School Manager's Report
Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue6 1–31 July 2020
As we grapple with the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is estimated that ANU will lose around $225M in revenue in 2020 and 2021. The School Director and I have worked closely with all senior staff at RSAA and rolled out high-level 'macro' policies to contain our expenditures. Although, ANU will lose out in revenue, RSAA revenue continues to defy trends. We have for the first time offered online courses in the 2020 Summer Semester, imposed charges on external departments that are serviced by RSAA and College admin staff, aggressively pursued research block grants for all our income as per the HERDC specifications (including our endowment funds as HERDC eligible income of ~$1.0M), have ensured that our new revenue after central taxations (but before College tax) stands at ~$9M in recurrent funding (growth of more than ~4% from 2019 revenue). AITC income from external sources (i.e. external to RSAA), has increased and so has SSO’s income; and our CAT-1 income remains strong as well. Slowly we are becoming a medium-sized School (rather than a small School) when our total economy (~$28M) is compared to other Schools.
As we are doing better than many parts of ANU, we are asked to give back more. Through re-adjusting the overall budget, making one-off savings, and deferring expenditures to 2021, the RSAA Executive has agreed on a plan that meets the Expenditure Control Framework (ECF) target for our School. We have achieved this, without any job losses - a good outcome all round. It is a shame that the ECF does not incentivise ‘endowment’, as many of you have asked me whether, if you make a ‘new’ donation, that will have a material effect. We first have to reach the 2019 endowment and then surpass it to materially impact our approved expenditure budget. As you can imagine, this is not a practical viewpoint. We are still discussing ways in which endowment can assist in increasing our budget. However, in saying that, all donations help, irrespective of ECF implications, as they go towards providing scholarships, grant support and fund maintenance of research infrastructures which otherwise we would not be able to do.
Finally, we will review our School culture and also look at ways all RSAA staff and students can feel secure, included, respected and recognised for their work. RSAA and its admin team provides significant support to all staff and students, and will work closely with the School Director and other stakeholders to play an active role in refining our School culture.
Rafat Alam
