Group think or fait accompli? – The UTAS Council’s decision to move to the CBD – Part 1

Introduction

On 5 April 2019, the UTAS Council made the most important decision in UTAS’ history, and potentially one of the most important in the history of Hobart and Tasmania, voting by a margin of 13 to 1 to relocate its southern campus from Sandy Bay to the Hobart CBD.

As I have stated on a number of occasions, I believe a decision of such historical, social and economic importance as the proposed move of UTAS’ southern campus to the Hobart CBD and the development of a new suburb on the Sandy Bay campus site – for that is what UTAS’ move to the CBD now means for Sandy Bay – should be the prerogative of the Government and the Parliament, who are answerable to the Tasmanian people.

Instead, the Tasmanian Government’s policy – a policy never tested in the Parliament or in the electorate – to support UTAS’ move to the CBD and the Sandy Bay redevelopment, and unquestioningly accept everything UTAS claims in this regard, means the UTAS Council’s decision has had the force of a Cabinet/Government decision. The UTAS Council has acted as the de facto Government of Tasmania in its own self-appointed sphere of interest.

I had planned that this blog post would be Its time we talk about Rufus – Part 2, in which I will look at the appointment of Rufus Black as Vice-Chancellor.

However, I have been studying recently papers recently released by UTAS, under the eye of the Ombudsman’s office, and I believe that UTAS’ decision to move to the Hobart CBD needs public scrutiny now.

In part 2 of this Blog post – Business Basket Case – I will look at the Southern Future Business Case (SBFC) – the basis for the UTAS Council’s decision to move to the Hobart CBD – in some detail.

• As I suggested in my evidence to the Legislative Council Select Committee Inquiry into the Provisions of the University of Tasmania Act 1992 (the Legco Inquiry), you could drive a truck through some of the assumptions in the SBFC and this should have happened long ago. As with all public institutions, the risk of any losses by UTAS will be carried by the public.

Here, however, I particularly want to look at process and governance issues relating to the UTAS’ Council’s decision to relocate the southern campus and to consider the inherent disposition of the UTAS Council to group-think, and perhaps worse.

Context

As I have repeatedly demonstrated, the series of amendments to the University of Tasmania Act 1992 from 2001 to 2012 radically altered the processes for appointing UTAS Council members and the makeup of the Council. This created the potential for the Council to self-replicate (through the appointment of people with outlooks/skills similar to the people they replaced) and the institutionalisation of group think. Moreover, a full time Chief Executive, with supportive senior staff, was well placed to exercise a strong, if not dominant, influence. (See, for example, Statement to the LegCo Inquiry – 2 March 2023)

I have also argued that the decision-making process for the move to the Hobart CBD had been firmly set in train by Vice-Chancellor (VC) Rathjen in 2017 and that by November 2017 the dice had been well and truly loaded towards that outcome – something I will touch on below and consider in detail in Part 2. (See, for example, We need to talk about Rufus – Part 1, which also provides links to other blog posts).

The combination of flawed governance arrangements and a flawed decision-making process can be seen as leading inexorably to the 13-1 vote on 5 April 2019, but two other points of context can be added:

(1) In briefing to the members of the Legislative Council supporting the final amendment in 2012 of the University of Tasmania Act 1992 (UTAS Act), Chancellor Damian Bugg made it clear that it took about six months for new members of the UTAS Council to come up to speed (see especially Legislative Council, Hansard, 18 October 2012, p36, but also pp64, 66, 76-77, 81).

(2) In response to a series of questions asked by the Chair, the Hon Rob Valentine, at hearings of the LegCo Inquiry about whether sufficient time was provided for agenda items in UTAS Council meetings, one of the UTAS witnesses, Professor Natalie Brown, stated:

“Where significant decisions are being made, it would be very unusual in my experience that you would only see that matter once. I am reflecting how we are approaching decision-making in senate.”

