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Faculty of Law and Social Sciences – Admin Review 2012/13

SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

FACULTY OF LAW AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

PROPOSED RESTRUCTURING OF ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT

DETAILED BUSINESS CASE

11 NOVEMBER 2013

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Table of Contents

Section Page number

1. Overview 3

2. Objectives and Remit of the Restructuring 3

3. EB Decisions In Relation To The Consultation Proposals 4

4. The New Structure 6

5. Potential impact of EB’s decisions upon employees directly affected 6

6. Potential impact of EB’s decisions upon service areas 6

7. Financial Impact 7

8. Equality Impact 9

9. Implementation 9

10. Next Steps 10

APPENDIX A

1. Review Process and Working Group 11

2. Background 11

3. Current Structure 12

4. The Consultation document 14

5. Proposals contained within the proposal 14

6. School-wide consultation process 15

7. Principles agreed by the Working Group 16

8. Consultation feedback received 18

9. Working Group response to feedback received 19

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1. Overview

1.1 This document sets out the decisions made by Executive Board (EB) following the recommendations made to EB by the Dean of the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences after School-wide consultation was carried out between June and July 2013, for the restructuring of the Law and Social Sciences Faculty’s administrative support.

1.2 The School aims to keep its Departments, Centres, Faculties and Professional Services Directorates under continuous review. The current administrative structure of the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences was put in place in 2002/3 and has not been formally reviewed since. Growth in student and academic staff numbers, and administrative responsibility within the faculty has been significant during this period. Although there has been an increase in the numbers of administrative staff, this has almost entirely taken place within the structure identified in 2002/3 which is now widely felt to no longer be fit for purpose.

1.3 This restructuring of the administrative support within the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences is about ensuring that the administrative structure can meet current student and staff needs, and provides capacity for planned future growth within the faculty.

1.4 Further background and consultation details are set out in the Appendix to this document.

1.5 The School believes that the decisions made in this document support the School’s new 2020 Vision and Strategy for the 2016 Centennial and Beyond (revised September 2012) and offer the best opportunity to support the required continuing growth in the faculty to provide excellent teaching and learning opportunities for students.

2. Objectives and Remit of the Restructuring

2.1 The current structure of the Faculty Administrative Office is recognised as having a number of engrained shortcomings. Amongst these are: the unwieldy and (hence somewhat inefficient) teams led by overstretched team-leaders; the lack of adequate responsiveness to the needs of departments and their students; the absence of sufficient numbers of mid-level (G7/G8) managers/team leaders; the lack of effective support for students – a matter which is routinely mentioned in the NSS.

To some extent, the problem is simply one of size. Whilst the largest of all the faculty offices, it is also responsible for half of the students at SOAS and five disciplinary departments each one of which has a large undergraduate and postgraduate programme. The current ratio of administrative staff per student is approximately on a par with the other faculties (less than in FAH and a little more than in FLC), but it is clear that in order to improve support to both staff and students will not be achieved simply by adding in additional posts to the existing structure.

2.2 The objectives of this restructuring have been driven by eight clear and ambitious objectives:

1. To provide more proactive support to students and academic departments2. To enable on-going improvements to systems/procedures particularly those that

are academic and student-facing3. To increase job satisfaction for administrative staff

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4. To improve career progression opportunities for administrative staff5. To encourage academic departments to be proactive in setting priorities for

development which meet their aims and objectives within a balanced framework of departmental and faculty accountability, and create transparency re how this might be exercised

6. To facilitate more clearly defined roles and responsibilities for administrative staff7. To improve communication within the faculty (and across the Professional

Services Directorates)8. To cultivate improved cooperation between academic and administrative staff

2.3 This restructuring covers administrative support provided through the main Faculty Office – it does not include administrative support provided elsewhere i.e. to CISD (in order to keep the scope of the review contained within the faculty structures known to be problematic), or to Distance Learning programmes/students (part of the Student and Registry Services Directorate). The review does not consider SOAS’ faculty structure itself, but rather the administrative structure within the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences.

