late to scrap the fledgling university. The university was granted a royal charter by the Privy Council on 23 April 1969.
== Organisation and administration ==
=== Staff ===
The majority of staff are part-time associate lecturers and, as of the 2021–22 academic year, almost 5,000 work for the OU. There are also 1,427 (mostly full-time) salaried academic employees (central academics based at Walton Hall and staff tutors based in a variety of regional locations) who are research active and responsible for the production and presentation of teaching materials, 2,502 who are academic-related and 1,905 support staff (including secretaries and technicians). Salaries are the OU's main cost—over £598 million for the 2021–22 academic year. In 2010, The Sunday Times named OU as one of the 'Best Places to Work in the Public Sector'.
==== Credit union ====
Open University Employees Credit Union is a savings and loans co-operative established by the university for staff in 1994. A member of the Association of British Credit Unions, it is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the PRA. Ultimately, like the banks and building societies, members’ savings are protected against business failure by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
=== Academic divisions ===
==== Faculties ====
In 2016, the university reorganised its departments and now operates with the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences (FASS); the Faculty of Business and Law (FBL); the Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM); and the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS). It also runs Open and Access programmes via PVC-Students, and programmes from the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) via WELS.
==== Open University Business School (OUBS) ====
In 1982, Open University offered a course titled, "The Effective Manager", developed by a team that was led by Charles Handy. After the reported success of the course, Derek S. Pugh proposed the establishment …
