Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee

Meeting date: Thursday, September 20, 2018

Official Report 713KB pdf

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Section 22 Report

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“The 2016/17 audit of New College Lanarkshire”

Item 2 is “The 2016/17 audit of New College Lanarkshire”. I welcome our first witness, Eileen Imlah, the Educational Institute of Scotland-Further Education Lecturers Association branch secretary from New College Lanarkshire. Our second witness, Leah Franchetti, is delayed in traffic and will join us as soon as she can. I invite Eileen Imlah to make an opening statement to the committee.

On behalf of the EIS-FELA branch at New College Lanarkshire, I would like to thank the committee for responding positively to our concern that the voice of staff via their trade unions has not been paid due regard. The EIS feels that it is the sole representative body for lecturing staff in Scotland. We believe that colleges are central to widening access to education and that they deliver high-quality learning and teaching, which enriches the lives of those attending and ensures that society benefits from a skilled workforce that is trained to meet the challenges of modern life.

We welcome the scrutiny of both the business planning process and the sustainability of the plan. We want to engage positively with the process and to work towards a resolution that meets the needs of the community that we serve for high-quality teaching and learning opportunities, has regard to the working conditions of our members, and relieves the pressures that financial concerns place on the staff at New College Lanarkshire.

The college sector is fortunate to have successful and proven national collective bargaining machinery in the national joint negotiating committee, which it can use as a means of delivering progressive outcomes for college staff in partnership with the recognised staff trade unions. Local EIS-FELA branches have an important role to fulfil in ensuring that those progressive outcomes are realised in practice. We negotiate locally on areas not covered by the NJNC and support our members with issues that arise on a daily basis. We endeavour to work collaboratively with New College Lanarkshire management and the board of management to ensure that we maintain and improve our educational standards and an appropriate working environment. It is our wish that an appropriately funded, sustainable financial plan be achieved to help to facilitate that.

Alex Neil will open the questioning for the committee.

I begin with a general question. It is clear from the evidence in the report itself, and from evidence that we heard at a previous meeting, that there are major problems in the college. Are those problems getting in the way of the college being able to meet its aims or objectives or to perform as well as it could or should? Are they inhibiting the college from achieving what we are aiming at?

I believe that they are, and evidence from our members certainly suggests that their working life is difficult. Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions. If those conditions are interfered with because of all the pressures, it has an impact on the teaching process and on the learning process, so the problems are getting in the way.

What are the root causes of the problems? We cannot get involved in elements of the dispute between management and the unions. That is not our remit. Our remit is to look at the report and the strategic issues coming out of it. From where I am sitting, one of the strategic issues appears to be a weak senior management team. Would you agree with that?

Our members took a vote of no confidence in the management team recently. The root causes behind that were to do with business planning and with the organisation of our workloads and the lack of management acknowledgement of our workloads, as well as a lot of operational issues that are not the business of the committee but which we find difficult to resolve on a daily basis.

Has any progress been made since the committee took an interest and the report was published?

In terms of transparency and in terms of us being able to look at the proposed plan at last, there has been a marked change, in that much more information has been made available to us. The joint submission from Unison and Unite suggests that it might be too little, too late, but it is major progress in that management seems to accept that sharing the plan with us is a necessity if the plan is expected to work at all.

The plan having been shared, do you feel that it is robust enough? Is it logical? Is it achievable?

My answer to all of those questions is no. We do not feel that the plan—

What are the weaknesses in the plan?

The efficiency measures involve the lecturers working harder, which intensifies the workload. We recently negotiated nationally for a reduction from 24 hours maximum teaching to 23 hours. In order to bring in an efficiency measure, the management has proposed that we teach the same number of credits—24 credits—within those 23 hours, so we have less time with the students. That is an efficiency measure. We are told that management is implementing national bargaining, but it is doing so in a way that totally undermines national bargaining and adds to the workload, whereas the staff were anticipating some relief from the heavy workload. That is one of our major concerns with the plan.

The plan also speaks about bigger class sizes, and we have had some discussion about that. We have had assurances that big classes will not be made bigger and that the issue is about smaller classes that are not filled. That is a recruitment and marketing issue, and not something into which we can have a lot of input.

