector on the working group to represent staff or students. That is the basis on which SPICE, how I understand, have made the comment which is correct. We had an ex-rector, a Simon Pepper, the former director of the World Wildlife Fund, who had been a very successful rector at St Andrews University, and we thought at that stage that we were proceeding as requested to ensure a staff and student representation. The other point that I would like to correct is that when the code exercise was carried out and I didn't personally, but the consultants went to every university, students and staff did not press to be on remuneration committee. In fact, a number of students said that they didn't want to be on remuneration committees. Sorry, David. I think that's just wrong. Certainly the examples that I've heard from members on my own example, we've been fighting for many years at Aberdeen for students and staff, trade union members, to be on remuneration committees. It was only in my last few days that I was granted observer status. I have to say, from being in that meeting and being in that forum, it's a much different atmosphere and you have a much different ability to challenge and to take part in the decision making than merely seeing a report that comes through the governing body. That's very difficult to challenge in those settings. I think that there are some great examples of best practice from colleagues here. Amory mentioned some and Jennifer, some others, but I think that it's worth noting that there are other examples of institutions that just aren't doing these self-regulatory measures that were in the code of good governance and that has failed to result in real tangible changes that we wanted to see from this document. I think that that's why that legislation has come to this point. Okay, Robin. I think that there have been improvements in transparency and I think that's true over recent years in governance, but that's only one of three principles that I think are at the heart of this, so the ability to know why other people made a decision is quite useful. I think that there's a fundamental principle of diversity and one of the problems that we've seen is that, for my recollection of 13 years in the university sector, the people who are appointed to remuneration committees are almost always high pay. Plus salaries are appointed to a committee to decide what another person's £100,000 plus salary should be. Now, that's one kind of person making one kind of decision. Diversity enables you to have a discussion with others who say it's not about comparing what you think is normal but comparing what this institution as a whole thinks is normal including staff and students and there is this may, year after year about some of these decisions and it never changes. But there's another element to this, it's also a democracy element. So let's say these decisions are bad. The university does a whole. Who is able to stop that decision? Who is able to say, we don't think this is a good decision, is it only the university core, the university governing body which has a majority of lay members which are largely appointed and if you profile them, they're not going to be low pay people. So it's about this range of principles that should underpin good governance. Transparency is important but so is diversity and so is some sense of more than accountability. When you have a large community like this it's also about democracy and the ability to say who is it in the end who owns this university? Is it owned by staff and its students or is it owned by 20 people on a committee appointed without the wider university community having any automatic right to have any say in who these people that make that decision are? Again, this is not about ill will. We've seen this in the banking sector, we've seen this in a whole load of sectors. If you put a lot of people who come from exactly the same background in a room and ask them to make a decision you can guess what decision they're going to make. Good decision making comes when people have to debate across people who come from different directions and I know that students have been actively excluded from some controversial decisions in universities. That's not good. Students may be younger, they may not be as experienced but they are a key part of the university community and their voice isn't an add-on. Their expertise may not have come from 50 years in the financial services sector but they have a whole other kind of expertise. The expertise of what it's like to be a student in an institution and what they think the priorities for the institution are in as well. That expertise should be valued too but voluntary consultation is not good enough. It's not. As we know, you consult when you want to and in the ways that you want to. If you do not empower diverse voices to have a say in how universities are shaped they will continue to be shaped by a small self-selecting group and it's not healthy for governance. It's a number of members wanting in now. I'll bring in Tim First followed by Chris Sharkey and then I'll bring in Mary Scanlon and Stuart. I just want to straightforwardly contradict Robin. Our court on it has five elected staff, two elected students, three elected alumni and is presided over by a rector who's elected by our staff and students. That provides a route for all sorts of debate. Our senate always now meets discussing some large thematic topic to which all members of the university community regardless of the status, whether they're academics or not is invited. It is a very open system and I will just give you some examples. We had a student-led campaign to divest from fossil fuels and obviously this is something where there would be differing opinions from those on the investment committee differing opinions from those who are engaged in petrochemical engineering and differing opinions from the students. There was a series of debates the senior vice principal chaired a group that included academics who did research on fossil fuels and students and as a consequence the university court ended up with a divestment from fossil fuels. That was student-led and highly participative. When the Scottish Government announced its business pledge our university straightaway said we will adopt all elements of the business pledge including living wage. That was again involving a broad based position within the university. Led by academics in our sciences areas we have been working very hard on gender equality and a few days ago we were delighted that the institution of the university of Edinburgh as a whole was one of seven universities in Britain to be given Athena Silver status. Those moves the moves on gender equality which started in science and engineering the move to divest from fossil fuels inevitably did not come from as it were some parts of the university they came from some other parts and yet within the University of Edinburgh through our senate which has debates which allow faculty in through the open discussions which I have with all staff and all students through our court meetings and we have an annual court meeting where all staff and students can address them we have a number of fora and if you just look at the last year there are a number of very clear examples where University of Edinburgh took a leadership in divesting from fossil fuels and who was leading that movement within the university it was the students we have taken a leadership in gender equality who led that academics and chemistry so we do have these mechanisms and this is not rhetoric these are tangible examples and these involve serious debate it wasn't straightforward that somebody said let's work on gender equality in science and everybody said yes let's do that or somebody said let's divest from fossil fuels and the whole of the investment committee said if that's what the students will do these involve long careful debates and they ended up with a university after these long participative debates making moves which the university community as a whole says right we have divested from fossil fuels right we are going for gender equality particularly in science and medicine I agree that universities should be held to account and there are a variety of ways that this is being done and continues to be for instance we are hosting the widening access commission we are really looking forward to coming up with innovative ways to get more young people engaged in drama, in music and dance we want to try to influence the schools curriculum because that influences the kind of student that we can take and educate we absolutely agree in diversity and transparency but a one size fits all legislation could actually be hurtful for a small institution such as ours I mentioned these art forms on our small board we have to make sure that they can help lead us through troubled waters for cultural institutions and education institutions we need expertise in the acting profession expertise in music, expertise in dance and expertise in production and indeed we have members that are part of the musicians union or actors equity or beck to and that is as important to them as some of the other unions that are discussed here we have good relationships with them but if we had to create space for all of them on the board we wouldn't actually necessarily get some of the expertise we need to function and flourish in the world but I'm concerned about we need to be held to account there are measures to do that from our outcome agreements the widening access commission coming to committees such as this the code of good governance which has its review coming up but a legislation that tries to treat us all the same when the sector is so different we would find challenging Before we ring Marion can I just confirm then that your opposition are around your perceived lack of flexibility in the way that it would be implemented in other words one size fits all is not something you want but if there was greater flexibility for institutions then that would be... That is among our concerns but even the thought of having to find a cultural leader if you're the leader of the RSNO or you're the leader of the National Theatre of Scotland you're identifying a small selection a pool of people that have a sympathy for the educational institution as the Glasgow School of Art as we are an educational institution so having it open to an election we think would politicise it with a small p would we get an actor would we get a musician would we get a dancer it would take our eye off the ball for delivering on the creative agenda and the innovation agenda and actually be hard for us to be compliant with that law it would make things more difficult for proper person test for those who could stand in other words if there was some way of saying that these are the people we're looking for and then people who fit their criteria as you would with a job application could then apply That might make it easier but I have to see the details I'm just raising as an issue Mary I would just like to raise three points that have already come up in discussion but not to go over what we've done but looking forward to the governance the policy memorandum paragraph 13 states that the SFC when making a grant making a payment to all higher education institutions to comply with principles of good governance which appear to the SFC to constitute good practice their memorandum sets out requirements with which higher education institutions must comply as a term and condition of the grant now my question and it's just my first one is that all the issues that have been raised today could they not be part of the governance of the SFC in terms of handing out the grant is there anything that's in this legislation that cannot be included in this code of good guidance so that's number one and number two given that I've never been surrounded by many learned people I'm not underestimating my colleagues MSPs but I thought, convener, I would take advantage of all the professors around the room and I would like to ask again it's paragraph 63 in the policy memorandum the definition of academic freedom as expanded explicitly includes the freedom to develop and advance new ideas and innovative proposals so I would just like to ask what's stopping you developing new ideas and innovative proposals at the moment and is this going to be corrected by the legislation and while I've got the floor my final one is number two seconds I'll bring you back in it's the same I just want to ask my learned friends if they could explain paragraph 20 in the bill Scottish ministers may by regulation make such supplemental incidental consequential transitional transitory transitory or saving provision as they consider necessary or expedient for the purposes and the act so I wonder if they could tell me what that means because it seems to me that they can just jolly well do what they like if this bill is passed and that's me finished I'll listen carefully to the answers I'll bring that there may be a last question because in my 13 years here it's been in every single bill and still the regulations and provisions have been in every single bill I've ever seen yes they have I'll bring in who wants to come in and answer some of the questions that Mary's raised then did you want to Mary yes okay thank you convener in relation to the code of good governance I think so many of the issues that we're raising were not in the code anyway the code doesn't allow for elected chairs the code doesn't allow for trade union nominees on governing bodies and the code doesn't address issues strictly enough around remuneration committees the bill is a more holistic approach to really connect staff and students more effectively in terms of the governing body we're all saying that the sector is a good one and I don't want to sit here and point out all the problems and all the difficulties that the sector has faced but I'll just give you one example because it's a sort of example of how things could work in a positive way because it's about the University of Aberdeen which has a rector and it's about a time when the rector actually has asserted her right to chair court court was facing a decision that the senior management team wanted to make 150 compulsory redundancies they wanted a very short window for a voluntary severance scheme a couple of weeks then they wanted to move to compulsory redundancies at that court the rector enabled a full debate and actually court said hang on a minute let's pause let's scrutinise these decisions and we then had a voluntary severance scheme that was extended we had more consultation with the Virginians and with students and we were working that situation through rather than court making a really drastic decision very quickly without effective time to scrutinise and that was because the rector who doesn't always chair but actually on this occasion asserted her right to chair took the chair and staff and students who sat on court were able to challenge that and so that's what this bill does it allows more robust governance and scrutiny and transparency and accountability and then your second question was around academic freedom and I think what I would say the bill helps to strengthen and give clarity to the definition of academic freedom we've got a good definition in Scotland that came from the 2005 further and higher education bill and the policies that are in there actually help to give clarity and strengthen the definition UCU has on occasions been asked to defend some of our members around questions of academic freedom and I think the bill is a positive step forward okay thank you very much Liz I wonder if I could just set out some issues that relate to the possible reclassification of the university structure and what Dame Jocelyn Bell said and also Professor Sharkey in the way that the international dimension is so important to our institutions particularly one's Professor Sharkey that may have a great diversity in that University Scotland presented a case to the finance committee two weeks ago which indicated that there would be a very considerable detriment if the universities were reclassified as public bodies and that in their workings has come out £1 billion that is very significant Scottish Government