2.4 It covers the following broad functional areas:

i. Support to students taking courses and/or programmes within LSSii. Support to academic departments within LSS: Development Studies/Centre for

Gender Studies, Economics, Department of Financial & Management Studies, School of Law, Politics & International Studies

iii. Support to Faculty committees (Faculty Learning & Teaching Committee, Faculty Research Committee, Faculty Promotions Committee, Faculty Management Group, Faculty Board)

iv. Liaison with Professional Services Directorates and related systems/procedures (Timetable, Estates, HR, Finance, Registry, CIS, IT, Library, etc.)

3. EB DECISIONS IN RELATION TO THE CONSULTATION PROPOSALS

3.1 The consultation document set out the specific proposals below which support the School’s new 2020 Vision and Strategy for the 2016 Centennial and Beyond (revised September 2012), faculty plans and new academic developments across the School.

3.2 At its meeting on Monday 21 October 2013, Executive Board gave careful consideration to the consultation document proposals, the views of the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences’ Working Group and to the contributions received.

3.3 EB’s decisions against each of the proposals are:

i. To re-shape the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences’ administrative support functions by creating two ‘sides’ of administrative staff: Faculty support and Department support.

EB decision: Agreed and approved

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ii. To designate for each department within the faculty, a dedicated administrative team, headed by a Grade 7 Department Manager and containing at least one Grade 6 Department Officer (Academic) and one Grade 6 Department Officer (Students). The Department Managers will have a ‘dotted line’ operational management relationship with the relevant Head of Department, whilst retaining a formal direct line reporting relationship with the Faculty Manager. A key aspect of the Department Managers’ role will be to coordinate department communications with Professional Services. The purpose of each of the proposed department teams will be to provide effective, planned and reactive support to the department, working particularly closely with the Head of Department.


iii. To designate a Faculty Support Team, headed by a Grade 8 Faculty Support Coordinator, with a small team of Grade 6 and Grade 7 Faculty Officers, and Grade 5 Assistant Faculty Officer posts. The purpose of the Faculty Support Team will be to provide coordinated system and procedural support to the department teams, ensuring that the systems work adequately and are fit-for-purpose, providing effective liaison also with Professional Service Directorates at a faculty-wide operational level. It will also undertake a range of functions for the faculty as a whole, including coordinating the faculty front desk for student enquiries.


iv. To designate a Faculty Manager post (subject to re-grading) to head up the faculty administration teams (currently this is undertaken by a 1.4 FTE job-share Faculty Administrator post at Grade 8 level).The purpose of this post will be to support consistency and coherence as required within the faculty and to facilitate strategic development of administrative support systems across the faculty, including high-level faculty-wide coordination and communication with Professional Services as currently.


v. In view of the faculty’s continued growth in both student and staff numbers, it is important that the restructure is to be implemented during Academic Year 2013/14. The proposed structure will increase the faculty’s capacity to support the planned and future programme and student growth within the faculty, essential to the School’s success.


vi. The proposal also includes (in Phase 2, 2016/17 onwards) additional Student Support Officer posts to enable focused UG and PGT support in each department (as currently provided in two departments, Law and Politics (fixed term basis)). In the departments where this division is currently provided there has been a noticeable improvement in the administrative support to both students and staff.

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EB decision: Agreed that Phase 2 be presented through the Faculty Plan and subject to approval by Resources and Planning Committee

4. The New Structure

4.1 The new structure is set out in the document: Appendix B: LSS Administrative Structure from 2014. The structure requires an increase to the number of Full Time Equivalent (FTE) posts in the faculty administrative team. Certain posts will be removed from the structure (Team Leader roles and Project Leader role), but an additional number of posts will be created at the same grade and it is intended that the displaced post-holders will be redeployed to the same grade within the proposed new administrative structure.

4.2 The changes will be implemented to take effect from Feb/March 2014 and Phase 1 ill be fully implemented before the beginning of the 2014/15 academic year. Phase 2 would be implemented for the beginning of the 2016/17 academic year, with each potential additional post reviewed individually to assess requirement.

