How York St John University Business School are coping with the cuts (From York Press)

How York St John University Business School are coping with the cuts

2:20pm Tuesday 6th July 2010 in Business news By Julie Hayes, Business editor

With the Department for Education losing £670 million this year in public spending cuts, universities are changing. Jackie Mathers, dean of York St John University Business School, tells Julie Hayes how.

YORK St John University Business School is looking to the future after celebrating its second anniversary.

Three years into a five-year strategic plan which has included its inception, it faces swingeing budget cuts.

But that hasn’t dampened its ambition, says dean Jackie Mathers.

The only thing that is known for sure is that there will be cuts, says Jackie, and they are waiting on the result of the Government’s spending review to find out more.

“There will be less money coming into this university from the Government, but how much at this point we don’t know.

“We have a business model where growth is on the agenda, and we have to consider, how do you grow when you have got a declining income?”

Jackie said first and foremost the university would try to maximise the level of income it gets from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), which considers factors including the number and type of students, the subjects taught and the amount and quality of research undertaken there.

She said it was possible the Government would lift the cap on tuition fees, which currently limits charging to £3,225 per year.

She said this move would make universities more reliant on money coming directly from the students rather than the government.

“We need to make sure we’re aligned to what the student population is wanting, that the quality of courses is excellent and that students are able to come out with good quality qualification at the end of it.”

International students, who pay higher fees, already play an important role in the business school, and Jackie said the school is also making sure the curriculum is as attractive as it can be to international students.

While the business school has a finite capacity at its 12-acre site in the city centre, Jackie said it intends to expand internationally.

Staff from the business school already teach its courses in Japan, Hong Kong, Poland and Mexico, and one expansion opportunity is to increase the university’s presence and reputation overseas.

“It’s an interesting scenario and we could perhaps explore transnational education much further to the benefit of York St John University and to York as a city,” she said.

York St John Business School was created two years ago in response to the then Labour Government pushing universities to engage more closely with businesses.

Since then it has worked with more than 300 businesses.

Most of its work in engaging with businesses involves small and medium-sized enterprises, often micro businesses, said Jackie.

“These are the people who need some kind of support and intervention in their business, because there may only be two to three people in the organisation and they have to work out how they can take time out and pay for it. With Government funding to support them in full or in part, we have managed to identify a range of workshops and short courses attractive to those organisations.”

Among their number are businesses set up by former students at the business school who use the resources and advice upon leaving the school.

The business school offers its Acorn programme for new business start ups, which involves coaching and advice from local business leaders.

Its academics have also advised senior management teams look at alternatives to redundancies during the recession.

For the larger employers, Jackie said the business school helps them align their in-house training with recognised qualifications so staff can gain university credits from their inhouse continued personal development (CDP) training.

The business school also lines up students to work on specific consultancy projects with businesses, which simultaneously provides crucial work experience for students and leads to many being taken on to work for the company at the end of their placement, Jackie said.

“We want to engage with them on a number of levels. We are spending more and more time out talking to businesses about what needs their business has and putting together programmes to suit them,” she said.

Creating leaders

One of York St. John University Business School’s management courses has helped bag boutique Bolsita’s owner Sharon Winfield develop her business.

Sharon was midway through setting up Bolsita, which sells handmade fair-trade and recycled bags from its store on Micklegate, when she started the Learning Through Business Leaders programme, which consists of a series of workshops giving business advice and support on how to improve their business This particular programme run by Jules Wyman, who was voted Britain’s top female coach in 2009, is particularly popular with people who are running businesses alone, like Sharon.

The course enabled her to discuss the challenges of her business with other non-competitive course members. Its workshops focus on strategic problem-solving on issues brought up by the course members themselves.

Sharon said the course gave her the confidence and knowledge to realise that she was moving in the right direction with her new business, as well as enabling her to turn theories of business, marketing and branding into a practical success.

“A number of really good ideas came out of the course, lots of ideas that you don’t think apply but in fact the principles are crucially important.”

Bolsita is now in its second year on the high street and is moving into the wholesale market supplying other shops in the region, and Sharon has employed another person to help her as the business grows.

John Muster decided to double the size of his factory at his Sheriff Hutton-based manufacturing business Image Playgrounds after taking part in Leadership Journeys, a programme designed specifically to grow manufacturing businesses.

Image Playgrounds design and manufactures playgrounds and outdoor play equipment using timber and steel from sustainable sources. The programme brings together 28 directors of small to medium-sized manufacturing firms to share their issues, ideas and experiences and then form small groups to talk through their businesses with a skilled facilitator. John said: “My participation in Leadership Journeys has gone hand-in-hand with the growth of our company, including a doubling in the size of our factory.

“The programme is providing opportunities to discuss and learn fresh ideas with a group of like-minded entrepreneurs, which otherwise I wouldn’t get.”