Lecturers cannot be expected to make up the shortfall when credits are reduced and less income comes into the college. There is no suggestion that we were not working hard enough. It is not the case that there have always been discussions about lecturers having a bit of slack; our discussions have acknowledged that the workloads are already too onerous. It is not a workable plan to add in an efficiency measure that will make the situation much worse.

One of the concerns that I expressed at the meeting with the chair of the board, the principal and other members of the senior management team was that there appeared to be an imbalance in the resource allocation within the college. It was top heavy at senior and middle management levels and not heavy enough at curriculum leader and lecturer levels. Are you saying that that is the case and that the business plan makes the situation worse?

The business plan makes the lecturers’ workload worse. We have always been unhappy that there has not been proper consultation on structure, because there are issues within the academic structure. It is very difficult to say, “This position is too expensive,” or “That position is too expensive,” but we are happy to engage meaningfully in any discussions about structure.

We have been led to believe by management that it does not get enough money from the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council and that that is the cause of the problem. Management says that, because it is not getting enough money from the funding council, its only option is to have what it calls efficiencies—in the long term, they could be inefficiencies because, if there is an adverse impact on student teaching and learning and on withdrawal rates, they are not efficiency savings. However, management says that it has no other option to make those savings. We find that difficult to imagine.

As one would expect with a weak senior management team, I get the impression—and you have reinforced this view—that in its view, the blame for everything lies elsewhere; it never lies with senior management. The key question is whether the senior management team is capable of taking the college forward, addressing the strategic options and delivering a robust business plan.

As I said in our paper, and as our members are making clear via their vote of no confidence, we do not see things getting any better. The outlook seems very bleak. It is not our job to decide who is on the management team; it is for the management board to make that decision. However, morale is very low, and so is confidence that things will get any better. We will work positively with whoever is in management to address any issues on which we can work collaboratively.

A lack of engagement in relation to consultation and planning is a theme that runs through this whole affair. You touched on the fact that some information is now being made available. I presume that there is now better engagement. Is that true?

There is definitely an improvement in providing information. On engagement, we need to address the issue of what management understands by consultation and what we understand by consultation, the issues on which management should be negotiating with us and the issues on which management can consult. That is clear from our paper and the paper from management.

From our point of view, management does not seem to understand the position of the unions or understand when it needs to consult the unions, and how to consult them appropriately.

09:15  

We were given an advance copy of the latest version of the business plan—it has not yet been finalised—late on Tuesday afternoon. We then had a meeting, and we asked a lot of questions and gave our views to Derek Smeall and Iain Clark. That was a constructive meeting, but we now have until the close of play tomorrow to put together our thoughts for the board of management, which is considering the matter via a committee. Apparently, they will get the papers on Tuesday. That is not sufficient consultation, as we do not have time to speak to our members and address their concerns and issues.

Consultation with the unions, where they are recognised, should be done with a view to reaching agreement. Management seems to think that consultation involves giving us some information and allowing us to say what we want to say, but not necessarily taking our views on board. That comes across clearly in relation to the business plan, in that the version that seems to be acceptable to management is very unacceptable to us.

Our second witness, Leah Franchetti, has arrived. Please indicate to me when you would like to comment, Leah.

I am interested that the written submission from the non-executive board members states that EIS-FELA was offered

“an opportunity to provide cost saving suggestions for the ... Business Scenario Plan in December”.

It adds:

“It was reported at the June 18th board meeting that EIS-FELA were engaged with senior management on further understanding the underlying cost pressures on the College.”

Will you tell us a bit more about that offer, how it was developed and what your participation was?

We asked to meet the board of management when a voluntary severance scheme was announced, on which we had not had any prior consultation, in order to express our concerns. We felt that we needed investment in staff and that we could not afford to lose more staff in key positions—lecturers and support staff. We asked to meet the board of management to speak about that and the workload issues.

At the meeting, the management spoke about the financial pressures and, as we had done throughout the previous years, we asked to see the figures. We said, “Can we see the budget?” We were told that there was no budget. When we asked why, we were told, “Because the budget is in deficit.” We said, “Can we see it anyway?” They said, “No—the finance committee isn’t releasing the budget because it is in deficit.”

We said, “The budget is a plan. How can we be going through the year without a plan?” We were told, “We have a plan.” We said, “Can we see it?” They said, “No, you can’t see it, but if you can think of any cost savings, let us know.” Without any information on which to base that, I do not know what we were supposed to do. Were we supposed to say, “We can use fewer paper clips”? That is not proper consultation, and it did not give us anything that we could take to our members.

