Showing posts with label ECF. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ECF. Show all posts
Thursday, March 24, 2011
ECF published
Via Ferdinand's website, the HEA have now officially published the ECF on their website. It is even a pdf document so this must mean that it is now official. It is amazing in a context where Irish leaders would rather die than give an inch on the Corporation Tax rate (a perhaps legitimate stance) that we have now completely voluntarily made it practically impossible for Irish universities to compete for external research grants in international competitions all with a simple stroke of a pen (or click of a pdf converter). I accept the view that those of us who are horrified by this need to do more than just express horror and actually come back with some alternatives but, having said that, noone really expects something like this. Its not as if we have documents ready to produce in the event that a Minister arrives one day with a can of petrol and threatens to burn down the college unless we can convince him, using sound economic arguments, why this would be a bad idea. I would ask that any IMF desk researcher that stumbles across this blog click on the clarifications and FAQs published by the HEA because, apparently, this is being rolled out to appease you guys. Not exactly the type of policy one would have traditionally associated with the IMF but these are interesting times.
Ministers on ECF
The interview with Minister Quinn and Minister Bruton is here. Last one to leave please turn off the lights.
This is, for some reason, being thought of as a signal of a review of the third level embargo. Perhaps I am just a pessimist but the interview to me did not signal anything like that. It reaffirmed the false pretence that has led to a central state committee being granted absolute control at micro-level for every hire into the university system. I am sorry to keep posting on this and will find a more efficient way of going about this as there is no point in making this forum a casualty of this madness.
Addendum: Could I just be a little stronger here and say that this interview does not tell us anything that was not already present. Richard Bruton was clearly not trying to say anything substantive and looked like he was simply fobbing off the questions so he could get away and deal with other issues. Ruaidhri Quinn somewhat sarcastically indicated a willingness to listen to ideas from the "geniuses" in the university system and there are certainly people who will take him up on his offer but it hardly indicates that a review is taking place. I am, of course, aware that senior university figures are trying to deal with this but I think everybody who has been trying to draw attention to this important issue should continue to do so until something definitive and public is released. There is no evidence that any behind-closed-doors solution has been put together and the idea that people should stay quiet on an issue just because authority figures might be doing something good behind closed doors is not one that has served this country well in the last 10 years. People who care about autonomy in the universities and their vibrancy should look at this and form their own opinion and speak out if they think they should.
This is, for some reason, being thought of as a signal of a review of the third level embargo. Perhaps I am just a pessimist but the interview to me did not signal anything like that. It reaffirmed the false pretence that has led to a central state committee being granted absolute control at micro-level for every hire into the university system. I am sorry to keep posting on this and will find a more efficient way of going about this as there is no point in making this forum a casualty of this madness.
Addendum: Could I just be a little stronger here and say that this interview does not tell us anything that was not already present. Richard Bruton was clearly not trying to say anything substantive and looked like he was simply fobbing off the questions so he could get away and deal with other issues. Ruaidhri Quinn somewhat sarcastically indicated a willingness to listen to ideas from the "geniuses" in the university system and there are certainly people who will take him up on his offer but it hardly indicates that a review is taking place. I am, of course, aware that senior university figures are trying to deal with this but I think everybody who has been trying to draw attention to this important issue should continue to do so until something definitive and public is released. There is no evidence that any behind-closed-doors solution has been put together and the idea that people should stay quiet on an issue just because authority figures might be doing something good behind closed doors is not one that has served this country well in the last 10 years. People who care about autonomy in the universities and their vibrancy should look at this and form their own opinion and speak out if they think they should.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
James McInerney on Employment Control Framework
NUIM scientist James McInerney's comments on this are linked here. Text reproduced below. He is representative of a lot of people running research teams in Ireland that have been blown out of the water by this.
"I run a research group of somewhere between a half dozen and a dozen people. They are mostly post-graduate level students, but usually with a couple of post-doctoral researchers included in the group.
