JUST FOUND in Cambridge ...
Title: "Draft Response for Colleges to USS consultation 9 2017final to Bursars.pdf"
From: The co-chair of University's Pensions Working Group.
To: All college bursars.
Author: a Director of Xafinity Consulting.
Date: 21st Sep 2017.
THREAD 👇
Title: "Draft Response for Colleges to USS consultation 9 2017final to Bursars.pdf"
From: The co-chair of University's Pensions Working Group.
To: All college bursars.
Author: a Director of Xafinity Consulting.
Date: 21st Sep 2017.
THREAD 👇
This is a missing piece of the jigsaw on "collusion" in Cambridge. The document confirms that a University Working Group, set up by Finance Committee, put together a preferred survey response, and sent to bursars. ±12 bursars responded for their colleges, without GB oversight.
The document which has just come to light is the recommended survey response - and was sent as an attachment to the email sent out to Bursars on 21st Sep, the text of which was leaked to @MikeOtsuka here:
medium.com/@mikeotsuka/em…
medium.com/@mikeotsuka/em…
The document's metadata shows it was created by Jonathan Seed at 10am 21/9/17 and modified by Simon Summers at 2pm 21/9/17, who then sent the email at 3pm.
Both JS and SS are on the Pensions Working Group. The former, JS, from Xafinity, is the Uni's "Independent Actuary" ...
Both JS and SS are on the Pensions Working Group. The former, JS, from Xafinity, is the Uni's "Independent Actuary" ...
The latter, SS, sits on Finance Committee, and is the Bursar of St Catherine's.
The timeline:
20th Sep: OxCam bursars meeting.
21st Sep: Survey response sent to Cam bursars
6th Oct: USS event hosted by SS at St Catz.
The timeline:
20th Sep: OxCam bursars meeting.
21st Sep: Survey response sent to Cam bursars
6th Oct: USS event hosted by SS at St Catz.
The USS event was coordinated by the Office for Intercollegiate Serivces, with HR Managers and Accountants welcome - but Fellows excluded on spurious Conflict of Interest grounds (top para 👆).
SS has a similar background to many other bursars who filed a response on behalf of their college: first, a degree from Cambridge University, then jobs in finance & banking. I looked at four other cases here:
Five college responses have been found so far.
3 were reconstructed a posteriori, from the template - as can be seen from their metadata (King's, Hughes H, Fitz)
2 seem to have been recovered from UUK (Catz, Lucy C) ...
3 were reconstructed a posteriori, from the template - as can be seen from their metadata (King's, Hughes H, Fitz)
2 seem to have been recovered from UUK (Catz, Lucy C) ...
See here for the Catz response:
It looks like this has come from a full print-out of every Survey-Monkey response. See page number. whatdotheyknow.com/request/466079…
It looks like this has come from a full print-out of every Survey-Monkey response. See page number. whatdotheyknow.com/request/466079…
It looks like the Catz bursar sent his college's response just before sending the email to all bursars. The response from Lucy Cavendish's bursar followed a week later ...
The real story is that this was *not* a stitch-up by bursars. Instead, it seems clear it was coordinated by two key people from the University's WG. Presumably, it was approved by the WG itself. Let's review again who was on this WG 👇...
This is a VERY high-powered group. Not a single rank-and-file academic amongst them. For example, the newly-appointed Chief Financial Officer for "Cambridge Group" is a political heavyweight: staff.admin.cam.ac.uk/appointments/u…
Mr Odgers was brought in by the previous VC. It is believed he will have a key role in sorting out financing (through the bond markets) for the West and North-West Cambridge developments.
The survey response from the University itself has different wording, but it was ALSO created by Mr Seed of Xafinity Consulting (the University's Independent Actuary). So presumably this also originated out of from the same Pensions Working Group.
END (for now) 😴
