It’s been the dream (or fantasy) of Spiersy and his shifting management team to climb clear of the bottom of the assorted university league tables, especially the Guardian table, perhaps with a leg-up from the Head of Planning & Chief Dodgy Statistician, Matt Hiely-Remunerated. But reaching the top has been a forlorn hope, until now. Unfortunately the table in question is none of these, nor that of the world’s best (most self-regarding?) institutions; no, it’s the list of the biggest financial deficits in HE.
The Times Higher has published figures that place Kingston ahead of the country with a deficit of 14.2 million pounds, although we slip to fourth place relative to income (-7.1%). These upper echelons are populated with notables such as London Metropolitan and Bolton, home of Bentley-driving, 30%-pay-rise VC, George Holmes, the narcissist of Lincolnshire. Not quite Russell Group territory. Don’t expect to see a trumpet parade on Staffspace over this one.
Back in the days of Peter Scott, which seem an awfully long time ago, Kingston University ran a surplus. Then along came Julius ‘The Rat’ Weinberg who slagged off his predecessor for hoarding too much cash and promptly set about spending it, some on his own salary, a bigger wad on the new Town House. Combined with sinking student applications, the actions of ambitious Ratty, who buggered off while the going was good, has put KU in the red.
Kingston has put up with crap buildings at its main site for years now, so shelling out on something better is no bad thing, provided there are students around to fill it once finished. And all kinds of outfits run deficits without problems, at least for a while. Our position, however, is not too comfortable with falling enrolments and stumbling management. Still, cheer up Spiersy. This is Kingston’s best league table performance since it came second in the bullying vote.
Department of Strategy Marketing and Innovation prolly will top the bullying charts if internal olympics were held. Worse is that even master students are bullied. No one cares. Sad
Maybe KU should try a little rebranding. The corporate colours could be changed from sky blue (wholly inappropriate to date) to a more appropriate red colour.
Hell, they could even appoint an external corporate design agency for this and spend a few more million pounds on the exercise.
I hope you’re not suggesting that KU was better off with Scott at the helm. Might I remind you of his staff/student bullying tactics, not to mention the numerous fraud scandals (external examiner and NSS, to name but two).
A pox on all of them!
What is the bullying vote?
A few years ago the UCU conducted a survey of bullying within HE establishments. Kingston was second worst.
Do you remember who was first out of interest?
University of East London. Quite a few ex-polys on the list.
https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/3595/UCU-names-universities-with-biggest-bullying-problems
Erm… I’ve called out the website owner on unsubstantiated nonsense before – not that that particular correspondence ever saw the light of day.
Also, not that I think KU is going that well, but… is there anything we can actually do to help? Do we have any good ideas between us? I’d love a direct sit-down 70-member cttee between Dean and us filth.
Fellow dissident
On a related topic: from the “Research” website (https://www.researchresearch.com/news/article/?articleId=1375340)
The Guardian’s spurious league table ‘now includes a “continuation measure”, which aims to reflect students’ chances of finishing their degrees. It is calculated by looking at how many first year students on full-time first-degree courses are still active in higher education in December the following year—regardless of whether they are at a different institution, or on a different course.
‘To accommodate this new metric, spending per student has had its weighting decreased.’
Indeed Nº45. We have Matt Hiely-Creative (no conflict of interest)to thank for that wheeze.