The funding for post-docs has come both from national funding sources - H.E.A. PRTLI, Science Foundation Ireland, etc. - and from international sources such as the EU “Marie Curie” programme for researcher mobility.
For the past decade, I have not had to think whether I should have a larger or smaller research group, what the mix of post-grad and post-doc scientists should be or whether or not this was out of line with anybody’s expectations of me. I focused on doing the science and delivering on the grants that were awarded to my group (these are always competitive awards, with rarely success rates for the applications usually less than one-in-five, sometimes less than 5% chance of success, such is the level to which they are subscribed). Just trying to do the science is not an easy job, I can assure you. However, this is the job I signed up for and so far, thankfully, things have gone fine. You can see some of the results here - http://bioinf.nuim.ie/
This is a moderately healthy system. Grants are awarded based on the quality of the applicant, the quality of the application and the amount of available funding. In 2010, new national funding was almost non-existent, for instance. In other years it was almost as good as in the UK.
However, the Employment Control Framework (ECF) has really made a mess of it all.
The ECF has now rolled my post-doctoral researchers in with permanent staff members so that they are now “core staff” of the university. This is despite the fact that they are never going to be made permanent. They come to Ireland (most have been from outside Ireland), work here for a few years, bring their new ideas from abroad, bring their experience of different systems of working, bring their enthusiasm, bring their software code and so forth and they carry out research that benefits Ireland and then they leave.
Sometimes they participate in teaching our undergrads and they can bring some very practical skills into the classroom.
However, now that they are being rolled in with the rest of the staff as core staff and now that there is a cap on the numbers of core staff that we can have, all this is going to stop.
Dead.
In addition to this, we are not replacing the retiring staff (while offering staff a lot of incentives to retire) and so when you combine the cap on numbers with the pressing need to retain an ability to deliver lectures, I am now facing a situation where I will be told I cannot take on post-doctoral researchers.
I might not be able to bring in new blood from outside the country (EU Marie Curie grants are explicitly for people from outside Ireland to locate here).
I might not be able to employ our own PhD graduates.
I won’t be able to produce as much research.
I won’t be able to accept grants from the EU or The Wellcome Trust or their ilk, who offer my university a lot of overheads and also enhance the reputation of our university by awarding grants to us.
I won’t be able to guarantee to a collaborator that I will be able to employ staff if we get a joint award.
The ECF is a blunt instrument. It addresses the issue of reducing the cost of the third level sector, but it is the most cack-handed approach imaginable.
If the government wants the universities to employ fewer staff so that it pays less money, then that is an acceptable thing to want - particularly in a recession. However, surely the better thing to do is to give the universities their block grant and say “manage that in the best way that you can”.
Bill Cullen is the businessman on “The Apprentice”. He runs a car sales organisation. Do you think he would think it was sensible for a bank to loan him money and tell him to reduce costs and then present him with a plan that allowed him to have a sales garage, to have cars but no sales people?
The ECF needs to be abolished and something more sensible replacing it. The financial cost to the exchequer can be the same, but if it is done properly, then we can save a bit of our scientific reputation, our international standing, our attractiveness as a place to do science, our knowledge and our ability to collaborate internationally."
"I run a research group of somewhere between a half dozen and a dozen people. They are mostly post-graduate level students, but usually with a couple of post-doctoral researchers included in the group.
The funding for post-docs has come both from national funding sources - H.E.A. PRTLI, Science Foundation Ireland, etc. - and from international sources such as the EU “Marie Curie” programme for researcher mobility.
For the past decade, I have not had to think whether I should have a larger or smaller research group, what the mix of post-grad and post-doc scientists should be or whether or not this was out of line with anybody’s expectations of me. I focused on doing the science and delivering on the grants that were awarded to my group (these are always competitive awards, with rarely success rates for the applications usually less than one-in-five, sometimes less than 5% chance of success, such is the level to which they are subscribed). Just trying to do the science is not an easy job, I can assure you. However, this is the job I signed up for and so far, thankfully, things have gone fine. You can see some of the results here - http://bioinf.nuim.ie/
This is a moderately healthy system. Grants are awarded based on the quality of the applicant, the quality of the application and the amount of available funding. In 2010, new national funding was almost non-existent, for instance. In other years it was almost as good as in the UK.