4.3 Indicative Job Descriptions have been drawn up for each of the posts in the proposed structure in order to give colleagues a sense of what the roles will involve. These new roles have been assessed and consistency-checked by HR using HERA with the exception of the post of Faculty Manager, where the grade is yet to be confirmed. The job descriptions and allocation of duties/tasks are still to be finalised in advance of implementation of the proposed structure.

5. Potential impact of EB’s decisions upon employees directly affected

5.1 The proposed restructure does not require any reduction to the number of Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) posts in the teams. Certain posts will be removed from the structure (Team Leaders and Project Leader), but an additional number of posts will be created at the same or higher grade and it is intended that the post-holders will be redeployed to the same grade.

5.2 The table in Section 7 below clearly summarises the variation in post numbers against each grade.

6. Potential impact of EB’s decisions upon service areas

6.1 Impact upon relationship with the other two faculties

i. Coordination with the Faculties of Arts & Humanities and Languages & Cultures remains crucial. The proposed job descriptions clearly identify formal and informal aspects of the working relationships with staff in the other two faculties – both at Department Manager/Faculty Support Coordinator/Team Leader level and at Faculty Manager/Faculty Administrator level

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ii. EB recognised that each of the faculties had differing approaches to the balance of resources between academic and professional services staff and this meant there would be differences in support in areas.

6.2 Impact upon relationship with Professional Services Directorates

i. It is anticipated that communication and coordination between LSS and Professional Service Directorates will improve from the proposed structure. The proposed job descriptions clearly identify points of contact and responsibilities for specific functions and purposes relating to Professional Services Directorates

ii. The proposed structure will enable more effective communication with the Student and Registry Services Directorate staff and closer coordination of front-line support and information to students, supporting and enhancing the development of The Student Hub in the North Block, Senate House.

6.3 Space implications

i. There is sufficient capacity for initial growth within existing Faculty Office space (R201). Further office space will be required for Phase 2 (2016/17 onwards).

ii. Re-organisation of space will be determined in part by decisions made about academic occupancy of the North Block, Senate House. Only at this point can the possibility of department academic & administrative co-location be considered, as part of the wider discussions about improving space usage across the campus.

7. Financial Impact

7.1 The following table summarises the proposed FTE against each grade of posts, showing the variation over the three year implementation period. It also calculates the annual budget variation from the timescale outlined in Section 9 below:

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Finance costings for LSS Admin reviewPhase 1

Current ftePerm 13/14 14/15 15/16 13/14 14/15 15/16

Grade 5 2.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 -1.0 -£2,392 -£29,274 -£29,859Grade 6 11.6 13.6 13.6 13.6 2.0 £17,422 £71,080 £72,501Grade 7 3.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 3.0 £55,866 £136,761 £139,496Grade 8 1.4 1.0 1.0 1.0 -0.4 -£9,104 -£22,286 -£22,732Grade 9 0.0 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.4 £37,961 £92,929 £94,787TOTAL 18.5 23.5 23.5 23.5 5.0 £99,753 £249,209 £254,193

Approved by EBGrade 6 1.0 £34,843 £0 £0Approved in Faculty Plan (2013/14- 2015/16)Grade 6 1.0 4.0 4.0 £34,843 £142,159 £145,003Grade 7 1.0 1.0 £45,587 £46,499Grade 9 0.5 0.5 0.5 £32,538 £33,189 £33,853Total amount already approved £102,224 £220,935 £225,354

-£2,471 £28,274 £28,839

Assumptions

Budgeted salary scales for 2013-14 used with 2 % pay inflation assumed for later years. Mid point for grades assumed.Assume G7, G8, G9 increases from March 2014 & G6 increases from May2014.Assume Grade 5 reduction effective from July 2014, ie one month within 13/14Provides each department with: 1 x DM, 1 x DOS, 1 x DOA (except Law)

Phase 2Perm (from Phase 1) 15/16

Proposed fte 16/17

Variation against 15/16

Budget variation

against 15/16

Grade 5 1.5 1.5 0.0 0Grade 6 13.6 17.6 4.0 £147,903Grade 7 6.0 6.0 0.0 0Grade 8 1.0 1.0 0.0 0Grade 9 1.4 1.4 0.0 0TOTAL 23.5 27.5 4.0 0

