The London Met crisis

Times Higher Education writes: In the name of Hefce, go

2009-12-17T06:37:00.000-08:00

17th of December

Rebecca Attwood

Chief executive issued ultimatum to London Met governors before mass resignations: leave or risk the institution’s funding. Rebecca Attwood reports

Governors at London Metropolitan University were handed an ultimatum by funding chiefs who threatened to stop financing the institution if they did not resign, Times Higher Education has learnt.

In a joint statement released today, the university and the Higher Education Funding Council for England say that all board members who were in place in the period up to 31 August 2008 are to step down by 31 August 2010.

The action follows a letter from Sir Alan Langlands, Hefce’s chief executive, to Peter Anwyl, chair of the governors, on 14 December. It warns that Sir Alan would “press for urgent action” and review whether the university should continue to receive public funding if he was not assured that the board was responding “promptly and appropriately” to a series of reports detailing poor governance and management at London Met.

The letter, seen by Times Higher Education, calls for all board members who were part of the audit committee during the period to stand down “immediately”.

Yesterday, London Met’s University and College Union branch issued a statement to its members saying that at a governors’ meeting on 15 December, Mr Anwyl had resigned with effect from the end of March 2010, and that other governors associated with the audit committee would follow suit.

This is confirmed by today’s statement, which says the audit committee will be “renewed” by 1 April 2010.

The university has been embroiled in a row with the funding council after it emerged it had massively overclaimed public funding as a result of inaccurately reported student dropout rates.

Brian Roper, who was in charge when the flawed data returns were made, resigned as vice-chancellor in March, and the university is now being forced to hand back tens of millions of pounds, leaving hundreds of jobs at risk.

“The scale of the governance, management and operational failures at London Met is unprecedented in higher education in this country in recent years and urgent action needs to be taken,” Sir Alan’s letter says.

Sir Alan adds that he is “disappointed” that the board refused to consider the critical reports into the affair produced by Sir David Melville and Deloitte until 15 December.

He then warns that unless action is taken, he would “ultimately consider whether or not the university should continue to receive Hefce grant funding”.

Sir Alan stresses that Hefce’s main concerns are “the wellbeing of the students and the motivation of the staff”, and says that it is willing to consider a “realistic” bid for money from its Strategic Development Fund, although it has yet to receive such a proposal.

The letter also describes an issue excluded from the joint statement due to its “sensitivity”: “With regard to the senior managers criticised in the reports, I have already recommended that the board should take advice on whether or not the former vice-chancellor failed in his fiduciary duties and what prospect there is of recovering money for the public purse.”

Sally Hunt, UCU general secretary, called for the governors’ departure to be sped up.

“Those responsible must go immediately as their continued presence on the board does nothing to lend any credibility to the institution,” she said.

“We need one quick blow from a guillotine, not numerous hacks from a blunt axe.”

University governors resign after false funds claims, The Independent reports

2009-12-17T06:30:00.000-08:00

17th of December 2009

By Richard Garner

Governors at the troubled London Metropolitan University have resigned in the wake of its financial troubles, university sources said last night.

The majority of its lay governors will be out of office by the summer, they added. The governors have been under immense pressure to quit following a warning from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce), the body responsible for funding universities, that urged them to "consider their position".

This came after it emerged that the university had falsely claimed £36m worth of government funds for students who had not sat their end-of-year assessments – as exclusively revealed in The Independent on 23 November.

The Hefce's comment were widely interpreted as being an indication that it would refuse to continue funding the university if the governors stayed in post – effectively forcing the university to close.

An agreement was drawn up before a governing body meeting on Tuesday night that the chairman, Peter Anwyl, would leave by the end of March.

The rest of the lay members associated with its audit sub-committee – charged with overseeing accounts – would leave by the summer. A new audit committee is expected to be in place by next April.

The agreement, between Sir Alan Langlands, chief executive of the Hefce, and Mr Anwyl had been expected to be published yesterday. Last night a spokeswoman for London Metropolitan University said it hoped to publish it today, "slightly revised". The revisions are likely to be about the timetable of departures.

At the meeting on Tuesday, a statement from staff governor, Kay Dudman, was read out. It said: "It is clear that London Metropolitan University's future and safety is at stake. Hefce has made apparent that there is a clear and immediate risk that funding will be withdrawn unless it is convinced that its financial support of the university with public funds is safeguarded to its satisfaction.

"London Met cannot survive without public funds. The honourable, and indeed the only, course of action is for members of the board who were serving during the period in question to resign and the executive should follow suit."

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said last night: "Those who are responsible for the mess at London Met should go immediately. Delaying the inevitable does absolutely nothing to help the university, staff or students.

"Why burden the new vice-chancellor with people whose inadequacies have been brutally exposed? What has happened at London Met must act as a wake-up call to all universities and their governing bodies."

In a letter to the university, Sir Alan said: "We have been concerned that the university is unable to safeguard public funds.

"Given the criticism of the board and the senior management team, I do not believe confidence can be restored until action is taken to consider the position of board members and senior staff who are criticised in the report and new governance and managements arrangements are put in place."

The incoming vice-chancellor, Professor Malcolm Gillies, joins the university in late January.

Long goodbye at London Met: Times Higher Education reports on the news of the slow departures of London Met's Board of Governors.

2009-12-16T09:34:00.000-08:00

16 December 2009

By Rebecca Attwood

Governors bow to pressure and resign, but final departures won’t occur until summer 2010. Rebecca Attwood reports

The governors of London Metropolitan University have resigned following a period of intense pressure from funding chiefs.

According to London Met’s University and College Union branch, the chair of governors, Peter Anwyl, resigned with effect from the end of March 2010 at a governors’ meeting last night.

The other lay governors associated with the audit sub-committee – which the UCU branch said amounts to virtually all London Met’s lay governors – will follow suit in the summer.

In a statement to its members, the UCU says it assumes that an entirely new audit committee will be in place by April 2010.

The resignations follow a series of reports criticising the governors’ role in inaccurate data returns detailing student dropouts at London Met.

The university reported a non-completion rate of about 3 per cent, while under the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s definition, the actual rate was about 30 per cent.

The inaccuracies mean London Met has been forced to hand back £36.5 million it was overpaid by Hefce between 2005-06 and 2007-08, leaving the university in dire financial straits and hundreds of jobs at risk.

The UCU branch said it understood that a formal announcement on the resignations would be made today. It added that it understood the announcement would include a statement that the new vice-chancellor, Malcolm Gillies, would be investigating members of the executive group who were in post during the relevant period. This could include disciplinary action with the possibility of individual suspensions during the inquiries.

A statement from Kay Dudman, the staff governor, that was read out at the meeting says:

“It is clear that London Metropolitan University’s future and safety is at stake. Hefce has made apparent that there is a clear and immediate risk that funding will be withdrawn unless it is convinced that its financial support of the university with public funds is safeguarded to its satisfaction. It is noted that Hefce itself is not without blame, as cited in the [Sir David] Melville report, in particular for failing to make a written record of meetings.

“London Met cannot survive without public funds. The honourable, and indeed the only, course of action is for the members of the board of governors who were serving during the period in question to resign, and the executive… should follow suit.”

She adds: “Their sacrifice will be for the good of the institution as a whole, and allow London Met the opportunity to flourish once again under the leadership of a new vice-chancellor, a new board of governors and a new executive.”

Students storming the London Metropolitan University Moorgate building, waving a banner saying: Student struggle 1968 -2009

2009-12-16T08:07:00.000-08:00

Police tried to stop students entering the University building in Moorgate the 15th of December where students and staff were demanding the mass resignation of Governors and Executives responsible for cheating with student completion rates to the staggering amount of 36 Million pounds. A few students were however lucky enough to get in, seizing the opportunity to wave a banner with the words: "Student struggle 1968 -2009" to the crowds underneath.

Protestors call for governors to quit London Metropolitan University, East London Advertiser reports.

2009-12-16T08:01:00.000-08:00

"STUDENTS and staff were calling for governors at London Metropolitan to quit yesterday as it emerged the university could miss out on vital funding if they refuse to step-down.

Protesters gathered outside the university's campus in Moorgate as the board of governors met for the first time since its members were told by The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) to "consider their position".
And this came as the acting vice-chancellor Alfred Morris admitted in a leaked e-mail that the university may not receive extra funding unless its board proves its "adequacy" and confidence is restored. Board members were given the warning after an enquiry accused them of claiming funding for thousands of non-existent students at the university which also has campuses in Whitechapel, Aldgate and Holloway.
The University and College Union's general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: "London Met desperately needs a fresh start and that cannot happen with the current board of governors in place."

Mass Rally urging the Governors and Exec to resign NOW 15th of December, Moorgate

2009-12-16T07:42:00.000-08:00

Pressure mounts on London Met governors to quit, the Guardian reports today.

2009-12-15T04:23:00.000-08:00

Staff and students to protest as board meets to discuss damning revelations of funds claimed for non-existent students writes Rachel Williams for the Guardian.

Troubled London Metropolitan University could lose out on badly-needed funding to help with its financial woes if the board of governors does not resign, leaked documents suggest ahead of a crunch meeting today.

Last month the head of Hefce, the body that funds universities in England, wrote to the chairman of governors at London Met in the wake of revelations that it falsely claimed funding for non-existent students, calling for board members to "consider their positions".

Staff and students will protest outside as the board meets to discuss the university's response to a damning inquiry published last week, which found that the institution had misused public money. Sir David Melville, former vice-chancellor of Kent University, warned in his report that senior officials at London Met must take responsibility for a fiasco which saw the university receive tens of millions of pounds in overpayments after submitting inaccurate student data. It has been ordered to pay back £36.5m.

But a leaked email suggests Hefce's assessment of the "adequacy" of the board's response would be critical to the success of a bid for cash and "any requests for further assistance".

The email, from London Met's acting vice-chancellor Alfred Morris to Hefce chief executive Sir Alan Langlands, predates the reports and Langlands' letter to London Met's chairman of governors.

Summarising Langlands' comments, the email said: "It would not be easy to persuade the Hefce board of the case for significant further support, and the restoration of mutual respect and confidence remained an essential preliminary."

The University and College Union (UCU) today said the governors' position had become "completely untenable" and demanded that they stand down.

UCU's general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: "London Met desperately needs a fresh start and that cannot happen with the current board of governors in place.

"The position of the board is completely untenable and they will cause greater damage by remaining in post.

"Nobody can have confidence in the university until there has been a proper shake up at the top and those behind the current shambles have gone."

Hefce said Langlands and Peter Anwyl, the chair of the board of governors, had a "purposeful meeting" earlier this month and met again yesterday.

"Both are committed to ensuring the wellbeing of the current students and supporting the continued provision of their education," a spokesman said. "They are equally concerned to ensure that there are governance arrangements in place which sustain confidence in the work of the university."

A London Met spokeswoman said: "The board of governors will be considering the detail of the university's response to the findings of both reports at its next board meeting on December 15.

"We will be preparing a full response to both reports, specifiying the detail and time scales of actions to be taken."

