All

I hope everyone is well given the various challenges and pressures of the start of term. It’s obviously early days in terms of assessing how things are going, but where I have had feedback about the start of f2f teaching, the suggestion seems to be that things are (mostly) working ok; I’ve heard of a few glitches in relation to the online offer – mostly linked to moving individuals between seminar groups and I’m aware that work-rounds have been found but we need to think about how we might improve this process. Test and Trace data is now being published weekly and while numbers are going up, we aren’t obviously experiencing exceptionally rapid growth (I say this with fingers tightly crossed). We do have a significant numbers of students self-isolating although hopefully, many of these will soon be coming back into circulation.

There are just three points for update – one on student numbers, one on finances and one on furniture for home working.

Student Numbers

Many of you will have seen the student numbers presented at Senate, but I know that not everyone is a member. The table below details the student numbers that were presented to Senate and will be presented to Council this coming week:

	Pre Covid Target	Adjusted Target (Plan 5B)	Plan Draft 6
UG HEU	4278	3982	4623
UG OS	1031	516	936
UG - TOTAL	5309	4498	5559
PGT HEU	1581	1378	1244
PGT OS	3183	1592	2388
PGT - TOTAL	4764	2970	3632
PGR HEU	382	334	337
PGR OS	195	98	93
PGR - TOTAL	577	432	430
TOTAL-ALL	10650	7900	9621

These numbers are the basis on which we’re reporting on Plan v6 although enrolments are continuing – at all levels. The position is complex – enrolments are rising and we have issued a significant number of CAS’s (and a lot have been used); at the same time, Warwick Accommodation are reporting that there are around 1000 students who have booked rooms but haven’t arrived on campus. And figures from Departments suggest that there may be as many as 1800 students arriving up to and including that start of term 2. It’s difficult to comment definitively on deferrals, although anecdotally they do seem to be relatively high and we believe that the risk of deferrals/drop outs is significant. And that’s reflected in some of the current components of Plan v 6.

Current Financials

The student numbers above suggest that fee income is likely to be around £40m ahead of the figures in Plan 5b which is great news. But costs are higher as well. We’re making significant provisions for deferrals/drop outs and we are projecting a further reduction in other operating income (primarily in CCSG but also accommodation). Cost are also higher – including around £8m adverse for staff – partly because VLS is currently below the levels planned but also because we’ve released extra spending – including STP and other staff costs. There is also a higher level of projected non pay costs, much of which is linked to additional Covid related expenditure. So overall, the projected deficit for Plan v6 is still negative but “only” £10m adverse. This should improve when we finalise v7 of the plan and we’ll know more about this in the next 10 days or so. But cautious optimism does seem to still be a reasonable position.

Furniture for Home Working

Following the request for the completion of risk assessments for those colleagues who have to continue to work from home, there is now a bit more guidance on items for purchase if there is a need to make furniture purchases. We would continue to encourage people to access essential equipment from their office if at all possible but if furniture is needed, there is a suggested list of furniture items that can be ordered for home working on the website (there are only three items available for this purpose – one type of chair and 2 sizes of table. See here: https://warwick.ac.uk/services/estates/service_centre/furniture/order under the ‘Home working collection’ tab.

Any queries on any of the above – or indeed on anything that I haven’t mentioned – do please let me know.

Cheers

Chris

Professor Christine Ennew OBE