responded last night but not with any accuracy about what their workings are because they haven't yet produced them could I ask you as to whether that's the concern that you're finding from international sources that this would not only have possible effects on the way that you work but also on the funding of our top class institutions Dame Jocelyn, do you want to? I can't comment specifically on the funding I have concerned that universities should not be classified as public bodies sure they get some public funding but it's far, far better for universities if they are more independent and are not classified as public bodies I think that's all I need to say at this point I think that a number of members I just want to clarify that I was public bear manager for University of Scotland for 13 years we took legal advice in this and the legal advice that we were given was that universities have always been public bodies they're not public sector bodies but they're defined as public bodies and as far as I can gather the entire basis of this claim relates to whether universities would lose charitable status or not and as far as I'm aware that's been put to bed by Oscar To be honest Robin, I don't think that's correct Is that not correct? Okay Liz Can I just answer that point that there are two completely separate issues the charitable status issue which Oscar has made a ruling on that they probably would not have any effect on that so you're correct on that point but when it comes to the reclassification the ONS reclassification is a very separate issue and there is very great concern as to what that would do because that would make them into public bodies of a very different nature than they are just now University of Scotland has presented a very articulate and very detailed set of figures about the damage that this could possibly do we heard from Professor Anton Muscatelli at the same committee what it would do to Glasgow University as one institution and I'm sure that the principles of their institutions so what I'm asking is if it is the extent of the concern of this financial inability to do things that they can currently do surely that is a very major concern in this bill Can I just there's a number of people going in but I just want to say to those who raised the issue of the ONS I mean do you take any comfort from the Scottish Government officials who said on the records I just want to quote them we deem reclassification to be a low risk however if as a result of a wider ONS review of universities there were any risk of reclassification we would take what measures were required to ensure that universities were not reclassified there is absolutely no intention on the government's part that reclassification would be an outcome it is something that we would seek actively to avoid do you take any comfort from that statement by the Scottish Government officials I'm just asking those from the sector whether they think that the yes David you'll be aware of the prospective project in the western infirmary site in Glasgow which is where we have 14 acres of contiguous ground and a half billion pound investment programme if we get into a limbo which is what that suggestion it would mean then that project will just stop dead no one is going to deal with us commercially or otherwise if they don't know where we are so I can't take comfort from it okay I said Gordon just on that very situation regarding funding I'm just trying to understand the situation the spice briefing provided to us for main sources of funding says that university sector all 18 is £3.2 billion of which 2 billion is public sector grants and fees 747 million is private sector 144 million is charities and 317 million across all 18 institutions is other income where is the danger of within that range of of funding streams where is the danger that you perceive to the university sector bearing in mind you're getting 2 billion pounds of public sector grants and fees can I follow up? there are others who were shaking his head earlier I don't wonder if you wanted to come in the danger is at the moment that we have charitable status and having charitable status allows us to deal with philanthropic support it allows us to borrow it gives us a whole range of things and if that charitable status we just had a discussion because Robin raised the point about the ONS and the Oscar issue quite rightly where is there are two separate issues in Oscar had clarified position you've now answered a question about what we're talking about with an answer about Oscar can I clarify what was on the record from the finance committee in the university Scotland information to that committee which is now as I understand it on your own website it is very clear the breakdown of all the possible impacts from the reclassification of ONS the Scottish Government last night put out a letter from Angela Constance to the convener of the finance committee trying to clarify that but it doesn't have the details that answer the specific concerns that the university sector has on the sums that are intimated within the university Scotland letter I think it's that issue as I understand it within the sector that is causing the anxiety for exactly the reasons that David Ross set out and Anton Muscatelli set out the finance committee that certain projects within universities can't go ahead I'm trying to avoid I think like you mixing up Oscar and ONS the charitable status stuff with the ONS reclassification which are two separate issues I think that's what I'm trying to do sorry, check, you were waiting to come in Good morning I feel somewhat depressed by this a conflict situation a violent conflict I mean change is a constant so I'd like to address a couple of things on that yes the universities need to be democratised but I say firstly to the unions and the students when I look at the informed participation levels that democratisation means harnessing the votes and the input from all students and all members of staff I also say to the boards that we need to look at the appointments of some of the people who apply or who are appointed to the boards and there has to be a much more thorough appointment process and review process of those that are appointed to the board so that they know their friends but I think only on that basis I've run companies in Europe and what I'd like to do is ask the question what conversation has the chairs or students or unions had with the European universities and how they are governed that's the first thing the second thing is I'd like to understand how you communicate the outcome agreements and your strategies with the wider community of what you're trying to do last week we were talking to university representatives about their international involvement and how they translate their products and take equity participation in their products and so generate increased funding as they do for example University of California it seems to be a total lack of communication this is a perception a total lack of communication in the court and the students and the staff at the level that there should be I'm not saying there isn't any but at the level that there should be so there is total engagement just as you have in a company and clearly the court have to select it's leader but in any company the board has to go to the shareholders and tell them what the hell is going on and I don't see this happening now if it's a perception correct me the interesting thing that people have is that there's a bubble and nobody with that bubble really understands what's going on now that's unfair reflection on the students, the unions and the board then tell me I'm wrong if I'm not wrong tell me what you're going to do to change it thank you I'll bring in Anne-Marie and then Geoffrey I wanted firstly to address the buggin's turn remark that you made I think that has been passed by universities certainly at my university I've been there for 5 years and at the one I served in for 10 years the secretary before that that practice has long since passed we have defined roles for members of our governing body for the chairs role the court and wider than that student members, staff members were consulted on what that role should be the principles role description the entire community was consulted staff and students on what that role should be we have a very clearly defined skills matrix which we publish on our website against which we recruit our governors we recruit using an open advert process our diversity a few years ago was not what we wanted it to be less than 20% today 54% of our court are female, we shouldn't forget there are more protected characteristics than merely the gender point that tends to be focused on and we are rapidly moving on to look at the rest of the protected characteristics we shouldn't underestimate the value of the effectiveness reviews which are contained in the code that's been published that code requires us now as universities to conduct full 5-yearly externally facilitated the results of which must be published on our website to all of our stakeholders effectiveness of our court and all of the committees of court our senate and all of the committees of senate so we can't conduct those reviews ourselves we need to bring somebody else in to do it so the level of transparency in both appointments and reviewing our effectiveness the effectiveness goes further there's a midpoint review required and there's an annual assessment required of each court of its own effectiveness so we must discuss with our students discuss with our staff and publish across the university so I really would like to say that we've moved on an awful lot in terms of appointment and looking at how effective we are many universities because the code is relatively new and that requirement is relatively new we won't have gone through that full cycle yet but I would say that given time this sector will certainly demonstrate its commitment to looking at the effectiveness of its governance Thank you Before you do can I just ask you to pick up the question from Mary Scanlon earlier about the code of governance and its role in this? Just to respond to Mr Rowdy that we instituted an annual general meeting where any question can be asked but more to the point we invite stakeholders externally all the arts companies we have our students, we have our staff the agenda is open in my very first one we started to talk to lay the ground work for our strategic planning process and then again because we're a small institution in groups of 20 over cups of tea and scones we were able to talk about the values of the institution where we wanted to take it and I think if you came to our institution and perhaps other such as GSA and we heard at Harriet Watt you'd feel there was a lot of inclusion in thinking about the strategic direction and the steps needed to be taken and frankly going to need every staff member and every student to be working in the same direction to lift up the arts for this country On Mary's point about the code of governance whether or not that can be dealt with through the code of governance Well I think it's related to what I said before I think there are some measures in place that can hold us and do hold us to account our outcome agreement is debated and discussed at our academic board across sections of staff and student representation and I think there's probably more that could be done in there in a constructive dialogue with higher education institutions I've got a number of members who want to come in I'm going to bring them in but I want to to slightly move on the cabinet secretary wrote to the committee very recently and in that letter tried to I think assuade some of the concerns that were raised in order to outline where possible amendments could be made to the bill to try and deal with some of the questions that have been raised I'm sure you've seen it I just wondered whether in moving this discussion forward whether people are if you like does it assuade some of the concerns that were raised that letter does it give you some comfort that the cabinet secretary is already beginning to think about possible amendments to try and deal with some of the issues that have been raised or on the other side of that coin that there may be changes that would water it down from the impact that you would want it to see in the bill so I can just leave that there if people can maybe start to discuss some of that stuff but I want to bring in Liam at this point and I know that he's been waiting to come in Thank you very much, convener and apologies for my late arrival due to travel disruption just on that point it occurred to me that in terms of the reassurances problem for reading through papers that seems to emerge in those raising concerns is less the intent and more the scope of the provisions that are in the bill and I think confirmation on that point particularly in relation to ONS we will presumably look at the scope rather than simply the stated intent when making any judgment but the other point I think is more in relation to the genesis of the bill at all I mean obviously there's been quite a bit of the amount of public funding that a university has received which varies enormously as you'd expect in a varied sector but it's significant for all and therefore there are funding levers to achieve the outcomes that ministers in this Parliament wish to see there is the threat of reputational damage and to give an example the divestment and I think that perhaps however cathartic the process might have been the threat of reputational damage was probably very much in the minds of those responsible for making the decisions and therefore I think as a committee we should be reaching for legislative levers only when there's a demonstrable need to do so I mean I would be interested following up Chicks question about the international comparators not simply the rest of the UK with the international comparators that have been made in terms of governance that would give us confidence that reputation can be safeguarded through this process the other I think in terms of academic freedom just picking up Mary's senior's point clearly there's been a challenge under that and comfort may be sought but it'd be interesting to know how many successful cases in relation to academic freedom have been brought and therefore require that additional clarification our tightening up of the 2005 legislation that we've been asked to sanction to this bill Jennifer, can I ring you into this point in terms of some of the comments that Liam's just made and some of the stuff that we've been discussing? I can't answer the European question in terms of but Tim can I mean we definitely would from a kind of governance perspective support that legislation should be used where it's most appropriate and good code of governance good accountability through outcome agreements and the appropriate route to ensure across the whole sector that good governance can both be demonstrated that it is transparent and it is open and it is progressive and it is fit for purpose for a modern successful Scottish higher education environment so I think in terms of governance one of the key issues from a board perspective and a chairs perspective in terms of the legislation it's a specific point about the election of chairs is how you hold the governing body to account to the outcome agreement we take that responsibility very seriously I am chair and responsible to my governing body as a result of the code we now have an independent governor who assesses my performance on an annual basis that's discussed without my presence if I'm not doing my job if I'm not accountable to the body if we believe there's an issue then I don't continue in that role so there are checks and balances through the governance code and there are checks and balances in terms of diversity and broader actions in terms of the community on the point of communication I think that's an interesting point about how much we do certainly at RGU a lot of the communication is cascaded down through the senior leadership team we have student partnership agreements we have probably less visibility as a board we're small in number across the whole body so that's something we definitely could look at at the GGM