School Manager's Report

Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue7 1–31 August 2020

It is extremely pleasing to talk to you all again now we are starting to work on campus, flexibly. It is very easy to lose the community feeling, a strength of RSAA, without those little face-to-face interactions and the corridor conversations. While on campus, please ensure you adhere to the ‘Return to Campus from 27th of July’ protocols that were circulated by the Director, RSAA:Return to Campus.

Last month, I circulated the ‘Administrative Staff Culture Discussion Summary’. I am overwhelmed by the support I have received from senior staff at RSAA. Some of the discussion points are sector-wide problems, but some are School-based issues. I am very hopeful that in this culture reform process our issues will be looked into and some actions will be taken to resolve them.

Lastly, it is very likely that we will reach the stretch revenue target for our 2020 recurrent budget, set in October 2019. AITC’s and SSO’s revenue continue to be strong. We have raised close to $120k in donations from all our well-wishers this year. I am hoping, with the School matching the first $50k of donations, that we will reach $250k of donations in 2020. These extra funds will become more and more important in 2020 and 2021, as we recover from the economic fallout of COVID-19. This is a great achievement from our revenue side, so thanks for everyone's efforts. Due to the Expenditure Control Framework guidelines, we have been given a smaller budget in June 2020 that supersedes the old budget that was approved. It is now critical for us to control or defer our expenditure, so that we meet the expenditure target set by the University. I am sure that, by working collaboratively, we will be able to meet (or at least come close to) our ECF target.

Rafat Alam