Strategic review incorporating the operational review

Business excellence and growth

We are acutely aware of the responsibility we have to those who choose to invest in us, in particular students.

We are committed to demonstrating to students how tuition fees contribute to the delivery of an excellent student experience. How we use money also matters, for example ethical investment forms an integral part of our values. We are mindful of the need to avoid undermining our beliefs and ethos, by not providing capital to activities that are materially inconsistent with our values. Further analysis of how we strategically invest our financial capital is outlined within our Ethical Investment Policy.

Key performance indicators

NSS OVERALL SATISFACTION % ACCESS FOR STUDENTS FROM LOW-PARTICIPATION NEIGHBOURHOODS

70%

We have seen a significant fall in overall satisfaction from 81.02% to 69.88%, an 11% decline, compared to a sector decline of 7.2%. We are working closely with the Student Union and colleagues to identify areas of concern from these results and urgently address these to improve the student experience from semester one onwards.

15%

We continue our commitment to ensuring all students have an opportunity to study at university. Of our student community, 14.9% of our recruited students are from low-participation neighbourhoods. We have also exceeded our benchmarks and access targets.

GRADUATE EMPLOYABILITY–NUMBER OF STUDENTS IN GRADUATE EMPLOYMENT OR FURTHER STUDY FINANCIAL SURPLUS REDUCTION IN SCOPE 1, 2 AND 3 EMMISSIONS PER M2

90%

While our employed or further study metric dropped from 92% to 90%, we remain joint 6th in the UK. We are also top in the region for employability or higher study.

£5.0

MILLION

Savings resulting from the reduction in student and staff activity over almost an entire academic year of lockdown have significantly improved the outturn forecast to a healthy surplus of £5.0m for the year.

17%

We have shown a significant reduction last year, with emissions dropping by 17%, putting us on target of achieving a reduction target of 65% by 2025.

Understanding Winchester’s risks

We define risk as the potential effects of uncertainty on achieving objectives, which can take the form of adverse consequences or unexpected opportunities.

As with most institutions, risks are inherent in all activities, Winchester undertakes new risks in pursuit of its strategic objectives. Effective risk management is about ensuring all significant, relevant risks are understood and prioritised as part of standard management practice to increase the probability of successful outcomes, whilst protecting Winchester’s reputation and sustainability. To create longterm value, we must anticipate the risks threatening our institution, customers and stakeholders, whilst still capitalising on new opportunities offered by an ever-changing world. We must maintain a dialogue with internal and external stakeholders to identify those risks and opportunities. These are illustrated in our Risk Register, which includes vital business and sector risks, as well as some specific to Winchester and key customers and stakeholders.

Our Board of Governors has delegated authority to the Risk and Audit Committee to oversee risk management, including monitoring the Risk Register. This ongoing review enables Winchester to identify material issues that are most likely to affect value creation, strategic objectives, service delivery and assets. We undertake a systematic and methodical identification of key risks and identify measures to mitigate them. Whilst risk cannot be completely eliminated, the approach of the Risk and Audit Committee is to be ‘risk aware’ rather than ‘risk adverse’, by taking intelligent risks to protect strategic objectives. Illustrated in this report is the most recent update of our Risk Register, presented to the Board of Governors on the 7th July 2021

RISK AND RANKING RISK DESCRIPTION

=1

PANDEMIC

The risk that Winchester may be unable to respond appropriately if there is an outbreak of COVID-19 on campus.

=1

STUDENT RECRUITMENT

The risk that Winchester fails to attract the required number of students to remain sustainable.

3

STUDENT EXPERIENCE AND WELLBEING

The risk that Winchester sees a high level of student dissatisfaction and a significant decline in student wellbeing.

OUR CAPITALS RISK MANAGEMENT

With a pandemic outbreak plan and incident management team in place, we introduced and maintained several Covid-secure measures across campus. Along with our in-house track and trace system, regular Covid testing was made available to all staff and students through our on-site, asymptomatic test centre, and test at home kits. We implemented a flexible teaching approach with most teaching moving online and an interactive system to track and support overseas students. Also, we developed a HR policy for home working, with most staff having the ability to work at home if required. We continue to review our pandemic building layout and social distancing rules as part of our project rollout for preparing to deliver Semesters 1 and 2 of the 2021/22 academic year.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we quickly adapted and mitigated our recruitment activities to be delivered online. Throughout the winter, we continued to replace traditional open days with new and enhanced virtual tours, faculty open events, video interviews, and additional videos of campus facilities. With lockdown lifted in spring, we reintroduced (ahead of our competitors) our Covid-secure, GPS and self-guided campus tours and physical ‘Visit Days’ in July for late 2021 applicants and prospective 2022 applicants.

Student experience and wellbeing are incredibly important to us and during the pandemic continued to be a large concern. Consequently, we reviewed our mental wellbeing support offerings, student enquiries provision and student support policies to build on provision for the new 2021/22 academic year. This included the introduction of ‘Academic Safety Net’ and the extension of additional mental wellbeing support options. Whilst we also launched a ‘No Detriment’ policy, we acknowledge that there were issues with the length of time taken to approve and deploy the policy. With a strong focus on engagement across the institution, we continued to maintain a high level of communication with students through strategies including end of year engagement activities, evening and weekend help points for students in libraries, and formal weekly contact with selfisolating students. We are also progressing the development of a digital ‘one-stop shop’ for student enquiries and help.