The incoming vice-chancellor, Professor Malcolm Gillies, who joins the university in late January, would be closely involved in the process, she added. "[Gillies] has been clear in his determination that all action must be in accord with a thoughtful, long-term plan that emphasises student learning and staff scholarship, and seeks to restore public confidence in the university."

London Met’s financial future hangs in the balance, Times Higher Education reports

2009-12-15T04:22:00.001-08:00

14 December 2009

By Melanie Newman

Outcome of board meeting will determine whether Hefce offers the beleaguered institution more funds. Melanie Newman reports

The financial future of London Metropolitan University rests on the outcome of a meeting of its board of governors on 15 December.

The board’s response to two critical reports into the problems with student-completion data that led to the clawback of tens of millions of pounds will determine whether the Higher Education Funding Council for England grants the institution’s requests for extra cash.

A memo seen by Times Higher Education from Alfred Morris, London Met’s acting vice-chancellor, to Sir Alan Langlands, Hefce’s chief executive, sets out a record of meetings between the university and the funding council.

It says that Hefce’s “perception of the adequacy of the board of governors’ response” to the reports by Sir David Melville and Deloitte “would be critical to the restoration of confidence and hence to the Strategic Development Fund bid and any requests for further assistance”.

The Melville and Deloitte reports criticise the university’s senior management and governors for allowing inaccurate student-completion data to be supplied to Hefce between 2005 and 2008.

The memo, written on 11 November, also shows that Mr Morris believes London Met’s incoming vice-chancellor, since confirmed as Malcolm Gillies, could take five years to “turn around” the institution to the point where it could be removed from Hefce’s list of institutions at high risk of financial failure. He says the new vice-chancellor would be expected to seek Hefce’s support for a bid for strategic development cash next March.

Professor Gillies will take up the vice-chancellorship in January. He is also likely to ask for a renegotiation of the repayment schedules for the £36 million overpaid by Hefce as a result of the data inaccuracies.

The memo reports Sir Alan as saying that “it would not be easy to persuade the Hefce board of the case for significant further support” without “the restoration of mutual respect”.

Sir Alan has since written to the governors asking them to consider their positions.

The University and College Union is calling for the governors to step down at the board meeting, which will be held on 15 December at 5pm.

Sally Hunt, the UCU’s general secretary, said: “London Met desperately needs a fresh start and that cannot happen with the current board of governors in place.

“The position of the board is completely untenable and it will cause greater damage by remaining in post. Nobody can have confidence in the university until there has been a proper shake-up at the top and those behind the current shambles have gone.”

Mass rally asking for a mass resignation of Governors and Senior Management

2009-12-15T04:08:00.000-08:00

The Board of Governors of London Metropolitan University are meeting on 15th December to consider their response to the recent reports into the financial fiasco they got us into. Both staff unions, UNISON and UCU, and London Met students union, are now calling for their resignations and for a Fresh start at London Met.

We will be presenting them with our petition. Come and join our final lobby/ rally/ protest for 2009 and give them a last push:

Tuesday 15th December,
4.00pm Moorgate Building
Note change of time to 4pm start - get there early; 3.45pm

Why don't the Board of Governors resign?

2009-12-15T04:02:00.000-08:00

The Board of Governors may rightly feel that their reputations are at stake.

As the Independent can reveal, London Met's board of governors has 15 members and "contains movers and shakers of the City of London Corporation, including one key member who has spent his life in accountancy. Sir Michael Snyder, a former chairman of the university's audit committee, the Corporation's policy and resources committee and its finance committee, is a senior partner of the accountancy firm Kingston Smith.
In September 2007, Snyder wrote the following article in the Observer, "Why fat cats deserve their pay and our respect." http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/sep/16/executivepay
In a portrait interview in The Telegraph with the title "MIchael Snyder keeps the City in first place," he claimed that the Northern Rock crisis wasn't such a bad thing. In the interview that took place three days after the first run on a British bank since the 19th century, Snyder reasoned that "It illustrates the robustness of the London financial market and regulatory system." Even after the Government stepped in and pumped money into the bank system and when Northern Rock slid further into difficulty, Snyder was not
fazed by the criticism. He says: "My view still stands. It's reasonable in a free and open market place to have an individual failure as long as the system remains intact."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/2816811/Michael-Snyder-keeps-the-City-in-first-place.html

Another governor is Jeremy Mayhew who is also a Common Councilman on the City of London. He is also a member of the London Development Agency (DLA), a functional body of the Greater London Authority (GLA) and a board member of Barbican Arts Centre.

The board of governors is chaired by Peter Anwyl, director of International Students House, which provides accommodation for students in the capital.

Other governors include Professor Zanobia Nadirshaw, head of psychology at Kensington and Chelsea primary care trust, Raj Patel, director of policy at Enterprise Insight, Abduhl Rahim, managing director of Platinumlinks Ltd; Tony Millns, chief executive of English UK Ltd, and Bob Morgan, dean of London Met's business school.

Embattled board refuses to resign

2009-12-15T03:57:00.000-08:00

10 December 2009

By Melanie Newman

London Met governors claim damning report isn't based on the evidence. Melanie Newman writes

The governors of London Metropolitan University are resisting calls for their resignations, claiming that a damning report into their role in the institution's funding crisis is not based on the evidence.

Their stance suggests that a long-running dispute with the Higher Education Funding Council for England over responsibility for the errors in London Met's student-completion data is at an impasse.

The row centres on data inaccuracies that prompted the funding council to claw back £36.5 million overpaid to London Met between 2005-06 and 2007-08. The university reported a non-completion rate of 3 per cent compared with Hefce's figure of 30 per cent.

A report by Sir David Melville, the former head of the University of Kent, which was passed to the board last month, says that the governors' supervision of the executive team and Brian Roper, the former vice-chancellor, was inadequate.

Sir David's review and a draft report by Deloitte into the affair prompted Sir Alan Langlands, Hefce's chief executive, to call on the governors and senior management to consider their positions. He said Hefce doubted the university's ability to safeguard public funds.

In a written response, Peter Anwyl, chair of London Met's board, says there is no evidence to support this concern, and claims that parts of Sir David's report - commissioned by the governors - are not based on evidence. He adds that an investigation into senior management's role in the crisis will be overseen by Malcolm Gillies, London Met's incoming vice-chancellor.

He writes: "Your precipitate remarks serve only to prejudice and compromise this action."

Mr Anwyl says the governing board acted in good faith and could not have been expected to "second-guess ... audit opinions, including those of the Hefce auditors".

"There is a sector-wide issue here about what it is reasonable to expect of lay, staff or student governors," he adds. He says the university will act on the recommendations of the Deloitte report.

The report criticises the flow of information from the executive to the governors, identifies a lack of formal policies and control of data assurance, plus an over-reliance on external audits and Hefce reviews.

Sir David said: "All of my conclusions are firmly based on the evidence in the Deloitte report, along with the interviews I carried out and the submissions I received."

Times Higher Education understands that the board and senior management continue to maintain that Hefce condoned the university's actions over non-completing students for several years, as its auditors were aware of London Met's stance but took no action. Hefce said it acted as quickly as possible.

A KPMG report commissioned by Hefce in 2009 says action could have been taken earlier, but that London Met and its governors were ultimately responsible for the errors.

If Hefce wants to force the governors out, it could withhold funds from the university, pushing it into insolvency. London Met is a limited company and its governors are directors, so if they allowed the university to continue "trading", they would be in breach of their duties under corporate law.

Sir Alan has already asked the board to consider whether Mr Roper, who stepped down in March, breached his fiduciary duty.

Former v-c's dictatorial regime to blame at London Met, says review

2009-12-15T03:56:00.000-08:00

26 November 2009

By Rebecca Attwood

And the university's governors and audit committee are also culpable. Rebecca Attwood writes

The governors of London Metropolitan University must take overall responsibility for the university's financial catastrophe, a review says.

Sir David Melville, the former vice-chancellor of the University of Kent, was asked to investigate how London Met came to overclaim millions of pounds in public funding, which it has been forced to hand back.

His review, which is due to be published this week, concludes that despite not being fully informed of the scale of the problems, the university's board of governors and audit committee were aware of the poor quality of the university's student data and high dropout rates, but failed to follow them up.

The review, commissioned by the university and obtained by Times Higher Education, follows an earlier report into the affair commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

It emerged this week that Hefce has written to Peter Anwyl, the chair of governors, asking members of the governing body and senior staff to "consider their position" in light of Sir David's findings.

Sir David's report says that Brian Roper, the former vice-chancellor of London Met, who left in March but remains on the payroll until next month, presided over a dictatorial management regime.

It says he must take "the major responsibility and culpability" for the fact that the university has been forced to hand back £36.5 million overpaid to it by Hefce between 2005-06 and 2007-08. The university's recurrent grant has also been cut by £15 million.

Mr Roper and some members of the executive were fully aware that the university was applying its own definition of funding rules on student dropouts - rather than the funding council's - as far back as 2003, but took no action, it says.

The university's method resulted in a non-completion rate of 3 per cent compared with Hefce's 30 per cent figure.

Sir David acknowledges that Hefce's funding rule on completion was "controversial" and says there was "widespread belief" in the sector until 2004 that it was not literally applicable. However, the fact that Hefce was taking a literal approach to the rule in audits was apparent in the sector from 2004, leaving Mr Roper out of step.

There is clear email evidence that "third-tier officers" responsible for the area tried to warn the vice-chancellor and most members of the executive that, if Hefce applied its definition literally, the result would be "disastrous" for London Met. There is no record of a response.

Mr Roper has confirmed that he saw no reason for the university to change its practice because he firmly believed that Hefce was not applying its funding completion rule in a literal sense and that London Met's approach was therefore valid, Sir David's report says.

"It appears that he took it upon himself to make this decision, and it is clear that he was not challenged in this by his executive group colleagues," the report states.

Meanwhile, Mr Roper, the university secretary and members of the executive group failed to present clearly the risks to the board of governors or board committees, and the audit committee "appears to have failed to consider" the audit reports for Hefce's Higher Education Students Early Statistics Survey in 2003 and 2005 and other Hefce reports, the review finds.

Sir David writes that vice-chancellors "are often charismatic leaders, and the case of LMU is no exception", but says "it is incumbent upon boards of governors to provide sufficient and effective challenge". He concludes that in the case of London Met, "this challenge and supervision by the board of governors in general was inadequate".

Sir David adds that he has received more than 50 submissions from staff, most of which describe "a highly centralised and dictatorial executive led by the vice-chancellor." To see all executive members in the same light may "be unfair to particular individuals", Sir David acknowledges, but adds that they "share collective and in some cases line-management responsibility for the failings in relation to data quality".

Hefce might have discovered the problems at London Met earlier if it had been quicker to investigate in more detail the "lack of credibility" in student data identified during Hefce audits from 2003, while its initial lack of clarity on the funding rule "may have contributed to LMU's position", he says.