for sure but I think in terms of the legislation versus governance legislation where it's required but where good governance can be managed through outcome agreements and the governing body health account is what we would definitely support in terms of continuing success within the sector okay, thank you, Tim chicken, Liam have both asked the very good question about the attitude in continental Europe University of Edinburgh is a member of the League of European Research Universities that's the top 21 in Europe with the one Scottish member we're a member of Coimbra which is essentially the European ancients and we're a member of the European University Association which essentially is all the European universities and if you look at the documentation from Liru and EUA you see an unambiguous admiration for the situation that exists at the present time in the United Kingdom the reason why the universities in the United Kingdom are so successful compared to universities in other parts of Europe is put down to our autonomy and our ability to operate and if you say compare the situation with some of the German lender where a university may not borrow without there are all sorts of inhibitions and so from the European point of view the explanation of why does the United Kingdom and Scotland do so well it really goes straight to the autonomy and I would really want to echo lean I don't I mean legislation when it's not necessary I would really counsel against that and Mary asked three very good questions to which you knew the answer to which is I'll give you the answers very briefly and then come back so the conditions grant you're quite right it's very easy through outcome agreements and conditions grant for the funding council to control universities academic freedom would not be altered by what's in the bill but the key point that you raised is the business about secondary legislation if this committee chooses to hand to some future minister of whose persuasion we know nothing such far reaching powers then at the moment you do that that is such a powerful thing that is why outside Scotland the perception of the attack on university autonomy that is what is caused it the provision for secondary legislation and I'm going to make a personal plea to the committee we've got something that works very well this partnership between the Scottish Government and the universities please pause on this legislation we've got a very positive vector in terms of the code of good governance we would be very happy to come on an annual basis to this committee and give you a report on further improvements we recognise we're not perfect but on the other hand if you look at the increase in student representation the increase in open consultation we would be very happy to document that for this committee on an annual basis if you would just pause the legislation because if you go ahead with this legislation it is a, it's unnecessary and b, it's too powerful and legislation that is unnecessary and too powerful will be seen correctly as a reduction in the autonomy of the Scottish universities ok thank you very much George Adam Q convener good morning I've just got something that's going over in my head all the time basically we've got a billion pounds worth of public money going into these organisations now we're talking about well it's a billion from the SFC so we're talking about the fact that transparency, democracy how we can move things forward now the universities are telling us there's nothing to see here everything's wonderful we don't need to do anything else but there is, if you're a someone from the outside looking in you could have the situation where Robin said that you've almost got a network of people who are giving each other cricket score salaries you know and there's no accountability to the public pound there so what is wrong with the idea of local universities actually representing the communities that are in and also the university community what is exactly wrong with that to give that openness and that transparency so that we can actually see this through to me it looks like it would be a good way to be able to collectively manage the university itself now please correct me if I'm totally wrong in that situation but to me that looks like it would be forward Anne-Marie The code is very helpful in this respect and I'm sure the chairs will thank me for saying this but it brings absolute clarity that the court and the chair themselves have to take a lead role in engaging with all stakeholders across local communities our students and our staff so the code has given us the opportunity to do that and I think as Tim has suggested do we need to legislate to take that further I think no we need to have some time to demonstrate full engagement with a whole range of stakeholders students and staff are right at the top of our list of course you've heard something of the inclusive nature of our governance it is evolving I think we can evolve it further Thank you very much I suspect I'm the oldest person in the room and perhaps know some history I don't look it I don't look it but I'm a lot older than I look when Granny was a young academic vice-chancelors were paid typically 10% more than the highest paid professor and then the government said your governing bodies are incestuous get some industrialists on so the university's got some industrialists on and the industrialist said hey vice-chancelor you're running a 50 million part of your business in industry if you ran a 50 million part of your business your salary would be yay high and the vice-chancelor's salaries went up you can't blame them for that but it maybe was an unintended consequence end of history lesson Royal society of Edinburgh is particularly concerned about the enabling legislation particularly about the items that are set out in regulation and as everybody round the table will know this gives powers not only to SNP ministers but ministers of whatever government, colour of government there is in the future Conservative, Labour, Liberal, Green Black, White, whatever and it gives those ministers powers to do all sorts of things without Parliament scrutiny I think that is a far bigger governance issue than anything to do with the universities in Scotland just for absolute accuracy of course ministers cannot do that without coming to Parliament regulations would have to be brought to Parliament and agreed by Parliament so ministers do not have absolute authority to change willy nilly as they see fit that isn't actually how it operates so actually there would be parliamentary vote on regulations just for clarity David I've got a number of members who want to come in Mary first okay thank you on the question of European examples I think there are some very good examples and I would encourage the committee to perhaps bring Ferdinand von Prondinski to a future session I think it was unfortunate that he family bereavement means he can't be here today but I think he could speak about that in relation to the ONS reclassification no one wants universities to be reclassified and I would encourage the committee to look at unison the trade unions evidence because they address that point there and again I think there's a danger of sabre rattling on this issue to some extent because the sector does receive a substantial amount of public money but actually it receives more money from other sources one of the key issues around ONS reclassification and I think part of the reason why the bill has currently read looks like it has significant powers to Scottish ministers is because the cabinet secretary wanted the sector that is principals chairs trade unions students to be able to come together to work out a consensus for how we move forward on elected chairs and if that actually was in the legislation rather than saying it gives powers to again would that give comfort to to some of the people that are concerned around that Liam asked me about academic freedom and cases and I'm not sure that I can talk in detail about some of the cases that we've taken because it's generally ended in a mutually a compromise agreement or that sort of way forward but I think it's more important in terms of underpinning academic freedom and what it actually means and how it should play out in the university sector in what is a challenging time I think universities have got the new prevent legislation coming in and I think one area where certainly UCU has agreed very strongly with University of Scotland is how academic freedom is very important in how we deal with other issues like prevent in the university sector and Tim made his plea to the committee I think I would make an equally strong plea that the committee do enable this legislation to go forward because it can make a big difference to how institutions operate I think it's important that we do shine a light on some of the poorer decisions that universities have made Edinburgh's a great university but we've had some questions there too in terms of the proliferation of first contracts that we saw there a few years ago that was something that needed to be addressed why is a university in Scotland having questions over its campus in Scotland and looking to open new campuses in London all of these are questions that we think could be more effectively scrutinised by the governing body with elected staff student and trade union nominees on court which would be more effective and I think the bill is flexible it recognises the diversity of the sector and I think one of the other problem areas that I would highlight was the situation a number of years ago facing the Edinburgh College of Art which was a small specialized institution and poor governance let the institution down and fortunately the University of Edinburgh was able to go in and pick up the pieces so all institutions whatever the size whatever the nature need to have this collegiate approach to governance which I think this bill can provide Robin Very quickly to say that the European University Association has a ranking of autonomy of universities and Scotland and Britain as a whole has the most autonomy of universities anywhere in Europe by quite a stretch so a tiny, tiny tweak a tiny, tiny bit even if it did still leaves the most autonomous universities in Europe and one of the things that I think is quite important is if you're going to talk about international experience that I believe in America the American universities have much more collegiate governance systems and I don't think anybody's going to say that they're not successful and I really want to come back in this point I can't understand the ferocity for saying Tim you're right that was a great example of the disinvestment campaign and it's a very good reason why we should ensure that every university has a democratic right for staff and students to be able to help the university and I think it's a right it's not something that should be given by a group of managers when they feel like it and I can only stress this again there is so much fascinating research being undertaken around the world just now on what is making an effective modern organisation and what its governance looks like and the same thing keeps coming back again and again when you bring the expertise of people who are stakeholders within an organisation from all parts of the organisation when you bring them in as a matter of right and not as a matter of grace and favour or patronage when you bring them into the governance you get better governance you get a more diverse debate the zero air contract is an excellent example you would have trade unions you would have staff and students who would take a different view potentially from other managers and again you won't find many forward-looking institutions in any sector which are not now looking at new governance models which enable and empower their internal stakeholders and I don't understand the level of resistance to this modest change Thank you, David I have a question and a moment to go to convener and a response to that just deal with two points which have been raised you are entirely right about the operation regulations and the powers but possibly because of my vulgar previous trade as a corporate lawyer I know that power can be exercised in a number of different ways section 8 would allow the Scottish ministers to decide there's going to be a new category of a member of court and that is someone appointed by the Scottish ministers they could determine there are going to be 15 of those and under our arrangement with the funding count so we can't have a court bigger than 25 so the Scottish ministers could determine and could bring forward regulations you've got to have 15 people appointed by us you've got to get 15 people off your court and that will give us control but my vulgar past tells me this convener they don't have to do that they only have to get the principle of Edinburgh University into a room and say we've got power under section 8 to do that you may tell me and I'm happy to be guided by that it never happens in the world of politics but my experience of life is that power can be handled in a number of different ways the theoretical power is there to do that and it doesn't have to be exercised to have the effect that the section is intended to have I won't comment at myself but it's an interesting view Emily I want to come back to George's point about universities representing their communities that they're situated in and I think it's worth coming back to Tim mentioned earlier the five institutions in Scotland that are in the times higher, top 200 all five are the ancient universities where they do have the selected chair model and I'm really showing how this model can allow institutions to flourish and I think it's really worth noting that we are unconvinced for any pre-selection panels and we would push for open democracy for the chairs and we think really that I think short of what Professor Sharkey was saying that students and staff would choose someone who is capable and knowledgeable in the institution as they have done with the rectorial model for centuries and I think it's really clear to us that when this democratic system is in place that our institutions are better placed to make good decisions for the people's best interests and that staff and students it's not the bottom line our universities are not businesses Mark I think I'd say firstly support the general principles of the bill here but I think for me the issue of ons reclassification is quickly becoming a key issue for me what I'd like to ask members of the panel given their fear around the financial implication of ons reclassification are any members of the panel comfortable that the legislation goes forward on the basis where we have a disparity between universities Scotland saying that reclassification is an amber to a red risk and Scottish Government officials deeming reclassification to be a low risk what work needs to be done by the Scottish Government to allay the fears of the sector of ons reclassification as I say I think this is faster becoming the key issue in this legislation I'll quickly run round here Jennifer The question is do we believe that's a real risk Yes I think it was what can be done to allay that I think a pause in terms of clarifying what ons would consider in terms of what independent autonomy looks like how we preserve the right of universities to be able to raise funds connect with business accept philanthropic gifts and not become public bodies but retain their current status and until we've got absolute clarity in those positions then what we understand needs to drive forward good governance transparency modernisation openness we can do through the code the code's due to be reviewed in a three year review this next year we can work to look at what issues are still outstanding in terms of the code and current practice and we continue to work on driving good governance through that code I think ons is a real risk to the sector in terms of investment and success in the future we do have to take into account financial accountability as governing bodies we absolutely are principals and accounting officers to the Scottish funding council we as chairs and boards are accountable in terms of financial sustainability