New Financial Arrangements

Negotiations continued through February to finalise the new financing arrangements with Barclays and Santander which will fund phase 1 of the Campus Masterplan development.  The Board Task and Finish Group (set up in May 2018, solely for the purpose of this exercise) met for the last time on 15 February to review and agree the terms of each contract – the Chair of the group will make a final report to the Board of Governors on 5 March with a view to signing off the contracts by mid-March.

PSOM

The early part of February saw the PSOM Programme Board arrive at a functional model for Corporate Services which, as you know, was shared with staff and is now out for consultation.  Please continue to feedback on the proposed model we shared with you on 13 February; the PSOM Team will consider all the feedback they receive and rest assured, it will all help to shape the final structure of Corporate Services.  Following the All Staff Briefing on the functional model, a workshop was set up to discuss the  ‘commercial development’ function, with key staff from F&P/FD/IT/BESE/RIO invited to participate – the purpose of the workshop was to start to understand and define the future requirements of the strategic commercial development function within Finance, which I will lead on.

University Leadership Team

The University’s Leadership Team continue to meet formally each fortnight – I attended two meetings in February, where we discussed a number of items; you might be interested to know about  (i) La Trobe Strategic Partnership and note that the partnership agreement between SHU and La Trobe University in Melbourne was signed by the VC in February ; (ii)  the Academic Appointments Panel, a new group which I’m a member of, where we will review all new academic appointments to the University; (iii) Sheaf Street Tower where our competition for developers to suggest a scheme did not result in any viable proposals but FD will continue to look at options for this site as part of the overall campus masterplan project and (iv) the Health Innovation Park – the University has decided to cease its funding of the Olympic Legacy Park (OLP) going forward, although it will continue to focus on the development of the AWRC and NCEFE, both located alongside the OLP.  In light of this decision, the HIP Board (which I chaired) was disbanded in February.

Sheffield Technology Park

You may know that I serve on the Board of the Sheffield Technology Park; this organisation has been established for about 30 years and has recently had a refreshed focus on becoming more of a supportive and collaborative partner in the community, ensuring Sheffield has the best economic landscape to grow new business  – it’s an exciting company to be involved with and is quite ambitious about the digital technology scene in Sheffield – the annual accounts for 2018 were finalised in February and if you’d like to see them, just ask Gill for a copy, or visit their website www.shefftechparks.com for more information.

Manchester Science Park

During February, myself and FD colleagues were invited to visit the Bright Building, Manchester Science Park where we were given a tour of the building, a demo on Mi-IDEA and discussed their MSP accelerators and innovations programmes – the visit concluded with at tour of the Manchester Technology Centre.

BAGU Pillar Board

The BaGU Pillar Board met on 12 February – items discussed included (i) an update on progress with the DTS Technology Strategy, (ii) a review of the Catering Plan for 2019-21, which was broadly endorsed subject to a number of minor amendments  and (iii) received an overview from the Sports and Physical Activity Board on the development of their Activity Plan and the proposed projects central to achieving it.

KPMG Briefings

KPMG run a series of breakfast briefings for Finance Directors and the one I attended in February focussed on ‘getting value from IT’ – a key topic for me in the current economic climate – these briefings are often interesting and useful networking events.

Workforce Planning Task and Finish Group

The Workforce Planning Task and Finish Group met again on 25 Feb – I Chair this group and it was established following the ULT Strategy Event in June last year.  The group’s remit is to focus on a more structured approach to workforce planning.  In the last meeting, we discussed the 2019 Planning Process (and the guidance needed for the process) and also discussed the associated work streams, such as the Academic Approvals Panel and Establishment work.

Transparent Approach to Costing

In February,  we concluded work on the annual process for submitting both the TRAC and TRAC-T returns to the Office of Students – this is a requirement for all universities;  the TRAC  return breaks down the University’s income and expenditure between teaching, research and all other activities, and then further between what is publicly funded and non-publicly funded activities – this allows the OfS to understand spending on these activities, across the sector.  The TRAC-T return involves breaking down the publicly funded teaching costs to show an average cost per OfS funded students which, in turn, will enable the OfS to understand the differential costs between subjects and total cost of sustainable teaching by subject group areas.   The TRAC Oversight Group (which I Chair, and which receives substantial input from our colleagues in Corporate Reporting) was set up to oversee and verify the information presented to us and subsequently, recommend sign-off to the VC and Audit and Risk Committee prior to submission to the OfS – both returns were submitted by the end of February (and if you want to know more about this, Andrew Howard would be more than happy to talk to you about it).