However, the Employment Control Framework (ECF) has really made a mess of it all.
The ECF has now rolled my post-doctoral researchers in with permanent staff members so that they are now “core staff” of the university. This is despite the fact that they are never going to be made permanent. They come to Ireland (most have been from outside Ireland), work here for a few years, bring their new ideas from abroad, bring their experience of different systems of working, bring their enthusiasm, bring their software code and so forth and they carry out research that benefits Ireland and then they leave.
Sometimes they participate in teaching our undergrads and they can bring some very practical skills into the classroom.
However, now that they are being rolled in with the rest of the staff as core staff and now that there is a cap on the numbers of core staff that we can have, all this is going to stop.
Dead.
In addition to this, we are not replacing the retiring staff (while offering staff a lot of incentives to retire) and so when you combine the cap on numbers with the pressing need to retain an ability to deliver lectures, I am now facing a situation where I will be told I cannot take on post-doctoral researchers.
I might not be able to bring in new blood from outside the country (EU Marie Curie grants are explicitly for people from outside Ireland to locate here).
I might not be able to employ our own PhD graduates.
I won’t be able to produce as much research.
I won’t be able to accept grants from the EU or The Wellcome Trust or their ilk, who offer my university a lot of overheads and also enhance the reputation of our university by awarding grants to us.
I won’t be able to guarantee to a collaborator that I will be able to employ staff if we get a joint award.
The ECF is a blunt instrument. It addresses the issue of reducing the cost of the third level sector, but it is the most cack-handed approach imaginable.
If the government wants the universities to employ fewer staff so that it pays less money, then that is an acceptable thing to want - particularly in a recession. However, surely the better thing to do is to give the universities their block grant and say “manage that in the best way that you can”.
Bill Cullen is the businessman on “The Apprentice”. He runs a car sales organisation. Do you think he would think it was sensible for a bank to loan him money and tell him to reduce costs and then present him with a plan that allowed him to have a sales garage, to have cars but no sales people?
The ECF needs to be abolished and something more sensible replacing it. The financial cost to the exchequer can be the same, but if it is done properly, then we can save a bit of our scientific reputation, our international standing, our attractiveness as a place to do science, our knowledge and our ability to collaborate internationally."
Monday, March 21, 2011
Von Prondzynski on ECF
Irish Times comment section today - text below.
FERDINAND VON PRONDZYNSKI
LEFTFIELD: If the Government insists that the civil service micro-manages our colleges, it will destroy third level education
AS EVERYONE knows, these are difficult times, and we are all having to make new sacrifices. Universities have been no exception, and over the past few years, their funding has dropped while student numbers have soared. Staff have seen their workloads increase, while their pay has been cut. Mostly, the colleges have taken this on the chin, though I won’t pretend that morale is high.
Then along comes something absolutely and totally crazy, something mindlessly destructive and completely counter- productive, even in terms of what it is supposed to achieve.
I am talking about the Orwellian-sounding Employment Control Framework (ECF), a Soviet Union-style centralised bureaucratic framework for stifling all initiative and for civil service micro-management of individual colleges. I have been trawling my dictionary of insults to see if I can come up with an adjective that adequately describes this idiocy, and I have found nothing to express it.
Let me try to explain. In 2008 the Government, alarmed by the deterioration in the public finances, imposed a recruitment and promotions embargo in the public service. The higher education institutions were told that this would also apply to them, but after some protests the Government agreed that a special framework would be introduced for third level. And this is where the ECF emerged. Its first draft envisaged Higher Education Authority (HEA) approval for every appointment, and that there would be some rules applying to this: no administrative or support staff vacancies could be considered for replacement, and only one in three academic positions becoming vacant could be filled.