of the organisations as a whole as a classification becoming public bodies as a sphere impact in the FE sector and it's not a risk we can afford to take with the HE sector we're too successful, we're too important to the Scottish economy to put that risk if the issue is round about governance transparency and modernisation can we address that through the review of the code and can we take the ons issue very very seriously in terms of financial risk to the success of the future of the sector David If the trouble is I understand it ons will only decide when it's seen all the facts this is why the problems are arising in a number of cases what happens is they sit and wait until everything is clear and then they say yes or no there is no clearance procedure you can talk to the Treasury I don't know if the Scottish Government has talked to the Treasury they certainly haven't told us they've talked to the Treasury and you can get some informal guidance but you won't get an answer the ons says we'll look at it when it's settled and that's the real apart from the risks of it happening is no one's going to know whether it will happen or not Jeffrey I grew with my colleagues about the ons and they are more expert than I am but I recently came from an American University Johns Hopkins because Robin mentioned that I have to say that this is a much more enlightened country there were no staff or students that were formally part of the Hopkins board in fact it was more increasingly hedge fund managers to help them raise the four billion dollars that they wanted to raise for their campaign I celebrate the greater transparency here and I would encourage us to do this through the code and the mechanisms that are in place already Mary did you want to I just want to do a couple of Mary's concerns relating to staffing issues and ensuring the staff voices heard all of our universities across the UK and especially here in Scotland have a very good mechanism which is the joint negotiating committee which is management sure with the recognised trade unions in every university there is an opportunity to give greater transparency around the work of that and the issues that are emerging there we've done some of that but at a higher level in the university I think these are fantastic mechanisms sure there will be crises of governance from time to time because universities and organisations are run by people and therefore there will always be conflict when conflict arises governance can be a mechanism if you have appropriate structures in place by which issues are raised earlier and brought to the attention of the governing body if need be so I think there are further improvements we can make even out with the code that would enhance governance further Mary did you want to come back on that I know it's a later question but maybe I'll raise this point now I would really urge the committee to look at the Scottish Government's working together review which was a review from 2014 set up between the Scottish Government and the Scottish TUC it had an independent chair Jim May that it had three employers and three trade union nominees and an academic adviser and that review looked at the relationship in the workplace it looked at how trade unions' employers interact and it made a really important recommendation recommendation 24 which recommends that all public sector boards should have a workplace trade union nominee on their board which as I see it this is the higher education sector coming into line with that important recommendation which was set out by the working together and independent review in 2014 I was also going to quickly answer Mark Griffin's point which was about the ONS and how do we move this forward and I think we are now at the drafting issues that are in the bill but then we the sector get round the table and work out the mechanism for an elected chair so that we don't have in the bill Scottish ministers will do X, Y, Z it will say in the bill and it will give back it will set out a structure and a framework for how we get an elected chair which the sector can agree to I want to come on to the trade union reps and elected chairs we'll deal with that one second but I've got Liz and Liam who want it in so I'll briefly Please just ask Mr McAlpine twice this morning you've mentioned that there have been bad decisions made I wonder could you give us examples of these bad decisions that have in any way undermined the educational experience of our students held back their institution and therefore held us back in our international standings I am very hesitant here to focus on individual institutions let me give you a category of decision which has happened a number of times which is that a university would decide that its fundamental position, its fundamental purpose would rapidly change, would substantially change from being one kind of university I'm trying not to name a university here I'm just interested I mean excuse me just one minute this bill is obviously trying to address concerns in the governance arrangements that's the intention of the bill and what I'm interested in if we're going to take this forward is what is the evidence that the current system of governance has got specific problems now you said this morning twice that there are bad decisions being made what I'd like to know is what these bad decisions are in terms of in some way undermining the student experience in their education and back their institutions and how they've held us back in our international reputation if you're an art student at Strathcly University a big and very radical decision about the future of that university was made an extremely short turnaround time we will not know for a generation or two whether that was the right decision universities are generational institutions it happened too fast it happened without discussion I don't even know it was the wrong decision I'm saying that this is the kind of decision that can come that can be made by the university sector which, and this is the difficulty universities don't, the reputations the positions don't change overnight it can be many years later before you find that actually moving away from a broad based model to a narrow based model in an individual institution subject provision harms that university I'm also going to say that there is no question there is a lack of trust among the public on leadership salaries it's a trust issue as well but this is another key point here governance is not just a watchdog role and that's what I think has been a little bit of a difficulty with this accountability good governance drives good thinking it's not just about preventing bad decisions it's about creating if I could call it a gene pool of people who can inject positive thinking into a university so it's not just a deficit model good governance brings new ideas, new perspectives and new talent into an organisation and that's a key part of what we should be looking at has that been held back Mr McCallback because I look at these league tables an ordinary member of the public would wonder what on earth we're doing because it looks as though the Scottish universities are doing exceptionally well an ordinary member of the public would wonder why one democratically elected member of a university board is such a such a problem I think you should be careful here to suggest that the sense that universities are seen as in society are seen as organisations are rather out of democratic control on how these decisions are made is as equal you're sitting here as a group of managers who represent the leadership of the universities you've got staff and you've got students who are saying well we don't think that this is working for us and that has got to be listened to would you agree? I said briefly and I've got other members that have to come in and with the time we've still got some subjects we do have to cover we do have to interrupt, I do apologise Liam, if you've got... David Ross picked the point up and me, Oscar, will helpfully give us guidance that ONS will not and that's the quandary we're in on the ONS reclassification Thanks for that brief comment I apologise for interrupting but it's important that we, given the time that we tackled head on the issue of trade union reps being on the boards and of course the direct question which we've kind of skirted around a little bit and I think that's one of the questions which have certainly in what I've seen are some of the most difficult bits to come to an agreement on so I want us to go round on this particular issue we've had evidence sent to us by the university sector for example who have raised objections to their proposal of trade union reps saying that they would effectively represent a sectoral interest and I want to read from the Scottish Government's policy memorandum but it says trade union representatives would be required to act in the best interests of the HEI as opposed to any individual constituency which nominated them although they would come from that sector they would have to operate in the best interests of the institution is there an MD who has got... can explain to me what the problem is with trade union representatives being involved in the way that's been suggested through the bill David Can I first of all say that on our court we have the immediate past present of the UCU and his predecessor was a previous senior official of UCU but the point from our perspective convener is this one size fits all they are directly elected by all the staff the union runs the election anyone can stand and anyone can vote and to my mind that's one of the unintended consequences of this bill that's a system which seems to me takes away the issue of conflicts of interest because the constituency is the whole act is the whole staff and it seems to me that is a neat way of ensuring representation of employee representatives as opposed to the nominated approach which does seem somewhat less democratic so it does seem to me the issue here I'm happy to say publicly that Dave Anderson is a very valued member of our court as well as his predecessor I don't think any of us have an issue about trade union members being on the governing body but it's hugely important that they're clearly there in a representative for the whole staff not simply for a narrower interest which can therefore lead to the accusation or the concern that you'll have a conflict of interest Anne-Marie In our institution a large proportion of our community because we have on our court three staff members two of whom must be academic and one professional service staff of course we are a highly international university those elections for those posts are open to all of our colleagues across the world including our campuses in Dubai and Malaysia trade unions are not permitted in Dubai and therefore the current process of somebody coming forward and being elected by the entire body means that they're representing the views of all of our students staff across the world and I think that's a very important point because a large percentage as I say will be disenfranchised if that Of course Mary it's if she wanted to come in on that so Mary senior I guess Anne-Marie's raised another important issue around governance and the fact that we've got campuses in places where human rights are barely there and trade unions are not recognised and I don't think that's a good reason not to have trade union nominees on elected bodies I think it does raise the issue of you know how do we scrutinise decisions to open campuses in faraway places that have a very poor track record on human rights I also wanted to make the point just to say David the union doesn't run the election for the staff seats on the university court of Glasgow certainly the union does put forward nominations to that seat and in the past couple of years we have been successful in getting the trade union candidate elected but that doesn't always happen and I think initially trade union sorry it's the point about this as a democratic choice in terms of the staff have the democratic right to elect from their own body the bill actually provides for staff nominees and trade union nominees and you know I think we're actually quite offended that University of Scotland seemed to have been suggesting that trade unions and trade union representatives can't actually adhere to Nolan principles you know we can just because students, staff and trade unions have a stake in the organisation doesn't mean they're not interested in the success of that organisation you know actually if you read the working together review you'll see how it indicates that trade unions bring a very authentic and genuine perspective you know from the coal phase from actually what works what doesn't their experience and their expertise is invaluable indeed you know trade unions are democratic organisations you know our members and our representatives are elected to those posts that they take forward in institutions so to say there's a democratic deficit you know really doesn't sit well with us and I think trade unions as the working together review recognises get the support get training, get the advice in terms of taking forward their duties on the boards of institutions or indeed public bodies you know so I think this is a very good it's a very progressive report a very progressive recommendation and is in stark contrast from the attack on trade unions that we're seeing from the Westminster Government in terms of the trade union bill so you know I think it's very important and I would really urge the committee to report this recommendation The First Minister want to make any comment on the trade union reps question okay I'm going to move on to the second one I raised there which was the elected chairs which is obviously a point of disagreement around this table and in the sector clearly the intention is to have elected chairs there has been a number of comments in the public press and in the evidence we've received about it and in particular around rectors and I just wanted your opinions about that particular part of the bill because clearly it's an important part of the bill and many people have very strong views about it Do you want to kick us off on that particular question? Sorry Emily From our opinion whether you call them rectors or you call them elected chairs it is the same principle and I think it's one that we shouldn't allow just to be in our ancient institutions but rather across all of our institutions in Scotland actually the position is very worthwhile and very reflective of the principles that it seems that we can all agree on that we want more democracy and we want our institutions and the governing bodies to reflect the communities and the main stakeholders that they have and I'm uncertain as to where the hesitancies come from because we've seen this great Scottish tradition exist for centuries and function very well but as an institution that has a rector would agree to that and certainly the rectors that I've spoken to Steve Morrison from Edinburgh, Maggie Chapman from Aberdeen and Catherine Stuyler from St Andrews are all very supportive of the fact that elected chairs and the same principle of rectors would be drawn out to all institutions rather than just the ancients David First of all, on behalf of the students of Glasgow University who are not members of NUS I know they are deeply concerned about what is intended for rectors and I think that that is a legitimate concern they are certainly valuable they value greatly the fact that there is someone elected to the governing body whose sole role is to represent students and I think it is important, convener, just to make clear that the way rectors operate at the minute and there are four varieties in Scotland with six universities with rectors is not what the bill is proposing each one of these institutions has someone like me I am the convener of the Court of University of Glasgow in Edinburgh, you are the vice convener in St Andrews, you are the senior governor and I think in Aberdeen there is someone like me who is the line manager of the principle and who is responsible for carrying out the duties that is what the bill wants to elect and I don't want to take up too much time but there is a serious risk here, convener