RELATED RISK RELATED CAPITAL

OUR RISKS

Our Intellectual Capital Our Financial Capital Our Human Resources Capital Our Social Capital Our Natural and Manufactured Capital Operational Risks Reputational Risks Financial Risks Compliance Risks Strategic Risks

RISK AND RANKING

4

FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY RISK DESCRIPTION

The risk that Winchester’s income decreases or costs/ provisions increase, and not being able to service Winchester’s debts or satisfy loan covenants sufficiently, putting the financial sustainability of Winchester at risk.

5

GRADUATE EMPLOYABILITY / HIGHER STUDY

The risk that Winchester has poor rates of graduatelevel employability compared with the rest of the sector and competitors.

=6

IT INFRASTRUCTURE

The failure to deliver adequate IT infrastructure and services of a kind and quality sufficient to meet the expectations of students and staff

=6

IT, INFORMATION AND DATA SECURITY

The risk that the security of Winchester’s systems and network is compromised, leading to loss of critical services and/ or loss or exposure of sensitive data.

RISK MANAGEMENT

We have identified several mitigations for risks to our financial sustainability from the pandemic through scenario planning. We utilised all available forms of government support throughout the pandemic but still had to make radical costs reductions, by example through introducing a voluntary severance and restructuring scheme, and withdrawing our staff Pay Award for 2020/21. We have strategically invested in our Health and Wellbeing faculty courses and secured additional funding from the Office for Students from our new Engineering courses. We will continue to maintain a culture of cost-effective control and budget holder visibility by increasing our incomegenerating activities, bidding for public and private grants and taking a new approach to fundraising.

We published our new Graduate Employability and Higher Study Strategy in summer 2020, which outlined how we would ensure that all programmes of study focus on employability and have high graduate employability with our new Winchester Employability fund. We also opened a brand-new Careers and Opportunities Centre on our King Alfred Campus with another centre for our West Downs Campus planned. Through these centres, we will continue to offer a careers service to our students for life with dedicated career advice sessions and webinars, two ‘Employability Weeks’ a year, along with offering and promoting new graduate internship opportunities and work placement modules throughout different programmes.

RELATED RISK RELATED CAPITAL

The sector continues to face cyber-attacks, which are exploiting out of service and end of life hardware. To help improve the student experience, we developed our mobile app and upgraded our wireless provision. To support home and distance working throughout the pandemic, we continued to offer our Laptop Loan scheme and instigated a widespread rollout of Microsoft Office 365 including Microsoft Teams. We have formed a new IT Governance Group to ensure we carefully consider the strategic and financial elements of any new system or approach and remain aware of gaps in staff IT knowledge which we will continue to address through increased levels of training.

We continue to preserve our close professional relationship with JISC, working with JANet and Cyber teams to share knowledge, review and mitigate sector-wide IT, information, and data security threats. We also have in place a continued service contract with Orange Cyber Security. We are planning to move to a cloud-first strategy for new and existing technology from secure suppliers who are all certified to ISO 27001.

RISK AND RANKING RISK DESCRIPTION

=8

GOVERNMENT POLICY

The risk that Winchester is adversely impacted by government policy, funding, and rhetoric.

=8

STAFF SATISFACTION AND WELLBEING

A decline in staff motivation and morale could seriously detriment Winchester’s performance by negatively impacting staff commitment, engagement, and willingness to expend discretionary effort.

10

OFSTED INSPECTION FOR DEGREE APPRENTICESHIPS

The risk that Winchester has an Ofsted inspection at 2 days’ notice and is unprepared. The consequence of failing an Ofsted inspection will risk our ability to offer degree apprenticeship programmes, and our wider provision.

RISK MANAGEMENT RELATED RISK RELATED CAPITAL

Our scenario planning and financial modelling efforts have been based on potential Governmental policy changes, and we have maintained close engagement with Universities UK and Guild HE to ensure we understand sector issues and they understand Winchester’s perspective on issues. Daily briefings from WonkHE and other sector sources have helped us to keep abreast of the changing policy landscape. Despite the Government rhetoric of ‘low value’ courses and policy pushes towards HE alternatives (such as FE and vocational training) that threatens to have a negative impact on our reputation, we have achieved Ofsted Outstanding recognition for all aspects of our education provision, an upward trend in PG ITE recruitment, and a national reputation for successful consortium leadership and delivery of PgCert SENCO accreditation. To offset the EU recruitment downturn, we have developed a new international recruitment strategy, specifically targeting the USA and Far East.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused generalised anxiety, increased stress and mental health difficulties along with social isolation for some throughout prolonged home working periods. In response, we offered a varied and diverse range of staff wellbeing resources and events, an enhanced wellbeing platform with a huge range of shopping discounts, and a 24/7 employee helpline. We also introduced extra staff counselling provision, a reading week into each semester, and allowed our staff to carry up to 10 days of leave into the next year. Deans, Directors and HoDs were trained as Mental Health First Aiders and made occupational health referrals where appropriate, with assistance and guidance from HR made available to managers on handling people management issues. Work to improve the experience of hybrid teaching for both staff and students is ongoing, whilst a draft hybrid working policy for professional services staff implemented in September 2021.

We have clarified the roles and responsibilities of the DA operational governance within Winchester and raised awareness of the requirements of an Ofsted inspection through resources offered by the UVAC and offering engaging development/training sessions for staff. We are also planning to review operational management of our degree apprenticeship provision, secure dedicated software support to enable professional-level relationship management and have employed a new staff member in the Quality office to provide support in undertaking a mock Ofsted review of our degree apprenticeships.

