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News Chad’s furlough: the college lost around half of its expected income last year
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responsibility to all its students to ensure that they have equal access to student support. Therefore, we would like to see the University provide financial assistance to Chad’s to mitigate against the need for the furloughing of support staff, and I have already engaged with the University about this.”
Dr Margaret Masson, Principal of St Chad’s College, told Palatinate: “We have partfurloughed or furloughed a number of staff across our teams. This includes staff who have student support as part of their remit (but not the only part), and in their current working hours, these staff are prioritising student support.”
“We do believe that there is sufficient welfare provision for our students; it’s something which we see as very important – and particularly in such difficult times. If we see that the demand is greater than our current capacity, then we will bring staff back out of furlough. We appreciate your concerns that student welfare representatives are not unduly burdened at present, and are checking in with them regularly.”
Tom Wright, the college’s Senior Welfare Rep, said: “In terms of demand, we haven’t had an increase in demand so far but I expected it would increase. We continue to do biweekly drop-ins so people can still contact us and it might increase as the summative season continues. In terms of provisions from college, College Support Staff have done an amazing job for us in supporting us and talking to us about any concerns we have in our weekly meetings. I feel confident that if I, or any of our team, had an issue, that they would be able to support us.”
Dr Masson continued: “the University has been very supportive to the College, but we do not need extra financial support from them at this stage. We are being financially prudent, given the significant losses we have sustained over the last year due to Covid-19, and we do believe and trust that, with careful management, and thanks to the generosity of our alumni in our recent fundraising campaigns, we are sustainable in the long-term.” Jeremy Cook, Pro-ViceChancellor (Colleges and Student Experience), said: “We’re working very closely with St Chad’s, and the College has reassured us that the current welfare provision available to students is sufficient to meet demand. As would be expected St Chad’s have reassured us that, if demand changes, they will reassess the situation.”
The furloughing of staff follows an emergency appeal launched by the college over the summer where it raised over £90,000, allowing the college to adapt its facilities to create “social bubbles.”
The fundraising appeal stated that the college lost around half of its expected income in the last academic year as a result of the pandemic.
In terms of the broader adequacy of Durham’s welfare provision in the face of current challenges, Ewan told Palatinate: “Although the University has lots of entry points to student support, we know that there are lots of pressures on staff and services and so would always push for greater funding for student support, especially to match demand during the pandemic. For example, we maintain communications with the Counselling Service who are able to outsource staff this term to match increasing demand which is much welcomed. “
“One issue we do see, however, is that virtual fatigue is leading to a lot of students not accessing the support groups, wellbeing classes, or direct support opportunities on offer. As always, the University needs to better promote its support offer and keep looking at how they can remove any barriers to reaching out.” (Image by Adeline Zhao)
Offer deferrals rose by over 60% in 2020
Patrick Stephens
News Editor
A Freedom of Information request by Palatinate has revealed that the proportion of undergraduate offers for 2020 entry which were then deferred was over 60% higher than in the previous year.
The data refers to applicants who received offers to begin their studies in 2020, and then had their offers deferred so that they would start the following year. 1.8% of applicants had their offers deferred, compared to 1.1% in the previous year and between 1.0% and 1.2% for the three years prior to that.
To place that in context, in 2018-19, the last year for which data is available, Durham received over 20,000 applicants for study at undergraduate level. Almost 72% received an offer. Less than 17% of the total applications led to a “registration”, which indicates that they began their studies at Durham.
For international students applying for undergraduate study, the relative increase was larger because fewer international students typically defer their offers. Around 1.4% of international students applying in 2019/20 had offers for 2020 entry deferred, compared to 0.4% in the two previous years.
The University does not hold data on how many students requested to defer their offers.
As a proportion of undergraduate applicants, deferrals were 60% higher this year
For postgraduate students, deferrals among applicants in 2019/20 were over 70% higher than in 2018/19, with more than 10% of offer holders deferring their applications, compared to 6% in the previous year. Postgraduate applicants can defer only their application, not their offer, which means they are then reconsidered for an offer in competition with the other applicants in the cycle they have deferred to.
Among international postgraduate students, 11.5% deferred their offers compared to 6.4% in the previous year.
Applicants for 2021 entry are permitted to request to defer (Aubrey Stoll via Flickr) an offer, not just an application, because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
News Durham’s £330,000 LFT scheme returns just 37 positives from 10,593 tests
Heather Rydings
Investigations Editor
A Palatinate Freedom of Information request has revealed that 10,593 Lateral Flow Tests (LFT) have been taken by students so far in the 2020-21 academic year.
The total number of individual students that have taken a LFT is 6,486.
This suggests that around one third of students participated in the pilot scheme, based off student population statistics given by the University as part of their Covid-19 case reporting. This figure increases from 31.6% of students having taken a LFT to 36% when taking into account that 2,500 students were estimated to have been studying solely online during Michaelmas Term and were therefore not present in Durham. Additionally, these figures indicate that the average number of tests taken by an individual student was around 1.6.