Additional funding requested £147,903

Notes

Each post would be reviewed individually to assess requirement - some may be delayed or removed.Potential additional posts provide each department with 1 x additional DOS (to enable UG/PG split)

Proposed fte Variation by 15/16

Annual Budget Variation from current £

Additional funding requested

Note current FTE excludes 3 FTE fixed term posts which were due to end in 2012-13. EB approved an extension of a 1 FTE G6 posts extended on a fixed term basis up ro 31/07/14

Costings assume all posts suggested in Phase 2 appointed from September 2016.

7.2 In light of the anticipated admin review, additional generic admin posts were included in the 2013/14-2015/16 Faculty Plan: 5 x FTE (Grade 6), 1 x FTE (Grade 7) and sufficient resource to cover the Faculty Manager post if it is re-graded to Grade 9.

7.3 The structure outlined by the Working Group identifies a number of posts in each area which would result in a total increase of 5 x FTEs, including making 3 currently fixed-term posts permanent. It was recognised that this was a medium-term goal and that it would have to be subject to incremental implementation over a period of three years.

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8. Equality Impact

8.1 The proposals do not have any adverse impact upon any member or group of people with any of the protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010.

9. Implementation

9.1 Timescales

A two-phase implementation is proposed as follows:

Phase1:

Appointment of Department Managers, the Faculty Support Coordinator, 3 x Faculty Officers; and new Department Officers to fill vacancies.

An outline recruitment schedule has been discussed with HR and could be implemented throughout 2013/14, aiming to bring the new structure into place from March 2014 with the appointment of the Grade 7 and 8 posts (Department Managers and Faculty Support Coordinator). 3 x Faculty Officer posts would start in-post from April/May 2014, with new Department Officers being appointed for July 2014 to fill vacancies caused by recruiting to the Grade 7, 8 and FO posts.

Phase 2

Appointment of 4 x Department Officers, bringing each department’s administration teams to the currently agreed levels. This timing would enable enhanced support as a series of new programmes across the Faculty will have come on stream in 2015/16.

2013/14

Nov –Dec 2013

Phase1 :

Recruitment to Grade 7 and 8 posts

Jan – Feb 2014 Recruitment to Grade 5 and 6 posts

March 2014 Department Managers and Faculty Support Coordinator start in-post – new structure becomes effective

March-April 2014 External selection process for vacant Grade 5 and 6 posts

April/May 2014 3 x Faculty Officers (Grades 5 and 6) start in-post

March-June 2014 Appoint temporary staff to fill vacancies during Term 3

July/Aug 2014 Department Officers (Grade 6) start in-post new structure fully implemented

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May 2014 for September 16/17

Phase 2Review of structure and provision to assess potential phase two requirements – inclusion in 2016/17 Faculty Plan

10.Next Steps

As Executive Board has confirmed its decisions, the next steps are as follows:

HR briefed the School’s recognised trade unions on the outcome of the consultation on an in confidence basis by email on 14 November 2013.

The Dean of the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences and Faculty Administrators briefed members of the faculty administrative staff on 11 November 2013. If individuals requested a one-to-one briefing meeting their Faculty Administrator or the Dean, this was arranged where practicable.

EB’s decision was announced via the School’s e-bulletin on 15 November 2013.

This document and confirmation of EB’s decision can be found on the School’s HR Change web pages.

The new structure becomes fully effective July/August 2014.

The Dean of the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences and the Faculty Administrators (job-share) will take forward the arrangements to ensure the new team is formed.

Matt CravenDean of Faculty of Law and Social SciencesChange Project Sponsor

11 November 2013

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APPENDIX A1. Review Process and Working Group

1.1 This review has been conducted under the leadership of the Change Project Sponsor, Professor Matthew Craven (Dean, Faculty of Law and Social Sciences). Matt is assisted by Joint Project Managers Carolyn Heath and Cate Knowles (Faculty Administrators (job-share), Faculty of Law and Social Sciences) and advised by Chris Byrne (HR Manager (Change)).