Challenges

Recruitment

There continues to be rising uncertainty in recruitment across the sector with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and a demographic downturn set to last until 2022. With competitors using increasingly aggressive tactics to plug the decline in applications and firm acceptances as a result of COVID-19, and the sector receiving negative press due to the impact of the pandemic on student experience, we experienced a lower number of student applications and were unable to maintain strong levels of engagement with feeder schools. Lockdown restrictions prevented oncampus recruitment activities for most of the last academic year, so we had to quickly migrate our recruitment activities online, replacing traditional open days with new and enhanced virtual tours, faculty open events, video interviews, and additional videos of campus facilities. When lockdown was lifted in spring 2021, we reintroduced (ahead of our competitors) our Covid-secure, GPS and self-guided campus tours and physical ‘Visit Days’ in July for late 2021 applicants and prospective 2022 applicants.

Afghanistan

We are deeply concerned about the current situation in Afghanistan and the impact it will have on members of our community, particularly those with family and friends still in the country. With other Universities of Sanctuary, we stand in solidarity with those impacted and with compassion will continue to welcome students, academics and researchers from Afghanistan seeking sanctuary. Working closely with our partners, we are supporting those at risk both in the UK and Afghanistan, helping our Afghan students however we can to get them to the UK safely.

For any locally based refugees and asylum seekers, we are planning to offer English for Speakers of Other Languages provisions on-campus in partnership with the Winchester City of Sanctuary group.

Financial Sustainability

We took the opportunity in 2020/2021 to review our portfolio and undertook a voluntary severance scheme for academics in Autumn 2020. We continue to review our financial sustainability and develop our procurement function to ensure robust purchasing control and to maximise value for money. We are continuing to carefully monitor staff costs through control of staff recruitment and examining opportunities for restructuring.

NSS Scores

Our results for the 2021 National Student Survey (NSS) were disappointing. Our overall student satisfaction dropped by just over 10%, placing 123rd out of 151 universities within the UK – 18 places lower than our 2020 ranking. As a matter of urgency, for the next academic year, we will have a strong focus on addressing our teaching quality as an integral part of the student experience. The Business School will deliver the Help to Grow Management Programme which aims to upskill 30,000 SME leaders over the next 3 years through over £200m allocated by the UK Government.

Health and Wellbeing faculty applications increased by +29%.

The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences is developing a new architecture initiative with the Royal Institute of British Architects New Courses Group that aims to develop a course that will prepare future students for professional practice and employment within industry.

Graduate success and research impact

Behind everything we do is a drive to empower graduates to thrive in the future endeavours of their choice, and improving the resonance and social utility of our research. Building on a platform of excellent teaching, for which we have been awarded Silver in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), we continue to increase our focus on graduate support, with initiatives such as ensuring our curriculum is designed with employability and career thinking as key considerations, through to introducing Careers Advice for Life. We are also dedicated to transformative research, which can be seen in our growing representation in the Research Excellence Framework (REF).

Graduate employability

Our previous Employability Strategy has dramatically been replaced by our new Graduate Employability and Higher Study Strategy (2020-25). Its founding principle is that everyone is responsible for the graduate outcomes of our students.

Previously, employability skills development was embedded within our vocational programmes such as Primary Education and Event Management. This was seen to be a vital aspect of the vocational programme’s success.

Our new Strategy seeks to extend this provision to our non-vocational programmes such as those within Arts and Humanities and strives to embed employability within the curriculum more formally, to ensure that employability skills development is a key success indicator for these courses. Consequently, we extended this provision to our non-vocational programmes, which make up most of our curricular offering. In 2020 we placed employability and career thinking at the foundation of all course design. The Careers Team led employability workshops for existing courses so that employability shifted from being considered as a single class or assessment into being an ever-present consideration for curriculum design and student learning. Academics are crucial to the success of our agenda. Our lecturers have become ambassadors for employability, as much as our Careers Advisers.

From 2020 onwards, employability has been increasingly weaved throughout the curriculum and extracurricular opportunities. Previously, excluding our vocational programmes, employability advice for the majority of our students consisted of well-run volunteering opportunities, one-to-one advice and in-class workshops.

Moving into 2021, we revised our portfolio of opportunities for our students, evolving beyond workshops and one-to-one advice, which often led to high waiting times. Also, in September 2020, we established our Business Engagement Strategy Group to become employer-led, engaging with regional corporates and local SMEs. Their remit is to listen first, to ask employers to guide our Strategy and to create new partnerships for our students.

LIFELONG CAREERS ADVICE

In 2020, we established Careers Advice for Life for our graduates and Alumni, enabling them to contact us beyond the original two-year window.

We sent our first Careers Graduate Pack to all graduates of 2020, which included relevant resources and the offer of a summer webinar series to support them facing particular challenges due to COVID-19.

Through our new Graduate Engagement Assistant Scheme, we now proactively support our unemployed and under-employed graduates, signposting them to resources, job board, and one-toone advice.

Teaching excellence

We have been awarded Silver in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). This result reflects the high quality of our teaching and the hard work of all staff and their tireless commitment to teaching excellence.

We have one Principal Fellow, 27 Senior Fellows, 103 Fellows, and two Associate Fellows of the Higher Education Academy (now part of Advance HE) amongst our full-time staff.