• It is not clear why, when the Chair’s questions were focused on the UTAS Council, Professor Brown limited her answer to the Academic Senate rather than also extending it to the UTAS Council, on which she has now served three years. However, such a principle can be regarded as even more important for the UTAS Council.

• A full copy of the relevant exchange between the Chair and Professor Brown is provided in the Appendix at the end of this post.

The Makeup of the UTAS Council on 5 April 2019

This is the makeup of the UTAS Council as it stood on 5 April 2019 when the Council made its decision to relocate the southern campus from Sandy Bay to the Hobart CBD.

While there is a requirement under section 8(5)(b) of the UTAS Act for the UTAS Council and the Minister for Education to consult over appointments to the Council, all the evidence suggests that by 2019 the Council had control over its own appointments and, at the least, considerable influence over Ministerial appointments.

• Throughout the 2000s there have been numerous instances of individuals being appointed first by the Council and subsequently by the Minister and vice versa (there are three instances in the table above).

• Papers provided by the Department of Education under Right to Information show that since 2017, at least, UTAS has had a major administrative role in ministerial appointments, while the current University Council Membership Procedure indicates that UTAS has complete control.

• While Jennifer Burgess, a Deputy Secretary of the Department of Education, was a ministerial appointee there is no indication in the papers provided under RTI that she carried any sort of departmental brief, or indeed that she acted as a conduit for a two way flow of information (which I did as a Commonwealth Director on the Board of ANCAP Ltd from 2010 to 2016, and which I consider an appropriate role for Director/Council member appointed by a Minister).

The Council has also appointed student representatives to its numbers, in consultation with student bodies, since 2001.

This meant that, counting the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor, the Council appointed or endorsed the 11 (78%) of the 14 Council members who attended the 5 April 2019 meeting.

• Paul Gregg did not attend the meeting physically, but provided a pre-recorded video for the relevant item – Item 6.1 – Future of the Southern Campuses

Of the other three members, two were elected, while as Chair of the Academic Senate – Professor Brown – was an ex officio member of the UTAS Council.

The Vote

As recorded in the UTAS Council Minutes (copy of relevant section provided in full in Appendix below), at its meeting of 5 April 2019, the UTAS “Council approved the [Southern Future Business Case (SBFC)] which supports the ‘City-Centric Campus‘ model as the basis for the future development of the University’s Southern Campuses”, by a margin of 13-1 (that it, with one person objecting).

• The ‘City-Centric Campus’ model was “to relocate the entire [southern campus] into the CBD, creating a single campus made up of precincts across the Domain, the central city and the waterfront”, although it was still intended, at the time, that “The University’s oval and sporting facilities would remain in Sandy Bay, along with specialist research and teaching spaces and some student accommodation.” (SBFC, p130)

• The other option considered was the “distributed campus model” which was to maintain CBD facilities as they were and consolidate the Sandy Bay campus “on a significantly reduced footprint”. (SBFC, p130)

• I consider the choice of these two options and the assumptions used for them fundamentally flawed and will present my analysis of the SFBC in Part 2 of this post – Business Basket Case.

The dissident voice in the vote was that of Professor Jamie Kirkpatrick who “requested that his objection to the motion be recorded in the minutes.” (see the Appendix at the end of this post; the name of Professor Kirkpatrick as the objector was revealed, with his permission, in UTAS doctored Council Minutes)

Of the 13 members of the UTAS Council who supported the ‘City-Centric Campus‘ model:

Four members – Professor Brown, Jennifer Burgess, James Groom and Ella Hilder – had been on the UTAS Council for 3 months or less. As they had not had sufficient time to come up to speed, according to Damian Bugg’s prescription, and this was evidently the first time they had seen the SBFC, it seems entirely inappropriate that they were confronted with the most important decision in UTAS’ history at this time.

One member – VC Black – came into the meeting with his mind fully made up. In an ABC story of 11 November 2018 (nearly six months before he took up his position as VC) these words appear:

“Professor Black said he wanted to make Tasmania more prosperous and is backing plans to continue moving the UTAS Sandy Bay campus into the city.”

