Regulations for Committees Reporting Directly to Council or one of its Main Committees

Council Regulations 15 of 2002

Made by Council on 26 June 2002

Main Committees

Part 3: General Purposes Committee

Amended with effect from 8 May 2003 (Gazette Vol.133, p. 1335, 29 May 2003) and 7 February 2007 (Gazette Vol. 137, p. 788, 22 February 2007)
Amended on 23 March 2006, 21 September 2006, 15 October 2009 and 6 May 2010

Renumbered on 28 July 2011

3.1. The General Purposes Committee shall consist of:

(1) the Vice-Chancellor;

(2)–(4) the Proctors and the Assessor;

(5) the Chairman of the Conference of Colleges;

(6)–(9) the heads of each of the divisions;

(10)–(12) three persons appointed by Council from among the members of Council specified in section 4 (15)–(25) of Statute VI;

(13) the President of the Oxford University Student Union.

3.2. In appointing the members at regulation 3.1 (10)–(12) above, Council shall always ensure that there is within the total membership of the committee an appropriate balance across the academic activities of the various divisions, and between the divisions and the non-divisional constituency as reasonably practicable.

3.3. The committee shall keep under review the following matters:

(1) the long-term strategic development of the University, in respect both of its national and of its international roles;

(2) strategic issues relating to risk management;

(3) relations with local, regional, and national government;

(4) relations with other external bodies;

(5) policy in respect of issues or activities which are university-wide and transcend the remit of the other main committees of Council or other specialist committees (making proposals as appropriate and necessary to the Planning and Resource Allocation Committee as part of the latter's annual planning exercise);

(6) advice and recommendations on particular individual matters as they arise;

(7) monitoring the University's governance arrangements;

(8) recommendations on appointments by Council to other committees.

3.4. The committee shall have power to make, amend, and repeal regulations concerning any of the following matters, on condition that it shall bring forward to Council for decision any case which it considers to raise particular difficulties:

(1) the allocation of a statutory post to a college or society, or the association of a statutory post with a college or society, and any changes in such allocations or associations (in cases in which a regulation is necessary);

(2) the establishment of a new trust or other special fund for grants, lectures, prizes, fellowships, scholarships, collections, or similar matters, and any changes in existing regulations governing such funds (in cases in which the making of such provisions by regulation is permissible in law);

(3) the establishment of a new committee, and any changes in regulations governing committees, except (in either category) in regard to committees which report, or which it is proposed should report, directly to Council;

(4) the removal of anomalies in existing regulations, and the making of consequential amendments to existing regulations which have been overlooked in earlier legislation.