The TEF Panel and its judgement reflects, in particular, evidence of:

•Appropriate contact hours, personalised learning through tutorials and buddy schemes that provide high levels of engagement, and commitment to learning and study from students. • An institutional culture that facilitates excellent teaching through professional development schemes, teaching awards, and promotion schemes. • An institutional approach to developing high-quality physical and digital resources, which together with student-based research projects, aid and enhance learning and develop study and research skills. • Course design and assessment practices that provide sufficient stretch to ensure most students make progress, and acquire knowledge, skills and understanding that are valued by employers, by working closely with industrial partners in course development and approval.

QUALITY ASSURANCE

The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) commended our commitment to the enhancement of our teaching. The following features of good practice were identified:

•The extensive range of volunteering opportunities available to students, which enhance employability skills and career prospects. • The widespread opportunities for students to engage in decision making through the Student

Academic Council. • The strength of partnerships between staff and students within the Student Fellows Scheme and that scheme’s effective contribution to enhancing the wider student experience. • The wide engagement of students and staff in Winchester’s structured and values-driven approach to the enhancement of students’ learning opportunities.

TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED LEARNING

Over the last 12 months the virtual learning environment, supported by the TEL team, has played a critical role in maintaining the consistency and quality of the learning experience during a period of upheaval and disruption. The Canvas Learning Management System has been the primary mechanism for delivering curriculum content and supporting digital assessment, while new tools, such as Microsoft Teams, have been introduced to support live online teaching.

Staff in academic and professional departments had to accommodate significant changes in terms of how they teach and deliver their services. The TEL team supported this with extensive live online training and self-paced ’just in time’ guidance. In the period running up to the start of the teaching year, 120 staff attended webinars and we delivered 248 hours of one-to-one training. Meanwhile, 497 individuals completed a dedicated Canvas-based course on online teaching.

Recognised that students faced similar challenges, the TEL team created the Canvas Handbook for Students Course, which empowered students to improve their digital literacy in key areas relating to their studies. Their engagement is recognised using a system of badges and is recorded on their Higher Education Achievement Record (HEAR). Nearly 700 students have acquired at least 1 badge.

Research and knowledge exchange

RESEARCH GROWTH

The major activity in Research and Knowledge Exchange in 2020-2021 was Winchester’s submission to the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021). our submission outlined a substantial development in research and research infrastructure over previous submissions.

Winchester increased the number of Units of Assessment (UoAs) submitted over the past two assessment exercises. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), the precursor to the REF, six were entered. In REF 2014 this was increased to eight (33%), and in REF 2021 thirteen UoAs were submitted (an increase of 63% since 2014 and 117% since 2008).

Successful investment in research was also demonstrated through the substantial increase in the number of staff being entered, with a headcount of 81 in REF 2014 rising to 179 in REF 2021 and Full Time Equivalent (FTE) of 72.58 in REF 2014 to 163.81 in REF 2021 – increases of 121% and 126% respectively.

GENDER EQUALITY IN RESEARCH

In addition to increases in the number of UoAs and staff entered the REF2021, we also saw an improved gender balance in the submission.

SUBMITTED STAFF REF 2014 (HEADCOUNT) SUBMITTED STAFF REF 2021 (HEADCOUNT)

MALE 48 (59.3%)

FEMALE 33 (40.7%) 92 (51.4%)

87 (48.6%)

TOTAL 81 (100%) 179 (100%)

POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH

Winchester achieved Research Degree Awarding Powers in 2008, leading to 59 completions in REF 2014 and 121 in REF 2021 (an increase of 105%). The Research Knowledge Exchange (RKE) Strategy – in place during the first part of the REF cycle – set a target to increase the number of PGR students from 160 to 225 by 2020. This was exceeded a year in advance, with 267 registered across the PhD programme and Winchester’s professional doctorates.

RESEARCH INCOME

Winchester’s research income doubled, from £1.7million in REF 2014 to £3.6million in REF 2021.

KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE FRAMEWORK

2021 saw the first results for the new Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF), indicating several areas where action towards improvement is required. While there is no previous data for comparison, based on the results of the institutions Winchester was benchmarked against the institution’s portfolio. Four KEF areas have been designated as urgent priorities: Local Growth and Regeneration; Working with Business; Working with the Public and Third Sector; and Skills, Enterprise and Entrepreneurship.

A KEF action plan has been put in place to ensure considerable improvement in these and other areas. However, as the KEF utilises the previous three years of data (in this case, 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20), it is likely to take several years (KEF 24-25) until marked positive improvement can be achieved, especially as 2020-21 saw a decrease in KEF-related activity due to the pandemic.

Paul Sheeran is working with Coutts Bank to help improve our student’s employability within finance, economics and banking. Sheeran is now scoping with Coutts a series of events for students to help them to promote gender equality in banking, economics and finance.

The new Centre for Professional Learning in Education was established in 2021 to support and deliver CPD to regional schools. The unit is a vibrant community of PGR students encouraged to undertake projects with a specific impact on their professional contexts.

Vanessa Harbour made many virtual visits to primary and special needs schools for a Popup Festival, creating a variety of resources based on her 2018 young adults’ novel, Flight. The Book Council of Wales selected a copy of Flight to be provided for every primary school.

Thriving individuals

The dignity and wellbeing of individuals are vitally important, as is fomenting a positive working environment for both staff and students. Never more so than during the COVID-19 pandemic. From March 2020, we worked to try to ensure the health and safety of our staff and students, as much as was it was in our power to do so – such as supporting staff required to work on campus (including direct input from our Health and Wellbeing faculty) and providing mental health assistance such as counselling. Overall, we worked to redress demographic imbalances in our staff profile, whilst providing encouragement for first year staff to join our occupational pension schemes.