Sir David's report is coupled with an independent review carried out by Deloitte into the circumstances of Hefce's funding clawback, which is due to be finalised this week.

The university says the Deloitte report "is critical, and the board acknowledged those criticisms".

It says the points raised by Sir David's report "provide London Met with important lessons, which will also be discussed at length by the board of governors. All the recommendations will also be the subject of full response and proposed action."

London Met warned that it could be closed, The Independent can reveal.

2009-12-14T10:16:00.000-08:00

Do executives and governors in the academe have to explain themselves when they as in the case of London Metropolitan, have mislaid millions of pounds

2009-12-14T10:04:00.000-08:00

The Tribune just asks....:

November 27, 2009 3:53 pm Tribune web editor diary

Most people, if they had mislaid millions of pounds, would have to explain themselves to the fraud squad – unless they were a big banker, of course, when they could then look forward to a large cheque courtesy of taxpayers. So it will be interesting to see if things are different in the rarefied world of academe. In an unprecedented step, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, which funds English universities, has called for the entire board of governors at London Metropolitan University to resign. Two reports, one from accounting firm Deloitte, found that the university claimed falsely for thousands of students and it has been ordered to repay a staggering £36 million. Some academic staff – who played no part in this perfidy – have already paid for it with their jobs and many others are also expected to be made redundant in a desperate bid to cut costs. The previous vice-chancellor left under a cloud, but is rumoured to be still on the payroll until the end of the year. There are reports that an injunction bars him from entering university premises. However, since he is said to have left the country, he might not find that too inconvenient. The governors have been invited “to consider their position”. Some people might think that would be up a certain creek without a paddle. But who actually has the power to sack the governors is a grey area. Since universities are part of Lord Mandelson’s vast remit, he may want to have a word. According to Deloitte, LMU failed to keep track of its students or ensure they sat examinations. It claimed money for more students than were actually attending. It is even alleged that no eyebrows were raised when “Bugs Bunny” registered for a course. The surprise is that university managers did not try to tap the Hollywood star for a donation and ask his famous friends, Daffy Duck and Sylvester the Cat, if they would like to contribute, too.

London Met governors urged to quit following funding fiasco University ordered to repay £36m worth of funding, the Guardian reports.

2009-12-14T10:01:00.000-08:00

23. November 2009

By Judy Friedberg,

The University and College Union (UCU) says the position of governors at London Metropolitan University has become untenable, following a call for the entire governing body to resign in the wake of revelations that the university falsely claimed funding for thousands of non-existent students.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) has written to the chairman of governors, instructing all members of the governing body and senior staff to "consider their position", according to a report in today's Independent.

The university failed to keep track of students or ensure they sat exams, damning reports by Sir David Melville, former vice-chancellor of Kent and Middlesex universities, found. It continued to claim government funding based on artificially low drop-out rates. London Met has been ordered to repay £36m worth of funding.

Hefce itself came in for criticism over the London Met fiasco in August and was forced to tighten its audit procedures.

Sir Alan Langlands, Hefce's chief executive, wrote to the chair of governors, Peter Anwyl, on Friday, giving them six days to consider their position.

The letter says: "The reports make it very difficult for Hefce to have confidence in the governance of the university. Given the criticism of the board and the senior management team, I do not believe that confidence can be restored until action is taken to consider the position of the board and senior staff who are criticised …"

London Met has the second highest percentage of students from low-income backgrounds – 55% of the student population, according to the Higher Education Statistics Authority. It's first year drop-out rate is 16.6%, according to latest figures.

Melville's report, while criticising former vice-chancellor Brian Roper who resigned earlier this year, made it clear that the problems were endemic. He had received "over 50 submissions" from acadmic and support staff, attesting to "problems of student data quality over many years". These provided "many detailed examples of the difficulty of removing students from the record whom they know to have left or who never ever appeared".

UCU, which represents lecturers, said that swift action was needed if the university was to stand any chance of getting through the current crisis.

Its general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: "The Melville report, coupled with the Hefce letter, makes the position of many of the board of governors untenable.

"Those who failed to hold the autocratic management to account, in particular the chair of governors, the chair of the audit committee and the executive managers who were part of the discredited vice-chancellor's inner circle, are heavily criticised in the report, which rightly recommends new leadership.

"Nobody will have confidence in the university until there has been a proper shake-up at the top. We have maintained from the beginning of this crisis that there needed to be a full independent inquiry.

"Although the report took longer than we would have liked, the most important thing now is that decisive action is taken with regards to its findings and recommendations."

The media reacts to the leaking of Melville report.

2009-12-14T09:58:00.001-08:00

Wikileaks has also published the BDO-report, commissioned by HEFCE, removed from the Freedom of Information Act site due to legal threats.

2009-12-14T09:52:00.000-08:00

Released November 21, 2009
Summary

This document was removed from the UK Freedom of Information Act site WhatDoTheyKnow.com, but was removed after legal threats (of libel) were made by the UK's London Metropolitan University: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/london_met

According to the document, the London Met university fiddled their student figures to show a 3% dropout rate, in reality it was about 30%. The HIgher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) had an audit or their student records done (with public money), but individuals at LMU are threatening legal action if that report, which found them to be at fault, is made public.

There was a second FoI request (which is also suppressed) concerning conversations between LMU and HEFCE about what parts are actually considered defamatory.

Melville and the uncensored version of the Deloitte report published on Wikileaks.

2009-12-14T09:31:00.000-08:00

The Sir David Melville report looks into the causes of the 36M pounds over funding of the London Met University and the subsequent "claw-back" of that money, which resulted in hundreds of job losses for the front-line staff. Allegedly, this was due to fraudulent accounting of student numbers—this report into the fiasco lays the blame squarely on the Board of Governors of London Met University for not keeping in check the 'dictatorial' Executive Group. According to our source, subsequently, the funding body HEFCE have asked for them to resign.

Our source has disclosed the document because the "Governors and the Exec Group are 'sitting on the report', not publishing, and attempting to spin 'we've already made changes', and 'lessons have been learned', yet nothing has changed."

University accused of £36 Million Fraud, The Independent reports

2009-12-13T13:43:00.000-08:00

Governors urged to quit after college falsely claimed for thousands of undergraduates.

The body which funds English universities has taken the unprecedented step of calling for the mass resignation of governors at a university accused of misusing public money.

A letter seen by The Independent from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) to the chairman of governors at London Metropolitan University calls on members of the governing body and senior staff to "consider their position".
Read the rest of the article here:

A report on a London university has found board members were aware unfair funding claims were made for the institution, BBC reports

2009-12-13T13:34:00.000-08:00

I fail to see how the board of governors can remain in post after such a damning report

Sally Hunt, University and College Union

LMU admitted it counted students as having completed the period if they moved into the next year, regardless of whether they had sat all exams, BBC reports.

Under the LMU's definition, just 3% of students failed to complete the year. Under the real definition the non-completion rate was 30%.

The payback order threw London's biggest university - with 34,000 students - into financial crisis.

Lecturers worried about redundancy during the fallout have staged several strikes.

Now the inquiry, led by Sir David Melville, lays blame for the fiasco squarely at the door of former vice-chancellor Brian Roper and his board.

"The unique level of the LMU clawback is attributable to a combination of ignoring the HEFCE definition and a failure to address very high levels of incomplete modules and student drop-out," the report said.

'Renewed focus'

"It must be the case that the board of governors and the audit committee should take their share of corporate responsibility for a failure of this magnitude."

An LMU spokesman said: "We are confident the appointment of a new vice-chancellor, subsequent action taken by the board and the university's new strategic plan will allow London Met to renew our focus on students and their education."

University and College Union general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: "I fail to see how the board of governors can remain in post after such a damning report.

"Sir David Melville's report completely vindicates everything the union has been saying yet, whilst it might be nice to be right, it is no comfort in these extraordinary circumstances."

London Met board bears responsibility Times Higher Education reports.

2009-12-13T13:29:00.000-08:00

20 November 2009

By Rebecca Attwood

Report into overpayments to university finds top officials were aware of problems but took no action. Rebecca Attwood reports