that what this will do is weaken the governing body and strengthen management which is exactly what is, with all due respect in this city we've seen some fairly spectacular circumstances where the senior management in the financial sector are not subject to proper control if I'm elected by an outside body I will have conflicting loyalties to staff and to the students at the minute, as Jennifer said I've got a job to do I'm appointed by the court if they don't like they can get rid of me but when I go and talk to Professor Muscatelli who I'm sure you know is a very polite man he listens to me because that doesn't happen you will weaken the governing body you will strengthen the management and that's bad for governance Tim on the 1858 act established the senate at the University of Edinburgh more or less in its current form it established a rector over more than 150 years we have refined both of those models our senate is now more democratic and inclusive and this bill would damage that we have a very particular dual model that is very successful where we have a presiding rector elected by all the staff and students and forms a very key ombudsperson function, a very key leadership function at the big meetings of the court and we have a working vice convener who gives us the accountability which is absolutely necessary for an organisation that has got expenditure of more than 800 million a year you need both the democracy and the accountability at the moment we have got a system which as Emily kindly mentioned is very well regarded it's well regarded by the students and staff very well regarded by the different bodies that fund us and we find it extremely unhelpful that there should be a bill proposing a simplification which will either damage the democratic aspect of how we lead our court or it will damage the accountability or it might damage both we do plead with this committee we have got good systems in Scotland we can refine them we are refining through the code of governance please pause on this legislation because simple changes when you've got 19 HEIs as diverse as this will inevitably result in damage and the bill as drafted would damage the democratic nature of the university of Edinburgh senate and it would damage the combination of democracy and accountability that we have in our court Geoffrey our side we believe we have a highly functioning representative democracy so our students and staff that are elected by the staff and student bodies would participate very clearly in any search for a new chair as they did in the search for me I had a really detailed grilling from the head of the student union who would also arrange for me to meet with the student body as a whole but it wasn't subject to an open election with an as-yet undefined electorate could keep some of the finest candidates that we are seeking to get we want to beat the national theatre of Scotland or the RSNO for the kind of chair that can really advance the arts for Scotland they may seek not to apply and that is our worry that it becomes too competitive and too open and exposed rather than the representative democracy that we have at the moment The democracy we have right in sight in consultation we have a right to voice an opinion that is important I know that it is unfair to pick up the points that people said but I don't think that you should see the interests of staff and students as a conflict of interest in the running of a university I think that you should see them as being at the very heart of a running of a university and the university is not a private institution completely devoid of its community and this is one of the things which I think is just a conceptual thing that the institution is run on behalf of and one of the difficulties is as universities over the last 30-40 years have moved away in many cases not all and there are variations from a more collegiate model to a more executive run model what you are doing in my opinion is it seems to me there has been the vision of those who represent the ownership of that university it's wider community and their ability to decide the university now I would go further I'd love to see us move towards democratic universities which are communities which decide collectively and I think that this is going to be the future for an awful lot of organisations in the public realm this is a neither where people expect to be able to be treated as capable, as members of a community of shaping that community and I think as a first step to be able to say an election I really worry about this idea that you know better than everybody else who's a good person to run a university that's exactly the sort of financial sector service model that caused problems I think it's dangerous to say that a small group of people and they alone can decide who's good and yes there are people who might be put off potentially but I think there's probably many thousands of people potentially who could do a phenomenally good job a really inspirational job in an institution who are out there and who may not be selected by your committee and yet they might be able to get the support because of a vision that they have or because of a real sense of what they want to do in that institution who can come forward and get the support to inspire support from staff and students to put them in that place and I think for every one person you might lose of people who do not want to be in the democratic election I suspect there must be hundreds of others who could do a wonderful job for your institution who will never be considered and this is one of the problems of mistaking stakeholder consultation for democracy there must be if you don't have roots in for people then you greatly close off your pool and that's one of the difficulties I wanted to pick up on Robin mentioned it as well but asked David directly you said if you had been elected you would have conflicting views if you were elected by staff and students as opposed to the court can you point out exactly where they'd be please I should maybe paint the background which I suspect that my court has got the widest section of representation of staff and students in Scotland the difficulty is this my responsibility as convener of the court is to the court it is not to the people I'm not responsible to those who elected me if you have an elector and we have to think convener with all due respect to the ancient universities who see rectorial elections on a regular basis and enjoy them hugely understand the environment in which that takes place the point I was making was that I have only one loyalty and that is to the people who told me and are one responsible to the people who are pointing me to do what I'm doing and they hold me to account and they can get rid of me if I am elected in some other way there isn't that connection the governing body is weakened there are a range of stakeholders hugely important stakeholders and the governing body doesn't have the chair that it wants to appoint so weakened governing bodies are legendary for their inability to handle reduced good governance and that's my concern I'm sure as a sector we could come to a conclusion of how that mechanism of accountability would work surely and on that point I am going to draw this to a close unfortunately of stuff that we want to discuss but given the time and we have another panel yet to see so I apologise for that but I am going to have to draw it to a conclusion what I would say though we have a lot of written evidence we have a lot of written evidence already submitted to the committee I'm sure if there's anything that you wish to add to your views you've expressed around the table today please send it to me and I'm sure that the committee would be delighted to receive it can I thank all of you for giving your time to come along this morning and can I suspend briefly we'll now take evidence on the bill from the Scottish Government officials and can I welcome to the committee this morning Laura Duffy, Stephen White and Ilsa Haenagh we're going to go straight into questions if you don't mind and I'm going to start with George Adam the first question would be about Governments and autonomy of the institutions themselves there's been much talk about during the previous section about how we should go forward how does the Scottish Government feel with regards to how sufficiently modern inclusive or accountable that universities currently are could you possibly start off with that then I think it would be fair to say that the Scottish Government are very appreciative of Scotland's excellent universities they're aware that governance has been improved by the code following the review of higher education governance of Scotland by Professor von Prindinske but I think it would be fair to say I'm not a minister but it would be fair for me to say that they feel there is room for improvement, greater inclusivity and transparency in arrangements so that every voice on campus can be heard equally when you say every voice in general there's no actual process put in place so that we can see how it would work what are the thinking currently with regards to governance do you mean elected chairs specifically? on general, the actual constituency how would it work out the franchise of election for an elected chair does that work with you? perhaps if I can answer that question I'll give a brief explanation of why section one of the bill reads as it does when the consultation was launched late 2014 early 2015 the government set out plans clearly to have chairs elected after a selection process which would be to discern that the candidates could actually fulfill the role that discussion threw up quite a lot of different comment and lots of people in the university sector were opposed to the proposal which the previous session would have revealed but of those groups who were positive about the bill they didn't agree in the format or the franchise so that was what led introduction to the section one coverage being around a power for ministers but as soon as that was introduced a dialogue started with all stakeholders in the sector to talk about franchise specifically and that is on-going and I think the cabinet secretary said in the letter that the committee received that should be minded to consider a stage 2 amendment based on that dialogue to have a single model provided for in the bill I hope that answers your question cos that's exactly what the situation is at the moment in practical terms No, that's fine, thanks I'm sorry, did you want to come in, Chick? I'll come back to you then, Liz Smith Thank you Could I draw your attention to the discussions that took place at the Finance Committee two weeks ago Could I ask you what advice did you take regarding the possible reclassification of universities? Personally, I was at the Finance Committee so I'll be happy to answer questions if I paraphrase the ones I gave before which are on the record If you mean by advice external to the Scottish Government specifically the Scottish Government didn't take advice specifically from outwith the Scottish Government was a summation of advice across Government colleagues in different departments it's not the exact words I used but that's what I said at committee two weeks ago Could I ask why you didn't take advice external to the Scottish Government to clear legal advice? In the consideration of the European system of accounts guidance and indicators of control we felt the internal analysis was sufficient but specifically on the way that ONS worked and I don't have my colleague Kerry who's a finance colleague who was at committee that day The ONS is not the sort of organisation you engage with and work through the detail and I think David indicated that they will look at things at the end that your early plans wouldn't be a conventional way to engage with them Other organisations I would repeat what I said that the internal analysis of the indicators of control throughout the conclusion that there was compliance and the bill's provisions with those indicators of control and that risk was not advanced by this bill So in that case given that obviously ONS will not give a ruling until all the facts are on the table How do you respond to the comments from University Scotland who have legal advice and who have published that legal advice that there is significant risk? They were kind enough to share it with us so it's quite new so we will consider that It's not for me as a person as one person to respect that opinion but we do and it's part of the bill process and the consideration The Government summarised in Ms Constance's letter that went to the finance committee and that has been shared with this committee Take a slightly different view on the quantum of risk and consider it that this bill does not advance any risk Above any risk that existed before and I think that the finance committee heard quite a detailed passage of the discussion on that during its session Mr White, I hope you can understand that there is a very serious concern here as the possible amount of money that could be to the detriment of the sector if indeed ONS reclassification did have that impact and in the response that Angela Constance has given yesterday she hasn't actually addressed these concerns is it not given just how significant this potentially could be would you agree that it's a bit odd that the Scottish Government hasn't actually spelt out and gone into detail with some outside advice to exactly what numbers we might be talking about? I mean, there's absolutely no question that the comments from University of Scotland would be taken lightly, taken extremely seriously. I mean, we have a very close relationship with University of Scotland in a number of policy areas in higher education, so that's a given. I mean, I gave an answer to Mr Baker in the other committee and probably with a similar one I would offer that the fact that the Scottish Government haven't analysed potential numbers for assessment is that the risk in numbers would be theoretical because the risk itself is not substantial. So I suppose that the idea that we would do a detailed analysis of numbers if we don't think the risk is substantial would be a theoretical exercise. How do you make that conclusion that the risk is probably not substantial? How are you coming to that conclusion? The basis of that analysis was a consideration all of the indicators of control contained in the European system of accounts guidance, which the ONS used to make their determinations. That's a risk analysis, it's not an empirical science, it's a risk analysis, but it's not a binary thing, yes or no answers, it's our assessment of the risk. With £1 billion at stake, I think it's more than, you know, it's a very serious concern that the amount of discussion about these possible effects you would expect in a bill like this is huge implications for one sector, a very successful educational sector and it looks as though the Scottish Government hasn't done its homework very well. That's for ministers to consider your comments. Liam McArthur. Yes, in terms of the risk analysis that you've undertaken, does that factor in ministerial intent or does it actually solely look at the scope of the provisions that are being put in this bill? Because we've had reassurances from the Cabinet Secretary indicated that we tend to suggest there's a recognition of a potential risk there, but whatever reassurances an individual minister gives, that is unrelated to the scope of the provisions that we're being asked to consider within the context of this bill. I think that, again, some material that the Finance Committee raised, that there is certainly an open mind and ministers are looking at all the evidence written in oral about how modification of certain of the regulation-making powers might address that risk. I think I'm writing saying that Professor Moskatelli indicated in his evidence, his oral evidence to that committee, that an examination of those sections to pare back, not his words, my own any feature which might suggest that there was a heightening of risk would be helpful. Okay, thank you, Mark. Thanks for that. The ONS reclassification from the Finance Committee the Scottish Government have said that we deem reclassification