Individuals matter

Building on our value ‘individuals matter’, Winchester has sought to create a working culture that enables us to deal successfully with the many challenges presented by a fast-changing and evolving HE sector.

Our culture encourages the open sharing of ideas, leading to change that ultimately enhances staff experience. With the Coronavirus pandemic, which had a considerable impact on our staff from March 2020, we took all practicable steps to protect the health and safety of staff and worked absolutely in line with Government guidelines throughout. We made gratitude payments to our staff who were required to work on campus to maintain essential services during the initial lockdown. Additionally, we supplied a wealth of resources, wellbeing activities, and materials accessible online to help mitigate against potential detrimental mental health consequences. We also provided additional counselling support for staff who required it.

HIRING AND RETAINING THE BEST PEOPLE

In 2020 there were 2,264 applicants for 181 published adverts. Of those applicants, 58% were female, and 14% were BAME. We remain focused on building a highly inclusive workforce across the full demographic spectrum and have collaborated with Network Groups and trade union colleagues to agree and implement positive action initiatives to address imbalances.

EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY

As proud Disability Confident employers, we have an action plan to join the Mindful Employer initiative in 2022. In the last 12 months, we have reduced the gap (between Winchester and the sector average) of the percentage of staff who are White British, at 86.8%, compared to 79.5% for the sector (source: UCEA Higher Education Workforce Report 2019). Currently, only 4.9% of staff are BAME. In collaboration with the Race Equality Action Group (REAG), the Director of Equalities and Staff Development has enacted an action plan to achieve a target of 6%.

The historical breakdown of gender statistics shows that the proportion of male to female staff has continued at around 60% female over the last seven years. Female staff currently comprise 60.4% of our staff. This remains higher than the HE sector average of 54% female staff and is largely a result of our practice of employing services in-house, rather than through contractors, that typically attract female staff because of the part-time preferences and nature of these roles.

RETENTION

Overall staff turnover decreased from 13.1% to 11.2% %. 6.5% of all leavers were staff with less than one year’s service.

WELLBEING

Staff sickness absence per employee increased from 4.9 days to 6.3 days in the last year. Mental health and stress/ anxiety-related absences have risen from 26.1% to 34.6% of total sickness absence days lost. Stress and anxiety arising from the Coronavirus pandemic was a contributing factor to this significant increase. Winchester has prioritised staff wellbeing in the wake of the pandemic and tasked the Deputy Vice-Chancellor to lead on relevant strategies to support staff.

PENSIONS

The proportion of staff enrolled in an occupational pension scheme increased from 89.9% to 91.3% this year. We see it as very positive that such a high proportion of our staff contributes to a pension scheme.

Faculty of Education staff have worked tirelessly during the pandemic devising an emergency assessment strategy to enable the faculty to temporarily assume the DfE’s responsibility for recommending graduates for Qualified Teacher Status.

Our Health and Wellbeing faculty has gone the extra mile in supporting EFS department by preparing COVID-19 ready spaces and ensuring that students have adequate PPE, especially those on placements.

With Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) funding, Professor Paul Sowden, Rachel Wilcock and Gemma O’Donoughue are establishing partnerships with a number of local organisations and the Psychology Department for our Psychology Knowledge Exchange Internships scheme (PsKEIs).

Social justice

We are committed to empowering our students and staff to consider social justice in all aspects of their personal and professional lives, and impart such values in all their interactions. We promote volunteering as a key social justice mechanism. Our core commitment to anti-racism strengthened even further in 2020, including new initiatives to redress recruitment imbalances and gaps in student access and further close degree-awarding gaps. We are one of only five universities to formally support the Gypsy, Traveller, Roma, Showman and Boater (GTRSB) community. We also instigated numerous projects to support children from forces families, and invested heavily in support for disabled students.

Ultimately, we aim to nurture students to thrive in their careers and further study, to become the conscience of their communities and places of work. This Social capital can be shown across Winchester in many ways, including student satisfaction, community engagement strategies, staff and students volunteering data, continuing alumni engagement and Research Excellence Framework (REF) impact statements.

As a values-driven university committed to social justice, we believe that all ‘Individuals matter’ and are dedicated to the flourishing of people.

In 2020 we published our anti-racism statement and adopted a universitywide commitment to addressing issues of race. Within the statement, we committed to improving our reporting policies and procedures, introducing senior champions, closing degree-awarding gaps, and improving our recruitment of staff and students from racial minorities.

In 2019 we conducted research to better understand our large Asian degree-awarding gap, developing a series of recommendations that we have begun to action and actively share with the sector. We have closed these gaps – the most recent Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data shows that the BAME awarding gap has narrowed from 22.3 percentage points to 8.2 percentage points in the last three years. In December we were also one of five universities to pledge to support Gyspy, Traveller, Roma, Showman and Boater (GTRSB) communities into higher education, introducing a new support package for GTRSB students and holding a national conference to raise awareness and understanding on GTRSB access and participation in June as part of GRT History Month.

“We are anti-racist.

We commit to: looking within with humility, listening keenly, and acting to effect real change.

