Does the overruling of Academic Board (AB) advice by UCL Senior Management and UCL Council raise questions of governance? UCL Council is UCL’s governing body. It delegates some of its powers to committees and individuals and receives advice from committees and individuals to help guide its decisions. This is critical for the functioning of the university where members of UCL Council lack relevant expertise.
AB is the advisory body “responsible for the academic work of the University in teaching, in examining and in research” according to the UCL Charter. Its membership includes all of UCL’s professorial staff and a number of elected non-professorial academic (including teaching), technical and professional services staff, as well as representatives of senior and middle management and a few students and student representatives. In contrast, UCL Council consists of a majority of external appointees with backgrounds in laws, finance, consulting and communications. While AB cumulatively have extensive experience of delivering and supporting teaching and research, external appointees to UCL Council have very little to no experience of either.
Governance structures rely on basic principles being respected to deliver what they were set up to deliver successfully. The refusal of UCL Council to listen and act on the advice of AB in an academic matter undermines a basic principle of UCL’s governance structure: that executive bodies consider seriously and act in accordance with the recommendations from bodies that possess the expertise that they lack. Breaking this principle seriously undermines the working relationship between staff and management at UCL.