1.2 Working Group: Following the initial Informal Consultation period (November-December 2012), LSS Faculty Management Group agreed that a Working Group be established to formulate a proposed structure to form the basis of the High-Level Business Case, in order to facilitate academic and administrative ‘buy-in’ for this crucial stage of the process. It was agreed that the group should consist of academic staff (1 representative nominated by each department) and administrative staff (4 representatives nominated by the administrative team + the Faculty Administrator) and be chaired by the Dean. The Working Group has met on five occasions throughout the process to-date.

1.3 Faculty staff have been consulted throughout the process via regular consultation with Faculty Management Group and with administrative staff, including three all-LSS administrative staff meetings.

2. Background

2.1 Since the introduction of Faculties and Faculty Administrative units in 2002, LSS has grown considerably both in terms of its aggregate student numbers, and in terms of its staffing complement. It is now home to approximately half the on-campus students studying at SOAS and has five departments each of which has in excess of 25 full time equivalent members of staff including significant numbers of fractional staff. The growth in size and scale of the faculty, coupled with the increasing demands placed upon departments both administratively and managerially, has placed the existing administrative structure under considerable strain leading to deterioration in relations between academic and administrative staff, and increased difficulties in meeting the new challenges raised by student expectations.

2.2 Feedback from administrative and academic staff within the faculty has, over the last few years, consistently highlighted frustrations with the current faculty administrative structure. Particular points of complaint include the divide between the academic and student support functions and the communication difficulties that ensue; lack of clarity regarding the main points of administrative contact and responsibility; fractionalisation of the department- and student-facing functions; and the desire by some academic departments to have more direct control over the priorities and workload of administrative staff in order to better support Heads of Departments and their academic priorities.

The concern expressed by the administrative and academic staff as to their frustrations with the current structure is also underpinned by knowledge that all concerned have struggled to provide effective support for students. Frustrations with the faculty office have routinely been mentioned in the NSS, and there is clearly

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much to be done in terms of improving the support for students on the many large undergraduate and postgraduate programmes within the faculty.

2.3 In view of this feedback I committed in summer 2012 to undertake consultation to propose and agree a revised and enhanced faculty administrative structure – one that better supports the needs of students and academic departments, and supports the growth of the faculty over the next several years. This was listed as a key administrative priority within the most recent Faculty Plan – additional generic administrative posts have been included from 2013/14 as part of the Faculty Plan in anticipation of the outcome of the review.

2.4 Workloads in a number of functional areas are currently divided between the Student and Academic Support teams in potentially confusing and unhelpful ways. For example:

i. Examinations: examination paper scrutiny coordination, examination timetable liaison, and coordination of marking deadlines and first- and second-marking arrangements are undertaken by the Academic Support Team; whilst external examiner liaison, mark checking and entry, and coordination/servicing of exam boards is undertaken by the Student Support Team.

ii. Tutorial arrangements: the Academic Support Team undertakes the teaching planning process, timetable data entry and preparation of fractional staff contracts; the Student Support Team then coordinates tutorial allocation at the start of the academic year, but reports any changes in tutorial groupings (times, number of groups per course) to the Academic Support Team, who make the necessary timetable/contractual adjustments.

2.5 This overall structure has been in place since the introduction of Faculties in 2002 and has seen considerable growth since then.–There were originally just three Faculty Officers and one Assistant Faculty Officer in the Student Support Team and two Faculty Officers and one Assistant Faculty Officer in the Academic Support Team.

2.6 Job descriptions for all posts are out-dated and in the majority of cases do not reflect actual roles and responsibilities, largely because until now they have been required to be cross-faculty and therefore too generic.

3. Current Structure

3.1 The current LSS Faculty administrative structure consists of two teams, Academic Support and Student Support, headed by the Faculty Administrators (a 1.4 FTEs’ Grade 8 post held by two employees on a job-share basis). Additionally there is a separate administrative team which supports the Centre for International Studies & Diplomacy (CISD), also reporting to the Faculty Administrators. Each team provides department-specific support to each department within the faculty, in addition to several members of staff having responsibilities for faculty-wide roles (e.g. internal research budgets). The current structure is already quite different from that in the other faculty offices.

