April 27th, 2016:

22 April 2016
Dear Christopher,

Thank you for your letter of 19 April about the outcome of the vote of no confidence. As you mention, the vote was not organised by Reading UCU, although we did lend support towards its organisation. Thus, I will share your letter with Sally Pellow, and ask her to share it with the Vote of No Confidence Committee, who may wish to reply to you in due course.
A vote of no confidence has, by convention, to be against a person, not an organisation or other more nebulous body. In this case the VC, as head of the University, is the appropriate person. I made it clear to the Vote of No Confidence Committee that this was not to be a personal attack on the VC but rather a vote of no confidence in the wider management of the university, which the VC, as head, represents. This was accepted by the committee and I have come across no cases of personal attack on the VC, and neither has the VC mentioned any such personal attacks to me. Should you be able to substantiate the allegations you make in your letter please take this up with the Vote of No Confidence Committee.
You will be aware that votes of no confidence are not commonly held in UK universities. They are not something staff run to over slight differences of opinion. Rather, they only occur over deep-seated and long-term grievances and where there is a sense that the valid and serious concerns of staff are not being listened to by management. That is why a vote of no confidence was the right and proper action of staff in this circumstance.
This is the first vote of no confidence held at Reading in its 90-year history as an independent university. Thus, I find your comments that ‘the outcome of such exercises has no bearing on the issues at stake and undertaking such exercises is not,
I believe, helpful to the wider interests of the University’ very disappointing. The fact that over 1000 staff members were prepared to vote against confidence in the University is surely telling, but should not be a surprise. Staff at all levels up to Deans, along with Reading UCU, have repeatedly expressed their grave concerns over this process to the UEB and you will recall that two highly experienced lay Council members strongly cautioned against such a wholesale reorganisation when the University first brought its proposals to Council.
Reading UCU remains ready and willing to respond positively to approaches from the University that recognise and seek to address the concerns of staff in this matter. We will not, however, respond positively to attempts to belittle or ignore these genuine concerns.

Yours sincerely,
Dr Paul Hatcher

President Reading UCU

Dr Paul Hatcher
President of the Branch Committee
UCU

19 April 2016

Dear Paul,
I am writing further to a letter dated April 15 which I have received from your colleague Sally Pellow and others informing me of the result of a self-styled vote of no confidence in the Vice-Chancellor and asking me to call an emergency meeting of the University Council. If you do not have a copy of the letter, Richard Messer can supply one. In all the circumstances, I felt it most appropriate to respond to you, though I appreciate you are not the author of the letter. I am happy for you to share the content of this letter as you judge fit.
As I know from our discussion on March 21 and as was brought out at a meeting of Council later that day, there are concerns about the changes which are to be introduced in teaching and learning support arrangements, which fall within the professional and administrative support services component of the current efficiency and effectiveness programme. I fully accept the legitimacy of students and staff raising these concerns, and in turn management has accepted the validity of certain of the points made and has recognised the importance of change being introduced carefully and with appropriate transitional arrangements, the exact scope of which remains open to discussion.
I do think, however, that it is a matter of regret that differences on this matter have been overly personalised on the position of the Vice-Chancellor himself, which at times I understand have included unpleasant and unprofessional aspects. I do hope this will now come to an end. It is relatively easy to vote ‘no’ in a token vote of no confidence, but the outcome of such exercises has no bearing on the issues at stake and undertaking such exercises is not, I believe, helpful to the wider interests of the University. It does, however, prompt me to make clear that the Vice-Chancellor has the full confidence of the University Council and, I believe, the wider university community.
As to the possibility of an emergency meeting of the Council, I will not be taking up this suggestion. The efficiency and effectiveness programme, which was initiated some three years ago, was welcomed and endorsed by the Council in response to the need for the University to improve its core financial performance and to enhance the quality of its central services. This was and remains critical to the sustainability of the institution, and is part of a broader range of initiatives brought forward by the Vice-Chancellor which have been improving the position of the University and which continue to unfold. The Council and its committees have kept the programme under review and will continue to do so. There was proper consideration of the immediate concerns around the changes to teaching and learning support at the Council meeting on March 21, taking account of your views, those expressed by RUSU and the letter of March 15 from the Vice-Chancellor. The outcome was an endorsement of the Vice-Chancellor’s approach.
I know the Vice-Chancellor wrote to you on April 13 on the efficiency and effectiveness programme, setting out his views on the matters which have been raised as well as a framework within which he would expect to handle any outstanding issues. I know from our earlier conversation that you are genuinely concerned about serving the best interests of the University and, while inevitably there may be different views on specific matters as to where that best interest lies, I do hope you and your colleagues will respond positively to the approach the Vice-Chancellor has now set out.

Kind regards
Christopher Fisher
cc Sir David Bell, Vice-Chancellor
Dr Richard Messer, Chief Strategy Officer & University Secretary

Staff Against PAS Committee
c/o Chris Drake
TOB1, Earley Gate

Mr Christopher Fisher
President of Council of the University of Reading
Delivered via Richard Messer
15 April 2016

Dear Christopher,
We write to confirm to you the result of our poll calling for a Vote of No Confidence in the Vice Chancellor in his capacity as leader of the Senior Management Team. 1213 votes were counted, of which 1071 were in support of the vote: this amounts to 88.3% of the votes received. Based on the figures in the last published Report and Accounts, this equates to 35% of the current workforce expressing no confidence and 5% expressing confidence.
Our concerns remain unchanged. We firmly believe that unless urgent steps are taken, the university will not be in a position to continue with business as normal after August 1. As academics, technicians and administrators, we work on a daily basis with students and are committed to the success of each student and of the University. We fully understand the systems that exist at present, and the hazards of rapid and wide scale change. We can already see the adverse consequences of the restructuring, the loss of key staff and the dangers of the process changes. The teams responsible for implementing these changes have given us no information which reassures or convinces us that they understand the implications of what they plan. We are particularly concerned about a large net loss of administrative capacity, research student activity and about vulnerable students. Years of essential expertise is being lost: this is not easy to replace and will leave some areas denuded of crucial support and knowledge. We do not want to see this university fail.
We ask that you call an emergency meeting of Council in order to discuss these issues. Some of them were raised under AOB in the last meeting of Council by RUSU, but these were not actually discussed. We are in the process of preparing packs of documents and will send these to all Council members next week.
You may wish to know that we are also in the process of taking legal advice over our concerns.
We assure you of our commitment to the future of the University and the welfare of our students and staff.
We look forward to your reply.

With kind regards,
Chris Drake
Nick Bardsley
Nikos Georgantzis
Karin Lesnik-Oberstein
Sue Mott
Sally Pellow
and 38 further members of the Staff Against PAS Committee
on behalf of 1071 members of staff at the University of Reading