• In We need to talk about Rufus – Part 2, I will consider the extent to which VC Black’s willingness to execute the Rathjen-Field-Hodgman-Hickey plan to relocate the southern campus to the Hobart CBD may have been part of the VC selection process that determined his appointment.

Eight members – Chancellor Michael Field, Sue Chen, Paul Gregg, Harvey Gibson, Phillipa Leedham, Professor Kwong Lee Dow, Leanne Lopfer and Corey Peterson – were ‘veterans’ of the UTAS Council, having served an average of over seven years two months on Council at the time of the vote. Moreover, as can be seen from the table above, all had served for periods overlapping significantly with the tenure of Professor Peter Rathjen as VC and all had been on Council during 2017 when the decision to move into the CBD was effectively taken.

With the history (serving with VC Rathjen) and membership of the UTAS Council, it seems almost inevitable that group think prevailed. However, it is possible to even go further than this.

Discussion – group think and/or fait accompli?

The minutes dealing with the UTAS Council’s decision to move to the CBD are copied in full in the Appendix. I recommend that everyone reads them, but two quotes are particularly telling.

(1) “The accuracy of elements of the data was questioned by some, while others offered the view that even if there were issues with some parts of the data, it was quite sufficient for the purposes of the decisions to made (sic).”

• I find this quite extraordinary. My reading of the SFBC is that the “data” was highly dubious and I will consider this further in Part 2 of this post. However, the suggestion that irrespective of the data quality, the SBFC “was sufficient” for a decision is quite shocking. I would have expected data, particularly the benefit-cost analysis (albeit flawed), to be the primary element of the decision-making process. Apart from quantitative data, the SBFC appears for the most part to consist of a number of flimsy and highly questionable qualitative statements.

• If this is representative of the discussion minuted in this quote, it seems highly dismissive, almost bullying, in tone. It is a very poor reflection on the UTAS Council and its decision-making processes.

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(2) “It was noted that the move to a city-centric model began a number of years ago when the University started to relocate facilities into the Hobart Central Business District (CBD). The adoption of the city-centric model is a continuation of these earlier decisions”.

• This accords with my own view of how the situation developed (that VC Rathjen and co made a series of pre-emptive decisions), but what exactly was being said here? Was the move being portrayed as something that was inevitable – a fait accompli? Was the UTAS Council effectively being told that there was only one decision to be made – in which case it was being disenfranchised? Again it is possible to sense an element of bullying. Who was the bully?

In a recent email, Professor Kirkpatrick advised me that:

“Here are three of the reasons I voted against the relocation.

1. The existing campus presents a better image for a university based on the natural place, Tasmania, than a run down part of a small city.
2. A University needs exceptional staff, not exceptional buildings. Hot desking is unlikely to motivate exceptional staff to join the institution or stay.
3. The reasons for moving into the city were mostly spurious, most particularly the one related to access for disadvantaged people.“

As qualitative arguments, I agree strongly with Professor Kirkpatrick’s first two points (much weightier than the qualitative statements included in the SBFC).

The third point, on student accessibility, goes to the issue of data and points to one of the more questionable assumptions used by UTAS (that moving the southern campus to the CBD will materially increase student enrolments) and I will be addressing this issue in Business Basket Case.

A questioning and critical voice can be detected in the record of the UTAS Council’s discussion. Given that he voted against the move, I suspect this was Professor Kirkpatrick’s (if there were others involved, I apologise to them, but perhaps they should either have voted against the move or requested deferral of the issue to a future meeting to allow adequate consideration of such an important issue).

• In my reading of the UTAS Council Minutes, Professor Kirkpatrick is the only member of the UTAS Council named as voting against resolutions or querying issues.

Professor Kirkpatrick’s willingness to challenge consensus/group think was obviously brave, and independently minded. It may also have owed to his previous experience on the UTAS Council and his position as an elected Council member, and the confidence this gave him to stand tall, rather than as one beholden to Council members for his position.