We said, “If it’s the case that the funding council isn’t giving us enough money to provide further education, let us see the figures and we’ll campaign with you, shoulder to shoulder,” but they would not let us see the plan. The board says that it gave us an opportunity to suggest cost savings. It did that at the meeting, but it was not a proper opportunity to engage with the plan.

That is a little bit at odds with what the non-executive board members have suggested. As I said, it was reported at the board meeting on 18 June that you were

“engaged with senior management”

in discussing the cost pressures.

We were engaged because we were in dispute, and we were in dispute because the proposed solution to the cost pressures was to have all the lecturers teaching 24 credits in the time that is normally allocated for 23, which also cuts the time for the students.

When we asked at the meeting whether we could see the figures, the management were not sure whether they could let us see them, but then they agreed. We attended a presentation at which they told us, “We have no money,” and they showed us the graphs, many of which were later produced in the consultation, but not the business plan. The message that we got was that it was the funding council that was driving the efficiency measures.

We were very surprised that they made no mention of that when they turned up here. The story that we were told when we had dialogue with them did not seem to be the story that they told the committee when they came here—there was no mention of the funding council driving through efficiency savings that were not acceptable to us; they said that they were close to agreeing a plan. In fact, we were well into the plan, which had started the previous year without us being able to see it. What we had to look forward to—if I can use that expression—was more of the same: more cuts to teaching and more pressure on staff. That is the dialogue that we had.

At the moment, what is your engagement with the college on cost issues and so forth?

We have looked at the business plan and have asked a lot of questions, but the answer that we always get is that there is no room to make any more savings. Alex Neil mentioned the structure. The college said that the funding council looked at the structure and said that it was in line with that of other colleges, so there was no scope for considering any structural change.

We have looked at the historical issue, and there are communication issues and so on, too. Are we now in a position in which there is satisfactory open engagement to enable progress to be made?

Following the committee’s previous session, the college has rushed to consult everyone and almost no one. I see that the college has supplied a timetable for the consultation, but it has gone in almost exactly the opposite direction when it comes to engagement with the trade unions. It put out a plan over the summer holidays when our members were on holiday, and it has had an extremely rushed full staff consultation.

As Eileen Imlah said, there is still not enough time for proper consultation. The college seems to be ignoring everything that the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service sets out as the basic building blocks when it comes to the provision of information and consultation with employees. As the committee has already heard, the college is on the second iteration of its business plan. As Eileen Imlah said, we have very few options: it is a case of X amount of cuts or X amount of cuts plus one.

We are not clear about where the college is trying to go. When the committee asked a straight question about whether the college needed more money, we were surprised that there was a lot of prevarication when, in the college, we are being told that it is not possible for the college to achieve what it wants to achieve because the funding council is stopping that, and that it cannot sustain what we want from national bargaining because there is not enough money.

Eileen Imlah and Leah Franchetti have confirmed what Unison and Unite say in their submission—that there has been a shift in the degree of consultation since our first evidence session. The consultation is about the business scenario planning, which is an iterative process. I cannot remember whether the college is on the second iteration of the plan, or an even later version than that. On the face of it, the fact that there is more consultation seems good.

However, the submission from Unison and Unite reflects some of the things that have been said about the consultation coming quite late in the process. Worryingly, the submission says:

“Some members as a consequence have taken the decision not to engage with the process which is seen as ticking a box and too little too late.”

Will EIS-FELA continue to take the opportunity that now appears to exist—even though it might be a difficult process—to work with the college management to develop the next iteration of the business scenario plan?

Absolutely. We want to engage positively. There is nothing to be gained by dropping out of the process. I cannot put words in the mouths of other unions, but I think that Unison and Unite were referring to ordinary members, who rely on the unions to speak for them. That is why we have a recognised union.

When Leah Franchetti talked about there being two iterations, she meant that there were two iterations in the college within six weeks or so. The first iteration was presented to the staff as a worst-case scenario and as something that would not happen because it would scare the funding council. Staff did not appreciate that game playing and scaremongering, especially after all that was said about the sensitivity of staff to rumours. It was not helpful for us to be told that the first iteration was the plan that was not going to happen. We needed the plan that was going to happen. The college said that there were updates from the funding council and that that was the iteration.

