Plans to “streamline” professional services posts at UCL are facing fierce opposition, with staff concerned that the major restructuring will see pay cuts, demotions and a worse student experience.

The Russell Group university – one of the UK’s largest – has begun rolling out plans to standardise professional services department structures, job titles and job descriptions across all faculties and departments under its Education Administration and Student Experience (EASE) project, which was  in summer 2024.

Managers say the move will “ensure consistency” of student and staff services after years of them “growing organically”. The project was “never designed to generate significant financial savings” but “its focus is on making faculty structures more efficient and resilient”, according to a spokesperson.

Although the plans have already been implemented across four faculties on a staggered basis, recently published proposals for the faculties of life sciences, social and historical sciences, and brain sciences have sparked concern among unions and UCL’s academic board, an advisory body made up of senior academics.

51�Թ�

“Many professional services staff – mainly programme administrators – are to be effectively demoted a pay grade, with real pay cuts of up to £10,000 a year after two years of frozen pay protection,” said one UCL administrator who said staff felt “betrayed” and “angry” at seeing their “thought-to-be permanent contracts being ripped up”.

Forcing staff to apply for lower-graded roles had left many colleagues “devastated” and likely to leave, “taking a lot of knowledge, networks, and goodwill with them,” he continued.

51�Թ�

Unions have also raised concerns that the EASE system – by which professional services staff are coordinated at faculty level rather than departments – will make it harder for academics to allocate support staff to priority areas, potentially diminishing the student experience.

"Management want to centralise decision-making power in faculties by removing autonomy for departments – this ‘simplification’ makes cuts easier to push through,” a University and College Union (UCU) spokesperson told 51�Թ�.

“It will mean the people who set the agenda on what departments need are not the administrators or academics doing the work but senior administrative managers at the top of a faculty,” they added.

This “top-down” model would make it more difficult to detect and address emerging challenges within departments, which would be forced to compete for resources within faculties, they added.

Union leaders have also questioned UCL’s rationale for EASE, arguing that the desire for “consistent” professional service practices across faculties does not take into account that .

“Simplifying services to make things uniform makes sense if you’re manufacturing a single type of widget but that’s not what universities do. We have different academic units that require different things, which is why decision-making has been devolved until now,” they said.

51�Թ�

Despite the scale of the shake-up critics also argue the efficiencies achieved will be minimal compared to the disruption caused. In the Faculty of Brain Sciences, the new structure will see 56.7 full-time equivalent posts compared to 57.4 posts at present, a change of just 0.7 posts, according to documents seen by THE.

UCL’s academic board has twice voted to pause EASE’s roll-out. At the first meeting in September, more than 300 council members voted two to one in favour of a pause, leading UCL managers to amend their plans. Those changes were submitted to an academic board meeting in early October but were once again rejected by staff by two-to-one.

51�Թ�

Despite this, UCL’s main council voted to continue with EASE in a meeting on 31 October.

The UCL spokesperson said the programme “aims to deliver a better university-wide experience for both staff and students by streamlining processes, creating clearer roles and responsibilities and investing in professional services staff development”.

“This will improve ways of working, strengthen compliance and provide more transparent career pathways and opportunities for progression.”

Early feedback from the four of 11 faculties that have so far fully implemented the programme “has been positive overall”, the spokesperson added, “with colleagues reporting clearer job roles, better collaboration and improved student induction processes”.

“Multiple staff have also been promoted following restructuring. All remaining faculties are now part way through the programme of work.”

The spokesperson said that UCL was “committed to further strengthening engagement and support” as the process continues.

51�Թ�

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com