Brian Roper, the former vice-chancellor of London Metropolitan University, presided over a dictatorial management regime and must take “the major responsibility and culpability” for the fact that the university has been forced to hand back tens of millions of pounds in cash.
That is the conclusion of a review by Sir David Melville, the former vice-chancellor of the University of Kent, commissioned by London Met to investigate how the university came to massively overclaim from the Higher Education Funding Council for England after submitting inaccurate data about its students.
But despite not being fully informed of the scale of the problems, the university’s board of governors and audit committee had an oversight role, which makes them ultimately “accountable for a financial failure of this magnitude” and means that they “must take overall responsibility”, Sir David’s report says.
The review, obtained by Times Higher Education, which follows an earlier report into the affair commissioned by Hefce, found that Mr Roper and some members of the executive were fully aware that the university was applying its own definition of funding rules on student dropouts – rather than the funding council’s – as far back as 2003, but took no action.
When the scale of the data problems was finally picked up, the university was forced to hand back £36.5 million overpaid to it by Hefce between 2005-06 and 2007-08.
The university’s recurrent grant has also been reduced by £15 million, leaving the university facing financial difficulties and putting hundreds of jobs at risk.
Under the Hefce funding rule – which has since been changed – a university received funding for a student place only if the student in question sat all their exams at the first opportunity or completed their assessments for the year.
But London Met applied its own rule, based on successful progression of the student from one year of study to the next.
The discrepancy was huge. The university’s method resulted in a non-completion rate of 3 per cent compared with Hefce’s 30 per cent.
Sir David acknowledges that Hefce’s funding rule on completion was “controversial”. He says there was “widespread belief” in the sector until 2004 that the rule was impractical and not applicable in its literal sense to universities with modular degree schemes, particularly universities “with a strong widening-participation ethos”.
There was an anecdotal belief that Hefce did not apply the rule literally and that there was “leeway” in the way institutions might interpret their returns in the light of their own academic regulations on progression, he says.
However, Hefce was taking a literal approach to the rule in audits circulated in the sector from 2004, and many universities changed their regulations in response.
Sir David says it is “beyond dispute” that Mr Roper, who left London Met in March, was fully aware of the existence of the Hefce funding rule and its potential consequences from September 2003 or earlier.
There is clear email evidence that “third-tier officers” responsible for the area tried to warn the vice-chancellor and most members of the executive that, if Hefce applied its definition literally, the result would be “disastrous” for London Met. There is no record of a response to such warnings.
Mr Roper has confirmed that he saw no reason for the university to change its practice because he firmly believed that Hefce was not applying its funding completion rule in a literal sense and that London Met’s approach was valid, Sir David’s report says.
“It appears that he took it upon himself to make this decision, and it is clear that he was not challenged in this by his executive group colleagues. In this respect, he was out of step with the actions of other vice-chancellors in the sector as they became aware of this issue in 2004… This is a clear failure of senior management in the institution,” the report states.
Meanwhile, Mr Roper, the university secretary and members of the executive group failed to present clearly the risks to the board of governors or board committees.
Although the director of finance brought up the completion rule during a presentation to the board of governors in October 2005, the issue was a single bullet point in a large presentation and was “delivered without particular emphasis”.
It was, however, clear that the more general issues of high dropout rates and poor data returns in Hefce audits were brought to the attention of the audit committee and board of governors “at an early stage” but they did not follow this up.
The audit committee “appears to have failed to consider” Hefce’s Higher Education Students Early Statistics Survey 03 and 05 audit reports, or to have given “proper attention” to the detailed conclusions of other Hefce reports, the review finds.
“It must be the case that the board of governors and the audit committee should take their share of corporate responsibility for a failure of this magnitude regardless of the detail of information provided by the executive,” Sir David concludes.
He adds: “Vice-chancellors are often charismatic leaders, and the case of LMU is no exception. While it is important that they are allowed to manage, it is incumbent upon boards of governors to provide sufficient and effective challenge. In the light of what is now known about the management of LMU during this period as well as the disregard for funding council rules, I can only conclude that this challenge and supervision by the board of governors in general was inadequate.”
Sir David writes that he has received more than 50 submissions from staff, mainly academics, who universally expressed lack of surprise at the events that unfolded.
“They attest to problems of student-data quality for internal use over many years and provide many detailed examples of the difficulty of removing students from the record whom they know to have left or who never appeared,” he says.
“They generally describe a highly centralised and dictatorial executive led by the vice-chancellor, which was incapable of listening to what was going on in the university, discouraged or ignored criticism and made decisions without consultation.”
However, to see all the executive in the same light may “be unfair to particular individuals”, Sir David acknowledges.
He adds that there is “much evidence” that the prevailing style of management led to a “silo” approach that allowed little collective discussion.
“It must however be the case that they [the executive] share collective and in some cases line-management responsibility for the failings in relation to data quality,” he concludes.
Other universities have fallen foul of the funding rule, but not on the same scale.
Sir David says Hefce might have discovered the problems at London Met earlier if it had been quicker to investigate in more detail the “lack of credibility” in student data identified during Hefce audits from 2003, while the funding council’s initial lack of clarity on the rule “may have contributed to LMU’s position”.
The report adds that the university appears not to have been interrogated on how it defined funding eligibility during these audits.
“I am not aware of any other crucial funding rule that has been so difficult to apply and/or clarify and has had such a wide-ranging effect on so many institutions,” Sir David says.
“Hefce therefore bears some responsibility for this, but this does not detract from the singularity of the responsibility of LMU.”
In a statement, London Met says Sir David’s report is coupled with an independent review carried out by Deloitte into the circumstances of Hefce’s clawback of funds.
The reports were presented to the board of governors on 18 November. They are due to be published next week.
The university says the Deloitte report, which is still in the final draft stage, “is critical, and the board acknowledged those criticisms”, adding that its recommendations will be considered by the board next month when the report is finalised.
London Met says the points raised by Sir David’s report, “particularly about perceptions of the management style and the relationship between the executive and the board… provide London Met with important lessons, which will also be discussed at length by the board of governors. All the recommendations will also be the subject of full response and proposed action.”
The university adds that it wants to draw a line under the clawback issues “to allow both Hefce and London Met to proceed with their much more important tasks”.
And it says that it is confident that, following this week’s appointment of Malcolm Gillies, the former vice-chancellor of City University London, as its new vice-chancellor, it would now be able to “renew our focus on our students and their education”.

Malcolm Gillies appointed as the new vice chancellor of London Metropolitan University, Times Higher Education reports.

2009-12-13T13:24:00.000-08:00

Former head of City named as new vice-chancellor

19 November
by Rebecca Attwood in Times Higher Education

Malcolm Gillies, who resigned as head of City University London in July, has been appointed the new vice-chancellor of troubled London Metropolitan University.
London Met has been forced to repay more than £36 million to the Higher Education Funding Council for England after major inaccuracies were discovered in its student-completion data.
Hefce has also reduced the university’s recurrent grant by £15 million.
The previous vice-chancellor, Brian Roper, left in March, and reports into the crisis have criticised the way the institution was managed and governed.
Last night, London Met’s board of governors appointed Professor Gillies to the role.
Professor Gillies, who is still a professor of music at City, served as deputy vice-chancellor of the Australian National University from 2002 to 2006.He stepped down as vice-chancellor of City in July after disagreements over governance with the institution’s council.A survey of City’s council members in summer 2008 noted that the council had “failed over the past year on clarifying the relative responsibilities of the vice-chancellor and the council”.There needed to be more contact with the vice-chancellor to build a “more engaging relationship”, the survey indicated.It also identified an “ambiguous relationship” with City’s executive committee, in which non-executive council members had “too little interface with management”.Professor Gillies said: “I am delighted to take on the position of vice-chancellor of London Metropolitan University. I relish the opportunity to address the challenges the university faces going forward.”Peter Anwyl, chairman of London Met’s board of governors, said: “The board is absolutely delighted that Malcolm has accepted the position. With the university having gone through a difficult period, Malcolm’s energy and experience will help us to draw a line under recent issues, to move forward and to concentrate on our students, their education and our staff.”Professor Gillies will take up the post early in 2010."

Lobbying of Board of Governors 18th of November 2009

2009-12-13T13:12:00.000-08:00

There was a lobby of the board of Governors the 18th of November 2009.
This was a crucial date as the board of Governors were presented with the Melville/Deloitte report, a report commissioned by the University.
Sir David Meville had made it quite clear that he wanted his report to be made public soon after it had been presented to the Board of Governors.
However, during the meeting, and due to the damaging revelations in the reports, the Board of Governors decided to not have it published before later in December.
The appointment of the new Vice Chancellor was also being announced during the meeting.

Strike 15th and 16th of October 2009

2009-12-13T12:36:00.000-08:00

STUDENTS and lecturers barricaded the doors of a university building - in protest at plans to cut staff jobs.

Hundreds of staff walked out of London Metropolitan University today (Thursday) for a two-day strike.

Many students ignored the university's pleas to "attend classes as usual" and joined the picket lines.

London Metropolitan University, which has campuses in Holloway and Highbury, has told staff that it needs to cut 550 staff by July 2010.

Greylisting of London Met announced the 1st of September 2009

2009-12-13T11:50:00.000-08:00

Official "grey-listing" of London Met announced
Email from Sally Hunt, General Secretary of UCU, to all members 01/09/09

Dear colleague,
As you will know, I seldom email you directly and only do so when I feel that a situation is extremely important to our union. As such, it is with regret that I write to you today to formally notify you of the greylisting of London Metropolitan University (LMU). Those of you who have been in the union since its inception or were in one of the predecessor unions, AUT or NATFHE, will be aware that this is the most serious sanction available to us and this will be the first time in UCU's history when greylisting has been formally implemented rather then threatened (such as at Keele University and Nottingham Trent University).

As of today, 1 September, UCU will be asking colleagues across the country, other trade unions, labour movement organisations and the international academic community to support our members at the university in any way possible, including:

* non-attendance, speaking at or organising academic or other conferences at LMU
* not applying for any advertised jobs at LMU
* not giving lectures at LMU
* not accepting positions as visiting professors or researchers at LMU
* not writing for any academic journal which is edited at or produced by LMU
* not taking up new contracts as external examiners for taught courses.

Lecturers call on Mandelson to protest against massive job cuts at London Metropolitan University, Gemma Collins reports.

2009-12-13T10:12:00.000-08:00

Lecturers take protest to Mandelson after halting colleges.

14 July 2009

By Gemma Collins

SIXTY lecturers who brought their college campus to a standstill today in London’s East End have just held a protest rally in the street before taking a petition against job cuts to Whitehall.
They warned university bosses during the 30-minute rally which ended a few minutes ago outside the London Metropolitan’s campus in Whitechapel that “there will be more action to follow.”

STANDSTILL

They have now joined lecturers who have walked out at the university’s other campuses in a delegation to hand a petition in to Peter Mandelson at the Department of Business & Skills.
The campuses at Whitechapel, Aldgate, Moorgate and the main site in Holloway have all been brought to a standstill today in a joint action by the lecturers’ union UCU and public service union Unison.
The university has been hit by ‘repayment’ demands by Whitehall totaling £36 million and is responding with plans to axe 550 posts.
The unions are calling for a public inquiry.

MP calls on Mandelson to shield London Met 'innocent' from crisis Times Higher Education reports

2009-12-13T10:09:00.000-08:00

2 July 2009

By Melanie Newman

Parliamentary motion demands protection for students and staff. Melanie Newman reports

An MP has called for "innocent students and staff" to be protected from cuts at London Metropolitan University, which is embroiled in an ongoing funding crisis.

Jeremy Corbyn, Labour MP for Islington North, has tabled a parliamentary motion demanding that Lord Mandelson, the First Secretary, intervene "to protect the university and innocent students and staff from the funding row".

He has also asked the Government to ensure that a report into the role played by the Higher Education Funding Council for England in the debacle is published "on its receipt". The report was due to go to Hefce's board on 2 July.

The funding council has asked London Met to repay tens of millions of pounds that it said was allocated on the strength of inaccurate student-completion data. The university is looking to make job cuts as part of its efforts to find the money.

Rob Wilson, former Conservative Shadow Higher Education Minister, has tabled a Parliamentary question, asking: "In light of the scandal of 'phantom students' and the 500 posts to go at London Met ... why are there no senior management cuts among them?"

He said: "This saga gets murkier and murkier. It appears that only members of staff who had nothing to do with this scandal are to be sacked. This cannot be right."

The MPs' actions follow revelations by Times Higher Education that in 2008, Hefce concluded that it had no confidence in London Met's management, and that at one stage funding chiefs were considering plans to take the "nuclear option" and dissolve the institution.

Ministerial correspondence obtained under Freedom of Information laws also revealed that a report commissioned by Hefce was "extremely critical" of London Met's data-handling processes and its governors' lack of oversight.

Brian Roper, the university's former vice-chancellor, and several of its governors threatened to sue Hefce for defamation if the report was published.

In November 2008, Mr Roper told governors that Hefce had condoned the inaccurate reporting of student completions, an allegation Hefce strenuously denies.

An email exchange between officials in the former Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills says that in August 2008, negotiations between Hefce and the university were "extremely difficult", with "threats of legal action flying around".

It continues: "The Hefce board concluded, in December 2008, that it had reached the point where it had no confidence in that leadership."

Mr Roper resigned in February 2009. In March, the university struck a deal with Hefce to repay £36.5 million. London Met is in the process of cutting 550 jobs, including hundreds through compulsory redundancy. However, the rest of its governors and senior management team are still in place. Mr Roper will remain on London Met's payroll until December.

Alfred Morris, interim vice-chancellor, said last month that he had been "impressed by the professionalism, competence and confidence" of his senior management group and that the "right people" were in place to resolve the crisis.

But Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, called for an "urgent overhaul of governance and management at London Met before any compulsory redundancies take effect".

"It is a disgrace that hard-working and talented staff are being axed for the failings of senior management," she said.

