Meeting of the Parliament 08 March 2016
I say with the greatest respect to Ms Goldie that the questions are not unanswered. No one needs to be a member of a university governing body to understand the issues or to have an interest in the wellbeing of institutions. What will happen is what happens now, which is that the ancient universities decide how the roles of the rector and the senior lay member dovetail. Those roles are well differentiated in the code of governance.
In all four ancient universities, what Mr Brodie proposes would fully transfer the senior lay member’s duties to the rector, which would result in the rector having substantially enhanced functions in the governing body, such that that body would have no ability to undertake any form of selection prior to the election of the rector. That would give those institutions different governance arrangements from all others and create inconsistency.
We have worked hard to maintain and preserve the current role of rectors, but it has never been the bill’s aim to give them additional functions. Taken in the round with Mr Brodie’s amendments 28, 29, 30 and 40, amendments 27 and 31 seek to introduce a co-chair model for the chairing of the governing bodies of all our HEIs. I will address that in greater detail as we move on to group 2, but I can say here and now that I do not consider that that model would be of benefit to the bill or our institutions.
For the reasons that I have described, I cannot support amendments 27 and 31. If Mr Brodie presses amendment 27 and moves amendment 31, I ask members to reject them.