to be a low risk and Universities Scotland have said that reclassification was an amber to red risk. Can you explain your opinion as to why there's that difference of opinion as to the level of risk? It's obviously an extremely serious issue so it's certainly not about my opinion it's about an opinion of the Government I think that our assessment the Scottish Government's assessment was squarely focused on the indicators of control that are used by the Office of National Statistics to make their determinations and if you go through them, I think not to paraphrase a very detailed document entirely but there's a great emphasis there on direct control of appointments on people off the bill is about processes it's about the how, it's not the who people are not placed on taken off through the provisions of this bill it's about consistent, transparent inclusive processes The Government have come to the conclusion going through that process that the risk of reclassification is a low risk Do you think that Universities Scotland have gone through a different process to the one that you have described the Government? No, absolutely not they've looked at all the same indicators of control they might even say that they've looked at them differently more thoroughly, I don't know but no, they've looked at exactly the same material but a risk I'm not a risk manager but risk is not an exact science people will see a heightened risk where others looking at the same material are inconvenienced but they seem to have a different opinion and it's simply the different opinion they hold Has the cabinet secretary or Government officials met with Universities Scotland to discuss that difference of opinion to see what different emphasis perhaps they're putting on in different risks? To answer your question very honestly and directly we have lots of meetings with Universities Scotland and we've talked about elected chairs models as part of the dialogue that I indicated earlier but if there's been a direct meeting with the only agenda item on that I don't think there has been that but it's something that we talk about all the time we exchange material to Universities Scotland we're kind enough to share the legal advice that they had sourced with us very swiftly and we appreciate sight of that The issue of on-air reclassification has been discussed between the Government and Universities Scotland Certainly between officials I couldn't remember right here if the cabinet secretary has met on it but officials have discussed it Check Brody Good morning What am I going to ask you about the appointment of the chair of the Government and Brody which of course is a contentious issue and I ask these questions partly as devils advocate but also somebody who had been a lay member of the Corpus in Andrews and also who has chaired several organisations The Government has stated it has no intention of politicising the office of elected chair or being involved in the appointment process It is our intention that the franchise for the electoral process would not expand beyond the community within each HEI It's a nonsense isn't it I mean how can somebody lead a body as you heard earlier about the appointment of each member of the body being subject to a rigorous interview and adoption process involving staff and students How is someone going to be elected as chair if their particular views run counter to the court? I suppose that I would start by responding to that question by clarifying where the evidence space is for that concept That was in the review of fire education governance chaired by Professor von Rondinski It was the recommendation on elected chairs which inspired the way the consultation item, the Scottish Government's consultation was framed Again, I wasn't on the von Rondinski review myself but I think from reading it in recent days to prepare for today that there was an idea that the selection element was required in order that the person who took up the role could perform the duties by a representative cross-section of people within the university to come together to decide that What cross-section? Well, academic staff lay members If that's the case, there should be no priority they should all do it or none should do it I think that in practical terms they often have committees put together to source a chair so it would just be make sure that that committee would be a smaller unit of the overall court would be representative I'm still unsure as to how in my experience the chair in private companies or in organisations or association has to carry or at least ameliorate some of the the wider decisions of the body that they represent it's a very difficult position and the wider selection by a cross-section would make, I would suggest, makes that job more difficult if they cannot carry the majority of the body with them and an election process although the Government says it has no intention of politicising the office that's exactly what happens, isn't it? I'm not sure I've answered your question because I'm not sure I understood the initial one correctly maybe if I explain the process the Von Prindinske review in summary suggested that there be a selection element and then an election element the franchise of that election element was actually writ quite broadly there was even a suggestion that it might be out with the university community, people in the local community I don't know local authority represent as I'm unsure but what the Government clarified in the consultation was that the franchise who would get to vote for the chair would not be out with the university community so to paint a practicality around that options might include the governing body itself others may disagree with that and say that it should be all staff and students so that would be the electorate that would be two examples of potential electorates who would vote after a selection period the selection period was felt to be important by a cross sector panel without that I suppose it opens up to risk that candidates who may not be able to carry out the duties would find themselves in that place I don't know if the answer is your question but it doesn't I think I understand it doesn't really answer the practicalities of those that have been there how difficult that particular role is and in the selection where does the general, the wider public interest and public investment invest the involvement lie? I think that the university this is a sort of virgin territory in the sense that the bill doesn't provide any provision for that but universities have many ways to communicate with the public beyond that what I think we are concerned with here is that the internal governance there's an element of reform in that universities provide the annual reports their business plans and so on the bill doesn't want to prescribe how universities communicate with the outside world or communicate their successes it's about the internal organisation of the best decision of a governing body of a major university with international experience you're telling me that all they're going to do is internalise and not represent the governing body in the university to that no, of course not to be honest, I'm not sure I fully understand your initial question and I'm trying my best to answer it I would expect the chair of any university to be an ambassador to the exponent of its values both internally, externally help it to thrive and succeed and hopefully candidates would come forward who may accept the prudence of selection and then be delighted to be elected by whatever franchise that the legislation provides for as I said maybe I have to make a partial apology that I've not understood the initial question just last question it suggests there might be an amendment at stage 2 that would replace section 1 any advice on what that might be? well as I said to the other member that's still an active discussion with all stakeholders, universities, other higher education institutions unions, students and what that would be it would map out instead of the regulation making power would be the structure of this selection and then election it would also comment on the franchise section 1 itself provides illustrative elements of what could have been in regulations for them may or may not appear but mainly it would be the absolute staples of how selection would work what the franchise would be for the election they would be the staples that would be an amendment the aim is to have as much of a consensual model as possible provided for that's why the discussions are constant and they've been very active since June and indeed before that inspired by the consultation we're just the consensus the consensus between the consensus would best be arrived at what the chairman or chairwoman from the body that they actually chair so you're supporting a franchise of the governing body I'm playing devil's advocate, I want to hear what your views are well the government want to facilitate as consensual a model as possible they would rather everyone agreed on the model than simply stipulate a model but obviously there's an end you can't exhaust dialogue forever I think it's incumbent on partners to reach a consensus position okay, thank you very much Liam I'm intrigued there's an agreement that our universities are generally world class in response to George Arden's initial question I think you accepted that I think we would all accept that that's not a reason to rest on the laurels and there may well be improvements that we need to be seeking to make through governance whether through legislation or by other means whether through von Prinsinski's report or the work that the Scottish Government's done can you point to the international comparators in terms of Governments that have informed the decisions in terms of the drafting of this bill I mean, what is the nirvana we're trying to reach here in terms of good university governance that will safeguard and enhance the reputation and performance of universities international that is a very good question I can't offer much by the way the perspective the von Prinsinski review was I think it's fair to say the inspiration for the consultation which has led to this bill I know that the von Prinsinski review took a lot of evidence how much of that was international I do seem to remember there was an element I mean, perhaps colleagues own Laura There is evidence taken from Scotland across the UK, Europe and America as I understand for the Prinsinski review the question that led in terms of the nirvana I think was the term you used I don't think that the plan is to emulate any a perfect model I think that the ambition is to move on although others would disagree a modest set of proposals to improve the transparency, inclusivity and modernity I suppose of Governance and not to really be inspired by a bar that's been spotted anywhere else but I mean, presumably the international comparators because in terms of the sector itself it would see that its benchmarks aren't necessarily the rest of Scotland they're only the rest of the UK but they are international if we are drawing on the experience of other universities one would hope that the experience that we're drawing on is from universities that are performing better than those currently in Scotland are performing I would have thought it would be easier to apply those models in an international sense than appears to have been apparent to date, there's nothing in terms of the policy memorandum there's nothing in terms of the materials we've been presented through SPICE that there's no indication what it is that we're seeking to emulate here I mean, I'm reading the Farnbrindinsk review last night I did notice that what they said they took a great deal of evidence and did a review that was published in 2012 but what they found themselves was that there was quite a low level of research that had been conducted in higher education governance issues the way that the report was written seemed to me to suggest that they were a bit surprised by that it's not a direct answer to the international question but I don't think that there is a great deal of reflection and evidence huge evidence-based relative terms about higher education governance there has not been a great deal of consideration of the international picture in assembling the bill, like I could say that I was interested to hear about the Government's consensual model and I would really like to congratulate you on the consensus because I've never heard every single higher education institution in Scotland being so consensual in their agreement in opposition to this bill and why you're going on a collision course at this point in time I do not know so can I just ask you in terms of governance what did Oscar say when you discussed your approach to the forthcoming regulations and further education to this bill what was Oscar's response when you discussed this with him I've not taken forward any discussion you've not discussed it with Oscar I'll finish the question though and ask me specifically if I understand the question that have we discussed the use of regulation making powers with Oscar rather than the bill in general have you discussed your proposed approach to regulations with Oscar in all sections and the powers that will be forthcoming that are in this bill future powers the bill is only at stage 1 it's only an early part to have a substantial discussion about how subsequent secondary legislative powers might be used with Oscar now I think I might be the only one sitting around this table that was actually on the committee in this Parliament that set up the office of the Scottish Charities Regulator and I do remember from 10 years ago and people from all parties would remember that anything that was anywhere near ministerial dictat or policy interference there were no longer a charity but Oscar have given us they no longer had that status Oscar have been cautious in their approach so they were able to talk to us although you unfortunately were unable to talk to them but should such regulations be enacted when the bill comes forward we would have to consider whether taken together with existing regulations plus when the ministers have wider power to make further regulations they would have to consider the impact of these measures with respect to ministerial control so there's a big uncertainty there is a huge uncertainty within that and I am disappointed that you've not managed to find time they found time to give us advice but you haven't found time to discuss this bill with them I'd like to be helpful I'm not a minister I can talk about the official engagement I've had with them we talked to them after the bill was introduced and before evidence was submitted to committee which I think was covered earlier and I note the passage that you read they reserved the right and entirely correctly because they've only considered what's in the face of the bill that they would have a perhaps have to revisit their position depending on how these secondary legislative powers were used it certainly is the case that we would have a dialogue with Oscar Scottish Government rather than we the Scottish Government would have a dialogue with Oscar in using these secondary legislative powers all I'm saying is that I'm being honest there's not been an early discussion yet but there certainly would be a discussion there wouldn't be any taking forward of secondary powers without consulting an important stakeholder like Oscar there would be a bit more than an important stakeholder but we'll leave that one there can I look at Scottish Government power to make regulations section 14 and 20 may make different provision for different purpose section 20 ministers by regulation may supplemental incidental consequential transitional transitory or saving provision as they consider necessary or expedient in the future so the Scottish Government's letter to this committee said in general the powers for Scottish Minister are intended to future proof the content of the bill I think you said the words minor adjustments can that not be done under the Scottish funding council code of governance which is to be reviewed next year if there's further amendments, further review further changes etc it's barely over a year old