After months of accusations on campus and in the press that job shedding restructures are unnecessary and the university council has messed-up, ANU management has launched a defence of its position.
The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency required the university to address allegations concerning the culture and competence of the university council and executive in managing finances plus relations with, and treatment of, staff.
The university released its answers yesterday.
On finances the main message is, “the council has been aware of recurring underlying operating deficits since 2020 and has monitored the University’s financial position and implemented mitigation strategies throughout this time.”
And yet the financial narrative provided focuses on a blizzard of bads:
- Bad strategy: the 2017-21 strategic plan was based on cutting student numbers and increasing philanthropy. The first happened, the latter didn’t
- Bad weather: notably a hugely destructive and immensely damaging storm
- Bad luck: the Pandemic increased costs and reduced earnings
- Bad management: staff numbers grew as did their salaries, ahead of income
But the big one left largely unexplained is Bad Timing. ANU states council “has been aware of recurring underlying operating deficits since 2020” and was aware of risks in 2023. However, the present $250m savings plan was adopted in August ’24.
There are two classes to TEQSA’s interest in culture. One is “concerns” in the media, Parliament and on campus about council and executive change management and staff “being afraid to voice concerns about decisions by ANU’s senior leadership.” The university has no hope of rebutting “concerns” and sticks to setting out procedures.
The other is findings in the recent Nixon Review, that, “under the ANU Council’s oversight the following issues arose: inflexible work practices, unfair workloads, bullying, discrimination and lack of effective systems and accountability to address these issues.”
The best the university can manage is that commissioning the review and acting on recommendations demonstrates council and executive, “accept where significant concerns exist, to fully investigate matters, and a commitment to implement whole of institutional changes to improve the culture and practices where required.”
Except Professor Nixon found gender bias, sexism and racial discrimination had gone on for decades and still does.
TEQSA now has a range of responses it can impose on ANU, including ending its registration as a university, imposing conditions on its operations or setting out its expectations on what it must do next.
