INTEGRATED REPORT 2020 FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 JULY 2020 Nathan Harrison: student nurse on front line fight against Covid-19 2 Welcome to our Integrated Annual Report. This report summarises the activity of the University of Salford for the year ended 31 July 2020 and shows the impact of our response to Covid-19. It provides an overview of our business model and strategic objectives as well as our performance against our core indicators. There is detail on our leadership and governance structures and an insight in to the decisions that are made in INTEGRATED REPORT 2020 order to meet our commercial and wider responsibilities. CONTENTS 04 / OUR VISION AND MISSION 06 / IN DISCUSSION WITH THE VC 10 / OPERATING ENVIRONMENT 14 / STRATEGY AND OPERATIONAL REVIEW 14 Value creation 16 Growing and diversifying our income 20 Student experience and outcomes 26 Research and industry connectedness 30 Enablers 36 / STRIVING FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY 40 / RISK 44 / PUBLIC BENEFIT 48 / FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE 52 / GOVERNANCE 62 / STATEMENT OF COUNCIL RESPONSIBILITIES IN RESPECT OF INTEGRATED REPORT AND THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 64 / INDEPENDENT AUDITOR’S REPORT TO THE COUNCIL OF UNIVERSITY OF SALFORD 66 / CONSOLIDATED AND INSTITUTION STATEMENT OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME & EXPENDITURE 68 / CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CHANGE IN RESERVES 69 / INSTITUTION STATEMENT OF CHANGE IN RESERVES 70 / CONSOLIDATED AND INSTITUTION STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION 71 / CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS 72 / STATEMENT OF ACCOUNTING POLICIES 78 / ACCOUNTING ESTIMATES AND JUDGEMENTS SALFORD OF UNIVERSITY 80 / NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS 3 4 OUR PURPOSE Through teaching, learning, research OUR VISION and enterprise, we harness the skills, imagination and enthusiasm of our students INTEGRATED REPORT 2020 and staff to work in partnership to change people and communities and deliver lasting AND MISSION economic and social benefit. We are proud to still be the fastest growing university in the north-west and the 5th fastest growing in By pioneering exceptional industry the UK. We have over 25,000 students and 2,300 staff from across the world and an ever-increasing partnerships we will lead the way number of alumni in all corners of the globe. We offer undergraduate degrees and postgraduate taught and in real world experiences preparing research degrees in 40 subject areas. We have a main campus in Salford, on the border with Manchester students for life. City Centre, and a significant presence in the heart of MediaCityUK. Whilst our students come from a variety of Collaboration with external partners is in our DNA. Since backgrounds, we have a range of schemes to our beginnings in 1896 as Salford Royal Technical Institute encourage participation in our academic courses by we have served industry and advanced the skills of working students from underrepresented socio-economic groups people. We have a clear mission as a civic institution to: and those from low income households, particularly those here in Salford. / Educate the next generation of modern industrialists, Collaboration and co-creation between industry innovators, creators, entrepreneurs and leaders partners, students and staff come to life across campus, to give our students a range of experiences / Develop the skills and knowledge needed to capitalise on outside of the lecture theatre. the next industrial revolution Work placements, live briefs, community and practice-based projects provide real-life experience / Work in collaboration with public and private sector that puts academic theory into practice. partners to address local and global economic and societal challenges We’ve always played a major role in improving the lives of our local communities, and today we take this We are a proud anchor institution in our city and our ambitious challenge more seriously than ever. Our research is focused on meeting the four grand challenges of the plans for the future reflect our desire to drive change and Industrial Strategy: Data and AI; Clean Growth; Future progress at a local, national and international level. of Mobility; and Ageing Society. UNIVERSITY OF SALFORD OF UNIVERSITY 5 6 IN DISCUSSION INTEGRATED REPORT 2020 WITH THE VC IN JULY 2020 Professor Helen Marshall OUR VICE-CHANCELLOR LOOKS BACK ON THE ACHIEVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES OF THE LAST ACADEMIC YEAR... What are your reflections on the manage pay and pensions through the Total Reward academic and financial year 2019/20? Framework which is something we’ll be talking more about with staff in the coming months. What I want for our students is for them to complete their studies and get good jobs at the end of