In terms of consultation, our chance to look at it was from Tuesday afternoon to Thursday night. There was no chance to speak to the branch; although we will respond to that iteration.

The consultation is still not acceptable. In the initial consultation plan, the timetable did not include any time for consultation with the unions. I got the consultation plan at the same time as every other member of staff. In the past, with the voluntary severance scheme, the management thought that it was okay for me to get the information an hour or two early. They would say, “Could you pop up and see me?” to tell me that they were putting out a voluntary severance scheme and, an hour later, an email would go out to everyone. That is not right.

We will continue to engage, but we need the opportunity to engage properly with the college and with our members. We are a member-led union, so management should give us the information, allow us the time to discuss it with our members at a union meeting and, once we have a clear view, give us the chance to come back and say how our members feel. All-staff meetings can provide for good communication, but they do not give the opportunity to properly look through information, address any issues that arise and put forward proposals.

A number of issues have been covered. For clarification, Eileen Imlah, are you a member of teaching staff?

Yes.

What is the regulatory requirement to consult in a situation such as that? Is it just about good practice?

There are the information and consultation of employees—ICE—regulations. Perhaps Leah Franchetti could help with that.

As a new incorporated body, New College Lanarkshire has not sat down at the table and signed a recognition and procedure agreement with any trade union, and it is relying on the legacy RPAs from the pre-merger colleges. Those RPAs set out that the college should consult all its recognised trade unions, each of which is represented in either written or verbal evidence today, on matters such as appointments, business plans and finance. The ICE regulations that were referenced before are a tier below that. The college is a public body and has a duty to consult the trade unions.

Is it breaking a rule by not doing that?

We feel that it is in breach of the recognition and procedure agreements by not sharing the proper information. Locally, our trade unions have asked for a long time for the proper financial information, and it is not good enough for the college to say that some of the information is in the public domain so the unions can find it.

If you believe that the college is not following a regulation or an agreement, what is your way of dealing with that? Have you pursued that?

We could pursue it, but we are trying to engage with the employer and to bring it around the table. The meeting that took place just before the previous committee meeting on this issue was a sign from the employer that it might be time that it shared some financial information. However, as Eileen Imlah said, it is very late in the day and the college has already gone through at least one tranche of voluntary severances. It is asking the trade union to volunteer information about making cuts when the union feels that it is not in possession of the full picture.

So you are trying to engage positively, rather than recourse to rules and regulations.

Absolutely. The college is trying to say—I noticed that it said this in its written submission—that the deficit is not a concern of the trade unions. That is false, and we need to know the true financial picture. To suggest, as the college has done, that that would create stress and anxiety is wrong; it is the lack of that information that has created stress and anxiety because, in a vacuum, people make up the story.

The college could have done a lot more to engage earlier. Although it is engaging now, it is using a scatter-gun approach and it is still not using the correct process.

The issue has been going on for quite a long period, so why not use the regulations to move things forward?

We may be there.

So what is next, then?

09:30  

We could go through a formal process. I am heartened that the college has finally sat down to provide us with some financial information. As the full-time officer who represents our members in New College Lanarkshire, I have not yet seen the second iteration of the business plan that was presented to our members, such is the lack of time. I am not permitted to comment on the contents of what I have seen, but we are concerned about what is in it already.

Is there a staff member in the management structure or on the board?

An EIS member was a member of the board, but she has recently resigned. I cannot put words into her mouth, but she resigned because she was unhappy with the board.

Is she being replaced? I presume that the place still exists.

It still exists.

Have you put someone in it?

Not as yet.

I imagine that you will be considering that.

Yes.

On the RPA, Bill Bowman is right that there is an argument that we maybe should go into dispute, but our policy has always been to try to avoid disputes. Disputes should be used only as a very last resort. However, as Leah Franchetti says, we could be there. We hope that the vote of no confidence will make the board of management take more of an interest in the issues. We have tried to negotiate an RPA with management, but it keeps being kicked into the long grass. The way forward is to negotiate that properly and ensure that it is maintained.

