Proposed template response to the 'Uniforum Service Effectiveness Survey'

Yesterday, staff received an invitation to participate in the “Uniforum Service Effectiveness Survey” [sic] sent out by Cubane Consulting on behalf of Rex Knight (VP Operations). (There is a unique link in the email so to complete it you will need to locate the original email.)

Colleagues have been contacting UCU about how to complete this form.

This survey asks a number of questions about professional staff (PS) services which concern campus trade unions. 

• The survey does not adequately differentiate between PS staff, performance, and roles, and the policies and practices of Senior Management in running those services. The survey was not negotiated with UCU or the other unions.
• The questions are designed to solicit negative comments, in line with our recent discoveries about the TOPS programme. They seem aimed to collect responses that can be used to justify redundancies, outsourcings, down-gradings and various other attacks that will impact negatively on academic work as well as professional staff at UCL. 

Whilst we recognise there are a range of issues with UCL services, we believe this survey is driven by the need by UCL SMT to develop justifications for restructuring proposals whose real reasons are financial, rather than to improve support for UCL's academic mission. Moreover, given our experience of Senior Management behaviour over TOPS so far, and the tendency for previous survey and focus group responses to be 'cherry-picked' and misrepresented, we would encourage colleagues to treat this survey with appropriate suspicion.

For these reasons, we are suggesting you fill in this survey according to the following template response for the form:

a) complete pro forma questions with high satisfaction rates for professional staff and services, and
b) then add in the written feedback (at every point where there is space to write): 

I am very satisfied with the work of professional colleagues, who do a difficult job under troubling Senior Management pressures and decisions. I am aware of issues at central services, but these appear mainly to do with Senior Management’s running of these, including the use of outsourcing and the creation of an overloaded workforce. 

Unfortunately this survey does not sufficiently differentiate between Senior Management and their policies and processes versus the performance of ordinary staff, and as such it is unfit for its stated purpose. Our professional staff do an excellent job, in which they are hindered by erratic Senior Management decision-making geared towards other agendas such as saving money, outsourcing, redundancies, and surplus-chasing. 

All of this has huge impact on morale. We believe all our staff are important.

Stop the TOPS restructuring – focus on improving services, rather than generating surpluses whilst damaging morale!