News broke yesterday, shattering and defying all expectation – the University of Cambridge did not succeed in its attempt in carrying forward a motion of no confidence against universities minister David Willets.
Actually that’s not technically true – it wasn’t the entire University. In fact it was only the governing body, the Regent House, which backed the motion after receiving a petition with 150 signatories. Those in the academic community were the only ones able to participate in this public censuring. In Regent House there are 4,500 academic and academic-related staff.
The vote was close. 681 voted in favour of the motion and exactly 681 voted against leading to a tie. Unlike in most contact sports, there is no second draw and the motion was abandoned – either you win the motion outright or you don’t win it at all.
Removing my instinctive conspiracy theory/PR stunt detecting hat for a second, just the numbers astound. 681/4500. That’s just over 15% of those eligible to vote voted against Mr Willetts. That’s hardly a great confidence knock is it?
This isn’t the first time that numbers fail to add up to a damning critique of the Government’s HE policies. At the University of Oxford’s legislative body last month the motion which successfully passed to censure Willetts won by only 283 votes. This group is made up of a large number of compulsory members as well as ‘all persons working in any university department or institution who hold posts on grades 8 and above’. Grade 8, for information, is approximately £36862 - £44016. That is a very large number indeed. Much larger than 283.
Leeds again has its data skewed: "There were many abstentions and even those who voted against the motion said they were unhappy about what was happening. They were just concerned if it was the right time and place to pass a motion," said a concerned academic. They are right to be concerned - I've taken issue with the number that didn't vote but how many voted against? How many abstained?
Only eight departments out of 95 at King’s College, London, have successfully passed a vote of no confidence. That’s less than 8%.
At Warwick University 1,062 lecturers and students have signed a petition on this subject – as of 2010 Warwick had 4,448 staff and 18,434 students. That’s a combined population of 22,882. That makes the percentage of Warwickians that have no confidence in David Willetts: just over 4%.
I accept that just proposing a vote of no confidence is bound to have sent shockwaves around BIS, but on closer examination it really is nothing more than not-very-impressive PR stunt. The percentages speak for themselves. Like RMT calling a tube strike with less than 10% of its base, if it is below a defined percentage of the eligible participants then it should surely not pass and should have very little impact on the business of governing. This smacks of a centrally orchestrated smear campaign strategy to me.
The autumn is when I predict it will all kick off. Students and staff will return full time and the real ramifications of a mis-communicated and vague HE White Paper will start to emerge. Once everyone is settled back, around about mid-October, the rhetoric will fly and emotions will run riot over an issue that deserves careful deliberation and academic debate, and not a spin-induced placard wielding frenzy.
1 comments:
Looking at the PR elements alone is an awfully narrow view. Whilst you are right,I agree that targeting Willetts is ridiculous (it's the government's policies, not the person that need to change), the act of declaring no confidence is not just a fire across BIS' bow for the assembled media outside.
It's also something that can be considered a setting of policy direction, stating that this is the direction that the organisation involved wish to take.
For example, the NUS NEC no confidence vote in government policy is probably a no-brainer, but considering how some students are currently viewing the union, it is needed. It reassures all those members who were concerned that NUS was going to change course and stop rallying against the policy.
So, yes, there are PR elements to it, but don't make your judgements on them looking so narrowly. There are far more reasons for these votes than you have set out here and some of them are actually quite relevant.
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