SUPPORTING CHILDREN FROM FORCES FAMILIES

Winchester leads the Service Children’s Progression Alliance, whose UK-wide Hub Network expanded from four to twelve Hubs this year, bringing together hundreds more organisations collaborating to help Service children thrive. Universities and military charities co-lead Hubs of diverse stakeholders to support rigorous research and its translation into policy and practice improvements.

Seven new projects enhanced the scale and quality of support for Service children, including several enhancing the evidence base and impact of the hugely successful Thriving Lives Toolkit for schools across the UK and a research-to-practice project tackling loneliness and isolation for dispersed Service children in further education.

The Alliance was recognised in the Secretary of State for Defence’s Armed Forces Covenant report to Parliament, the Government’s MP-led review of support for Service families and – in evidence – submitted to the Armed Forces Bill select committee.

Key milestones:

•April 2021 – Winchester publishes a statement of commitment towards being a truly anti-racist institution • January 2021 – Winchester signs the GTRSB into HE pledge outlining its commitment to supporting staff and students from Gypsy, Roma, Traveller, Showman and

Boaters in higher education • October 2020 – The Thriving Lives Toolkit for schools was launched completing a multi-year research-topractice project The BLDT Faculty worked with a local charity, the Allied Services Trust, integrating our undergraduate students into research into the VAT treatment of services that are chargeable for the more vulnerable in society. This project is focused on the social justice aspect of VAT applicability.

In December 2020, staff from our Nursing department made a huge contribution to the COVID-19 vaccination programme by providing intramuscular injection training for approximately 100 vaccinators. The training programme was a collaboration between regional universities (Winchester, Portsmouth, Solent, Southampton) and Health Education England.

The Journal of Nursing & Residential Care featured an article about a project run during lockdown by two of our Performing Arts students, in collaboration with care homes and a primary school, to share original creative responses in music, song, painting, poetry and stories.

INVESTMENT IN ACCESS AND PARTICIPATION

Winchester annually prepares a 5-year rolling plan outlining its financial commitments and targets to addressing gaps in access and participation of students from underrepresented backgrounds. Our Access and Participation Plan (APP 2020-2025) has been approved by the OfS and is published on our website at https://www.winchester.ac.uk/about-us/leadershipand-governance/access-and-participation-statement/

Our APP commits to the following strategic priorities for Winchester

•To work with local communities to increase the low rates of progression into higher education • To increase the diversity of our student body and close the gaps in participation in HE for students from underrepresented groups • To create an inclusive learning and teaching environment in which all students, whatever their background, are able to flourish • To improve progression rates into further study or graduate employment for all of our students During the year we invested over £2,665,000 in widening access and participation across the whole student lifecycle. £2,391,703 of this expenditure was committed to the four categories of expenditure identified by the OfS for reporting Access and Participation plans and expenditure. However, in addition, Winchester invested £273,297 on success and progression activities for students from underrepresented groups, in support of our strategic priorities mentioned above.

Winchester is no longer required to report expenditure on success and progression activities to the OfS, other than those identifying as relating to disabled students. Hence, our audited Access and Participation expenditure is reported at £2,391,703 as shown in the notes to the accounts on page 84, note 7 (b). This figure includes expenditure under student premium and projects funded by third parties (e.g. grants).

The four categories of expenditure reportable to the OfS are:

1) ACCESS INVESTMENT

Winchester was not able to spend as much as planned on our APP due to the impacts of the pandemic which led to a reduction in outreach activity in local schools and colleges due to lockdown and health risks. However, instead we invested further funds to support our current students from underrepresented backgrounds.

The First Star Scholars Scheme was launched in July 2021, made possible by the generous support from our lead sponsors The Linbury Trust and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. The scheme is a four-year sustained outreach programme for young care experienced people. We host an annual summer school, a spring school and monthly Saturday schools to support the educational progression of a cohort of young care experienced people. Winchester helped raise funds to set-up the programme and continues to provide in-kind support alongside further fundraising activities in partnership with the First Star Scholars UK charity.

2) FINANCIAL SUPPORT

We spent over £1m on financial support for students through a number of income-based bursaries and support packages for students from certain underrepresented backgrounds including Care Leavers, Young Adult Carers and Estranged Students. Students were able to access student support (or hardship) funds throughout the year in addition to the Covid support funds supported by the OfS.

3) DISABILITY SUPPORT

In 2020/21 we invested £531k into support for disabled students, which included over £16k to support student access through targeted outreach and pre-entry familiarisation activity for students on the autistic spectrum, over £488k to support student success and over £26k to support disabled student progression through one-to-one careers advice and tailored workshops.

4) RESEARCH AND EVALUATION

In 2020/21 the Widening Participation Department employed two Graduate Research Associates to deliver research projects to support the development of transition programmes and outreach with parents and carers. We continue to drive sector-leading research and knowledge activity on the educational progression of Service Children through the Service Children’s Progression Alliance. Winchester also contributed to the ‘Disaggregating the BAME Degree-Awarding Gap’ report, which provided a series of recommendations to support the Asian student experience.

Environmental sustainability

We are widely recognised as one of the leading universities in the UK for environmental sustainability and carbon management. We aim to become the lowest-carbon UK university campus by 2025. Having solely used 100% renewable energy since 2008, our new low carbon plant and equipment will save just over 2.7 million kWh a year. We recently joined the Carbon Coalition, a sector group dedicated to offsetting emissions through leveraging combined buying power. Our commitment to sustainability extends into the curriculum, with climate change education being rolled out across all courses. Aligned to this are measures covering carbon emissions, water usage, and the amount of waste produced by the institution.

Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme

In 2020/21 we were awarded a grant of £3.12m from the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, to help us to become one of the most carbon-efficient universities in the UK. The signalled the start of our significant capital investment programme in innovative low carbon plant and equipment.

Phase one of the programme will see the replacement of 35 gas boilers with low energy air source heat pumps; a lighting upgrade to replace existing older-style lighting with low energy LEDs; an upgrade to the Building Management System to optimise energy consumption in buildings; and the installation of two large solar photovoltaic arrays designed to produce on-site electricity generation at peak times.

This grant underlines the significant progress we have made since 2006 when we started our move away from fossil fuels, by reducing our emissions, increasing investment in energy efficiency measures, increasing installation of renewables, switching to electric vehicles and the procurement of renewable electricity.

Renewable energy

We have used 100% renewable electricity since 2008 and switched to 100% green gas in September 2020, making us almost carbon neutral from energy sources.

“Once installed, the low carbon plant and equipment will support savings of over 500 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, with Scope 1 and 2 emissions falling to almost zero, which equals financial savings of up to £100k

Gavin Hunter Chief Operating Officer

Our new low carbon plant and equipment will save a total of 2,702,353 kWh a year:

REMOVAL OF GAS BOILERS/ REPLACEMENT HEAT PUMPS SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC (PV) PANELS

2,010,629 kWh saved a year

Equivalent to 23,380 tree seedlings grown for 10 years or 300 cars taken off the road.

136,156 kWh saved a year

Equivalent to 240,000 miles driven by an average vehicle or 12,275,000 smartphones charged once.

BUILDING MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS OPTIMISED IN 25 BUILDINGS

471,543 kWh saved a year

Equivalent to 56 homes’ electrical use per year or burning 124,000 litres of diesel.

REPLACEMENT OF NON-LED LIGHTS TO FULL LED

84,025 kWh saved a year

Equivalent to 13 cars driven for one year or 2,450 propane cylinders burned.

SCOPE 1 & 2 EMISSIONS - TOTAL AND INTENSITY LOCATION AND MARKET BASED

T CO 2

 Total Scope 1 & 2 Emissions - Location Based (T CO2)  Total Scope 1 & 2 Emissions per m2 - Location Based (Kg CO2)  Total Scope 1 & 2 Emissions - Market Based (T CO2)  Total Scope 1 & 2 Emissions per m2 - Market Based (Kg CO2) Kg CO 2

UK GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS AND ENERGY USE DATA FOR THE PERIOD 1 AUGUST 2019 TO 31 JULY 2021

Energy consumption used to calculate emissions (kWh)

2020/21

10,959,719

2019/20

10,015,268

Energy Intensity Ratio (kWh/m2): Gas consumption Electricity consumption

Scope 1 emissions in metric tonnes CO2e Gas consumption Owned transport Total Scope 1

Scope 2 emissions in metric tonnes CO2e Purchased electricity

Total Scope 1 and 2 emissions in metric tonnes CO2e

Carbon Intensity Ratio (KgCO2e/m2) 93.12 56.83

1,195.00 10.86 1,205.86

940.24

2146.10

27.52 80.56 61.52

1,038.42 13.73 1,052.15

1,018.28

2,070.43

29.16

Fleet Vehicles

By the end of 2020/21, 47% of fleet vehicles had been switched to electric vehicles as part of our journey towards our target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2025.

Scope 3 Emissions

We have also just undertaken our first full scope 3 assessment for our carbon monitoring report. We have committed to being carbon neutral by 2030 but we have an aspiration to get there by 2025. Understanding the challenge and size of scope 3 is key to reducing our emissions and offsetting/sequestering what we cannot reduce.

Carbon Coalition

In 2020/21 Winchester joined the Carbon Coalition led by the Environment Association of Universities and Colleges. This sector group will work together to improve the process for gathering scope 3 emissions data and will also procure good quality and verified carbon sequestration and retirement opportunities for the member organisations. We committed to purchasing 386t of carbon credits which equated to our verifiable scope 3 emissions from waste, water and business travel and the remaining scope 1 emissions from internal combustion fleet vehicles. Paul Sheeran’s ESRC funded work focused on understanding the future of Canada-UK trade and the circular economy in Free Trade Agreements (UK-Canada)

Two Winchester colleagues, Dr Louise Pagden and Dr Simon Boxley, have trained as COP 26 Ambassadors. They work closely with the Earth Museum and local schools to roll out a series of lessons on sustainability, and they prepared a range of campus-wide events to mark COP26.

Academic Alexander Taylor served as a consultant on a Channel 4 documentary on the environmental impact of online activity during the pandemic, worked with the BBC World Service on a news report on the carbon costs of IT infrastructure and was a guest on FirstMile’s Wasted podcast exploring environmental sustainability in relation to cloud computing.

Procurement and value for money

The Office for Students terms and conditions of funding for higher education institutions (ref 2019.12) requires our Board of Governors to demonstrate that it uses public funds for proper purposes and seeks to achieve value for money from public funds.

At Winchester, the responsibility for value for money is delegated to management and the Board’s responsibility is discharged through proper scrutiny of Winchester’s affairs and through exercising appropriate oversight of strategies and policies.

At Winchester, we believe that there is a clear relationship between how we create value and the value for money we provide to stakeholders. Value for money is about maximising the value generated from our financial capital. However, through integrated thinking, we believe that value encompasses all capitals, as outlined in Winchester’s Value Creation model on page 8. This integrated report describes how we create value and the areas in which we have delivered value from financial inputs, amongst other sources.

