Letters

Please send your letters to writer Ruth Taylor; email: the.reporter@leeds.ac.uk or r.n.taylor@leeds.ac.uk; or send them by post to: The Reporter, Employee Communications team, Room 12.72, E C Stoner Building.

All letters will be considered for publication. We will not as a rule publish 'round robin' letters, letters that have been published elsewhere or letters that have also been sent to University colleagues for action. Letters may be cut (for space) and we will indicate where this has happened. If writers have asked questions, we will attempt to answer them. If they assert things we know to be untrue, we may add an editor’s note.

WHEN MUSIC BECOMES NOISE
(from Professor Richard Rastall, School of Music)
I was interested to read Carol Cook’s protest about music in the Sports Centre (Reporter 523) and her plea for a quiet alternative to the noise pollution to which she is subjected.

It seems that no research has been done on the effects of music in fitness suites, and the common response that it is beneficial to those exercising is certainly without foundation. A project at Nottingham University some years ago showed, however, that in general piped music raises blood-pressure – not good news to those who, like me, try to get fit in order to lower their blood-pressure!

Music is of course useful when a fitness session is choreographed, with an instructor getting a group of people to do the same exercises at the same time and at the same speed: for sessions where we are all working on different things at different speeds it is of no practical use.

The question of musical taste is irrelevant. Pollution is pollution, and no-one really likes being subjected to someone else’s taste in music. Few things in modern life are more arrogantly unintelligent than an open car window on a hot day letting the whole world hear your taste in music at full blast. Managers of sports centres, please note. We do not need to suffer from piped music while we wait for more expensive equipment. Those who want to listen to music while exercising can bring their own headsets.

The world is increasingly noisy, and using ear-plugs is, as Carol says, unsatisfactory. But why should we have to do so unnecessarily? Is silence no longer an option? Yes, of course it is! – and in a “civilised” place like a university silence ought to be the default position.

Members of the University may like to know that there are currently petitions going forward on the No. 10 website concerning piped music in hospitals, medical centre waiting rooms and elsewhere. Information can be found on the Pipedown website at www.pipedown.info, and there is also a very informative website for the UK Noise Association at www.ukna.org.uk

PAY AND GRADING
(from the UCU Circle Group)
The Human Resources team’s choice of language in the recently circulated pay and grading information is not unbiased.

“Less than 40 staff remain red-circled out of over 7,000 employees from across all staff groups, as at today’s date” suggests that this is a trivial problem and congratulations are due.

How about: “Almost 40 staff remain redcircled out of over 7,000 employees from across all staff groups, as at today’s date.” This sets alarm bells ringing, as it should do – 40 staff downgraded without a resolution of the problem a year or more later!

We are still angry, and we will not be swept under the carpet.

Reply from Professor Stephen Scott, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for students and staff:
We are continuing to take this matter very seriously and doing all we can to help staff who remain in red-circled roles, because we do not underestimate the impact of this process on the individuals concerned. We are making progress and are definitely not trying to sweep anyone “under the carpet”.

As of 21 June, there were 32 staff within the University who remained in red-circled roles. Of these, 28 are from the academic and related staff category from which the UCU Circle Group is presumably drawn. Those figures indicate that in the seven months since the assimilation date of 1 December 2006, the hard work of the individual staff concerned, of line managers, HR staff, the role analysis project team and UCU have already reduced the number of red circles by over two-thirds from 96. This has been achieved by developing individual roles, or through other individual solutions, mirroring the work undertaken for support staff.

Of the 28 staff, 20 have individual resolution plans now in place that are expected to allow them to return to grade well within the period of pay protection. For the remaining eight staff, we are continuing to work to try to identify acceptable solutions during the remaining 30-month pay protection period, in the same way that we are working with the four staff in red-circled support roles.

OPEN ALL HOURS
(from Adrian Smith, Library)
It is a pity the University does not offer international students anything like 52 weeks a year, seven days a week service. Conspicuously we still seem to operate in Ted Heath’s OPEC-driven time warp over Christmas and New Year.

It must be miserably frustrating for overseas students stuck in Leeds, with the library and everything else shut from 5pm on 21 December.

I know it saves fuel consumption on campus, but it inhibits research active people who want to get grant proposals together at that time of year. The people who are on campus between Christmas and 2 January use illicit electric heaters anyway, so the energy saving isn’t 100%.

Can we look at opening core resources (ISS, library, catering, Leeds University Union) for a couple of days at least, at the end of December 2007?

Response from Professor Stephen Scott, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for students and staff:
This is an interesting idea. I have consulted with library and catering staff and they have confirmed that we haven’t had any comments or requests from students through the student experience survey, or through their own surveys, that indicate there is any demand for opening over the Christmas period as suggested.

Quite possibly there are some students who would take advantage of such provision if it were made available, but that would have to be taken as a decision set against the various other priorities for additional resource.