AABA

IS MOYRA KEDSLIE FIT BE ACCA DEPUTY-PRESIDENT?

Moyra Kedslie was elected to ACCA Council in 1996. On 6th May 1998, she was "appointed" ACCA Deputy-President. ACCA members have no direct say in the appointment of any officeholder. As a Deputy-President, Dr. Kedslie is the leader of a 'public' body. ACCA functions as a regulatory body under the Companies Act 1989 and the Insolvency Act 1986. As a regulator ACCA formulates public policy. It functions as a quasi-legislator whose activities affect many stakeholders.

AABA believes that the public has a right to know the background of individuals heading the 'public' bodies. These individuals exercise considerable social power and must be made accountable for their conduct. Despite requests by Austin Mitchell MP, ACCA has failed to make any information available about the background of Moyra Kedslie.

We pass no judgment on Dr. Kedslie. Instead, we invite the reader to read the report prepared by her employer, the University of Hull. The report was prepared after considerable disquiet and discontent at the university. After a short period as the Head of Department, Dr. Kedslie was persuaded to resign and revert to her former position as a Senior Lecturer. The report contains a lot of information and evaluation. For example, in relation to a School managed by Dr. Kedslie, the report states that

"management and policy-making ........... was highly concentrated in the Head of School and that, in many case, key decisions on new teaching initiatives, resource allocation, and appointments were made without full consultation and debate within the School. We have already argued that, in our view, policy-making in some cases may have been swayed too much by short-term financial concerns and without perhaps sufficient attention being paid to their wider academic consequences for the School. Although we cannot be sure, we believe that wider consultation would have improved decision-making and would have helped to diffuse some the tensions that have recently surfaced in the School. We also believe that in any case it is important to allow staff, as part of their training and development, to participate effectively in School policy making and implementation. To deny staff such opportunities is, we would argue, to weaken the development and diffusion of management skills within the School and thus to hinder the achievement of its longer-term objectives, whatever they are".

" the future of the School should be based on a more open, inclusive and accountable philosophy than that which has been pursued in the past."

After reading the report, the reader should try to answer the following questions?

Can Moyra Kedslie lead a global organization of 67,000 accountants?
What special qualities does she have?
Does she have leadership qualities?
Would full consultation take place for decisions?
Would there be increased transparency for all decisions?
Would there be adequate accountability?

We encourage all readers to look at the report below and answer the above questions.

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MEMORANDUM

Date: 11 May, 1998

From: Professor David Richardson Deputy Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences

To: All members of Accounting, Business & Finance

Please find attached a copy of the final report of the Working Party on the management and future of the School of Accounting, Business & Finance. This final report has been informed by responses to an earlier version circulated at the end of March, and includes three new recommendations. The Dean of the Faculty has authorised me to circulate the report.

The Dean will be in contact with members of Accounting, Business & Finance in order to arrange a meeting to consider the report's contents and recommendations.

As Chairman of the Working Party 1 would like to offer my thanks to all of those who
have served on it and to those who have provided information to it. I also wish to place on record my thanks to Gill Crag for her work as secretary to the Working Party.

                                                            THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL
                                                            TEL: 01482 465711
                                                            E-MAIL: P.D.Richardson@socsci.hull.ac.uk

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FINAL REPORT OF THE WORKING PARTY ON THE MANAGEMENT AND FUTURE OF THE SCHOOL OF ACCOUNTING, BUSINESS AND FINANCE

Chair: Professor David Richardson, Deputy-Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences

Members:     Mrs. Carol Dean, Secretary, School of ABF
                      Mrs. Viccy Fewson, Academic-Related, School of ABF
                       Dr Paul Keys, Senior Lecturer and Head, School of Management
                       Dr. Brahim Saadouni, Senior Lecturer, School of ABF
                       Mr. Jon Simon, Lecturer, School of ABF
                       Professor Donald Woodward, School of Economic Studies
Secretary:      Mrs. Gill Craig Faculty of Social Sciences

