Vice-Chancellor’s Council Update: 20 January meeting

• The Vice-Chancellor shares updates from first meeting of Council
• The main item of business was the financial forecast for Q1
• This meeting included an update from the Planning and Resource Allocation Committee

Welcome to the first Council blog of 2025. The first meeting of Council each term is a shorter online meeting, and we aim for these meetings to be used for updates and discussions so that there is time in the longer meetings to discuss items for approval. At this meeting it was the turn of Dr David Prout, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Planning and Resources, to provide the annual update from the Planning and Resource Allocation Committee (PRAC).

PRAC is responsible for agreeing the budgets for the divisions and services and, under the reforms agreed following the Finance White Paper, oversees the process to agree the 3-year settlement. The settlement funds all central services, including scholarships, the University Administration and Services (UAS) and the costs of maintaining and improving the physical and digital estate.

We heard about the financial challenges the University has faced over the last 5years, largely driven by high inflation. We are facing higher costs across the board, including in staff costs per capita and in our capital projects. All divisions have found it harder to generate the funding to cover their increasing costs since 2019; shortfalls have been covered thanks to our diverse income streams, for example from successful spin-outs and annual transfers from Oxford University Press. Our capacity for investment is therefore becoming more limited, at a time when we need to invest in our people, our digital transformation and our estate.

Our other main item of business was our Q1 financial forecast. Budgets are set every year in Trinity term for the next year, and Council receives reports following the end of each quarter on any changes to the financial forecast as the year progresses. The government’s Autumn Budget provided us with a challenge of £4m from increases to employer National Insurance costs this year, rising to £11m from the next academic year, while lower student numbers than projected for 2024/25 have also negatively impacted the forecast. An increase of £1.5m in income from increased tuition fees for home undergraduates will come in from 2025/26.

If you would like to understand more about our finances, we will be running a webinar on 13 February to explain more and take your questions.

I hope that this blog helps to demystify Council and its discussions. Please let us know if you found it useful or have any feedback: you can submit feedback via vice-chancellor@admin.ox.ac.uk.

Council information, including minutes, is published on the website.

Information on the Committees of Council can also be found online.

We encourage all staff to consider putting themselves forward for committees and other governance groups: our current elections page provides relevant information.