A government briefing included in the FoI documents suggests that some of the redundancies are not linked to the funding clawback.

Workers facing redundancy were this week asked to fill in forms listing their qualifications, number of successful student completions and grant applications, publications and their attendance record.

melanie.newman@tsleducation.com

- See http://tinyurl.com/lb5qey

CONSTITUTION SAVED LONDON MET'S MANAGEMENT

London Metropolitan University's constitution may have saved it from dissolution and stopped the Government from intervening in its governance.

On 7 January 2009, John Denham, the then Universities Secretary, sought legal advice about his powers to remove London Met's governing board and vice-chancellor, documents obtained by Times Higher Education reveal.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England also considered asking Mr Denham to dissolve London Met, with one Hefce board member suggesting that the council's reputation would be at risk if the university stayed afloat.

Mr Denham's legal adviser pointed out that such steps were impossible because the university was a limited company.

He said that Hefce would have "more weapons" when it became a regulator under charities law later this year.

David Palfreyman, director of the Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies at the University of Oxford, said: "The Department is not able to take over a university in the way it can intervene in the case of a failing school."

A memo obtained by Times Higher Education reveals Hefce boards lack of confidence in London Met's management.

2009-07-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

"Hefce considered ‘nuclear option’ over London Met."

26 June 2009

By Melanie Newman

Dissolution was considered by funding chiefs as a ‘last resort’ Melanie Newman reports.

Funding chiefs considered plans to take the “nuclear option” and dissolve London Metropolitan University during the ongoing crisis engulfing the institution.

Times Higher Education has obtained copies of ministerial correspondence that show that the Higher Education Funding Council for England considered closure, albeit as the last resort.

The institution is being forced to repay £36.5 million paid to it on the basis of student completion figures that Hefce says were wildly inaccurate. A further £15 million has also been held back from its recurrent teaching funding.

Documents released to Times Higher Education under the Freedom of Information Act include a memo exchanged between two officials at the now-defunct Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

The author of the DIUS memo, whose identity is withheld, reveals that a Hefce-commissioned report provided by consultants BDO that scrutinised data handling at London Met was “extremely critical” of the institution’s processes and its governing body’s lack of oversight.

This report was considered so incendiary by London Met that lawyers acting for Brian Roper, its former vice-chancellor, and a number of the university’s governors threatened to sue Hefce for defamation if it was published, the documentation reveals.

The memo from the DIUS official, dated January this year, says the BDO report “will strengthen the [Hefce] board’s lack of confidence” in London Met’s management.

“What happens next is not entirely clear yet. The scale of the problem… is much greater than any precedent, so the ‘traditional’ solution of lining up some sort of merger isn’t in play.”

It says: “If all else fails, Hefce thinks that its only remaining option may be to ask the Secretary of State [John Denham] to dissolve London Met… Clearly this is a nuclear option… It would also be new ground for all involved.”

Another piece of correspondence details a Hefce board meeting in May 2008, stating that one attendee “was worried that Hefce would lose reputation if [London Met] stayed afloat”.

In the event, the “nuclear option” was not taken, and the university has agreed to pay back the money it over-claimed over the next five years. This will involve a restructuring exercise, including up to 550 job losses.

As late as January 2009 Hefce board papers were still noting that the “Secretary of State has powers to dissolve a higher education corporation”. The DIUS briefing responding to this paper said: “We do not have a HEC [higher education corporation] here. Hefce knows this.”

London Met is incorporated as a company rather than a higher education corporation and as such may be dissolved only under corporate insolvency legislation.

The documents also reveal that Hefce received legal advice saying that it could threaten to withhold funding from London Met unless Mr Roper resigned from his position.

An email exchange between DIUS officials shows that in December 2008, Hefce’s board concluded that it had “no confidence in [London Met’s] leadership”.

By January this year, the funding council was acting on legal advice to the effect that “there is a road that will take Hefce as far as being able to withhold funding until a named individual ceases to be [London Met’s] accounting officer”, a DIUS briefing note says.

The same month, John Denham, the then Universities Secretary, sought legal advice over whether he could direct the university’s governing board to remove Mr Roper, Peter Anwyl, the board’s chairman, or the entire board.

He was advised that this was impossible, but that Hefce’s powers over university funding could be used to “put considerable pressure” on the institution.

In the event, Mr Roper resigned as vice-chancellor in March 2009, although he will remain employed by the university until December.

The board of governors, including its chairman, remain in place. No other senior manager has been asked to leave.

Bob Aylett, deputy vice-chancellor, took up the role of acting vice-chancellor in the wake of Mr Roper’s resignation. In May, Alfred Morris was appointed as interim vice-chancellor.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=407156&c=2

Why the Policy Exchange report "Sink or Swim?" should worry everyone who wonders what higher Education will look like under a new Tory Government.

2009-07-08T14:19:00.001-07:00

Photo taken from London Metropolitan University, Sir John Cass Department of Fine Art, Media and Design, Central House, Fine Art Studio Practice.

Policy Exchange, a conservative think tank group has written a report called "Sink or Swim? Facing up to failing universities" where they ask themselves whether Universities should be allowed to go bankrupt or not. The authors of the report Anna Fazackerly and Julian Chant, have particularly set their eyes on London Metropolitan University as an example of a 'failing university' that should be allowed to go to the wall.

Considering the influence Policy Exchange has amongst a Tory party in waiting and the way they influenced Boris Johnson's Mayoral campaign in London last year as well as being a continual influence on his ideological and political decisions in City Hall, this report should be read by everyone who is concerned about the state of higher Education in this country and how a new Tory government will regard the welfare of the University.

In the article "Think-Tank Doublethink", Cliff Snaith argues that Policy Exchange want to inflict a bankrupt ideology on London's students and communities. wall ("Bankruptcy should be a real option, argues think-tank", 23 April):

"Specifically, London institutions can be closed: by implication, London Metropolitan University is first in line. But I believe that the only bankruptcy exposed by Policy Exchange is that of the Right's higher education strategy.

The think-tank notes that there are a high number of higher education institutions (42) in London, but they serve the most diverse, densely packed and demanding demographic in Europe. Contrary to its opinion, the students and courses of a university such as London Met cannot be easily decanted to other institutions.

For example, London Met offers degrees in subjects as diverse as musical- instrument technology and furniture design, silversmithing and polymer science, low-energy architecture and aviation, community-orientated modules in human rights and Caribbean studies (currently threatened), and vocational qualifications in shortage areas such as social work, community nursing and early-years teaching. I could go on.

Policy Exchange's philosophy is "by the market live or die", but it is the state that primarily funds university degrees and the expertise that sustains them. This is just as well. The market currently gets those skills cheap. Where private institutions offer courses equivalent to those in state-funded universities, they often charge considerably more.

Arguably, the primary mission of London's post-1992 universities is to provide diverse and flexible academic and vocational opportunities to international and domestic students, most of whom must work and learn simultaneously in a city that rarely sleeps. Their primary aim is not to make profits or to satisfy auditors.

Policy Exchange chose London Met as a soft target and rightly identifies the problems witnessed from its inception. Its financial difficulties have been well aired, not least by Times Higher Education, and cry out for independent inquiry. In the University and College Union's view, it has always been too managerial. For example, there are now no elected academics on its academic board.

The UCU will welcome dialogue with the incoming interim vice-chancellor over institutional reform, the reversal of proposals to cut jobs, and persuasive reasons why the Higher Education Funding Council for England should reinvest in the institution. However, by focusing on which university should close first, Policy Exchange is diverting attention away from more fundamental funding questions.

Even it does not propose an end to state funding, merely that the market should enjoy a share of it. It proposes amendments to the Higher Education Act 2004 to permit private bodies (now granted degree-awarding powers) to bid for Hefce money directly or indirectly - so not fewer providers, merely different ones. This exposes a common right-wing doublethink: a demand for tight public sector fiscal accountability coupled with an insistence on hiving off public service to an unaccountable market.

Right-wing orthodoxy perceives no doublethink because the self-regulating market would, in its view, eventually achieve progressive and creative "goods" beyond those measured simply by economic advance or profit. The think-tank no doubt would argue that capitalism is protean and can always reinvent itself in a crisis. Having failed in the provision of financial services, it wants to move on to exploit a market that cannot so easily disappear - London's students.

Tellingly, the think-tank's report, Swim or Sink, states that "it is a broadly accepted fact that for a market to be successful, there must be an element of failure". Is this broadly accepted? Market failure has never been so visible, so where is the record of success that justifies Policy Exchange's market-orientated agenda? In higher education we need planning, not chaos.

The past year has exposed the bankruptcy at the heart of free-market ideology. But Policy Exchange would inflict the same ideas on universities and the communities they serve."
Postscript :

Cliff Snaith is a lecturer and UCU secretary for London Metropolitan University and the London Region.

This article was published 21st of May in Times Higher Education.

The Unions address the imbalance in accountability by inviting the Chair of LMU's Board of Governors to fill in his own Redundancy Selection form.

2009-07-07T14:30:00.000-07:00

Students and staff lobbied the Chair of London Met University's Board of Governors the 2nd of July, to protest against the job cuts. The protest was aimed at Peter Anwyl, Director of International Student House, who has consistently refused to meet or talk to the unions.

London Met Board of Governors approved the plan to make 550 redundancies in June, refusing to consider union proposals to ease the damage done to the staff at London Met.
Members of staff at London Metropolitan has received a Redundancy Selection form they have to fill out as part of the plan to make 550 Full Time redundancies.
The Unions addressed this extreme imbalance in accountability by inviting Peter Anwyl to complete his own Redundancy Selection form:

Submission of Supporting Information by Governors

(Insert additional rows where necessary)

Name
Role on board (if any)

QUALIFICATIONS

List all your current qualifications (include Academic and
Professional Qualifications). Please do not include honorary awards, knighthoods, OBEs, etc.

Qualification	Where attained	Year attained

2. JOB DESCRIPTION

Review the University's Mission Statement and list the activities you currently carry out which
contribute to meeting them, and indicate frequency (Regular “ Frequent “ Occasional or Never).

