It was lovely to welcome Rabbi Zalman Lewis to campus this week to conduct a pre-Hannukah celebration. Rabbi Lewis lit a Hannukah candle, shared some welcome doughnuts and brought people together at this important time of year in the Jewish calendar.

Rabbi Lewis praised the university for its support and encouragement of the annual celebration. He said, “an essential Hanukkah message is the rights of all to wear their religion and identity proudly and publicly”.

“It was wonderful to promote a meaningful message to so many students via our pre-Hannukah celebration. As a small community at Kent, events like this are so important to raise the profile of Jewish students at the University and to help young Jews to connect with each other at this special time of year. There were also lots of warm interactions with students and staff from many backgrounds which is exactly what festivals like this are all about.”

Chabad at South East Coast Universities was established in 2006 as part of the expansion of Chabad at University Campuses across the UK to be a presence for Jewish students and provide the security and confidence they need. Since then, many social events, meals, lunch n learns and more have taken place at the University of Kent and other universities based across the South East.

Dear Colleagues, 

My warmest wishes to all of you as we come to the end of another busy term and look ahead to Christmas and the New Year break. This is always a special time of year – this week alone has shown the breadth of what it means to people through our traditional carol service in Canterbury Cathedral, carols round the tree, our local rabbi lighting a pre-Hannukah candle on campus, and our archive growing with materials from the world’s first Muslim pantomime! My thanks also to everyone who has been out early in the mornings making our campuses safe through the recent icy conditions. 

Lots to celebrate in 2022 

Before we all head off for a well-deserved break, I wanted to pause and reflect on a year that has once again seen some real successes for Kent. The REF is an obvious place to start, with our excellent results standing us in good stead for the years ahead. We were also able to invest further in STEM through a £1m grant from the Office for Students, supporting key areas where we are looking to grow. 

Community has been a major focus this year, with our first ever Kent Giving Week raising tens of thousands for the Parkinson’s Centre for Integrated Therapy, and our inaugural Youth Summit bringing schools together from across the county. We’ve also shown what a wider university community is all about through our twinning with Kherson State University in Ukraine. Our commitment to our role within wider society will develop further next year with our application to be a University of Sanctuary and the development of our Right to Food initiative. 

The return of in-person graduations was another big highlight, with the smiles and hugs across multiple ceremonies a real boost for everyone. It’s also been great to see our new brand identity centred on ambition rolling out across our campuses and marketing material. 

Looking ahead to 2023 

So there is lots to build on as we look ahead to next year. As I have updated previously, we do have bumps in the road to negotiate, particularly linked to our in-year issue with student retention – on Wednesday we held a dedicated session with senior leaders to focus on this and the practical steps we can take to ensure we don’t face this issue again. Linked to this will be a concerted focus on the National Student Survey.  

Our annual accounts have now been published, which set out some of the challenges ahead, including our continued need to think about our ways of working and how we can be more effective. Income is what we need to remain focussed on and we have an Executive Group strategy session next week and a Council strategy session in January, where we will be thinking about what else we can do to move the University forwards. I was also pleased to see the new Education Secretary Gilian Keegan row back on recent comments regarding international students; it goes without saying that our international community brings so much to our University and our region and is of huge value socially and culturally. We are proud to welcome so many people from around the world to Kent. 

Making ambition count 

While the sector is still facing challenges, we should remain proud of what we do and the impact we have for so many. Our University supports thousands of students each year to make their ambition count, finding their way in the world in a supportive environment through the huge talent and effort of every one of you. There are successes big and small every day and while I don’t underestimate how much work that takes, I want to thank all of you for your continued commitment to the University.  

I hope all get some down time over the coming weeks and wish you all the very best as we head towards 2023. 

With all good wishes for Christmas and the New Year. 

Yours sincerely 

Karen 

All staff are invited to join the Vice-Chancellor for a Community Catch-Up on 17 January 2023 between 12.00-13,00, where Karen will be providing a mid-term review and a look ahead to the rest of the year. Sign up now and a calendar invite will be sent to all attendees beforehand with information on how to join.

We are currently inviting applications for Director of the Institute of Health, Social Care and Wellbeing (iHSCW), on a fixed-term basis (3 years). To apply, fill in a short form and upload a CV and Cover Letter. 

Institute of Health, Social Care and Wellbeing (iHSCW) will be promoting multi and interdisciplinary research and teaching activities in the field of health, social care and wellbeing.

The University of Kent is establishing an Institute of Health, Social Care and Wellbeing (iHSCW) as a university-wide hub to promote multi- and interdisciplinary research and teaching activities in the field of health, social care and wellbeing. Building on existing strengths at Kent in health and social care, iHSCW will serve as a major regional catalyst for the highest-quality research, knowledge exchange, and education. It will lead a step change in the University’s activities in this field, regionally, nationally and globally, providing leadership and a scaled-up approach across the three pillars of the University’s activities, with a particular emphasis on building partnerships with external stakeholders and securing external funding to support research and innovation that can contribute significantly to addressing challenges in health, social care and wellbeing.

iHSCW will support the University’s civic mission by addressing significant regional needs and challenges in health and social care.

Working in close collaboration and partnership with external stakeholders across Kent and Medway, including the Integrated Health Boards (ICBs), Public Health departments, local authorities, health and social care providers and commissioners, business and industry, policy-makers, post-16 education providers, and the wider community, iHSCW will support the University’s civic mission by addressing significant regional needs in health and social care, particularly those in coastal towns and communities. Mobilising the University’s current resources and research expertise in the field, and building on those resources, iHSCW will focus in particular on the prevention of ill-health, both physical and mental, and on interventions and other strategies (including educational) designed to increase opportunities for lifelong health.

