Meeting of the Parliament 08 March 2016
I will deal with amendments 28 to 30 and 40 from Chic Brodie and amendment 1 from Liz Smith.
The role of senior lay member of the governing body is central to the bill’s ambitions to ensure that every voice in the higher education community is heard and to enable an approach to governance that is based on greater transparency, accountability and inclusivity, supports continuous improvement in the operation of our higher education institutions and creates consistency across institutions to underpin governance arrangements.
We have heard from Mr Brodie on his amendments 27 and 31. Those amendments, combined with amendments 28 to 30 and 40, which he has just described, would have a substantial impact on the role of the senior lay member and would disempower that central and powerful role. They would also introduce the position of elected co-chair. Together, the amendments would provide that the senior lay member would have a duty to preside at meetings of the governing body only
“when issues of policy affecting the institution are being considered”,
and that they would have a deliberative and casting vote at such meetings, again only
“when issues of policy affecting the institution are being considered”.
We have no definition of “issues of policy”, so it is not clear what exactly is envisaged for the role of the senior lay member in the new model.
On all other matters, duties would fall to the co-chair, who would be elected in a manner to be determined by the governing body. That would enable the governing body to simply appoint the co-chair without opening out the electorate any wider than its own membership.