Direct cost savings are achieved through active contract engagement and management and robust tender processes. Winchester also benefits from a number of local and national purchasing consortia and partnerships to secure competitive commodity prices and discounts on our strategic and high-spend areas of our business. Through these consortia and frameworks, we are able to realise significant savings and to strongly influence supplier behaviour.

For example, we expensed £2.4m on addressable spend through our Southern Universities Purchasing Consortium (SUPC) frameworks in 2020/21, realising £372k of savings (of which £173k were cashable savings), as identified by SUPC. The majority of Winchester’s SUPC addressable spend is associated with computer supplies and services, the remainder based on furniture, library and publications. Other purchasing consortia and framework providers used by Winchester include:

•GOV.UK – via Crown Commercial Services (CCS) • Eduserv – for the purchase of software licences • iESE – construction framework • JISC – for broadband purchasing • NHS – TDS Framework • Southern Universities Construction Consultancy

Affinity Group (SUCCAG) • The Energy Consortium (TEC) • The Society of College, National and University

Libraries (SCONUL) • TUCO – the leading professional membership body for in-house caterers The aforementioned organisations consistently offer the sector value for money, often through rates specifically negotiated for the Higher Education sector.

Channeling in excess of 30% of the value of our addressable spend through framework agreements arranged by higher education and public sector purchasing consortia, we ensure that our suppliers have been stringently reviewed for anti-modern slavery compliance. The particular business and supply chains which may pose particular risks in terms of slavery are in IT and AV equipment, construction and uniform/clothing supplies, the majority of which are purchased through these frameworks.

Supplier engagement

POLICY AND STRATEGY

Winchester’s procurement strategies are well developed and aligned with the institution’s sustainability policies. The University has robust procurement policies, and sustainability has been embedded into these practices. Staff involved in buying activities have been fully trained on our procurement approach and how this should align with Winchester’s environmental objectives.

The strength of these policies was reflected over the past year where we have continually selected suppliers through competitive process using award criteria heavily weighted in support of environmental and sustainability criteria in line with University values. A good example of this was the recently awarded Graduation tender where environmental and sustainability considerations were weighted at 25%.

Over the last 12 months the University has carried out ten full tenders and a dozen mini competitions. All contracts have been carried out in line with Public Contract regulations ensuring the University remains fully compliant in these areas of expenditure. They have been awarded against value for money criteria that focused on whole life costs, quality and service levels as opposed to price alone.

STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT

Stakeholder engagement is carried out through tender user groups. It forms an extremely important part of the value for money process, ensuring end user expertise is combined with a commercial professional procurement approach. For example, Winchester has recently tendered its travel management requirements. A diverse user group was formed to agree policy around using the service before going to tender. Issues such as managing carbon footprint, using trains whenever possible instead of flying, and even decisions around the need to travel, have all been discussed, debated and incorporated into the tender, along with CO2 reporting.

FAIR TRADE CONTRACTS

Winchester has a strong reputation of supporting many Fairtrade initiatives, particularly in catering and hospitality. We have been able to tap into many TUCO contracts which have delivered a host of products to staff and students. We have also set out to establish these initiatives in other areas, such as clothing. It is our aspiration to use environmentally and sustainably resourced clothing wherever possible, whether they are Fairtrade, WRAP or Fit for Purpose products. We are committed to the principles of sustainable development, environmental management and protection of biodiversity.

ELECTRONICS WATCH

Winchester has signed up as an affiliate member of Electronics Watch, an organisation that aims to improve working conditions in the global electronics industry. The decision was made to ensure that employees working for companies supplying ICT equipment to Winchester are treated fairly, and that the companies themselves operate to an acceptable ethical standard.

Electronics Watch aims to help public sector organisations by being their eyes and ears on the ground in areas of the world where their ICT products are made. Becoming a member of Electronics Watch is testament to Winchester’s commitment to meeting the highest possible ethical and social standards when it comes to procurement.

Modern slavery

Our Modern Slavery Statement is designed to satisfy the requirements of Part 6, Section 54, of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Winchester’s Financial Regulations, Procurement Policy and Procedures and Ethical Investment Policy state our commitments to the highest standards of ethical conduct in all activities, along with making continuous improvements in this area.

We do not engage in, or condone, the practices of human trafficking, slavery or forced labour. We are committed to improving our business practices to combat modern slavery and human trafficking and to ensure that we are not complicit in any human rights violations. We are committed to zero tolerance of slavery and human trafficking or child labour practices.

We mitigate the risk of modern slavery occurring in our workforce by ensuring that directly employed staff are recruited by following robust HR recruitment policies and checks. There is a whistle-blowing policy in place for members of staff to raise any concerns about wrongdoing by Winchester. Staff employed on a temporary staff basis via agencies are only recruited through established sources who can provide assurance that they comply fully with the requirements of legislation relating to the rights and welfare of their candidates and employees. Our Ethical Investment Policy has been developed to reflect Winchester’s commitment to ensuring that our investments are not complicit in any human rights violations. To this extent Winchester does not knowingly invest directly or indirectly in organisations that breach human or animal rights, or that are in breach of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Our Modern Slavery Statement is published on our website and reviewed on an annual basis. It can be found at: https://www.winchester.ac.uk/about-us/sustainabilityand-social-justice/modern-slavery/