1. Establishment-

Following a period of unrest in the School Of Accounting, Business and Finance (hereafter ABF), during which a number of complaints had been made to the Dean of Social Sciences about the management of the School, the Dean agreed in consultation with the Head of ABF (Dr. Moyra Kedslie) and some senior staff in school, including Professor Richard Briston, to establish a working party to review the recent management of the School and to
bring forward recommendations, if and where appropriate, to improve its future organisation and management. It was agreed that Professor Richardson, as Deputy-Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, would chair the working party and that he would seek to complete the review of the School's management as quickly as possible, and in any case no later than Easter 1998. It was agreed that

(a) the working party should have total discretion over its terms of reference
(b) Professor Richardson would conduct interviews with all members of ABF as part of the enquiry in to the School's management;
(c) the membership of the working parry would be determined v Professor Richardson following these interviews and would seek, as tar as possible to represent the whole range of interests within the School;
(d) the working parry should have full access to all information regarding the recent conduct of the School's affairs; and
(e) the working parry would report in the first instance to the Dean of the Faculty.

Notification of the establishment of the working party was made to the Board of ABF at its meeting on 26 November 1997. Professor Richardson subsequently conducted individual interviews with around 25 members of staff in ABF, including its Head, and on the basis of these interviews and written submissions from members of ABF decided that the working party should comprise four staff from ABF; Dr. Paul Keys, Head of the School of –Management, with which ABF had a number of close links; and Professor Woodward as a senior member of staff in the Faculty and former Dean of the School of Economic Studies. Dr Colin Jones, Senior Lecturer in ABF, was originally included as an ABF representative, but later resigned on grounds of ill health and was replaced by 'Mr. Jon Simon.

The working party wishes to thank Dr Jones for his contribution to its work, though he bears no responsibility for its final report.

2. Interim Report.

Following his interviews with staff and the receipt of written statements, Professor Richardson submitted to the Dean on 13 December 1997, an interim report on the headship of the School. On the basis or- this report, discussions were held in January 1998 with the Joint heads of the School, as a result of which Dr Kedslie resigned as Joint head and the Dean assumed the position of Acting Head of the School. Interim arrangements for the management of the School were subsequently made in consultation with the School's Executive Committee and other senior staff.

3. Procedure.

The first meeting of the working parry was convened on 2 February 1998 and eight further meetings were held up to and including 23 March. Each meeting lasted approximately 90 minutes. The deliberations of the working parry were informed by various documents these included

Annual Reports and Operating Statements of the former School of Management from 1994 onwards
The minutes of the Board of the School of management and of the meetings of the Department of Accounting and Finance during the same period
The minutes of the Board of the School of ABF since August 1997.
The Constitution of the School of ABF
Draft mission statement of ABF, November 1997
Schedule of administrative duties in ABF 1997-8
Breakdowns of student numbers on degree programmes offered by ABF 1997-8
Schedules for campus-based undergraduate and postgraduate reaching for 1997-8
Student handbooks for BSc Accounting and BA Business Studies degrees
Schedules of undergraduate service teaching 1997-8
Schedules of Overseas -'MBA and DBA teaching for 1997-9 and 1998-9
Summary of contracts or part-time teaching staff 1997-8
Schedules for validation work 1997-8
The report by Professor David Otley on the research performance and potential of ABF
The annual research of ABF for 1997 to the University Research Committee
The Faculty of Social Sciences: Research Strategy and Planning, January 1998
Reports prepared by Paul Keys and David Alexander (ABF) on the Association of
Business Schools meeting, held at Manchester, 26 February 1998.

Several working, papers were drafted and circulated among members of the working parry to help to focus and direct its discussions. Drafted principally by the representatives of ABF and Paul Keys, these have helped to shape and inform the working party’s final report. The working party did not seek external advice to inform its discussions.

A preliminary version of the working party's report was circulated to all staff in ABF on 24 March 1998 for comment. Responses to this version of the report were received from Mr. David Alexander, Professor Richard Briston, Mr. Brian Levett, and Mr. Chris Lovejov. Copies of these responses are attached to the official record of the working parry. Further meetings of the working parry were held on 6 and 7 May to review these responses and prepare the final version or the report . In the light of these responses, three new recommendations were proposed by the working parry in addition to the nineteen embodied in the original draft of the report.

