left to my own devices – occasional thoughts on higher education

Photo by Pexels from Freerange Stock

For what is the first (but hopefully not the last) time, this week’s post is from a guest writer: David Gent, with whom I’ve been fortunate enough to work at two different universities. David posted a great comment on my post last week about board/committee chairs; and was kind enough to say yes when I asked if he’d like to write a post expanding on that comment.

In recent weeks this blog has highlighted the ongoing importance of good governance for effective decision making in universities. Richard has cast a spotlight on the role of committee members and chairs, arguing that they need to be supported and valued. 

This post completes the holy trinity of committees by looking at a further vital role: that of the Committee Secretary. If, as Richard argued in his last post, committee chairs are often neglected and under-valued, then committee secretaries seem doubly so. 

I should start by declaring an interest here. I have now clocked up nearly fifteen years working in higher education. I have spent much of that time acting as a Secretary to high-level university committees. In one role alone I produced a quarter of a million words of minutes (yes, I counted). So I come at this issue from a certain side of the fence. 

sing along with the common people*

I began my career back in the heady and more optimistic days of the early 2010s. At the risk of being nostalgic, it seemed back then that committee secretaries (at least for higher-level committees) were often staff on higher grades. This made sense – as we’ll see, the role requires good oral and written communication skills, organisational ability, critical and strategic thinking, and the ability to exercise good judgement and diplomacy.** Often it sat within a professional services function that had a focus on governance. It was a professional, specialised role. 

But as universities have looked to cut costs in response to the financial crisis, there’s been a tendency in the sector to devalue the committee secretary role. It’s been moved to lower grade staff, and / or as a sideline for staff employed in other functions that aren’t focused on governance. Time for the role is ever squeezed. 

Sitting behind this seems to be a common misconception about what secretaries are and what they do. If you haven’t been on a committee in higher education (and even, for some colleagues who should know better, if you have), it’s certainly an opaque position. 

Everyone who has ever been a committee secretary for any length of time will have had a conversation that goes something like this: 

‘Oh, so you’re the secretary. So what, you send out the papers, book the rooms, take the notes, organise the tea and biscuits? That kind of thing, yeah?’ 

Grrr. The default – often patronising – assumption is too often that being a secretary is a low-level administrative function. Secretaries are (in the immortal words of Jarvis Cocker) the common people: not academic, not senior, not skilled. The logic then is that the role can be shifted to lower grades or even (*shudders*) done by AI. Got to cut costs after all. Right? 

Wrong. The Committee Secretary plays an absolutely fundamental role on the committee and thus in the governance structure. Their effectiveness makes or breaks whether a committee runs well.  If, as has been argued recently, committees need to take a more proactive role in strategic leadership, that can’t be done without a good secretary. 

amazed that they exist  

So, what do – or can – committee secretaries actually do? Well, they: 

• Organise and plan each meeting agenda and annual schedule. This means planning what business needs to come when, and liaising with other teams who supply papers to ensure the committee can carry out its decision-making and oversight functions in a timely way. They have to communicate the Chair’s requirements, negotiate deadlines with (often stressed, senior) colleagues, and spot when there’s an emerging issue that needs to come to committee. This requires high-level communication and negotiation skills and knowledge across the committee’s remit. 

• Read each and every paper as it comes in; identify mistakes and (crucially) poor quality papers; ensure that papers are focused on decisions rather than simply updates, liaise with authors to get improvements. Unclear papers = unclear decisions and time wasted. The secretary could help with that if they were empowered (or senior) enough to do so. 

• Brief the Chair, both in writing and verbally, to highlight key issues and where the discussion needs to focus. The secretary can save the committee and Chair a lot of time here. Importantly, the secretary can also spot – early – where a decision or discussion may be contentious or unrealistic, helping the chair prepare or even pull a paper. This necessarily requires good communication skills and strategic judgement. 

• Support the Chair in ensuring the meeting leads to clear decisions. The secretary may need to intervene to clarify this if necessary (especially if the Chair isn’t good at this). They should also plan items so that the committee keeps to time: A half hour saved in each of, say, six meetings a year with 20 members would save 60 hours – that’s a hell of a saving (and cost) when committees are staffed with senior people. 

• Understand the governance framework and ensure that any decisions that need to be taken at higher levels or by other committees are referred to those bodies. This avoids committees taking decisions on things they haven’t the authority for (this is a risk, particularly where a Chair is on multiple committees).  

• Write the minutes. No, these aren’t just notes. Minutes are the formal record of the committee’s decisions and thus if it is carrying out its remit. A good minute taker will cut out the ten minutes Professor Jones spent ranting about timetabling, but will record the crucial decision about financial support. Sometimes, if the Chair isn’t good at getting clear decisions, the secretary will need to set the position and understand what the committee should have decided, even if this wasn’t actually said.

• Follow up any actions from the committee. University committees generate lots of actions. They are perhaps too apt to do so. These actions create work for already busy colleagues. Sometimes the actions aren’t realistic. The secretary needs to exercise diplomacy in communicating and chasing these actions, deciding when to push and when to accept a half-hearted or alternative response.  

never went to school

Yet despite the importance of the role, universities often have no common framework for the secretarial function and no common role descriptor. This example from Loughborough seems rare. Universities often don’t have central training and my sense is that what training there was is being cut. I was fortunate to be trained by Richard (his red pen on my minutes is scarred into my brain) but many secretaries have to develop ‘on the job’. It’s common, also, not to have proper handover between secretaries when one moves on to a new role. I’d strongly recommend developing a written procedure to support handovers. 

There’s been a lot of talk recently about a crisis in university governance. This may be related to under-valuing committee secretaries. Perhaps we need as a sector to value and support secretaries a little more. Going further, we can empower secretaries to support university decision-makers in navigating these uncertain times. They can play a crucial role – but only if they are trained, developed and occupy the right position to do so. 

took her to the supermarket

But back to the catering. One Chair I worked with (who was effective in most other ways) had ordered a University-wide ban on catering in meetings. Financial crisis and all that. At the next meeting he turned up, looked directly at me and asked ‘what, no biscuits?’. So don’t forget the biscuits, secretaries. Biscuits are important. 

* I couldn’t bring myself to follow Richard’s usual theme of organising the blog around a Pet Shop Boys song. I’m a child of the 90s – it would have been sacrilege. 

**At one institution I was at it would also have been useful to have a working knowledge of Latin. The Oxbridge-educated Academic Registrar was apt to drop Latin phrases into committee meetings, and seemed astonished I did not know what a fortiori meant.