Activity	How utilised in current role	R / F / O / N
Providing and sustaining high standards of educational provision and knowledge transfer
Achievement and maintenance of externally-benchmarked excellence across the range of the University's various activities
Investing in staff and students so that the University's commitments can be delivered sustainably (NB: providing redundancy payments will not be accepted as investment)
Devising robust ways of identifying and enhancing the University's 'value-added' contribution in terms of economic, social and educational impact on individuals and on its wider communities, in particular in the context of its commitment to equality of opportunity and to combating social injustice (promoting your own career will not be accepted as evidence for this)
Offering educational opportunities to all who can benefit, to fair access, and to ensuring the best possible educational and social experience for students and the best attainable outcomes for their efforts.
Rigorous analysis of the quality and standards of academic and service provision, and of general academic performance, benchmarked against available national and international performance indicators
Developing modern corporate systems and arrangements for quality and standards management which will engender confidence in external stakeholders (NB: evidence for this will be required, please attach all relevant correspondence with HEFCE).
A commitment to continuous growth, refreshment and innovation in the academic portfolio, within known resource constraints, and on a prune-to-grow basis (please also provide a translation of this into English)
Commitment to the professional development of its staff, in the pursuit of the above academic agendas, and to implementing appropriate reward and recognition schemes

Review the code of practice for Governors and indicate what you have done of relevance and the
extent to which you consider that you have met each of the criteria (Fully “ Basically “ Not in the slightest “ Prefer not to say on legal advice)

Criteria	Relevant actions	F / B / N / P
Observe the highest standards of corporate governance, integrity and objectivity in the transaction of all its business and particularly in the management of funds
Wherever possible follow a policy of openness and transparency
Be accountable for the activities of the organisation and for the stewardship of public funds
Accept collective responsibility for Board decisions
Reflect and promote the values and mission of the institution in the community

TEACHING AND LEARNING

List the average number hours per month you have spent in the current academic year
(2008/9) discussing the University's current problems with the following groups:

Group	Average number of hours
Students
Prospective students
Academic staff (That's the people who do the teaching)
PSD staff (That's Professional Service Department Staff the people who do the rest of the work)
Trade union representatives
Community representatives
Political representatives
Civil servants from HEFCE or DIUS
Property developers
Total (if more than zero)

4. List any executive, administrative, campaigning or developmental activities that you have carried out over the last two academic years (2006/07 and 2007/08), which could contribute to the prevention of cuts and redundancies. We have given some examples but of course the list is not exhaustive.

Preparation of legal challenge against HEFCE's requirement for refund
Consideration of alternatives to outsourcing services
Applying for emergency funding
Engagement in consultation with staff and unions
Deployment of funds from reserves
Other (please specify):

None of the above

5. Conduct of role

Taking into account your responses to the above questions, please indicate which of the following most accurately describes your role (tick as many as apply):

I have diligently carried out the role of governor in the interests of the staff, students, wider community and funding authorities
I have acted as a rubber stamp for decisions put in front of me by the University's executive
I wanted to have some role of responsibility to put on my CV and never expected to account for decisions
I was only obeying orders
I should resign immediately

Signed
Date

Students meets with the management the 13th of May...just to be issued a court order the very next day.

2009-05-13T08:14:00.001-07:00

On the 13th of May, the University management accepted to meet the students for talks. The student representatives who attended, had been given assurances during the meeting that their voices and concern in regards to course closures, and job cuts would be heard.
However, the meeting appeared to have taken place only as an attempt to stop the students from occupying parts of the University as the management issued a court order to end the occupation of the building already the next day.

In an official note, the students reactions were as follows:

"At 4pm today (14th of May 2009) management issued us with a court order to end the occupation of the building. Since we are trying as hard as possible to work with the management cooperatively and constructively (something that they have not been doing with us), we had to vacate the premises. Paul Lister told us face-to-face yesterday that they would begin court proceedings on Saturday if we were not out then, so clearly he was lying to us.

This is by no means a defeat- if anything it adds more fuel to our fire, and just goes to show even more that our management are incompetent, lying, untrustworthy bullies who are not fit to be entrusted with the future of our university.

This action has ignited rage in the university's members of staff and in the unions (UCU and UNISON), not to mention the students. As far as we are concerned, we knew that it was only a matter of time before we were issued a court order, but what surprised us is the fact that we were lied to about when it would occur. It has done nothing but strengthen our campaign.

The campaign is continuing valiantly and with great strength. We met today at the Houses of Parliament with George Galloway (City Campus MP) and Jeremy Corbyn (North Campus MP) who told us that they have no confidence whatsoever in the university management and that they supported our campaign 100%, promising us that they will take an active role in campaigning with us, and are currently pushing to help London Met in Parliament and with other MP's."

Waiting for some proper response from Management and Head of Department.

2009-05-13T07:56:00.000-07:00

Day 2 continued

2009-05-13T07:48:00.000-07:00

Day 2 Student Occupation continued.

2009-05-13T07:42:00.001-07:00

Student Occupation, Commercial Road, London Met. Day 2, the 12th of May 2009

2009-05-13T07:36:00.001-07:00

Demonstration the 12th of May to support Student Occupation at Commercial Road today. COMMERCIAL RD, CITY CAMPUS 5.30 – 6PM TUESDAY 12th MAY

2009-05-12T07:01:00.000-07:00

From UCU and UNISON's Save London Met campaign committee:

Students in the Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media and Design have occupied rooms in Commercial Rd in protest at the proposed cuts to staff. We understand that they are demanding that Management drop the proposals to make staff redundant and that managers come to explain to students what is happening.

It is encouraging to find such levels of support among our students and to see them so active in defence of education. We sympathise with their frustration and with the sense that management will not listen to any arguments, however well reasoned or constructive.

Rumour has it that, unlike all the other universities occupied earlier this year, London Metropolitan will not allow this to run its course and that management is taking the students to court to regain possession of the coffee bar. No classes are being disrupted as far as we know.

We are therefore calling for a brief demonstration outside Commercial Road at 5.30 today. Please come and show students that solidarity works both ways!

See here for location details:
http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/about/commercial-road.cfm

COMMERCIAL RD, CITY CAMPUS 5.30 – 6PM TUESDAY 12th MAY

Student occupation at London Met

2009-05-12T07:00:00.001-07:00

This from the Students who are occupying:

To Whom It May Concern:

As of 17:00 on Monday 11th May 2009, a large group of students from London Metropolitan University’s John Cass department of Art, Media & Design began occupation of part of the Commercial Road building located at 41 Commercial Road, London E1 1LA in protest to university management’s plans for imminent and unprecedented staff redundancies. These redundancies are the result of a drastic funding cut by HEFCE of £15m per year, as well as a ‘clawback’ of a further £36.5m, which have been imposed due to inaccurate submission of attendance figures. Under the rules, students are identified as non-completions if they do not take the final assessment of each module.

The rally, Tower Building, Holloway Road, 7th of May

2009-05-12T06:52:00.001-07:00

From the day of strike action 7th of May 2009, the picket lines.

2009-05-12T06:28:00.000-07:00

A Day of Strike Action Thursday the 7th of May 2009

2009-05-06T03:55:00.000-07:00

Lecturers will be on strike on Thursday after a substantial majority voted for action to save the University. Since this has always been a joint campaign, we aim to avoid hitting exams but call on all students to join us in collecting petition signatures outside the main entrances of most university buildings in the emorning and at our rally 1-2pm in Holloway Rd.

All students who would like to participate in an event to demonstrate their opposition to the cuts should get in touch. Time is really running out - management intend to make everyone who is dismissed leave before July 31st. Now is definitely the time to stand up and be counted before it is too late!

The cuts will mean:

- up to quarter of the staff dismissed
- nurseries closed
- libraries short-staffed and, in the longer term, closed
- several courses closed and many others severely hit
- outsourcing of IT and Media support
- module choice restricted
- less contact time with staff

The Media reacts to the news of Brian Roper's resignation.

2009-03-20T16:42:00.000-07:00

Polly Curtis in The Guardian reports that

"Brian Roper steps down after accounting mistakes that cost university £56m.

The vice-chancellor of London Metropolitan University, Brian Roper, resigned today in the wake of accounting mistakes which left the university £56m in the red.

Roper will remain at the university until December but has left his role as vice-chancellor with immediate effect, the university said.

The university is facing up to 550 job cuts among its 2,300-strong staff, following the revelation that it had been overpaid for students who failed to complete courses. It is understood to be taking a £15m funding cut this year and is in negotiations with the government's university funding agency about how it will pay back a further £38m.

In Times Higher Education, Rebecca Atwood reports that

"The head of financially beleaguered London Metropolitan University has stepped down.

In a statement sent out today, the university said Brian Roper had decided to take up the opportunity of early retirement.

As first reported in Times Higher Education in July 2008, the Higher Education Funding Council for England has reduced London Met’s grant for 2008-09 by £15 million after it discovered that the university had made incorrect data returns, which are believed to be related to its figures on students who drop out.

In January, it emerged that the funding council also planned a clawback of the money the university was overpaid between 2005 and 2008, which amounts to an additional £38 million.

In an email to staff on 19 February, Mr Roper proposed reducing numbers by up to 550 full-time equivalent posts by July 2010.

The University and College Union branch at London Met said this could mean as many as 700 – or one in four –employees losing their jobs, a move that “defies belief”."

The next day, an article by Tom Foot in the Islington Tribune has the following headline:
"Boss quits at university hit by cash crisis.

Shocked staff told 550 posts face axe

THE vice-chancellor of London Metropolitan University has quit days after releasing a list of hundreds of staff facing redundancy.
The Holloway Road-based university announced the early retirement of Brian Roper yesterday (Thursday). He will leave with “immediate effect”.
The university has been plunged into a cash crisis since a government audit found it had wrongly claimed £38million in higher education funding over three years and demanded its return.
Mr Roper later announced proposals to axe 550 full-time jobs, leading to a series of student and staff demonstrations calling for his dismissal."

(...)

"Speaking after Mr Roper’s departure, University and College Union London regional official Barry Jones said: “We have not yet been able to engage with management in a way we would have liked to. We are hoping we will be able to discuss these matters in a different way now.”
He added that last Thursday’s meeting had left staff wondering if their jobs were to be axed. “People are feeling vulnerable and nobody knows who is going and who is staying,” he added. “We want to make sure job cuts are the last resort, which appears to be the opposite of what management has been proposing.”
Mr Jones added that the university’s accounts showed £25million in its coffers following the sale of a student hall of residence.
The union has criticised London Met for advertising four faculty and departmental business manager posts with salaries ranging between £57,231 and £69,951.
Islington North Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn has tabled an Early Day Motion calling for the government to halt its funding cuts to London Met during the recession."

Vice Chancellor Brian Roper of London Metropolitan University resigns with immediate effect.

2009-03-19T11:49:00.001-07:00

It has now been confirmed that Brian Roper, the Vice Chancellor of London's biggest University has given in to the pressure from students and members of staff alike and resigns with immediate effect.

Press Release on Brian Ropers Resignation

19 March 2009

London Metropolitan University is sorry to announce that Brian Roper, Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive, has decided to leave the University to take up the opportunity of early retirement and to pursue other interests. Brian has made a significant contribution to the University and on behalf of the Board of Governors, the University would like to pay tribute to his energy and determination in delivering the University’s mission and to thank him for his support and efforts in his time here.

Although Brian will not be leaving the University until the end of December 2009, he has stepped down from the role of Vice Chancellor with immediate effect. London Metropolitan University will communicate details of Brian’s successor in due course. London Metropolitan University wishes Brian well in his future endeavours.

Statement from the UCU Coordinating committe in regards to the news of Brian Ropers resignation:

London Met UCU and London Met UNISON note Brian Roper’s resignation as Vice Chancellor of London Metropolitan University. However, we regret that no one has yet taken formal responsibility for the current financial difficulties of the university.