The Irish Universities Association – representing the seven university presidents – fought hard on this, pointing out that if this were to be applied, universities would quickly grind to a halt as the expertise needed to run a number of courses and conduct research programmes would disappear. Eventually, a revised ECF emerged under which universities were given staffing reduction targets of 6 per cent between December 2008 and December 2010. Thankfully, externally funded posts were not covered. In addition, the scheme prohibited all promotions and permitted only fixed-term appointments for those vacancies that could be filled (including externally-funded ones), thereby creating the casualisation of academic employment and the ending of career development.
Nevertheless, the universities worked with the scheme, and by December 2010 all had met the staffing reduction targets. By the end of 2010, signals were sent that a new version of the ECF might emerge. Now along comes the ECF mark II, and if you didn’t like the first one, you were going to hate the second testosterone-pumped one.
Under this, the framework is to continue until 2014 at least, with further staffing reductions and a continuing ban on promotions. In addition, non-exchequer funded posts are now also covered, and a whole new set of bureaucratic conditions is being imposed.
Indeed, the problem has become such that I know of one team of researchers who now feel obliged to return some external funding for a project because they will be unable to hire the staff to conduct it (which would have been at no cost to the taxpayer).
The HEA, clearly taken aback by loud cries of anger from the third-level sector, has responded by suggesting that the new ECF is not as bad as has been made out. The HEA indicated that the framework would not prevent the hiring of staff not funded by the State and that the HEA would not impose fines for non-compliance. In the meantime, we know from a leaked memo from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation that other parts of Government were just as taken aback and alarmed as the third-level sector was. Joined up Government? Not a bit.
To be quite clear, nobody denies that universities must accept that the public funding crisis also affects them. The colleges themselves understand that they must live within their means, and that if public funding is cut they will have to make savings.
What has angered the sector is the programme of micro- management of legally autonomous institutions, and of a crazed bureaucracy that is now stifling innovation and enterprise, as well as undermining staff morale. It is doing completely unnecessary damage to universities, just when these are needed to help produce investment and job creation. And it is doing all this without even saving any money for the taxpayer.
It cannot be said loudly enough. This scheme is mad. It is senseless and destructive. It harms Ireland’s recovery. And it must be reversed as a matter of absolute priority.
FERDINAND VON PRONDZYNSKI
LEFTFIELD: If the Government insists that the civil service micro-manages our colleges, it will destroy third level education
AS EVERYONE knows, these are difficult times, and we are all having to make new sacrifices. Universities have been no exception, and over the past few years, their funding has dropped while student numbers have soared. Staff have seen their workloads increase, while their pay has been cut. Mostly, the colleges have taken this on the chin, though I won’t pretend that morale is high.
Then along comes something absolutely and totally crazy, something mindlessly destructive and completely counter- productive, even in terms of what it is supposed to achieve.
I am talking about the Orwellian-sounding Employment Control Framework (ECF), a Soviet Union-style centralised bureaucratic framework for stifling all initiative and for civil service micro-management of individual colleges. I have been trawling my dictionary of insults to see if I can come up with an adjective that adequately describes this idiocy, and I have found nothing to express it.
Let me try to explain. In 2008 the Government, alarmed by the deterioration in the public finances, imposed a recruitment and promotions embargo in the public service. The higher education institutions were told that this would also apply to them, but after some protests the Government agreed that a special framework would be introduced for third level. And this is where the ECF emerged. Its first draft envisaged Higher Education Authority (HEA) approval for every appointment, and that there would be some rules applying to this: no administrative or support staff vacancies could be considered for replacement, and only one in three academic positions becoming vacant could be filled.
The Irish Universities Association – representing the seven university presidents – fought hard on this, pointing out that if this were to be applied, universities would quickly grind to a halt as the expertise needed to run a number of courses and conduct research programmes would disappear. Eventually, a revised ECF emerged under which universities were given staffing reduction targets of 6 per cent between December 2008 and December 2010. Thankfully, externally funded posts were not covered. In addition, the scheme prohibited all promotions and permitted only fixed-term appointments for those vacancies that could be filled (including externally-funded ones), thereby creating the casualisation of academic employment and the ending of career development.
