These included statements by the Chancellor, the Vice-Chancellor and President of the Academic Board on routine matters; policy changes; reports from Senate committees; a report of delegations exercised by the V-C under Senate's authority; bequests and donations; and an update on current legal matters. A number of confidential matters were also dealth with.
A draft detailed written response to the Fossill Free UQ group was considered by Senate and suggestions were made for improvement to it.
The Vice-Chancellor's report included a summary of where ESS is up to with the Finance & HR restructure and about the ITS restructure. It didn't mention the implementation of the 'recruitment by exception strategy' for professional staff, implemented since the last Senate, so I asked him to report to Senate on it, including the motivation for it. The V-C said that the motivation for it was to minimise redundancies arising from the restructures (presumably through redeployment), yet his email of staff 1 September said it was primarily motivated by accelerating cost savings. That email was circulated to all Senators at the time, so I guess they know the reasons if they read it.
I'd be surprised if many of those surplus to requirements under the current restrcutures get redeployed to a vacancy held open because of the exception strategy. The redeployment period is only 5 weeks and the chances of a match between lost position and a vacant position are not good. These are just the facts.
The V-C said to me after the meeting that not mentioning the recruitment by exception strategy in his report was an oversight - I accept this.