4. Terms of Reference.

At its first meeting, the working party resolved that it should focus on the future of ABF rather than investigate in detail the problems that prompted the recent crisis in the School and the resignation of its joint head. We were aware that issues of management style had been an important element in the recent unrest and that it was necessary to try to learn from the mistakes of the past. We were also aware, however, that, following the joint head's resignation, it was in the interests of all concerned, students and staff alike, that we be forward-looking. We decided, therefore, that the terms of reference of the working parry would be as follows:

(a) To identify and evaluate the current strategic aims of the School and to propose mechanisms by which the School might revise and reformulate its aims and objectives;
(b) to review the current range of activity within the School, to evaluate the rationale behind it, and to assess its compatability with possible future shifts in the School's objectives;
(c) to identify the medium term actions necessary to move towards a revised set of objectives and the resources and structures required to support them;
(d) to recommend changes to the current constitutional arrangements of the School in order to ensure on-going and inclusive consideration and review of the School's strategic plans and effective and efficient implementation and delivery of them.

5. Existing School Strategy

The School of ABF came into being on 1 August 1997 following the reorganisation of the University into faculties and the break-up of the former School of -Management of which Accounting and Finance had been one of two constituent departments. Professor Briston had been the last Dean of the old School of Management, having previously been Head of the Department of Accounting and Finance. Dr Kedslie followed Professor Briston as Head of the Department of Accounting and Finance, and was elected unopposed in June 1997 as prospective head of the new School of ABF.

There is little doubt that under the former School of -Management the two constituent departments were allowed, indeed encouraged, to exercise considerable levels of autonomy over their affairs, though the minutes of the School Board at the time that reorganisation of the University was being considered in 1996 suggest that there was much discussion within the School of Management about -retaining formal links between the two departments after reorganisation. In the event, with the exception of the Business Studies Group, formal ties between the two former constituents departments were dissolved during reorganisation. We regret to observe that neither the minutes of the Board of the old School of 'Management nor of the Department of Accounting and Finance offer an explanation of this outcome.

At its foundation, ABF had 28 staff on academic or academic-related contracts engaged on campus in teaching and research. There were also 9 campus-based support staff and a number of non-campus part-time academic staff who assisted the campus-based academic and academic related staff to deliver distance-caught programmes, mainly in the Pacific Basin and the Middle East. The University is also currently seeking to make additional appointments to a new Chair in Finance and to a Directorship (at Senior Lecturer level) of DBA programmes. Among the 28 academic and academic-related staff in post on campus, there are 11 HEFCE funded academic staff including 2 Professors and 3 Senior Lecturers); 3 non-HEFCE funded academic staff; 6 academic-related staff. one Senior Research Fellow; one Graduate Teaching Assistant; and 6 part-time staff with contracts varying from 28% to 65% of full-time equivalents. One the Professors is currently on unpaid leave of absence, while some of the support staff have been transferred to the Faculty of Social Sciences Graduate Management Centre and the University External Programmes Division. From its own resources and non-HEFCE income generating activities, ABF currently sustains around 20 campus-based academic, academic-related and support staff on fixed-term contracts; this is equivalent to nearly two-thirds of its current staff on campus. All its non-campus part-time staff are hired and funded on the same basis. The School has regularly hired 3-4 fixed term research assistants each year from its own resources.

The range of activities supported by staff in ABF is, we believe, unusually wide and diverse and generates much non-HEFCE income for the University as well as for the School and its staff. It is also clear, however, that, in staffing terms, ABF is highly vulnerable to changes in its income generating performance, a factor that, we believe, has dominated planning and policy formulation in ABF, both before and after University reorganisation, to the detriment of proper and careful consideration of its longer-term academic aims and objectives and the promotion of conditions within ABF conducive to the achievement of those aims and objectives. We feel that while the contribution of ABF to the University's finances is to be welcomed and commended, pressures both within and outwith ABF to generate income have helped to create a propensity to proliferate teaching and validation programmes, to weaken its research performance, to put strains on staff relations, to promote job insecurity, to foster patronage, and to encourage disenchantment with and distrust of the management of the School. In our view, the problems of ABF are as much systemic as personality-based, though we recognise that such problems can be exacerbated by management style. We also believe that it is in the interests of all parties in ABF that the consequences of the financially-driven strategy that ABF inherited from the former or- School of Management be addressed urgently and in a context which places greater emphasis upon the academic objectives of the School.