This means that some students were likely not taking the recommended two tests advised by the University and its partners in the pilot.
This number of tests was recommended, particularly for students intending to return home over Christmas break, due to the nature of the LFT devices.
The devices are used to detect individuals with high levels of the virus. Multiple tests are advised to ensure that a second test has the opportunity to pick up on a viral load that may have been too low to be flagged after the first test. 37 of the tests taken by students returned a positive result, meaning that 99.7% of tests taken were negative and consequently did not require a student to self-isolate or take a follow-up PCR test.
Palatinate can reveal that £246,328 was spent by Durham University on the Lateral Flow Testing Pilot during Michaelmas term, ending 15th December 2020, and a further £84,451 was spent up to 20th January 2021. This makes the total spending on the pilot scheme £330,779, including staffing costs.
The initiative was developed by the University in partnership with the Department for Health and Social Care, the University of Oxford and Public Health England. The University did not receive any money to participate in the pilot but did receive testing equipment and personal protective equipment from its partners. Before Christmas the total testing capacity across all three sites – Maiden Castle, The Racecourse, and Palace Green – for the full duration of opening hours between the dates 23rd November and 16th December was 32,400 tests. The total daily capacity amounted to 2,070 tests.
The University informed Palatinate that these figures were based off a “slightly reduced capacity” which “built in the flexibility to accommodate safely more booths if peak capacity was being reached.”
The pilot LFT cost over £330,000
This would have allowed another 9,936 tests to be added to the testing capacity, if needed, during the opening of the scheme, which would have resulted in a peak testing capacity of 42,336 pre-Christmas.
The University is continuing to offer LFT to all students during Epiphany term.
Participation is voluntary, but the University encourages all its members to “take advantage of this opportunity to test for their own benefit and for the benefit of those around them.”
Students who intend to return to Durham at any point this term are strongly advised to take a LFT on the day of their arrival back in the city, then on day four and day seven of their return. However, the University and UK Government advice remains to stay at home “wherever possible.”
31.6% of all students have taken an LFT test, rising to 36% of those studying in Durham during Michaelmas
Jacqui Ramagge, Executive Dean (Science) at Durham University, said: “The health, safety and wellbeing of our students, staff and the wider community is always our first priority. Lateral Flow Testing (LFT) is one of a range of measures we’ve implemented to support a healthy campus and we are grateful to students and staff for their participation in the programme and their efforts to protect themselves and our community.
“LFTs are voluntary. We encourage all students who are in Durham to test regularly, at least once a week, and we have made accessing the LFT programme as easy as possible. LFTs are (Amana Moore)
available, at no cost, seven days a week at multiple locations in Durham and some Colleges. We’ve also worked closely with student leaders to develop communications campaigns to promote the benefits of regular testing and encourage uptake.
“Lateral Flow Testing aims to identify people who are infectious but do not know it. By identifying these asymptomatic people and asking them to selfisolate, we can help break the chain of transmission and protect our community. “The programme aims to test students and staff regularly to find and isolate positive cases swiftly, and to determine how we might test contacts of positive cases regularly to identify those who are not infectious and avoid the need for self-isolation.
However, Ramagge also told Palatinate that “No test grants immunity to Covid-19 and we urge our entire community to continue to follow government guidance to help reduce the spread of the virus.”
Further details on LFT and information on booking a test can be found on DUO.
SU criticised for advertising “luxury” student accommodation
Theo Burman News Editor
A motion to end the advertising of unaffordable housing by the Student’s Union will be discussed at the upcoming Assembly meeting. It comes after the SU provided adverts for private student accommodation this term. The motion, which defines luxury accommodation as “accommodation for which the rent is significantly higher than the average student loan”, encourages the SU to end the advertisement of this kind of student living in all circumstances.
It also calls for an end to any other accommodation whose providers contradict the Union’s campaign policy. This would mean the SU would not advertise for providers that refuse to forgive rent or let students exit contracts during the pandemic.
One of the accommodation providers the SU has advertised is Fresh Student Living, whose rooms at Dun Holm House range from £8,313 to £12,189 a year, at an average of £201 a week.
This is higher than both the national average student expenditure (£126) and the average for London students (£182), according to statistics from Times Higher Education.
The motion also calls attention to Fresh Student Living having the most expensive rooms out of the six largest accommodation prtoviders in Durham.
In a recent interview with Purple Radio, SU President Seun Twins noted that the motion would potentially prompt “a financial restructuring” within the SU, as the funds generated from the advertisements are used to maintain services such as the Night Bus.
The Assembly, which is due to meet on Thursday 4th February, will also discuss policies concerning external speakers, the Assembly’s transparency, and the implementation of an “Intersectionality Week”. Registration to observe the meeting can be found
Registration to observe the meeting can be found here.