SHU Law Launch

At the end of February, Simon and I (as Directors of the company) attended the SHU Law Launch – the creation of this new venture is an exciting and innovative development for the University and for legal education in general.  The event provided an opportunity for staff to meet the team and to learn more about the aims and objectives of the service and how it intends to shape the future of the next generation of lawyers.

University’s Mental Health Day (7th March)

During February, as the ULT’s Mental Health Champion, I was asked to provide input and support for the University’s Mental Health Day event on 7 March (a national campaign to promote mental health to staff working and studying in the HE sector) – I’m sure you’ll all be aware of this event, but I’d like to take this opportunity to encourage you to take time out during the day on 7 March to support the event – you’ll find a message from me about how the University supports mental health, along with event details here.  I’ll provide you with an update on this event in the March Newsletter.

Period 6

The end of January marked the start of Period 6 reporting activities which is a key point in the year for the University to reforecast its financial performance for the rest of the year and the year-end position.  All teams have significant involvement in this activity and it is a critical part of the University reporting cycle.  Forecasts show that the University is intending on beating its 18/19 budget at Operating level which is before pension adjustments by around £4m, but it is still forecasting a deficit of £5m.  It should be noted however that £10m of strategic investments costs will have been incurred in this period.

Non-Pay Savings Target

Non-Pay savings targets are progressing very well with the £4m embedded in the budget numbers looking like a realistic achievement for the end of the year.  Bernie Marshall attended ULT on 5 March to give an update on where we are with travel and also introduced new statistics on printing for ULT to consider.  This has been a big area of focus for the University lead, by Finance and Planning, so well done to everyone!

Campus Masterplan and Financing Activities

Our new financing agreements with Barclays and Santander which allow the University to secure the funding it needs to complete Phase 1 of the Campus Masterplan are expected to be signed shortly.  The procurement of the delivery partners who will be engaged to carry out the estates work is well under way and it is intended that the contracts will be awarded in April to enable the works to commence over the summer.

SHU Law Launch

Many of you across the Directorate have been involved in the set-up of SHU Law Ltd. – the University’s own Solicitors Practice, fully registered with the Solicitors Regulation Authority and licenced to carry out reserved legal activities in court.  The practice was officially launched last week with a VIP reception at the SHU Law’s offices on Broomgrove Road.  It allows students studying law to gain real life experience with live client work in a fully functioning legal practice.  It is at the heart of what we do as an applied University and will give our graduates the edge when it comes to qualifying for practice and gaining graduate employment.

Budget

The Planning rounds are in full flow so as many of our teams completing period 6 reporting moved straight onto planning and budgeting activities.  Initial budgeted numbers are due to be reviewed in the next week with further work then to be carried out on more detailed budget analysis and actions  flowing through into the coming years.

PSOM

Most of you will have been involved in the presentations and discussions around the proposed functional model for Corporate Services.  There has already been a significant amount of discussion and feedback provided to the PSOM team so thank you to all those who have engaged in this process so far.  I would urge that you continue to provide feedback and ask questions in order to help shape the future of our approach to delivering the services across the University and beyond.

SharePoint Migration

The University is currently migrating all SharePoint sites to SharePoint Online which is part of Office 365.  SharePoint Online is more compatible with Windows 10, Apple Macs and Mobile Devices and much easier and simpler to use than the current version of SharePoint.

A lot of the faculty and directorate staff intranets are built in SharePoint and these will all be migrated to SharePoint Online using a standard template.  This will provide a more professional appearance to pages and a consistent look and feel to all staff intranets, making it easier for users to navigate the intranet.  DTS are taking a phased approach to making these changes, however the Finance intranet will be one of the first to be migrated.  Having seen an example of how the pages might look you will definitely notice a BIG difference!