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Students Have Designs On Budget Money
Submitted by James Buckfield on Fri, 26/03/2010 - 17:09
Roehampton Vale students are urging the faculty of engineering to bid for a share of the new money announced by the Government for science and technology.
Chancellor Alistair Darling promised £270million in last Wednesday’s budget to improve engineering, along with science and maths, in universities across the country and hopes to create 20,000 more places.
Students at the engineering campus agreed that the University should “definitely” apply for a portion of the pot and flagged up the need for better teaching staff as one of the areas that should be invested in if funding was available.
Students were split on the benefits of adding to the 900 or so who go to Roehampton Vale, some feeling that this would not be feasible given the limited space, while others thought a larger student base would add credibility to the faculty.
Karthik Teppal-Bulu, an MSc megatronics systems student, said: “If there are more students here, their potential and expertise can add to the reputation of our university.”
He said: "We've got good facilities here, but technology is moving so fast these days, if there is more funding for up to date equipment it would help us increase our infrastructure.
Paulo Castro, a second year mechanical engineering student added: "More equipment like another simulator for aerospace students would better our understanding of what we are doing. "
The government's extra funding was welcomed by Universities UK - the body which represents university vice-chancellors.
Professor Steve Smith, president of Universities UK said: “Universities UK has continually made a strong case for public investment in higher education, and the Government has now responded to this. We have stressed the critical importance of universities to the UK’s economic recovery, and today’s announcement endorses this by making an additional £270m available to universities in 2010/11 through the Higher Education Modernisation Fund."
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Would it not have been easier to afford to purchase the needed equipment upgrades and to improve teaching resources?
Kingston University: £635,165 on six employment tribunals
Subject: Fw: Legal expenditure statement
From: "Martin George, Surrey Comet"
Date: Wed, April 21, 2010 12:17 pm
To: REDACTED
----------------------------------
Dear REDACTED,
David has passed your email about Kingston University's employment tribunal expenditure on to me. The university disputed the figures they themselves submitted in response to the FOI request, and have now taken over two weeks to get back to us with what they say are the accurate figures. See their attached statement.
They now say they spent £635,165 on the six employment tribunals, including legal expenses from court action linked to your case.
They say nearly three quarters of this relates to your case - nearly half a million pounds. This is the roughly the equivalent to the tution fees of 150 undergraduates, or double the total amount of bursaries offered to international students.
What do you think about this? Are you surprised by this figure? Do you think it was money well spent?
Best wishes,
Martin
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Dear Martin,
Thank you for your email.
I am most disappointed, but not entirely surprised to learn of the enormity of sums expended by Kingston University with respect to legal costs.
At a time when the government is cutting funding to most higher education institutions, and during a period of economic recession, it appears to me that Kingston University is more concerned with protecting its reputation and that of its senior management than it is with achieving its mission of providing access to high quality education for its students.
The amounts spent by the University to pursue unsuccessful and misconceived legal action with the World Intellectual Property Organisation against a disabled and unwell former staff member, and to defend against legitimate claims in the Employment Tribunal, lodged in response to what I experienced as a culture of bullying and discrimination, could have been much better spent on improving academic standards, on improving the health and well being of staff, and most of all on providing financial support to deserving and well-qualified students in order to enable them to achieve their full potential.
I understand that the University plans to increase the use of voluntary severance programmes for staff members at a time when student numbers are increasing.
In my view, that can only lead to increased stress levels for remaining staff and a reduction in the quality of academic experience for students.
This unfortunate state of affairs could have been mitigated had the University responded positively to staff concerns instead of attempting to cover up the University's shortcomings by spending disproportionate sums of public funds on legal costs to silence matters of wide public interest.
Best regards,
REDACTED
---------- Original Message -----
From: Coslett, Cara - Kingston University Press Office
To: Martin George, David Rankin
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 12:13 PM
Subject: Legal expenditure statement
Hi Martin, David,
Please see the attached statement on Kingston University's legal expenditure on employment tribunals.
The figure quoted gives you the amount spent on legal fees incurred in relation to employment tribunals, but also includes those fees incurred due to a court action that was linked to one of these tribunals. We have been unable to remove the cost of this court case as we have changed solicitors since the action was taken, and have not been able to access this information.
Please accept my apologies for the delay in getting this information to you, it has been a very complicated process and I wanted to be certain that I was providing you with the correct information. Unfortunately we have discovered that there were inaccuracies in the figures supplied in response to the original FOI request due to complications related to academic, financial and calendar years. I want to thank you for bringing this to our attention, we have now been able to supply this updated information to the person who submitted the original FOI request.
Best wishes,
Cara Coslett
Press Officer, Kingston University
Room 2, River House, 53-57 High Street,
Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 1LQ
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Statement on legal expenditure on employment tribunals
With more than 2,000 staff and 23,000 students, Kingston is one of the larger higher education institutions in the country and takes its responsibility as an employer very seriously. To this end the University is committed to ensuring that due process is followed in relation to all employment matters.
During the three years from January 2007 to December 2009 the University incurred legal fees in relation to six employment tribunals. It also incurred legal expenses due to a court action linked to one of these tribunals. These totaled £635,165. Nearly three-quarters of this amount relates to one long-running case, which the employment tribunal struck out earlier this year.