The principal and vice chancellor of the University of Strathclyde has told MSPs his organisation "is fully compliant" with legal requirements after its governing body was accused of being a "secret society".
Professor Stephen McArthur wrote to Holyrood's education committee earlier this week to say that information previously given to the cross-party parliamentary body was "completely wrong".
He was commenting after a panel of trade unionists from different universities gave evidence last month to the committee which is holding an inquiry into the financial sustainability of Scottish universities.
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During his evidence Stewart Forrester, a Unite senior representative at the University of Strathclyde, criticised what he regarded as a lack of transparency over the university's court, or governing body, and described it as a "secret society".
He also said the member of his union who sits on the court was "not allowed to speak" during its meetings.
"A court is a secret society— let us be honest. My union has a lay member on the court. Before a court session begins, he is taken to a room and told by the vice-principal what will be said, and he is told that he is not allowed to speak," Mr Forrester told the committee on January 28.
"When he goes to the committee and listens to what is said, he is not allowed to report it back to the other unions, because he has to sign an agreement that says he will lose his job if he does so, due to the requirement for total confidentiality, so I do not understand why we even have a member on the board.
"It is a secret society that needs to be broken. The court has to be open and free with what happens at universities.... I have a member on my committee who cannot say what happened in the court that day because he would lose his job—that is how secret it is."
In his letter to the committee earlier this week Professor McArthur rejected Mr Forrester's claims that the trade union member was not allowed to speak at court meetings as he explained members of the court had to keep sensitive aspect of discussions at court meetings confidential.
He insisted the university's governance arrangements complied with legal requirements.
"The University of Strathclyde is fully compliant with the Higher Education Governance (Scotland) Act 2016 and the Scottish Code of Good Higher Education Governance (2023) ("the Code")," he told MSPs.
"Our court includes elected staff, student members and nominees from each of our recognised trade unions as well as members drawn from outside the university ("lay members").
"All are full members, with equal voting rights and equal legal responsibilities to act in the interests of the University as a whole."
He added: "To support transparency, I would like to clarify the status and expectations of union-nominated members.
"Like all court members, the Code makes clear they are required to act independently rather than as representatives of a constituency, and to observe appropriate confidentiality where commercially sensitive or reserved staffing matters are under discussion.
"These are standard governance practices designed to protect individuals and the institution."
He added: "Recognising that staff and student court members may have less experience of non-executive governance than external members, we provide optional advance briefing discussions with senior officers to support their full participation.
"The assertion made to your committee that a member of court nominated by a trade union is told by the Vice-Principal, before court meetings, that they may not speak is completely wrong.
"All members are strongly encouraged to contribute actively, and no court member has ever been discouraged from participating in debate."
Professor McArthur went onto to tell the committee that minutes from court sessions are published following their approval by court at a subsequent meeting, "with non-confidential papers available on request, in line with common governance practice".
The principal and vice-chancellor also rejected a number of other claims made by Mr Forrester at the meeting of the education committee at the end of January including that people with a disability were being targeted for job cuts.
In his letter to MSPs on Tuesday, Mr McArthur said this claim was "unfounded".
Last weekend The Herald reported that the University of Strathclyde was facing questions over whether it has failed to follow its own governance rules, with fears the court had been sidelined as management pushes ahead with job cuts.
The university said at the end of last year that it planned to cut 76 jobs as part of a bid to save £35 million over two years.
Details of which roles may be at risk have not been made public, but it is thought the cuts could include staff at Strathclyde Business School and the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland.
Under the university’s statutes, decisions to reduce academic staff numbers by redundancy must involve the court.
However, papers released following Freedom of Information requests appeared to show there was no formal approval of any academic job losses by the court, and that a “sub group of the executive team” was deciding on “each submitted transformation proposal”.
A spokesman confirmed to The Herald last weekend that any compulsory redundancies “would be submitted to court for approval” but only after “the conclusion of the consultation period”.
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