Dear colleagues,
Soon after taking up the appointment as Provost of UCL on 1 September, Sir Derek Roberts will begin regular communication with all staff in order to lay out his thinking regarding future directions for UCL and strengthening the confidence of its community and external partners. In the meantime, Sir Derek wishes staff to read the 'Financial Times' article below.
Nicholas Tyndale, Head of Communications Patrick Edwards, Head of Media Relations
A withering attack on the government's higher education funding policies has been delivered by the new Provost of University College London.
Sir Derek Roberts told the 'Financial Times' that the college's projected £10m deficit in the coming year was due to government "hypocrisy". Ministers were pushing top universities into attracting students from poorer backgrounds yet refusing to allow each institution to recover the cost of teaching the students.
Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith quit as provost last week after what one students' union described as a "mutiny at midnight" among senior staff appalled at plans for cuts.
In his first interview since taking over, Sir Derek blamed UCL's financial woes squarely on ministers.
The former industrialist is renowned as a "street fighter" and his comments may be seen as a pre-emptive strike ahead of a white paper on the future of universities due in October.
Appointed for a year to the job he held for a decade until 1999, after leaving GEC, he said: "I am not being dragged down by worrying about a few million pounds - that's the government's problem."
His first priority was to restore morale at UCL and stop "a lot of internal back-biting". He said Sir Chris's management reforms had been unpopular and he would be unpicking the bureaucratic structure. "I do hope to reinstill an attitude of self-confidence and commitment to UCL as far as staff are concerned, and a sense of being motivated and being led."
At GEC - which had between 70 and 80 subsidiaries - he had worked alongside Lord Weinstock. "He was always available for two-way contact with individual managing directors," said Sir Derek.
Asked if Sir Chris had left of his own accord, Sir Derek said: "That's my view. I wasn't party to it. He just looked at the situation as it was and decided from his point of view it was time to move on."
He said there was no personal animosity: "It's not unfriendly. No, no. He was sitting where you are and I was sitting where I am last Friday having a sandwich." And he described as "ludicrous" reports that Lord Young, who was once Margaret Thatcher's favourite troubleshooter and nows chairs UCL's ruling council, had played a pivotal role in Sir Chris's departure.
He hinted that a lack of engagement between the council and the college might have been one of the problems. "One of the things I have been talking to David Young about is that maybe the lay members of council have not been fully aware of some of the things that have been going on."
Sir Derek also denied that he had been irresponsible in his time as provost in expanding UCL's research role and paying staff well by UK standards. "The other approach is the counsel of despair. Abandon research? What benefit does that do?"
He said talk at UCL about redundancies and cuts had hit morale. "This is a great institution. I am not going to be party to any action which has a long-term weakening effect."
Under current rules, he complained, money paid to UCL from research councils did not meet the actual costs of doing the work. If it did, UCL would be £20m a year better off. Income from charities for research attracted no government support at all, he said.
In 2000-01, UCL research income was £204m - only bettered by Oxford on £206m. It ranks as one of the best metropolitan universities in the world.
He said that, if the October review solved such problems then, by implication, the government was admitting to previous under-funding over two decades. "So what about the back pay?" he demanded.
And returning to the theme of government hypocrisy, he added, "Why are politicians worried if certain young people go to the University of Luton instead of Cambridge? Because they recognise that there is a tremendous difference in the quality of the educational experience. If so - why not therefore pay Cambridge more for doing it? And for Cambridge read the good universities. If you want more to go to the best then bloody well pay for the best."