I want to clarify a few points. Leah Franchetti said fairly clearly that the consultation had been woefully inadequate—those are my words not hers—but then she almost said that, over the summer, there was too much consultation, but the fact that it was done during holidays was not good enough either. What I am hearing is that management are almost in a no-win situation—either they do not do enough, or they are trying to do it but you are not happy.

No. I agree that, until July, the consultation was woefully inadequate—there is no doubt about that. It is now woefully inappropriate. An attempt to consult people during a period of summer holiday cannot be taken seriously as a meaningful consultation. In my view, there is an unholy rush to get things consulted on before an arbitrary deadline at the end of September. I understand that the college has to submit plans to the funding council, but the deadline has been known about for a long period. A meaningful consultation could have taken place over a number of months, with appropriate meetings for the trade unions. Given that the college recognises trade unions, I would expect it to sit down with those proper staff representative bodies first, before it goes to a wider consultation. The branch has been getting a plan on a Wednesday and has had to come back with a response within a number of days. No one would think that that was an adequate consultation.

There is a deadline in September, because of the funding council.

Yes, but that has been known about for months.

Right. I will try to reflect back what you have said, so this may be wrong. In July, the management recognised that the consultation was inadequate and said that they needed to sort it out but, unfortunately, there was a deadline looming and that coincided with a period of holiday. Help me out, because I am not in the sector—how long is the holiday over the summer?

It is about six weeks.

The branch officials agreed to come in during the summer to discuss the dispute, because we were keen to settle it so that the start of term would not be disrupted. Management could have had a consultation meeting and shown us the business plan. We could then have arranged branch meetings and discussed the issue appropriately with the branch. However, management did not take that opportunity to consult the unions. Instead, they put out a consultation.

The business plan itself—or its current iteration—did not come out until later. The lecturers came back to this presentation, which said, “Everything’s terrible, and it’s going to get worse.” That did not help.

In response to an earlier question, you said that what you heard from the college was that it had no option but to take these steps, and you felt that that was not a credible response. In that case, what options are you putting forward to the management? Are you saying, “This is what you can do to resolve the deficit”?

The management is telling us that it cannot cut expenditure any further and that there is no scope for savings in the structure. We agreed with the management that what we needed was more money, but the difficulty was that when it was asked the direct question, “Would more money help?”, it did not say yes. Instead, it talked about having a sustainable budget, and what it showed us on the board was an apparently sustainable budget that would have a very detrimental effect on staff.

Just to be absolutely clear, your solution to the situation in which the college finds itself is that it needs more money. However, someone has to give it that money. Is that not the SFC?

Yes. I cannot speak for the SFC either, but its argument seems to be that it funds us the same as every other college. The way in which budgets work is that if your expenditure exceeds your income, you have two choices: cut your expenditure or increase your income. If the college is saying that it cannot cut expenditure other than through inappropriate efficiency measures, it will have to focus on income. I do not know how, in deciding on income for colleges, the funding council decides whether income meets expenditure.

Obviously, if there are cuts to credits—and I have been led to believe that some of those future cuts are Government led—that will give us more difficulty in paying the necessary expenditure, but it will not mean that that expenditure is not necessary. We are publicly funded. It is not as if we are a business and can say, “Let’s go out and sell more education.” If the Government will not let us sell more education, we cannot meet the expenditure targets. I can see no solution other than more money or severe damage to education.

It sounds to me as though the college is saying to you, “Look, we haven’t got any more money. We can’t just create a pot of cash, so we’ll have to take some difficult decisions.” However, the response from EIS-FELA appears to be, “That’s not good enough.”

When do difficult decisions become so bad that a business is not capable of fulfilling its fundamental purpose? That is where we feel we are. If courses get cut or if there are fewer lecturers, at what point does the business not run properly?

But what else are you proposing?

We are not here to fix the college’s finances. The committee has heard lots of evidence about the problems with mergers. I also see that the college has suggested that the deficit is not our concern. Our position is not that it is not our concern, but that it is not an issue for the trade unions to fix.

There is almost nothing left to cut. In our view, further education has been ravaged, and there is nowhere further to go. This should not come down to lecturing or support staff; I cannot speak for the other trade unions, but we feel that there is nowhere left to go. The system needs to be looked at.

I just want to go back to the previous point about representation on the board. We have a board paper from 10 days ago that says that there are four staff representatives on the board. Is that correct?