Ir. our view, therefore, any recommendations for reform of ABF's organisation and management must

(a) recognise that the School's income-generating ambitions need co be considered as part of and, indeed. more fully integrated into its broader academic goals;
(b) facilitate more open discussion within the School about its strategic aims and objectives and the formulating of staffing, resource allocation and other policies appropriate to their achievement;
(c) ensure that, as far as possible, there is full disclosure of information about School resources and their management and that those responsible for managing the School are fully accountable to its members; and
(d) encourage and promote closer co-operation with those parts of the University with which -here are shared interests and responsibilities in order to ensure that -these are effectively and efficiently discharged to the benefit of students, staff, and the wider University.

6. New Visions.

A draft version of the possible mission statement for the School began to be prepared n late 1996, but was not. to our knowledge, widely discussed within the School. The statement that we have seen is, in our view, too narrowly conceived to serve as a realistic mission statement, and we believe that it would be in the interests of the School to rethink its objectives and their resource implications and to set a timetable for the implementation of its plans. Assuming that this is an open process, we believe that it could have an important part to play in bringing the School together by increasing the sense of ownership of 'its plans and their achievement.

The working party took the view that it was not its responsibility to decide too precisely for ABF what its academic goals should be or what the timetable for the achievement of those goals might be. These are, we believe matters that should properly involve the whole school and, 1 and where appropriate, staff from related schools. We do recommend, however, that, as a matter of urgency, some forum be found by which full consideration of these matters can be openly debated and determined by ABF and realistic timescales for their achievement can be defined.

We would also recommend that, in considering its objectives, the School should give rather more weight to its academic ambitions than appears to have been the case in the past. We share the Faculty's view, as expressed in its recent Research Strategy and Planning statement and other documents, that what distinguishes university reaching from other forms of education is that reaching takes place in a research environment. Like any department or school in a research and reaching based university, ABF's reputation for delivering quality programmes especially though not only in the postgraduate area, will depend in the medium to long term on its academic standing. It is vital therefore that income-generation be balanced by a determination to succeed as an academically-driven unit. The School's mission statement must, we believe, reflect the primacy of its academic goals rather than short-term maximisation of income per se. Furthermore, we are far from -convinced that all the income-generating activities in which the School has become engaged represent the best use of the School's or University's resources, particularly where HEFCE -funded star 'f are concerned. We would urge, therefore, that, as part of its discussion of its mission statement, the School should undertake an evaluation of its current income-generating activities with a view to assessing their compatibility with the School's academic goals.

RECOMMENDATION 1: That, as a matter of urgency, a series of meetings, away-days or other means be found to discuss. within the framework of the University's and Faculty's new strategic plans, the future aims and objectives of ABF and to define a realistic timescale for their achievement.

RECOMMENDATION 2: That, in any such discussion, issues of income-generation be considered in relation to broader academic objectives, including teaching quality, research performance, and staffing policy.

RECOMMENDATION 3 That as part of its discussions or its mission, the School should evaluate its income- generating activities with a view to assessing their achievement of its academic goals.

7. Current Range of Activities

In this and the following two sections, we propose to review the work of the School and identify possible strategies for its future development.

The core of the School's activities relate to teaching, though it has 11 HEFCE funded staff and one senior research fellow who have research -related contracts. In the absence of significant research income generation via RAE outcomes, research grants, or consultancy, the School relies on its teaching activities to fund its research. We propose to return to this issue later in this report. ABF's teaching activities involve some collaboration with the School of Management, an issue to which we shall also return later.

A. Undergraduate Teaching

The reaching of the School falls into undergraduate and postgraduate work. On the undergraduate side, the core of the School's teaching revolves around

(a) the BSc Accounting, which, introduced in 1986 as a three year degree, has 228 students currently enrolled (Including 63 overseas students)
(b) the BA Business Studies, which, introduced soon after the BSc Accounting, currently has 167 students enrolled (23 overseas). The BA Business Studies degree is jointly taught with the School of Management.

