Below is the content of the UCU paper on IT given to members of the university senate before their 16 January meeting. Below is a summary of comments from academics, IT staff and UCU Committee members, many of which have been raised multiple times at various meetings across the university. IT Reorganisation The IT reorganisation was undertaken without sufficient analysis of: the services IT needs to deliverthe skills and resources required to deliver those services The predictable result is loss of service rather than the increased efficiency that may have been possible with a more professional approach This is why the £3million saving was not a saving – it was cutting costs without understanding or anticipation of the impact, for example: The number of ‘single points of failure’ within IT has risen significantly. This substantially increases the University’s risk profile. If a service goes down or a statutory obligation is not met as a result of the sole support being unavailable, the resultant cost could exceed that £3million ‘saving’. This implies overly simplistic risk evaluation and planning.Because these are potential costs rather than known recurrent costs, it is all too easy for management to disregard them.  Reorganising IT isn’t the … continue reading

As members of the University of Leeds community, we are concerned about the current IT reorganisation. We believe that: the loss of experienced IT staff and management focus on the reorganisation is contributing to problems with IT services research, teaching and administrative needs should drive IT planning, not cost-cutting there should be consultation with staff at all levels about IT plans experienced and skilled IT staff are extremely valuable to the university and should be supported and retained there should be no compulsory/forced redundancies and no downgrading of IT staff or roles as a result of the reorganisation there should be no further outsourcing of IT services and a review of those that are currently outsourced the spend on consultants is a drain on the budget … continue reading