As a hub for research, innovation and education in health and social care, iHSCW will bring together researchers and educators across the University to work together on larger collaborative funding applications, as well as the development of intellectual property (IP) and spin-outs, involving those from across the arts, humanities, and medical, natural, and social sciences. The Institute will work with academic Divisions to ensure coherence and oversight to our education and training provision, ensuring that any future offer is responsive and aligned to external stakeholder needs.

The Institute will thus ensure that the University plays a major role in addressing health and social care challenges in the region and beyond, though research, innovation, and knowledge exchange, education, and civic engagement, generating significant income to support its activities.

Following recent meetings of the KentVision (KV) Project Board, I wanted to share with you some of the decisions that we have made regarding the future direction of the project, as well as some other significant updates.

It is important for me to stress that the University remains committed to delivering the KV project and to realising its benefits. Since we went live in April 2021, a number of very significant features and improvements have been developed and delivered (e.g., new functionality for students to view and maintain assessment deadlines and features for the processing of mitigating circumstance requests, board of examiner and post-board amendments), but there remains a large backlog of features and functionality requests yet to be confirmed for delivery.

The KV Project Board, in close cooperation with university central governance groups, has made the decision to move the KV work from a separate project to an IS business-as-usual delivery model by the summer of 2023.

As a consequence, between now and summer of 2023, we must re-focus the project on delivering features, functionality and data improvements in the following areas:

• Compliance (e.g., features relating to UKVI reporting)
• Statutory obligations (e.g., features relating to HESA Data Futures ensuring we maintain our link to UCAS)

When the compliance and statutory features and functionality in the backlog are assessed, the risk to the institution of not delivering these is extremely large. We must deliver changes on these areas by summer 2023 as a result to changes to regulations and a delay will present real risk in meeting our compliance obligations.

We know there are challenges for teams who are experiencing workload pressures. To try and address these, from January 2023 we are establishing a dedicated KV Operational Support Team to provide technical support during intensive operational processes, that require manual workarounds, throughout the academic year (e.g., online module registration and academic roll-over activities). We will work with local managers to make sure the impact is understood, and the right support and mitigations are in place so teams can continue delivering high-quality services with existing systems and tools.

A significant amount of work had already been completed across the six KV Functional Area Groups which has enabled delivery of new features and a greater understanding of our activities and operations; along with insights as to how we may best organise these activities within KV and across Central and Divisional Teams. The project is now reviewing the original planned activities and we are developing plans with Senior Leadership and the KV Functional Group Chairs to move forward these key areas of work, reprioritising the plan.

The possible options we will consider for addressing the remaining features in the backlog include:

• Further technical development work to KentVision
• An alternative existing software solution (e.g., Office 365)
• A process and or policy change.

The revised plan will prioritise areas where we will get maximum benefit for professional service, academic staff, and our students. I will update colleagues in January 2023 on how we intend to address the remaining features within the backlog.

KV has already delivered key features and functionality – this is down to the hard work and achievements of the many colleagues who have contributed to the project thus far. I thank them for that, and for their excellent work.

Our commitment to supporting our staff is unwavering, and as we are now moving towards the end of the KV project phase, we have to make changes to both our plan and our approach that take this into consideration. The KV Project Board is meeting frequently to monitor the impact of this decision and the mitigations being put in place, and we will provide regular updates to you moving forward.

To help address the additional financial pressure this year including inflation and the increased cost of living, we all need to do all we can to help reduce any non-essential spend – the Finance team have written to budget holders with updated budgets to reflect this and we should all keep this in mind when planning projects in the months ahead. We have also put in place an ‘exceptional approval to hire’ process so there is tighter control around staff recruitment for the time being.

Our Financial Statements and Annual Review for 21/22 have now been published, showing an underlying operating result of an £11.7m deficit which is in line with the budget we set for the year – reflecting an important step on the path to achieving financial sustainability. As with many universities, this year’s accounts include a very significant additional pensions charge of £54.6m which is why you see a larger overall deficit – this is the result of the 2020 valuation of the USS pension scheme and is an accounting adjustment only, with no adverse impact on Kent’s underlying performance or cash levels.

Reflected in the reported 21/22 performance was the return to more regular conditions as the impact of Covid receded, with increased face-to-face activity, improved occupancy and more use of student accommodation and catering facilities leading to increased income. Total income grew by 3.7% to £260.4m compared to 2020/21, although tuition fees were lower with increased competition for students. This return to full activity and the removal of temporary measures to control costs, as well as additional investment into areas of growth potential, meant that costs increased by 11%, to £274.5m. This excess of spend over income, along with planned payments to lenders resuming in-year, has meant that our cash balances have reduced in the year, to £30.5m (equivalent to 45 days of spend). Whilst this still exceeds the University’s financial sustainability target, work continues to improve the underlying operating performance and cash generation.

Looking ahead, 2022/23 has brought additional challenges with lower student retention than expected impacting on income levels, and inflation and energy costs are also placing pressure on budgets. We have put in place measures to ensure that we can we achieve the budgeted result – a managed deficit of £6.0m. This involves short-term cost control measures which delay the timing of new investments and restrict non-essential spending. We’re currently working through the details of these measures and will be providing full updates to budget holders early in the New Year. Alongside this, and with a focus on the longer-term financial sustainability, initiatives are being worked up aimed at increasing and diversifying income and ensuring our operations are delivered as efficiently as possible.