These courses have generally attracted good-quality applicants and have been successful programmes of study. There is little doubt that, despite the recent problems of ABF, the School put much effort into ensuring the success of its campus-based undergraduate programmes and that its efforts in the classroom have been well received. There was a successful accreditation visit by the Board of Accreditation of Accountancy Education Courses in 1996; the student handbooks attract much favourable comment; and there are active student-staff committees for both the ma)'or programmes of study. It is clear to us that the School takes its responsibility to 'Its undergraduates seriously. There have been some decline in applications for these programmes in line with national trends but recruitment still seems healthy and a new BSc International Accounting degree has just been launched to ensure continuing success in undergraduate admissions.

In addition to its mainstream campus-based programmes, ABF has had three other undergraduate areas of activity; these have been

(c) franchising of programmes, mainly to overseas institutions whose students spent part of their study time at Hull;
(d) validation of undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes, initially through Greenwich College but later extended to other institutions (Dearne Valley Business School; Blackburn College; Global Business School) seeking an improvement in their academic profile through the ability to offer degrees validated by Hull; and
(e) campus-based service reaching to other departments or schools within the University. Currently there are some 200 students registered for modules taught by ABF. The modules taught are specifically designed for non-accounting, specialists.

Service teaching has been an integral part of ABF's undergraduate services for many years. but much of the franchise and validation work is of more recent origin and has sometimes developed in tandem with the School's taught postgraduate programmes. The development of these activities raises some issues to which we shall return.

B. Postgraduate Teaching

The School has consistently managed to recruit and successfully supervise a small number of PhD students, mostly from overseas, and currently has one GTA registered for a PhD on its books. But the major part of ABF's postgraduate teaching revolves around it campus-based and distance-caught MBA and DBA programmes. MBAs were launched in the late 1980s and were followed from 1996 by DBAs. Campus-based programmes include the Executive MBA, which currently has some 30 home-based students, and the Financial Management and Project-based MBAs which have over 60 overseas students enrolments. Staff in ABF are associated with teaching, in South-East Asia, the Middle East, and Australia. At the tine of writing there are almost 300 overseas students registered for MBAs in ABF and some 110 students registered for DBAs, responsibility for teaching the latter being shared with the School of Management. The delivery of these programmes rests mainly on campus-based staff, with support from a group of staff appointed by the three course directors (Professor Briston, Dr Kedslie, and Professor R Flood, the last based in the School of Management). -Management of these
programmes resides in course directors and is now overseen by the recently-established Faculty of Social Sciences Graduate -Management Centre, the Acting Director of which is Professor Briston. The current income to the University from -'v1BA and DBA programmes is estimated at some £3.-15 million a year, with new intakes planned in traditional areas as well as through an extension of -,he programme to South Africa. A new Director of DBA programmes is expected to be appointed to the University before the start of the 1998-9 academic session

The recent establishment of the Graduate Management Centre has given rise in the mind of some staff in ABF (and the School of Management) to confusion over the responsibilities of the Centre and the SFU in managing and delivering distant-taught programmes. The view or in other areas of academic work, ownership and control of the Working Party is that as in other areas of academic work, ownership and control of the programmes, should normally reside in the units directly involved in teaching the programmes. In the case of the GMC and its responsibilities towards the MBA and DBA, confusion has arisen in part because or the concentration of course directorships in the hands of the Acting Director or the GMC. This has given rise to claims on the part of the Acting Director chat 'the bulk of these programmes [i.e. MBAs and DBAs] now lie within the GMC. Such claims seem to extend the remit of GMC beyond the co-ordination and administration of programmes that the Working Party assumed was its primary task.

In order to clarify the relationship of ABF (and of management) and GMC in the delivery of distance taught programmes, the Working Party recommends:

RECOMMENDATION 4: That, as a matter of urgency, ABF should review its own internal procedures for managing the -MBA and DBA programmes, including appointment or course directors and teaching allocations, and clarify with GMC; areas of responsibility for and control of programmes.
RECOMMENDATION 5: That the procedures for appointing course directors be clarified and made more transparent.

RECOMMENDATION 6: That course directors be allowed to serve on GMC but be precluded from acting as Director of GMC.

