At the Wednesday 4th 2020 AGM held on Singleton Campus, members asked about the proposed college merger and what changes would be experienced by staff impacted by the proposals.
I include below excerpts of the draft minutes from a recent Staff Consultative Committee held on February 11th 2020 discussing this subject. The Vice Chancellor and the Registrar were both in attendance at this meeting (along with senior members of HR) and presented on the college mergers before answering questions from representatives of Unison, Unite and UCU. I include excerpts below from the draft minutes in red.
The reason for the proposed changes was given as:
“The Vice Chancellor commented that Swansea University’s growth had been faster than most other institutions and that this had largely been organic, which has led to some silos, duplication of work, and a complex, inconsistent structure.
In addition, the Vice Chancellor drew attention to a number of external factors facing the University and the sector, explaining that many other institutions had implemented similar changes to those proposed, to enable them to best meet these challenges.”
It was also made clear as per the recent presentations that the mergers would help promote better financial stability by making the best use of staff resource in the university and by improving and standardising service delivery.
It was recognised in the meeting that the PSR process that had taken place in the past few years had not been helpful and had negatively impacted on staff morale. It was also stated that the College Merger proposal is not intended to be a way to select posts for job losses or to close down departments.
“With regard to Professional Services, the Registrar and Chief Operating Officer briefly discussed the proposals and emphasised that, whilst Associate Heads would see a change in Line Management, individual colleagues would largely stay the same, without a change in management.
In addition, the Registrar and Chief Operating Officer stressed that this was not a repeat of the PSR process and, colleagues would, in the main, not be required to apply for their roles, although there may be some small, limited instances of this, adding it was far more likely that resources would more likely be redeployed to ensure appropriate service levels as part of the proposal.
Both the Vice Chancellor and Registrar and Chief Operating Officer explained that any restructure would be phased, to ensure the new structures were properly implemented and embedded, and colleagues were fully engaged throughout.”
We made very clear at the meeting that any rerun of PSR or a process similar to it would be damaging to staff morale and we were told (if the proposal passes through university council) that in reality only a very small amount of people would experience any real change in their day to day work. It was made apparent that the university is very keen to provide information on these changes and so reassure staff through both line management structures, through HR, and via the trade unions in whatever way(s) staff would prefer to receive updates in order to most effectively get information about the proposed mergers out accurately.
This is the proposed timeline for changes which again notes (bottom of Professional Services slide) that this is not PSR by another name:
As we receive more information and/or the situation changes we will keep you informed, and we will continue to put members’ opinions and interests to management as appropriate.
If you have questions about the proposed mergers that you either would like me to follow up or if you wish to speak to me about an element of the proposal directly or if you have a preference for how information about the merger is delivered to you and your colleagues, please contact me by email martyn.sullivan@swansea.ac.uk
Thanks,
Martyn Sullivan
Swansea University Unison Branch Secretary