Nevertheless, the universities worked with the scheme, and by December 2010 all had met the staffing reduction targets. By the end of 2010, signals were sent that a new version of the ECF might emerge. Now along comes the ECF mark II, and if you didn’t like the first one, you were going to hate the second testosterone-pumped one.
Under this, the framework is to continue until 2014 at least, with further staffing reductions and a continuing ban on promotions. In addition, non-exchequer funded posts are now also covered, and a whole new set of bureaucratic conditions is being imposed.
Indeed, the problem has become such that I know of one team of researchers who now feel obliged to return some external funding for a project because they will be unable to hire the staff to conduct it (which would have been at no cost to the taxpayer).
The HEA, clearly taken aback by loud cries of anger from the third-level sector, has responded by suggesting that the new ECF is not as bad as has been made out. The HEA indicated that the framework would not prevent the hiring of staff not funded by the State and that the HEA would not impose fines for non-compliance. In the meantime, we know from a leaked memo from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation that other parts of Government were just as taken aback and alarmed as the third-level sector was. Joined up Government? Not a bit.
To be quite clear, nobody denies that universities must accept that the public funding crisis also affects them. The colleges themselves understand that they must live within their means, and that if public funding is cut they will have to make savings.
What has angered the sector is the programme of micro- management of legally autonomous institutions, and of a crazed bureaucracy that is now stifling innovation and enterprise, as well as undermining staff morale. It is doing completely unnecessary damage to universities, just when these are needed to help produce investment and job creation. And it is doing all this without even saving any money for the taxpayer.
It cannot be said loudly enough. This scheme is mad. It is senseless and destructive. It harms Ireland’s recovery. And it must be reversed as a matter of absolute priority.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Irish Times Editorial on ECF
Text is below. Link is here
Big Brother HEA
THE NEW restrictions on third-level colleges have unleashed an angry response from across the higher education sector. There is a widespread air of exasperation at the new measures which micro-manage the sector and appear to inhibit research and commercial activities. The new rules have been labelled Stalinist and Soviet-style by senior academics. The university heads are said to be dismayed by the move which, they say, represents a fundamental assault on college autonomy.
The revised Employment Control Framework was pushed through by the Department of Finance in the dying days of the last administration and a directive issued by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) last week. Critically, the framework gives the HEA over-arching powers to scrutinise and approve appointments.
Still more remarkably, it applies not just to core staff but to all staff employed in higher education whether their posts are funded by the exchequer or not. This includes research-funded and commercially funded posts, such as those funded by industry, private foundations and the European Union. To compound the problem, any posts created, or any renewal or renegotiation of existing contracts for non-core staff, will be subject to an employer’s pension contribution charge of 20 per cent of gross pay. The Department of Education and Skills says these controls are necessary because of the IMF-EU bailout and to protect the exchequer from future pension liabilities.
But they are also counter-productive and dangerous. Taken together, the framework imposes a straitjacket on the higher education system at a time when the State is exhorting it to be more independent, more commercial and more flexible. The new controls run counter to Government policy and to the spirit of the recently published Hunt report.
There is a Big Brother element to these rules which place approval for externally funded research projects in the hands of a centralised bureaucracy with little understanding of research needs on the ground. For academics, the crude nature of the new controls will confirm a view that central government has little understanding of, or empathy with, the higher education sector.
Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn has been trumpeted as the first education minister with a strong interest in the third-level sector. His first key decision as Minister must be to rescind these measures.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Colm Kearney on Employment Control Framework
I reproduce Colm Kearney's comments on the ECF in full below. Colm Harmon here has also talked openly about this. The ninth-level-Ireland blog have reproduced the document here. Anyone claiming to have any concern for universities needs to read this and understand what is happening. This is a deathblow for the concept of a serious independent university in Ireland. I really urge people in the Labour party to look at this as it seems totally inconsistent with their traditional support for higher education and it is ironic that their first serious move on getting control of the education ministry will be to effectively destroy universities as we know them. (I accept commentator Daniel's clarification that this was an FF-signed policy but this does not change anything here as it is the first policy that Labour will have to implement) This has nothing got to do with academic pay and conditions etc., Paycuts were not resisted with any degree of seriousness in Irish universities. This has got to do with the basic definition and purpose of universities. No serious academic would want to be in a university defined as so tightly under state control. There will be an exodus of the most dedicated academics from Ireland if this goes through. This may even be partly what is intended by the document.
Dear Colleagues,
As Professor of International Business, having held chairs in Economics and in Finance, and as a former senior economic advisor to the Australian Minister for Finance, I well understand the need for responsible fiscal management.
The new ‘Employment Control Framework for the Higher Education Sector 2011-2014’ is dated 10 March 2011. I have carefully read this document (henceforth referred to as the ECF2) a number of times over the weekend – with a growing sense of disbelief. It is the worst example of policy design and attempted implementation that I have ever come across.
The blogosphere is already filling up with comments from academics in Ireland and further afield about how damaging the ECF2 would be, if implemented, to third level education, research, the economy and Irish society. I am confident that many more arguments against this policy will be advanced in the coming days. In summary, the ECF2, if implemented, will:
• Effectively eliminate all university discretion in its decision-making on recruitment and promotion, even when the relevant funding comes from non-exchequer sources.
• Cause an immediate and precipitous collapse in total income to the universities that will be very difficult to reverse.
• Irreparably damage Ireland’s international reputation and positioning as a competitive education and research hub.
• Prevent many current education and research programmes that have non- exchequer funding from continuing, and cause the withdrawal of international funding from other projects.
• Lead to the loss of future funded research collaborations between Irish researchers and international teams – who might well choose not to collaborate with Irish researchers because of the ECF2 straightjacket.
• Further alienate Ireland’s most talented academics and researchers, who have already experienced huge declines in income with no prospects for promotion and career advancement.
• Lead many of Ireland’s internationally mobile academics to consider emigrating to work in countries where their talents and skills are appreciated and rewarded.
• Push Ireland’s brightest and most gifted students to follow the best academic talent to pursue their education and seek employment abroad.
• Cause job losses in the ‘smart economy’ and force knowledge workers to emigrate – given the importance of the third-level education and research sector to attracting foreign investment.
• Destroy a wide range of educational, research and job-creating initiatives in the arts, humanities, social and health sciences that also contribute to the truly smart economy.
• Condemn the universities to fiscal penury for decades to come.
• Worsen rather than improve the government’s budgetary position by depressing income tax, consumption tax and corporate tax revenues.
The ECF2 has nothing to do with responsible fiscal management of Ireland’s economy – which can be achieved in a constructive way that will allow the universities to navigate their way through a difficult time of economic adjustment, while also achieving the targets that government determines appropriate.
Rather, the ECF2 makes it abundantly clear that the Higher Education Authority (HEA) is intent on using Ireland’s fiscal crisis as an opportunity to undermine the autonomy of the universities as embodied in the 1997 Universities Act, and to justify its existence by micro-managing the universities.
This constitutes a direct attack on academic freedom. It also weakens each university’s independence and autonomy. The ECF2 consequently undermines the fundamental freedom of intellectual enquiry, critical thought and expression that this country so desperately needs.
I have no information about the background to the production of the ECF2 document. The surprise expressed by commentators so far leads me to wonder whether any Irish universities or the Irish Universities Association were consulted. Given the timing of its release, I also wonder whether the new government was consulted.
I believe that Trinity College will be keen to engage positively and constructively with the new Minister for Education and Skills and his colleagues in the new government to seek and implement policy solutions that will work for Ireland.
Sincerely yours,
Prof. Colm Kearney, FTCD
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