C. Research

The majority of staff in ABF are on non-research contracts but there are 11 HEFCE-funded academics and one senior research fellow. . In the 1996 RAE, ABF achieved a disappointing 2 rating, bearing in mind the change sin the rating scales between 1992 and 1996, this was little better than the outcome in 1992, despite the fact that the annual report or the old School of Management in 1994-5 suggested that the priority of both of Its constituent departments was to improve their research performance. ABF has in recent years received no research resources under the University's strategic weightings, but it has funded research initiatives and appointments from its own resources and receives a subsidy in terms Of fundings for HEFCE contract staff; has introduced a more rigorous monitoring procedure for research through its Research Committee; has undergone an external review of its research by professor Otley; and with University’s support is to make a new appointment at professorial level. The party shares, however, the Faculty Research Committee’s view that there is still a large measure of research under performance and poor research leadership in the School. Any improvement in research rating will, we believe, dependent in the short-term on a high level of selectivity in staff returned and possibly some further re-configuration of the submission in RAE. In the longer term, we believe that more radical measures will be needed to improve the research culture and performance of the School. We shall return to this later.

8. Rationale for and Management of Current Activities.

Until recently ABF was a constituent of the former School of Management; from I August 1997 it has been an independent School run by Dr Kedslie until her recent resignation. Before August 1997, the Head of ABF was constitutionally responsible to the Departmental Meeting and ultimately to the School Board, chaired by the Dean of School. Since August 1997, the sovereign body of the new School of ABF has become the School Board with constitutional responsibility for the management of the Schools affairs being devolved to Executive, Quality, Research, and Teaching committees. The Head of the School chairs the Executive Committee, which also includes the chairs of Research and Teaching committees as ex officio members. To our knowledge, neither the Quality nor the Teaching committee has officially met, nor have they reported to the School Board.

A reading of the minutes of School Boards and other bodies has convinced the working party that, while there were committee structures in place, management and policy-making in ABF before and after August 1997 was highly concentrated in the Head of School and that, in many case, key decisions on new teaching initiatives, resource allocation, and appointments were made without full consultation and debate within the School. We have already argued that, in our view, policy-making in some cases may have been swayed too much by short-term financial concerns and without perhaps sufficient attention being paid to their wider academic consequences for the School. Although we cannot be sure, we believe that wider consultation would have improved decision-making and would have helped to diffuse some the tensions that have recently surfaced in the School. We also believe that in any case it is important to allow staff, as part of their training and development, to participate effectively in School policy making and implementation. To deny staff such opportunities is, we would argue, to weaken the development and diffusion of management skills within the School and thus to hinder the achievement of its longer-term objectives, whatever they are.

A philosophy of more open, inclusive management is, we believe, essential for the future success of ABF. Achieving this does not in our view require major constitutional change. On the contrary, under its constitution, the School already has in place a committee- structure and a School Board that are the bedrock of responsive and accountable management systems. What is required is an operationally more effective committee system that is accountable, like the Head of School, to the School Board and that allows all staff to share to some degree in the formulation of School strategy and policy.

We have already recommended that the School should re-think its basic strategy. But in the light of our review of the existing management of the School we would recommend that the future of the School should be based on a more open, inclusive and accountable philosophy than that which has been pursued in the past.

RECOMMENDATION 7: That the future management of the School of ABE pursue a more open, inclusive and accountable approach to conducting its affairs.

RECOMMENDATION 3: That, in order to implement recommendation 4, the existing committee structure of the School be made operationally more effective.

RECOMMENDATION 9: That all committees in the School be directly accountable to the School Board.

9. Strategy Alternatives.

In our view, ABE has, with support from the University, pursued a strategy designed to protect or maximise income-generation through the development of new educational products (MBAs, DBAs, validation and franchising arrangements), mostly, though not exclusively, for overseas consumers. This policy has yielded considerable financial gains to the University as well as to those individuals, campus-based or otherwise, who have been involved in teaching these programmes. Continuation of the same policy, based on (a) promoting new products (e.g. DBAs) and (b) developing new markets (e.g. Saudi Arabia and South Africa) would therefore appear to be an attractive option.

It is our view that this strategy has reached the limits of its usefulness to the School and the University, and that urgent consideration needs to be given to devising a new strategy that more closely relates income generation and resource allocation to more clearly defined academic objectives.