so why do we need legislation could this not could this not be done next year in the code of governance and perhaps you could explain why in consultations these provisions were only intended as future proofing I'll try and answer the various elements in terms of the secondary legislative powers the Government has noted the strong opinions shared by lots of colleagues in the sector about those in their view that means for advancement of government control everyone the Government have no intention to have any direct control or influence on the functioning of institutions the various powers some of them are legal colleagues would be able to provide a view but they're quite standard proofing legislation in fact they were all intended that way however obviously there's been specific views in different sections and I think it would be fair to say that the cabinet secretary is very open minded about listening to all oral evidence and all written evidence about how modification of those sections might be helpful on the SFC question I listened that was in the debentures earlier as well I suppose theoretically if the sector and the authors of the code were happy to have elected chairs and trade union representatives and staff and student representatives all as staples of the code then that would perhaps be a profitable dialogue about changing the code but I wouldn't imagine given the strong views they have against those Government plans in the bill that they would want them to be in the code and in terms of the consultation and correct me if I'm wrong but I'm trying to be helpful I think you might be picking up that colleagues and I know David Ross in the chairs submission said that these powers weren't consulted on in January and in late 2014 the bill was that was a policy consultation and the bill developed from that and these secondary legislative powers came out of that preparation and I would probably go back to the first point I made that they were intended to future proof the bill there's no ulterior motive in these but the feeling and the comments are clear so as I said well the cabinet secretary is open minded about looking at those views and how they might influence those provisions so can I just finally convener say I don't want to refer to paragraphs and take up time running short enough of time but if you look through this it's constantly the Government may by regulation do this may by regulation do that I've circled it five times just on one page by regulation do a huge amount a huge amount of things does the Government now regret that they've gone a step too far in this collision course with our higher education institutions do I pick up from what you're saying that they are minded to make significant amendments perhaps pause take stock and maybe just take a step back and listen to what's being said I could certainly be quite confident that they're open minded about making amendments but the earlier part of your point is not for an official to answer thank you it's just a matter of clarification Mr White as I understand it there would be scope to change the constitutions of certain universities and therefore by definition that involves Government control is that correct? I think the Oscar submission treated this with some detail and they proposed that there would be alteration to the ancient universities constitutions I think I'm right in saying that but then they went a layer below that and said that the bills provisions didn't jeopardise that being the case my point of clarification is to ask you as an official that by definition there would be changes made to the constitutions of certain universities and therefore the Government could be seen to further its control is that correct? I think I probably would have the chance for Ailsa to come in here particularly in the first part of that question I mean the bill will set out the minimum requirements for certain aspects of these bodies which will then form part of the constitution but the Government already has a role in approving changes to higher education institutions through the existing legislation under either the 1992 act and this would increase it? I don't think it's fair to say it increases it it's just adding the minimum requirements Can I just plan for this point because my understanding is that on this point in terms of the older universities where part 1 would form part of their constitutions our view is that when taken together those provisions in the bill do not amount to the existence of ministerial control in a way that would cause the older universities to breach section 7, 4 B of the 2005 act That's the part that sprung to mind when I was asked the question The point is that the ancient universities my understanding is they have a different constitution to the more modern ones so I think what the convener is pointing out is where Oscar applies to the ancients not to the more modern ones They didn't make any commentary on any constitutional alteration to the other We're looking at all universities Gordon I wanted to ask you about the composition of governing bodies The code of good governance says that it specifies that lay members should make up a majority of the governing board and that governing bodies should not normally exceed 25 members Given that this proposed legislation suggests that up to eight members are co-opted on to or elected on to the board coming from staff, students, trade unions and alumni Is there anything in the legislation that provides or determines whether there is a minimum or a maximum governing body size I'm not sure how the 25 arrived at the code of good governance but is there anything that limits the size of the governing body? I'll give it a try The 25 was adopted by the authors of the code and then it was subsequently adopted, I'll use the word adopted as a legal term by the Scottish Funding Council and as part of the terms and conditions of grant that institutions or fundable bodies were to abide by the terms and the code So the 25 has that status I think that eight members although I know that lots have written in some of the oral evidence and said well it would be difficult to manage that to accommodate that and then still keep the delay majority I think that in practice that was what the von Friedenski review suggested so they must have thought about although that's before the code I should say I mean don't want to confuse matters the code was published a year after that so actually probably that comment is not relevant to be accommodated I mean it's not an opinion I hold it's an opinion in the summation of the Government opinion of course as well the 25 is something that could be changed I mean I wouldn't present a case for changing it but it could be changed and the Scottish Funding Council would come to a decision about any change to the code because they're not going to only endorse it once and it will never change because I believe there's a review next year that suggests personally for court sizes but it's not a movable thing it could be changed to accommodate slight adjustments to accommodate what the bill would provide for but I should apologise for that error there that the code was published a year after the 2012 review so they wouldn't have talked about it Much of this bill is about diversity and changing the make-up of the governing body from NUS Scotland and their evidence said and this is in relation to the existing code on the issue of wider diversity only 40 per cent of institutions had set targets for increasing the wider equality and diversity of their governing bodies and only 30 per cent were issuing regular reports on progress on equality and diversity targets with regards to governing body membership so as the legislation itself going to address those points we've got this code of good governance which would appear from the NUS evidence that many universities are failing to comply with that therefore is there anything within the legislation that would address the point of diversity of governing bodies? I think the intention of governing body composition provisions are that a community will lead the institution where the inclusivity and the representative nature of that would have a percussive effect on the way the whole institution runs so the bill doesn't make specific commentary on for example gender in fact again I'm not a lawyer but I don't think it can because it's not within the competence of the Scottish Parliament but it's that percussive effect which is the aim that there's a representative fair and inclusive profile leading the organisation and that the conversations that they generate will lead to consideration of these areas as a mainstay of the business of the institution Okay, thank you very much Thank you, Mark Carrying on from that I'd just like to ask questions about the composition of the academic board the committee had written to the government to ask about the requirement of ensuring that at least 10% of the membership of academic boards were made up of students and we have that written answer I just asked over and above that if you could set out what ways you think the tangible ways in which an increased student numbers on academic boards will improve the work of the board and the academic quality throughout higher education institutions I would hopefully not give too simplistic an answer but I think that the presence of students can only enrich that conversation which is an academic conversation I mean I don't think I can catalogue tangible changes in the business of the way an academic board would run I'm not on one and I never have been but again it's part of that percussive effect of a more representative conversation in that forum Universities themselves have expressed concerns about the size of the academic boards any comments based on the evidence that we've been given from the University of St Andrews from the University of Aberdeen St Andrews have talked about a disbanding of their academic council to be replaced by a reform senate The University of Aberdeen flagging up issues about how they fear the loss of really crucial input from ex-official members How does the Government address the concern of the sector over the size of the academic boards Yes, I mean that these comments have been noted and I think that we take them into consideration at this stage in the bill's progress I mean the 120 figure comes from simply comes from the view of higher education governance in Scotland Now it wouldn't have been arrived at Willie Nellie, I would imagine it would have been subject to lots of dialogue which was cross-sectoral in many opinions were taken I mean I imagine many senates are probably less than 120 academic boards but there's obviously a particular situation that arises for certain institutions they've made their views very clear and I think the Government is considering that evidence very carefully but the 120 does come from the review which is the substantive evidence base from which many of the all of the provisions in the bill largely were inspired by So you'll be taking those comments away and looking at possible amendments at stage 2 to make the bill more flexible to meet those particular institutions needs I think all I can see today is that those comments will be and are there with many of the other comments that have been collected through the evidence that would be for ministers to decide on any action Liam Bling on from that it relates to the point about the Government embodies and indeed a number of other elements of this from the ring table we had this morning it was very clear that the plea from the sector was that a one-size-fits-all approach is wholly inappropriate reflecting the diversity of the sector I think the conundrum for us scrutinising a piece of legislation is legislation isn't very good at making those distinctions and allowing for anything other than a one-size-fits-all so what kind of assurance can you give the committee that on this issue and indeed on the other issues that the Scottish Government is alive to the real risks inherent in a one-size-fits-all approach for a sector as diverse as the Scottish HG sector is It's a difficult question I suppose that thinking about why the bill is happening the corollary of that is that there are risks in not having the improvements that there's actually not the governance arrangements aren't ideal but to address that question and also I wonder because there's obviously provision and this goes back to the secondary legislation there's ability in the act to make different provision for different institutions is that correct? Yes, it would be possible that the composition of the governing body is set out, that's already set out in the legislation and the same for the academic board in terms of the regulation making powers that are there there is a possibility of making different provision for different purposes that would apply particularly in relation to section 1 on the elected chairs if that was to remain in the bill and be dealt with in regulations then it's possible to do a provision for different institutions The question of there will be a point of debate and tension between some people say one size fits all and others will say consistency, transparency and inclusivity and I think that in some ways it's not a large bill but obviously several of the provisions within it are subject to quite a lot of discussion consistency is on a very limited number of matters and in those matters that were not taken forward in the code such as elected chairs and the composition of governing bodies as set out in the bill the code and these link with what was in the original review report so it's not a great array of new standard features for the sector but it's quite a focused series of measures within a focused bill Just taking one example from this morning what accountability transparency and participation looks like in the Conservatoire is going to be very different from what it's going to look like in an institution like the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow and I think for those of us who are now looking at a bill that is would hope are a feature of governance in our universities the real risk is in the unintended consequences if this works for 80, 90 per cent of the cases but is wholly inappropriate for the others how we come up with a piece of legislation at the end of this process that doesn't cause that sort of either unintended or fully anticipated but deemed to be a price on the majority is a real dilemma and I think an understanding from the Scottish Government that one should only be legislating where that is the only means of achieving the desired outcome has to be an assurance that we're seeking not necessarily just from you as officials clearly this is much and probably more a matter for the Cabinet Secretary but do you understand the position we find ourselves in? Everything that you said and I'm sure that the Cabinet Secretary would take on board all of that too as the bill progresses I'd like to look at the roles of rectors various organisations have given submissions about the bills impact on rectors but I find it very difficult to actually get a sense of what the role is in terms of a rector there seems to be different for want of a better word job descriptions for this if this bill's passed what exactly will the role of a rector and a chair be? How will they complement each other? The question is posed quite a difficult one because we're right in the middle of a design discussion if you like on what elected chairs how it will run and the role of elected chairs is all part of that so it said in some ways if I was to jump in ahead guesswork of mine alone and we're in an active discussion and I wouldn't like to design something without taking everyone we're talking to with us but I do obviously want to answer your question it's not possible for me today to say if there were to be two figures in the model how exactly it would work what rectors do in different universities and they are all universities it's important to say not all higher education institutions are universities they also correct me from wrong but they have the legal right to preside at court and generally I think in recent history the chairing, the substantive chairing has been carried out by