UNISON and UCU further note the intention to announce a successor as Vice Chancellor. We presume that any immediate appointment would be made on a temporary basis pending external advertisement.

We hope that this will be the first step in a process towards creating a more collegial university environment in which management and staff are able to engage in meaningful dialogue about the operation of the institution. We call, therefore, on London Met management to suspend all current proposals with regard to the finances of the university, including all threats of redundancies. We invite them to enter a process of genuine, collective discussion with staff and students in order to devise a recovery plan for London Met that has a real chance of success.

Both unions look forward to engaging in constructive dialogue with HEFCE and with representatives of the London Met Board of Governors concerning the future of the university and its mission.

We have an open meeting tomorrow at North Campus: 1-2.30 pm Graduate Centre, GC1-08. Please tell colleagues and students: all are welcome.

Best wishes,

UCU Co-ordinating Committee

2009-03-01T14:49:00.000-08:00

2009-03-01T14:44:00.000-08:00

2009-03-01T13:56:00.000-08:00

Massive redundancies now announced for London Metropolitan University staff

2009-02-24T15:49:00.000-08:00

550 full-time equivalents threatened -
this could amount to around 700 people

Urgent meeting for all workers in Jewry Street.
Wednesday 25 February 2009 1-2pm
Room JS2-74 (Second Floor)

Meeting open to all staff and students in Jewry Street - members and non-members of UCU or UNISON. Come and hear the latest and discuss our next steps in response to the threatened cuts.

URGENT UPDATE AND MORE BAD NEWS: MANAGEMENT PLANS TO GET RID OF BETWEEN 550 AND 700 FULL TIME EQUIVALENT STAFF OR A QUARTER OF THE ENTIRE STAFF.

2009-02-20T04:27:00.000-08:00

Amanda Sackur has reported the following on the facebook group SAVE LONDON MET:

"Urgent update. The situation is worse than we thought. The unions have now received formal notification of planned job losses and management intend to get rid of 550 full time equivalent posts (could be around 700 or more people if you take account that many are part-time). This is a quarter of the staff of the university! It is more urgent than ever that we mobilize everyone."

If the management is able to put this through, the University is certain to go under. We cannot stand on the side and watch this happen. Now action is needed.

FROM SAVE LONDON MET - DAY OF ACTION, PART 3, THE SIGNING OF LETTERS TO MP'S

2009-02-19T09:20:00.001-08:00

FROM DAY OF ACTION, 18TH OF FEBRUARY, 2009 PART 2

2009-02-19T09:04:00.000-08:00

Outside Central House

FROM SAVE LONDON MET - CITY CAMPUS DAY OF ACTION, 18TH OF FEBRUARY, 1.00-2.00 PM

2009-02-19T08:47:00.000-08:00

Outside Central House

Outside Calcutta House

First victory: Brian Roper has decided to drop disciplinary proceedings against Amanda Sackur. Now read on:

2009-02-16T08:06:00.001-08:00

Amanda Sackur said:

"This is both an implicit recognition that the charges were politically motivated as an attack on the unions and a response to our campaign. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those, in London Met and in UCU regionally and nationally, who signed the petition, circulated material and sent me messages of support. It was all greatly appreciated and, clearly, very effective. We should also thank Barry Jones, our Regional Official, and Sally Hunt, our General Secretary, for their contributions. We are lucky to receive such solid support."

"Our campaigns are obviously bearing fruit. You may remember that when union reps were first informed of management's plans for redundancies, management told us that they intended to ask the governors for approval for a fourth voluntary redundancy scheme to run from Jan. 29th to Feb. 20th. We understand that the governors did approve the scheme and delegated responsibility for it to senior management. However, the closing date is fast approaching and the scheme has not even been announced! This is almost certainly because we pointed out that they could not run a voluntary scheme until they had consulted seriously on how they could avoid redundancies. Clearly, we have made them think twice about their plans. However, we should not be complacent: we have made them reconsider their approach but management still appear to be determined to make redundancies."

Now, remember this:
Brian Roper would never have made this U-turn if it hadn't been for the actions of the students, academic staff and the Unions.
This goes to show that our resistance against the unjust and undemocratic, top-heavy managerial system at the University works and we should regard this as our first victory of many in the near future.

So, let's keep up the good fight and if you would like to do something about this exceptionally unjust current situation at the University, please join us now!

SAVE LONDON MET OPEN CAMPAIGN MEETING, NORTH CAMPUS, TOWER BUILDING TM-201, TUESDAY 17TH OF FEBRUARY 1.00-2.00 PM

2009-02-16T05:00:00.000-08:00

IMPORTANT NEWS: THE PROTEST IN SUPPORT OF AMANDA SACKUR, MONDAY 16TH FEB 2-3PM HAS NOW BEEN POSTPONED.

2009-02-12T05:39:00.001-08:00

PROTEST SCHEDULED FOR MONDAY 16TH FEB - HAS NOW BEEN POSTPONED

Following the motions supporting Amanda Sackur (Chair of London Met UCU) against victimisation unanimously passed by all London Met UCU Branches, it was agreed that members would hold protests at the time of any disciplinary hearing. However, please note that the protest planned for Monday 16th Feb (the date Amanda's initial hearing was originally due to take place) will now no longer take place as her disciplinary hearing is being re-scheduled. We are awaiting exact details of any re-arrangement and will inform you as soon as this is known via our website: www.lmuucu.org.uk

Petition against London Met's senior management's attack on Dr. Amanda Sackur, chair of London Met's University College Union. (UCU)

2009-02-12T04:45:00.000-08:00

Union officials are calling for senior management at crisis-torn London Metropolitan University to halt its “intimidation” of a senior lecturer ahead of massive job cuts at London Metropolitan University.

"Dr Amanda Sackur, a lecturer in African politics and colonial studies who also chairs London Met’s University College Union (UCU), is accused of “serious misconduct” after she attended a campaign meeting in Nottingham Trent during “office hours”. UCU officials say the implications of her upcoming full disciplinary hearing were “immense” at a time when London Met is proposing mass redundancies.

Mark Campbell, UCU co-ordinator at London Met, said: “They are totally unjustified and appear designed to intimidate or worse, force her out of her job for steadfastly representing her colleagues at a time when the university is facing the gravest financial crisis in its history. We call upon the vice-chancellor, management and governors of the university to act immediately to withdraw the proceedings against Dr Sackur, work with the recognised trade unions in facing the current crisis, and abandon the contemplated large-scale compulsory redundancies that, if implemented, will place in serious jeopardy both the education of current students and the existence of the institution.”

London Met has been told to repay £38million in government funding it wrongly claimed over three years. It follows an audit by the Higher Education Funding Council England. The university intends to claw back some of £38m by cutting up to 500 jobs.

A university spokesman declined to comment on Dr Sackur’s case."

(Source: Islington Tribune, "Drop case against lecturer, University told.")

In Times Higher Education, Melanie Newman wrote the following in regards to management's attack on Amanda Sackur:

"Amanda Sackur, chair of the University and College Union co-ordinating committee at London Met, has had disciplinary procedures taken out against her after she left the university to take part in union activities in Nottingham.

Managers are understood to have accepted that Dr Sackur spent more than nine hours on academic work on the day in question, but contend that her absence from London Met's premises between 9am and 5pm was unauthorised.

The UCU said the matter raised questions about lecturers' terms and conditions, as there had never been an explicit requirement that they stay on university premises. It said it represented an attack on the union ahead of job cuts."

And further on:

"Barry Jones, UCU assistant general secretary, warned members on the same day that the action "may be an attempt to soften the union" in advance of Mr Roper's plan for large numbers of compulsory redundancies at the university."

Please sign this petition http://www.petitiononline.com/defendas/petition.html in defense of Dr. Amanda Sackur. You can also find a link to the petition on the right hand side.

SAVE LONDON MET - CITY CAMPUS DAY OF ACTION, WEDNESDAY 18TH OF FEBRUARY, LUNCHTIME 1.00-2.00 PM

2009-02-12T04:35:00.000-08:00

Questions to London Metropolitan University Senior Managers

2009-02-10T08:56:00.000-08:00

The following are an initial set of requests for information put to London Metropolitan University senior
managers by the joint trade unions representing university staff:

With regard to financial issues:
Questions to the Director of Finance

Requests for the following:

• The accounts for 07/08

• Monthly returns stating the university’s position subsequent to April 2008

• The financial documents that accompanied the Strategic Plan sent to HEFCE.

• Figures for the sums paid out under PADAS (and to how many individuals?), bonuses (and to how many individuals?), various performance-related pay schemes (and to how many individuals in each one?) and market supplements (and to how many individuals?)

• How much was spent on outside consultants and which ones in 2007/08? What consultants are currently (2008/09) operating in the university? At what cost?

• A copy of the letter from HEFCE informing London Met management of its decision to reduce the grant by £18 million for 2009/10

• An urgent meeting with yourself to discuss the figures in the material above.

An explanation of the following:

• How HEFCE arrived at a figure of £18 million for 9/10 (is the figure linked to any projection of monies from student fees anticipated for 2008/09?)

Confirmation of the following:

• Whether it is correct to state that there will have been a combined shortfall of £33 million from HEFCE grants for 2008/09 and 2009/10 arising from HEFCE’s re-determination of London Met’s student figures and that this £33 million shortfall is separate from the £38 million that HEFCE allege the university should not have received for the preceding years, 2005/06, 2006/07 and 2007/08?

• Whether HEFCE have or have not stated that they are minded to recover the full sum of £38 million for those preceding years?
• Whether HEFCE are currently imposing consultants to make decisions with regard to the future shape and structures of the university and if so, whether she could facilitate a meeting between these consultants and the unions?

• What avenues have been explored to increase revenue? What were the results?

With regard to University Strategy/Strategic Plan

Questions to the Deputy Vice Chancellor Academic
Requests for answers to the following:

Which parts of the strategic plan were accepted and which rejected?

• Whether the university was being required to submit a revised plan?

• Which parts of the strategic plan were approved by Price Waterhouse Cooper (consultants brought in by HEFCE) and which bits were not?

• Why, if the Strategic Plan was approved by PWC consultants (and this approval was a condition of it also being approved by the board of governors as stated by the DVC (Academic) at an earlier meeting), it was not accepted by HEFCE?

• Who at London Met was involved directly in the consultation and final drafting of the Strategic Plan that HEFCE appears not to have accepted?

• Why if HEFCE are not prepared at this moment to invest in the future of the university, the university is not prepared to use capital assets to fund such investment?

• Whether senior management have developed a strategic view of how the university will look in the future? Will management be looking to cut courses or sections or to maintain them all with fewer staff?

Will all courses remain viable?

• What methods will senior management use to tap into staff expertise and to provide meaningful consultations with relevant staff on academic and professional matters?

With regard general staff issues and other external relations:
Questions to the Vice Chancellor
Requests for answers to the following:

• Given the stated level of financial crisis in your email of January 8th, when and by what means are you or the university executive proposing to meet staff?