In reviewing the School’s activities the working party has identified a range of problems in the School to which the current strategy has contributed. These include:

(a) a lack of research leadership by senior academics and failure to retain some quality researchers;

(b) continuing weakness in research performance, based in part on the heavy involvement of some HEECE-funded staff in paid additional work and the difficulty of implementing an effective study leave system;

(c) propensity to use income generation to appoint staff on academic-related, fixed-term, contracts rather than teaching and research contracts;

(d) a heavy reliance on non-full time staff to teach on both undergraduate and taught postgraduate programmes;

(e) an imbalance between home-based postgraduate programmes and overseas ones; and

(f) over-concentration of control and management of all programmes of study in the School.

We do not question the commitment of staff in the School to maintain the reputation for quality that the School’s teaching currently enjoys, especially overseas. But we are convinced that, irrespective of commitment by staff, the School must address as a matter of priority its research weaknesses if it is to sustain its competitiveness in the market place, whether for home or overseas students. This is given more urgency by the School’s entry into the DBA market.

In emphasising the need to address the School’s research performance, the working patty is happy to echo the views of Professor Otley (as expressed in his report on research in ABF) and those of the recent Faculty Research Committee Research Strategy and Planning document. We welcome the University’s commitment to a new Chair in Finance and the efforts of the School’s own Research Committee to introduce closer monitoring of individual research activity. In our view, however, these should be seen as only the first stages in a longer-term strategy for improving the School’s research profile. This strategy must, we would argue, involve thorough reviews of a range of current activities to ensure that impediments to the research performance of the School are removed and that all staff, whether HEFCE or non-HEFCE funded, share the School’s academic objectives and have a clear sense of their contribution towards their attainment. In our view, any reappraisal of the School’s work should lead to

(i) a prioritisation of its teaching and validation commitments;

(ii) a review of the balance between provision of home and overseas based taught courses as its research performance improves;

(iii) the development of a clearer policy towards workload allocation;

(iv) greater delegation of the management of both home and overseas programmes;

(v) an appraisal of staffing policy, including appointments and contracts, and of staff development and training;

(vi) the funding and support of research and monitoring of research performance, especially of HEFCE-funded staff; and

(vii) developing mutually-acceptable arrangements for undertaking shared activities with the new School of Management.

We do not anticipate that any changes in policy or structures that may arise from such a review of the School’s activities will yield major improvements in the research culture and performance of ABE by the time of the next RAE in 2000-1, though we are optimistic that some improvement in performance, based on more selective entry of staff submitted, the appointment of the Chair in Finance, and some other measures, may be attainable by that date. Our goal - and, we believe, that of the School - should be to put in place mechanisms to ensure continuing improvement of research performance beyond the next RAE and providing the basis for securing and expanding future income generation success in the School. Only more radical measures than those currently contemplated will enable the School to achieve the academic objectives that we feel are central to its future success.

On the basis of the above discussion we would make the following recommendations:

RECOMMENDATION 10: That the School undertake an immediate review of its teaching and validation programmes and, in particular, of the rationale for patterns of involvement of HEFCE-funded staff in such activities, with a view to releasing more time for such staff to pursue research.

RECOMMENDATION 11: That, in reviewing the internal management of MBA and DBA programmes, the School should consider spreading the burden of management and thereby increasing the levels and range of expertise in the School in managing and directing such programmes.

RECOMMENDATION 12: That the School be encouraged to consider increasing its provision of MBAs in the UK as its research performance improves.

RECOMMENDATION 13: That the School review the contribution of full and part time academic and academic-related staff to all its teaching programmes and consider ways of revising its current staff appointment policy in order to increase security of employment and to enhance levels of research activity.

RECOMMENDATION 14: That the School consider ways of improving the career development of academic-related staff, especially those with research potential.

RECOMMENDATION 15: That, in order to monitor the quality of the staff concerned and to safeguard the integrity of the programmes and the reputation of the University, the approval of the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences or his or her deputy be required in the first instance for all part-time staff appointments to teach on MBA, DBA, or similar taught postgraduate programmes.

RECOMMENDATION 16: That, in making part-time appointments to teach on postgraduate programmes, the School take account of the research record of staff concerned and consider ways of including such staff in future RAE returns.

RECOMMENDATION 17: That the School Research Committee be encouraged to pursue a more pro-active research development strategy, to identify the strengths and weaknesses of existing HEFCE-funded staff, and to bring forward to the School Executive Committee and School Board plans for improving the School’s research performance to 2001 and beyond.