the vice convener senior governor and the presiding at court has been alongside that sometimes certain rectors may have had more of an active role in that other job and sometimes a lesser role what the cabinet secretary has been clear about and she's insisted on this is that there's absolutely no intention to abolish the role of rector the role of rector is a respected institution in Scottish life and university life but yes in terms of how the exact interaction would be in future that is a dialogue we are still in and I think that in the letter to the committee there's a name that at stage 2 there would be clarity on that but if I was to say now it would be my estimate while there's still discussion going on the stakeholders the cabinet secretary acknowledged the concerns around the role of rectors and she said we will seek to minimise and consider removal of any features of the model selected that could impinge on the role of rector but there's no one role for the rector because there's different models I think I can answer that I'm not the second guest but I think specifically what would be at the nub of that would be this question of the legal right to preside slash chair the court that is the specific feature that she would be referring to there because I think as far as I understand the representations from rectors and the concerns that is the principal concern that there would be any alteration to that feature of the rector's role so she's very alive to these thoughts these views that have been shared and would seek to minimise any at all it's actually in the bill the bill had to accommodate depending on what the model would be that there's a consequential amendment in one of the schedules that that role under a certain model would be modified it's not a tall and intention of the Government to undermine the role of rectors or abolish that post Will that mean that the role of rectors will then stay individual to the institutions that they are currently with in other words there won't be one single definition of what the rector does There will only be rectors in a statutory sense in the institutions that already have them elected chairs he could use the term rector but there's no legislation for rector across all HEIs the roles would stay subject to the dialogue on what the final elected chairs model is but there would be no Government intention to alter the role in each of the ancients in Dundee where rectors are so the differences would still remain individual to the institutions to which rectors are and Dundee at the moment wouldn't be altered so the variety and what the rector exactly does in terms of the basis there at the moment but what I'm trying to say is that it's a complicated issue but the way elected chairs statutory elected chairs would operate is still in dialogue and that until that's ended we can't know exactly what the model will operate like in practice but there's no intention and no likelihood that there will be any interference in the detailed description of rector in each ancient university so on that basis the rector could still if it's permitted within the model in that particular university they could still opt to chair the governing body that's quite possible but as I say we're still in the middle of the dialogue to frame the model I mean ultimately the regulations could theoretically be used in future should the bill become an act but that dialogue is very active at the moment with the aim to frame an amendment at stage 2 for the model I'm obviously concerned about the potential for a conflict between the role of the chair and the role of the rector in terms of the rector's right to chair the governing body yes and I think they would need to be very clear on that because at the moment the rectors have the right to preside at court but they don't often in all institutions ostantively carry out the role of chair but they could but the statutory they have that right yes at the moment so it looks like there's still quite a bit of work to be done there well I wouldn't underestimate the dialogue that still needs to be hard yes okay thanks Colin can I just follow up on this because I thought I was following up until nearer the end there and you kind of lost me I'm now confused about what the in reality I know we're still in discussion and I accept it's not finalised but excuse me if I've got this completely wrong but if we have elected chairs how can a rector retain the right to chair how does that operate it's well again absolutely no way to appear evasive about answering the question it's just we're in the dialogue we're looking at some of these design complexities at the moment but obviously rectors have been very clear and very vocal about their concerns about any adjustment at all to their role to set out in statute so we are picking through these issues of great detail and that issue that you raise is one that we're looking at at the moment we are talking to stakeholders and are confident that a solution can be found to that but the challenge that you present as an issue is not one that we're unaware of and we're working through it at the moment I'm sure you are and I put caveats into my question about I understand that's the case you're still working through it but I'll be fascinated to find out how you square that particular circle because it seems to me at the moment I can't see a compromise the ability of a rector to have the right to chair and having an elected chair I can't see where the compromise is there and I take what you say and note it very carefully and I think it would be fair to say that the committee will keep in touch with the committee closely on this because if we said today in terms of work which would be ideally lead to a stage 2 amendment I think that close dialogue for the bill would be something that would be important to do with the committee It would be welcome Mary Scanlon On the point of academic freedom I did ask a question earlier and from the policy memorandum the definition of academic freedom has expanded explicitly includes the freedom to develop and advance new ideas and innovative proposals it's also in the explanatory notes I'm just wondering in terms of the academic freedom and freedom to express and bring forward new ideas what will this bill do but it's not happening already To clarify and strengthen the existing definition of academic freedom by being more explicit about what includes Could you be more explicit with me then just telling me the bill's more explicit I wouldn't have bothered asking the question if it had been explicit and every single higher education institution doesn't think it's explicit and they're far smarter than I am so I'm sorry convener but just saying it's explicit I actually find that quite insulting I'm looking for an answer what will happen in the bill that doesn't happen now You're quite right to challenge Absolutely and I think you should answer the question I want to try and understand it I'm trying to be of assistance to you I think it is it's not a clear answer just to say what you've just said but at the same time Mary I'd rather you didn't use some of the language to be a little bit cautious I just prefer if you didn't as challenging with some of your language to the witnesses That's where I'm trying to get To go back to the question I don't think anyone would claim that this modest adjustment is a huge advancement I think Mary Sr from UCU said it was a welcome enhancement there are two things that does apart from the expansion to explore new ideas to modernise it the other is that there's a change which we've read the comments on that institutions must seek to aim to uphold the academic freedom I think that's a change from before it was aimed to aspire to uphold our phrasing but there's a strengthening of the duty on the institution to uphold the academic freedom and I think that's something that's been welcomed by academics and others so it's not a quantum leap here I think it's fair to say it's a modest adjustment to the existing 2005 statutory definition and also that there's a slight strengthening of the expectation and the institution to uphold the academic freedom Can I just finally ask could you give me examples of higher education institutions in Scotland who have not been upholding academic freedom because I'm struggling to see why this modest enhancement is necessary and if you could just I know what your modest enhancement solution is but I'm not sure what the problem is Well I think the committee's letter to the Cabinet Secretary which she answered asked and I think we said in the letter no we can't cite any individual specific cases but the change to the law wasn't done to address lots of unpleasant situations and strife in universities it was actually just to make that modernised statement influenced by the von Friedensky review that he looked at in Ireland which I think someone said earlier but yeah I wouldn't claim it's a quantum leap but I think there is an important thing and I think some of the institutions don't favour it at all is to have the institution more in the place of actively protecting and supporting academic freedom and although it might not be important to some stakeholders it seems to be quite important to quite a few Liz When international bodies look at us and other institutions look at Scotland they see our institutions as at the absolute cutting edge of knowledge exchange, of research of all kinds of developments within education they see us as first class which is reflected in our lead tables why do we need legislation to allow universities to have new ideas Well I think that the specific academic freedom is about the academics to express their new ideas this is a protection of their academic freedom it's not so much about the university's reputation it's to protect the individual academic to expand on their ideas If it's not about our academic reputation then what on earth is it about? No I think it's about the protection of the individual academic that part of the bill is not about advancing the corporate image of different institutions just for a specific and different purpose and I don't think although that's not what you've asked me I don't think it damages that it's a very modest advancement of the existing statutory description Mrs Scanlam has just quoted to you suggesting that there is something that needs to be done to enhance new ideas in terms of doing something a little bit differently what is it that we need to do that we're not doing already well that's a huge strategic question about the future direction of universities it's at the heart of the bill well I wouldn't I think if I take your question what are these new ideas that are going to further that success I think that's a slightly different topic to what's in the bill although to be fair I'm not trying to be evasive at all you obviously think that the bill actually jeopardises that future success but you're asking me the question I think that's a different subject about new ideas about advanced and high education can we just turn it around a little bit then what is it in the current system that in some way prevents universities doing what they would like to do to be at the cutting age what is wrong with the way in which we govern our universities that prevents certain things happening to allow us to flourish this is just through the prism of academic freedom provisions I don't think there's anything stopping universities but what this provision is about is protecting the academic freedom of the individual academic in their own work it's individual focus rather than institution focused except in the sense that the institution must itself uphold the academic freedom of all relevant persons that the bill sets out but there's nothing stopping it doesn't need to be said but the government are very very very appreciative of Scotland's universities and often takes the opportunity to say it Liam I'm struggling again to understand why it is that we're being asked to put into legislation a protection of a freedom that doesn't appear to be under threat I mean this again I use this in relation to another bill we're scrutinising at the moment it just seems to be a solution searching for a problem I don't sorry you want to come in it's not a new provision to in relation to academic freedom it's amending a current provision in the further and higher education I think the 2005 legislation very properly sets out academic freedom and how that needs to be protected and safeguarded in universities and colleges I don't think any of us have a problem with what is currently on the statute book but it has to put into further legislation a protection of a freedom that nobody can point to the immediate threat I mean what's in legislation is all the question for ministers but what I would say is that the consultation itself threw up support or neutral views on this set against some of the other provisions that had support very few neutral views and strong opposition so I think that the modest expansion of the existing statutory definition of academic freedom is something which the state called the evidence that we gathered was generally supportive of but as I said earlier to the earlier question it's not a quantum leap or a radical reworking of the statutory no one would claim it was okay thank you I just want to ask one final question before we finish this part of the committee meeting we had written evidence from Scottish Council of Jewish Communities you may be aware of incidents that have been reported about the mistreatment of Jewish students in particular in some Jewish academics I just wondered what they have said that they are concerned about the idea of widening the statutory definition of academic freedom without at the same time including the ability to protect those who may suffer detriment from careless or malicious use of that freedom the duty of care that are owed to students in universities or HEIs in general what consideration has been taken into account of those incidents in relation to the changes that you're suggesting to make with the definition of academic freedom of those the specific incidents indicated you're unaware of the incidents I'm talking about I'm not aware of them through the terms of the submission there was a submission of evidence to the bill there was a submission from the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities we are still given the very large amount of evidence that was submitted we are still working through all of them but what I would say is that that is a very serious issue which should be taken very seriously before you got to the end of the question what I was going to say is and I think the letter to the committee outlined that academic freedom doesn't give you immunity from the criminal law the duty of care and the protection by the law enforcement by the institutions overrides that when it strays into criminal activity so it's not any way a free pass to say and do what you want if you break equality laws, obscenity laws or whatever laws I'm not a lawyer also perhaps expand on this but no I would say that the number of written submissions that our team are working through them so I've got to be honest and I hadn't got to that personally myself yet to read that one but it sounds like something we should make sure we scrutinise very carefully like it sounds an extremely serious issue It is, so I just wonder if it also has got anything to add As Stephen had said, academic freedom is not a free pass to do anything you want it is subject to other legal sanctions so that's all I would want to add I'm sure that Mr White, when you get the chance to read it It sincerely is a matter of priority it's just that we've been going through rather a large volume of the submissions that you received So have we Thank you all very much for coming along this morning Can I ask you just to stay where you are just while we do the next piece of our work? Our next item on the agenda is to consider subordinate legislation as listed on our agenda Do members have any comments on the instrument? Does the committee therefore agree to make no recommendation to the Parliament on the instrument? As we have previously agreed to take the next item in private I now close the meeting to the public