That is the regional board. South Lanarkshire College has a staff rep, too.

It says that there are two from New College Lanarkshire—

Yes. There are two from us and two from them, so that is four.

You said that there is an EIS member who is no longer there. Are there still four members, or are there only three?

There are three at the moment, and a position to be filled.

So, there is staff representation on the board.

Yes, but it is my understanding that the business plan did not get to the full board because it was stuck in the finance committee, because the budget was in deficit. That was the story that we were told, but you would need to speak to the board about that.

On the budget, the paper that we have from Audit Scotland that is dated April refers to future financial sustainability. It says that the college is forecasting a surplus in 2019-20 of £1 million, and successive surpluses—not deficits—in the years after that. Are you aware of that report from Audit Scotland? Have you seen the business plan that shows those forecasts?

We have seen those forecasts, but they are predicated on cuts to the teaching budget and the time that we spend with students, bigger class sizes and having 24 credits within the time allocated for 23.

In your engagement with the board, have you asked why, if it is projecting budget surpluses, it is proposing to cut staff? There are cuts, cuts, cuts all the time, but the Audit Scotland report forecasts surpluses three years from now.

The board says that it has to show that it is in surplus. It also says that the future years are not yet written, that things could change and that all sorts of positive things could come in. However, that would mean that we would shed staff that we do not need to shed, and would damage our organisation. That is based on information that seems to change frequently. We are now on iteration 7 or 8, and the information keeps changing. I do not understand that. Given that everything is a forecast, how can all the information keep changing? The only way that I could see things changing is if the funding council said that it was going to give more money or less money, but it says that it always funds at the same level. I do not understand the process.

Does the current draft business plan also project those surpluses?

Yes. I believe that the goal is to get into a surplus situation.

But you are saying quite clearly hear that those surpluses will come about only because of reduced staffing levels.

Yes—because of staff numbers being reduced and other members of staff doing the jobs that those people did. We have had several voluntary severances, so people are already doing a lot of what was done by support staff and people in administrative roles. As Leah Franchetti said, it is not that we have not been open to the difficulties arising out of financial pressures. Things have been automated, which gives us more work. We have said to the support staff that we do not want to take their jobs, and they have replied, “We are so busy, if you could do that task, that would help.” We have been proactive and we have helped as much as we can. However, we are now at a stage where we can do no more, and it would be irresponsible of us to try.

Basically, you are saying that, if those forecasts of £1 million surpluses are accurate, the college could, instead of having those surpluses, invest that money in retaining staff. Is that right?

Obviously, we need investment in staff, not another voluntary severance scheme that reduces the number of staff who can do the job that the Government seems to want us to do.

That is something that we will need to come back to, convener.

I started off by asking whether you can deliver for the students. However, I have information that suggests that the credits that were obtained in New College Lanarkshire are lower than the credits that were obtained in the combined colleges that it replaces. I also have information that suggests that the credits are relatively low compared with those of similar-sized colleges elsewhere in Scotland. Further, I have information that suggests that, of all the new merged colleges of scale, New College Lanarkshire is in receipt of the second-highest funding per credit, outside the rural colleges. Are you aware of that information? If all of that is true, is that not worrying? At the end of the day, this is all about trying to get students through the credits that they deserve.

09:45  

It is indeed worrying. There is the concept of an unmet need, which we were speaking about yesterday. It seems to me that an unmet need is interpreted as “courses you haven’t managed to fill” as opposed to what you might imagine an unmet need being. If we have unmet needs, it means that Lanarkshire is very well educated and people there do not really need much more further education—that would be my interpretation of an unmet need. However, an unmet need seems to mean that we are not meeting needs, therefore we need our credit target cut. The more that you cut the credit target, the less income you have to meet expenditure, including the teaching budget, so the situation gets worse and worse. That is why we have no hope that it will get better.

That goes back to the balance between the investment in lecturing versus the investment in senior and middle management.

It is also about marketing, recruitment and strategic planning. It is about saying, “What is the job that we are trying to do here?” If there is genuinely no need for the level of further education in Lanarkshire that we have been providing in the past—I would doubt that—you would need to ask about the cost base, or you would need to look at the cost per credit.

Thank you both for your evidence. I will suspend the meeting for a brief changeover of witnesses.

09:46 Meeting suspended.  

09:49 On resuming—