RECOMMENDATION 18: That the School develop a more integrated and open policy towards workload allocation in order to ensure greater equity and support for such allocations and to assist the School in developing an environment conducive to the achievement of its academic objectives.

10. Relations with the School of Management.

For historical, disciplinary, educational, and other reasons the activities of the schools of Management and ABF overlap. Among other things, the schools offer a range of educational programmes which have some common elements and as the two schools were parr6~a single School of Management until August 1997 there remain some aspects of each school’s operations and organisation that have continued arid provide a link between them.

The working party requested Dr Keys and Mr Saadouni to produce a report on linkages between the two schools, on the value of developing these linkages, and, if these were seen to be worth developing, on the most appropriate ways of developing them. The report reviewed the current linkages that exist in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, research, and administration, and posed a number of questions relating to how these linkages might be developed and to the benefits that might accrue from closer collaboration. On the basis of their review, the authors concluded that the existing arrangements for conducting their common activities may suffice in the short-term but that by the end of this year decisions will need to be made that, in principle, will define how the two schools should operate in relation to each other from 1 August 1999.

The working party concurs with the findings of the report by Dr Key and Mr Saadouni, and thus wishes to endorse their recommendations relating to the procedure to be adopted in order to consider further the linkages between the two schools. Based on the Keys-Saadouni report, we therefore wish to make the following recommendations:

RECOMMENDATION 19: That a Working Party be established, with membership drawn equally from both Schools and with Faculty representation, to consider how the Schools should operate in relation to each other from I August 1999.

RECOMMENDATION 20: That the Working Party report to both School Boards and to the Dean of the Faculty on its deliberations, with a final report being provided and decisions on its recommendations being taken during the Autumn of 1998.

RECOMMENDATION 21: That the Working Party devolve much of the specialised considerations to sub-groups with appropriate membership from each School, the chairs of these sub-groups being decided by the Working Party.

RECOMMENDATION 22: That the Chair of the Working Party be approved by the two Schools and the Dean and be drawn from outside the Schools concerned.

11. Summary of Recommendations.

RECOMMENDATION 1: That, as a matter of urgency, a series of meetings, away-days or other means be found to discuss, within the framework of the University’s and Faculty’s new strategic plans, the future aims and objectives of ABF and to define a realistic timescale for their achievement.

RECOMMENDATION 3: That as part of its discussions of its mission, the School should evaluate its income-generating activities with a view to assessing their implications for the achievement of its academic goals.
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RECOMMENDATION 4: That, as a matter of urgency, ABE should review its own internal procedures for managing the MBA and DBA programmes, including appointment of course directors and teaching allocations, and clarify with GMC; areas of responsibility fort and control of programmes.

RECOMMENDATION 5: That the procedures for appointing course directors be clarified -and made more transparent.

RECOMMENDATION 6: That course directors be allowed to serve on GMC but be precluded from acting as Director of GMC;

RECOMMENDATION 7: That the future management of the School of ABE pursue a more open, inclusive and accountable approach to conducting its affairs.

RECOMMENDATION 8: That, in order to implement recommendation 4, the existing committee structure of the School be made operationally more effective.

RECOMMENDATION 9: That all committees in the School be directly accountable to the School Board.

RECOMMENDATION 12: That the School be encouraged to consider increasing its provision of MBAs in the UK as its research performance improves.

RECOMMENDATION 14: That the School consider ways of improving the career development of academic-related staff, especially those with research potential.

RECOMMENDATION 15: That, in order to monitor the quality of the staff concerned and to safeguard the integrity of the programmes and the reputation of the University, the approval of the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences or his or her deputy be required for all part-time staff appointments to teach on MBA, DBA, or similar taught postgraduate programmes.

RECOMMENDATION 17: That the School Research Committee be encouraged to pursue a more pro-active research development strategy, to identify the strengths and weaknesses of existing HEECE-funded staff, and to bring forward to the School Executive Committee and School Board plans for improving the School’s research performance to 2001- and beyond.

RECOMMENDATION 22: That the Chair of the Working Party be approved by the two Schools and the Dean and be drawn from outside the Schools concerned.

8 May 1998 David Richardson