their Alongside this, Brexit and the post-Covid economy time with us. are on the horizon but our focus is on what we can control and we are in a pretty good place. To help them do this we started the last academic year with a clear focus on creating an excellent What has been the impact of Covid on student experience. We’d put a lot of work in and the University’s priorities? made good progress in the autumn term. The safety of our community was the number one Then Covid arrived and we had to go online. All the priority and everyone pulled together to ensure that work we’d done on creating a great experience was all our decisions had this front of mind. That said, our changed overnight. focus on the student experience didn’t waiver, we So it has been topsy-turvy, but you'll see from the moved quickly to emergency teaching and worked case studies in this report, that our students, our staff hard to ensure our final year students were assessed and industry partners have come together to do some fairly and accurately so that they could successfully fantastic work throughout the pandemic. And now we complete their studies. need to figure out what a good student experience is But outside of teaching, we maintained business as with a mix of online and face-to-face learning. This is usual in many areas. not easy but we have a strong mixed offer ready for the 2020/21 academic year. Investment in our world-class campus carried on. The Robotics Maturation Centre gained planning approval Financially the environment is challenging. The £9,000 and Energy House 2.0 got underway. WE’VE PULLED fee was introduced in 2012 and whilst it is now TOGETHER IN A YEAR OF £9,250, in real terms there has been effectively no Our commitment to exceptional industry partnerships UNEXPECTED CHALLENGES. increase in eight years - but our pay and particularly continued. We’ve become part of the GM Cyber pension costs have risen over that period. Foundry and GMCA supported our skills strategy for developing Industry 4.0 skills. I’ve also been invited to We’ve managed to offset a lot of the increase by the board of the Advanced Manufacturing Institute in growing our student population. However we can’t NE Manchester so our work is being recognised. SALFORD OF UNIVERSITY grow indefinitely. So we are rethinking the way we 7 8 We also attracted Talk Talk, Siemens and GCHQ to Resilience is a great attribute for students as they help us prepare our Industry 4.0 programmes while go through life so if we can help them see this the BBC, ITV and Doc10 are shaping the curriculum experience in a positive light, they’ll be better and for Digital Creative skills. stronger for it. It’s wonderful that we’re being recognised by major It may though, remain challenging for some students employers and they’re now knocking on our door. and for some time. We've put in place additional mental health and counselling support services in INTEGRATED REPORT 2020 How do you think we responded as an order to make sure that students have the assistance organisation to the pandemic? that they need at this incredibly difficult time. I think we did really well. We moved our teaching What is your view of our overall online within 48 hours and don't forget many courses performance in light of everything that also rely on practical teaching and assessment. So for has happened? staff to have produced teaching that still worked for students was outstanding. Covid interrupted new income generating activities we’d planned and introduced additional unplanned Homeworking, getting students through the exams costs. and assessments and assessment boards – the staff have done a really solid job in learning and teaching In spite of this, we produced the surplus income we throughout. anticipated, so financially our performance has been good. The Back to Campus plan is sound and we’ve worked very closely with Salford City Council and Public In terms of our student experience performance, Health teams looking at various scenarios, including we’ve taken some very small, positive forward steps a second wave. I’m confident we’ll have a very safe but we know there is still much to do. While Covid environment at the start of term. (Please note this presents real challenges in delivering an improved interview was undertaken in July 2020 and term student experience we are focused on key areas such started as planned). as improving course organisation and management. There are many examples of how the Looking forwards, how are you going to University responded to the unfolding lead the University back to a sense of issues, are there any that particularly normality? stand out for you? To create enough space on campus for safe teaching Staff seconded to the Lighthouse Lab doing Covid and social distancing we need to keep people working testing comes to mind and we also used our 3D from home. However we don’t want anyone to printers to produce visors for health workers.