• I should stress that in talking to him, it has been clear to me that Professor Kirkpatrick always sought to act in the best interests of UTAS, rather than as a representative of a particular constituency – although the degree of incompatibility between the two often seems overrated to me (something I will address in a future blog post in light of my own experience as a Commonwealth nominee to a company board).

Amendments must be made to the membership of the UTAS Council

So much for balance and objective assessment of all the relevant factors, particularly including data, in the UTAS Council’s decision making. What is to be done?

Well for a start, the UTAS Council’s decision to relocate to the Hobart CBD should be reversed (Part 2 of this blog post – Business Basket Case – will reinforce this point).  However, clearly systemic issues persist.

In my submission to the LegCo Inquiry, I stated:

“This makes it all the more important to note that of the 14 UTAS councillors present at this meeting, two joined the Council in January 2019 and two others in February 2019. That such an important decision was made with four new Council members can only be regarded as poor practice, particularly as the average length of service of Council members already appointed to the Council  was over seven years at 1 January 2019, while the Chair (Chancellor) had been on the Council for nearly seven years. These are circumstances where, with an influential full-time VC, group think might operate and the most surprising aspect of the April 2019 meeting is, perhaps, that one UTAS Council member voted against the move.

• In light of this, it may be reasonable to suggest that there should be an obligation for UTAS Council members to show that they have satisfied their “Obligation for care and diligence” under s11A. of the 1992 Act through, for example, a signed declaration when major issues (appropriately defined) are considered.” (This suggestion was given to me by Professor Rick Snell).

This is only a small part of a solution however and it is encouraging that the LegCo Inquiry has put such a sharp focus on matters such as: academic, professional staff and student representation on the UTAS Council; and the number of elected representatives.

It is also to be hoped that the LegCo Inquiry will consider how to limit the powers of overly mighty VCs. Part of this is ensuring that the UTAS Council provides an appropriate mix of elected and appointed representatives and internal and external members, but it also links strongly to the issues of accountability and transparency.

This means significantly strengthening the accountability links from UTAS to the Government, the Parliament and people of Tasmania, so that it is simply not possible for Governments to abrogate their responsibilities, while giving support to major UTAS initiatives behind the scenes (something of which both the current Government and Opposition are guilty).

It also means strengthening requirements for transparency. For example, under section 7(2) of the UTAS Act, UTAS should have sought approval from the Treasurer to increase its borrowing limits for its Green Bond issue. Material (appropriately defined) increases in UTAS’ borrowing limits should have to be notified to the Parliament.

UTAS must not be allowed to continue to do its own thing in the shadows.

Appendices

The Valentine-Brown exchange

CHAIR – A question with regard to agendas and council, seeing as we are on council. Is
there enough time given for members of the council to fully consider the agenda that’s before
them, or is it a frantic ‘we have 25 items to get through and only 15 minutes to do it in’ or
something ridiculous – do you know what I’m saying?
Prof BROWN – Yes.
CHAIR – Are council meetings effectively run, in the sense that people do have time to
fully consider and assess what is before them – rather than perhaps rubber stamping?
Prof BROWN – Yes. The business of council and the business of senate – there is a
broad spectrum of business. Those agendas are cleverly crafted and mindful of exactly that
tension you are describing.
CHAIR – Because they are not insignificant decisions, are they, I imagine?
Prof BROWN – That’s correct. If we lift it up a bit there. Where significant decisions
are being made, it would be very unusual in my experience that you would only see that matter
once. I am reflecting how we are approaching decision-making in senate. We like to get an
early temperature check on some of these things that are likely to come down the line. Then,
as things shape, you start to see that more formalised and data and other supporting
documentation that assists in making a decision. There is that sort of cadence of how those
decisions are made. (LegCo Inquiry, Transcipt, 1 March 2023, p58)

Extract from the UTAS Council Minutes of 5 April 2019