• Could a timetable of such meetings with departmental staff (academic and professional departments) be put on ‘Message of the Day’?

• Has London Met management requested information from HEFCE or from other institutions regarding similar reductions in grant elsewhere in the sector?

• Have you any plans to meet DIUS ministers or local MPs or members of the Education Select
committee?

• Have you any plans to meet other Vice Chancellors in London or beyond to develop a joint strategy infavour of fully funded higher education?

• Do you accept that at the time of credit crunch any cut in education provision is by definition
unjustifiable? If so, how do you plan to take forward your own concerns and campaign in support of London Met and in support of fully funded education?

• Would you be willing to meet with national representatives of the NUS and a deputation of students from London Met?

With regard to staffing issues
Questions to the Director of HR
Request for the following information:

• Staff turnover, broken down into retirement, redundancy, voluntary severance and other reasons for 2005/06, 2006/07 and 2007/08 and projections for 2008/09, 2009/10

• Numbers of hourly-paid staff (or estimates thereof) for 2007/08 and 2008/09

• Whether the 330 FTE redundancies mentioned to union representatives include the three recent redundancies in LGIR and the 15-18 FTE posts to be lost in the new Registry department?

• Whether there is a freeze on new appointments while current staff are under threat of redundancy? This freeze should include all posts not already offered to individuals, including those for which interviews are scheduled, those advertised this week in the Guardian and those advertised in previous weeks.

• Whether her department has carried out full impact assessments on all the proposed redundancies and job cuts?

• Whether her department is carrying out a full skills audit of the university to provide information for bumped redundancies, should this become necessary?

• Whether she is prepared to pursue with a sense of urgency negotiations on a university workload allocation model to which she agreed some time ago?

The bosses and the bankers are to blame... WE NEED UNITY AGAINST THE CRISIS. Tuesday 10 Feb, 6.30 pm Friends Meeting House, 173 Euston Road.

2009-02-10T07:38:00.000-08:00

Speakers:

Mark Serwotka PCS general secretary

Shop Steward from the Waterford Glass occupation

Jean-Yves Lesage French Trade unionist (CGT) reports from general strike

Ray Morrell Editor of the Amicus Unity Gazette and NSSN steering committee (pc)

An appeal will be held for the London Metropolitan University at the meeting.

Mark Campbell: What is the real problem here?

2009-02-08T13:36:00.000-08:00

There are a significant number of inter-related issues that have been raised, by staff, students, the media, and the general public, in relation to the financial crisis London Met now finds itself in:

1) Is ‘widening participation’ a good thing, and if so, how should it be defined?

2) Do students that fall within the agreed definition of ‘widening participation’ need additional support,guidance, training, etc, compared to more ‘traditional’ students?

3) If the answer to 2) is yes then to what extent should this be funded, by whom, and in what way?

4) Are students ‘customers’ of the university, and if so does that mean they have bought a particular service, or indeed, a particular result, and are therefore ‘always right’?

5) Is a university the same as a commercial business (aka a factory) and its product, in essence, no different to a can of beans to be processed as cheaply and efficiently as possible and for the vast majority of spend to go into product automation, branding and marketing?

6) Should the university management be accountable to staff and students, and if so how should such accountability be exercised/enforced?

7) Are academics the enemy, a necessary evil in this production process, or the lifeblood of the universitysystem whose expertise and opinions need to be valued?

8) How should our universities be governed and what control should we, as staff and students, have on theselection of those governors and on their decisions?

9) Are universities, in reality, if not in form, part of the ‘public sector’?

10) How should university education be funded and to what end?
This is an attempt to start to answer some of those questions.

To my mind we at London Met have a management that have acted in the same destructive manner as Rupert Murdock, Eddie Shah, and Ian McGregor during the worst excesses of the Thatcher era. They, and their fellow devotes of ‘new managerialism’, saw universities such as ours as a huge business opportunity. What was required was a ‘command structure’ that would relate each directionless wheeze and gimmick from the top as the next great ‘cultural imperative’. Any member of staff who questioned this, was, and is, condemned as
‘unreconstructed’, lacking in ambition, or simply troublesome and in need of either conditioning or removal.

It certainly appears that not one of those who have real power over our university have any real interest in education, or in providing genuine educational opportunity (i.e., real ‘widening participation’), other than in how it flatters their own egos to be seen to be at the helm of a large educational establishment (and to spend millions of pounds of funding on vanity projects such as the £30M Science Centre). In order to conceal their own muddle-headedness, they have crassly argued they were committed to ‘widening participation’ and ‘putting the student first’ and appeared/appealed to both HEFCE and the Government as such. However, what
they have presided over is not ‘widening participation’ it is much more a ‘pile-them-high-sell-them-cheap’ policy that is coated with a very thin veneer of WP varnish. Unfortunately, for us, their concept of ‘widening participation’ seems to, until recently at least, have quite nicely dovetailed that of the Government bean counters.

Now, given the crisis the university finds itself in, management are determined to make us, staff and students, pay for their educational vandalism while attempting to deflect all the blame for this at HEFCE’s door. It is undoubtedly true that genuine ‘widening participation’ has been chronically underfunded since its
inception and that the real additional costs in terms of staff time and resources has never been fully met by HEFCE/Government. We clearly therefore need to be demanding of the government that such funds, particularly in a recession, in which investment in education should be paramount, need to be made available. But we cannot do that whilst letting our management off the hock. Their recently discovered defence of education is no more than a flag of convenience whilst penalising staff and students alike for their own failings – and in so doing helping to destroy the very education they claim to want to defend.

What has our management’s response been to under-funding over the years?
• It certainly wasn’t to mount a political campaign that united with staff and students to demand of
Government the resources required to deliver on the promise of opening up real educational opportunities to
a far wider section of society;
• It wasn’t to actively oppose the introduction of fees and the scraping of mandatory grants – that had such a
negative effect on the vast majority of our student intake (i.e., look at the numbers of our students who are
forced to work 20-40 hours a week in order for themselves, and quite often, their families, to survive, whilst
they pursue a full-time (in name only) degree course);
• It wasn’t in loudly decrying, and actively campaigning against, the recent cuts to ELQ funding that will
reduce the university’s budget by £6M that prominently affects part-time students, women returners, and
those retraining in the midst of a major economic recession.
No, what our management has done throughout is to attempt to manage such underfunding by:
• Attacking staff terms and conditions, and cutting corners in terms of both student recruitment and student
record keeping whilst awarding themselves huge pay rises and bonuses for doing so;
• Reducing the acceptable quality of our educational provision by reinterpreting quality to mean little more
than achieving sufficient student recruitment quotas and percentage pass rates.
It is this management neglect that is now being publicly exposed. However, their response is not only to
continue with more of the same but to increase the tempo by:
• Demanding the sacking of hundreds of staff;
• The worsening of the conditions of those staff that are left;
• The closing of courses and the reduction of module choice;
• Attempting to minimise the amount of time students have with specialist staff.
Who is the real problem here?
Unfortunately, it is precisely that management culture of ‘filling quotas’ and overly-intrusive micromanagement
that has ended up atomising a small minority of both staff and students.
No doubt there are staff that: keep their heads down and tick the boxes while running from one module to the
next; who have had their research time (and staff development time to keep up to date with their specialist
subject matter) cut – only to be replaced by a huge increase in generally mindless administrative tasks dictated
to them from on high; who end up blaming the students in front of them rather than blaming the management
who are the ones turning the screw.
Equally, there will be some students who barely attend the university (quite possibly because they are having to
work flat out just to survive in the current economic climate – with no grants and hefty loans) but then expect to
do well by regurgitating half-memorised lecture slides downloaded from WebLearn. No doubt, some do pass –
not helped by the fact that lecturers now have percentage completion/pass rates to achieve imposed upon them
by that very same management in order not to lose funding. And, some of those students that don’t, because
their memory wasn’t so good on the exam day, or because their lecturer demanded and expected something
better of them than just regurgitation, may in turn blame the lecturer for their failure.
However, I don’t believe the real crime here is either the desperate coping mechanisms of such students or staff
– these are symptoms not causes. The real crime is the one that devalues what education should be about in the
first place. As someone said at the recent governors lobby – ‘They know the price of everything and the value
of nothing’. That crime was committed in the boardroom of the university not the lecture theatres – and until
that is put right nothing else will follow.
Reclaiming our university
So what do we do? Abandon hope and drift/run away – or fight to get our university back and start to put right
the mistakes. This is really a question of fighting the cuts now as the prelude to rescuing our university from
those that have stolen it from us. That, we can only do if we recognise that both staff and students need each
other – it is the management that is the impediment to radical change. Indeed, it will be in working together
against our common enemy that we will gain a far better insight and understanding of each others situation and
needs – and that will be a first step of putting a real education agenda back at the heart of London Met.
This means we absolutely need to demand that the Government provide the funds to secure the future of
the university, its staff, and students, whilst at the same time we sweep out those, that as somebody
recently remarked, ‘shouldn’t be running a whelk stall never mind a university’!

Who runs your University? Governance, democracy and business influence in higher education National UCU workshop - Friday 6 March 2009 (11am - 4pm)

2009-02-08T13:17:00.000-08:00

Who runs your University?
Governance, democracy and business
influence in higher education
National UCU workshop - Friday 6 March 2009 (11am - 4pm) -
hosted by University of East London UCU.

Keynote speakers include:
Dr Alastair Hunter (Glasgow University, UCU President Elect),
Professor Michael Rustin (University of East London)
The question of Governors and their influence on our universities has become a
pressing issue. This workshop considers:

• Who sits on your Board of Governors? Who appoints them, monitors
them, dismisses them? What is their influence on university affairs?

• Do you have adequate representation of academic staff among
Governors? Are they able to represent your interests effectively? Are they
excluded from key debates and decisions? How influential are Senates and
Academic Boards in shaping the policy of your university?

• How many of your Governors are from the world of business? Do they
have experience of higher education? Are their inputs appropriate? Do they use
their influence positively?

• How do UCU members feel about growing corporate influence in higher
education at a time when business failures are daily headline news?

• How can we challenge the sustained attacks on Charters and Statutes in
pre-1992 universities?

UCU invites you to UEL Docklands Campus, where there has been intense
debate about the role of Governors and about unwanted corporate
influence. All branches and LAs are encouraged to send members who can
share your local experience and help to develop UCU’s national policy.

For further details contact Rob Copeland: rcopeland@ucu.org.uk

Meeting Tuesday 19th of February 1-2 pm, Calcutta House, CM 5-01 City Campus.

2009-02-08T13:06:00.000-08:00

There will be a campaign meeting open to all staff and students this Tuesday (10th Feb) 1-2pm, Calcutta House, CM 5-01, City Campus. This will be the first of many such meetings that will be held across both city and north campus over the next few weeks. Further details can be obtained at: www.savelondonmetuni.blogspot.com

London Met Dire Crisis Demo, Tower Building, Holloway Road, January 28th 2009

2009-02-06T13:50:00.000-08:00