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3.2 The current posts (21.9 FTEs) within the Law & Social Sciences Faculty administrative teams are set out below:

Post title Grade FTE

Faculty Administrator (job-share) 8 1.4Project Leader 7 1.0Project Leader 6 1.0Team Leader (Student Support) 7 1.0Faculty Officers (Student Support) 6 7.0Assistant Faculty Officer (Student Support) 5 3.0Team Leader (Academic Support) 7 1.0Faculty Officers (Academic Support) 6 6.0Assistant Faculty Officer (Academic Support) 5 0.5

3.3 The Academic Support Team consists of one Team Leader (a Grade 7 post), six Faculty Officers (Grade 6 posts, one of which is currently held on a flexible working arrangement (0.8 FTE)) and one Assistant Faculty Officer (a Grade 5 post currently held on a flexible working arrangement 0.5 FTE).

3.4 Typical duties undertaken by the Academic Support Team include: responding to academic staff queries; department-level committee servicing; examination coordination; fractional contracts; liaison with Professional Services Directorates; servicing the Faculty Research Committee (AS Team Leader).

3.5 The Student Support Team consists of one Team Leader (a Grade 7 post), seven Faculty Officers (Grade 6 posts, one of which is currently held on a flexible working arrangement (0.8 FTE)), one of which is currently held by two employees on a 0.4/0.6FTE each job-share basis and another which is fixed-term currently ending on 1 April 2014 and three Assistant Faculty Officers (Grade 5 posts, one of which is fixed-term currently ending in early 2014).

3.6 Typical duties undertaken by the Student Support Team include: responding to student queries; course sign-up; departmental examination board servicing; assessment monitoring; attendance monitoring; student record maintenance; staffing the front-desk; servicing the Faculty Learning and Teaching Committee (SS Team Leader).

3.7 The faculty is also supported by a Project Leader at Grade 7 (responsible for providing support on a number of cross Faculty areas, including HR issues and space management), and a Project Officer at Grade 6 (a one-year fixed term post (currently vacant but approved through to 31 July 2014) created for the purpose of supporting key developments re. improving student-related procedures, and providing support to the administrative review process).

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4. The Consultation Document

4.1 The consultation document can be found at http://www.soas.ac.uk/hr/change/pastprop/

5. Proposals contained in the Consultation Document

5.1 The consultation document set out the specific proposals below which support the School’s new 2020 Vision and Strategy for the 2016 Centennial and Beyond (revised September 2012), faculty plans and new academic developments across the School.

5.2 At its meeting on Monday 22 July 2013, Executive Board gave careful consideration to the consultation document proposals, the views of the Law and Social Sciences Working Group and to the contributions received.

5.3 The proposals were:

i. To re-shape the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences’ administrative support functions by creating two ‘sides’ of administrative staff: Faculty support and Department support.

ii. To designate for each department within the Faculty, a dedicated administrative team, headed by a Grade 7 Department Manager and containing at least one Grade 6 Department Officer (Academic) and one Grade 6 Department Officer (Students). The Department Managers will have a ‘dotted line’ operational management relationship with the relevant Head of Department, whilst retaining a formal direct line reporting relationship with the Faculty Manager. The purpose of each of the proposed department teams will be to provide effective, planned and reactive support to the department, working particularly closely with the Head of Department.

iii. To require all Department Manager and Department Officer posts to also each have a cross-faculty functional responsibility, supporting coordination and sharing good-practice within the faculty, in addition to providing a single point-of-contact for Professional Services Directorates. For example each Grade 7 post holder would have responsibility for a small number of faculty-wide issues/tasks, such as Secretary to faculty committees or coordination of Examination Board preparation

iv. To designate a Faculty Support Team, headed by a Grade 8 (subject to re-grading – CB note: correct at the time the consultation took place) Faculty Support Coordinator, with a small team of Grade 6 and 7 Faculty Officers and Grade 5 Assistant Faculty Officer posts. The purpose of the Faculty Support Team will be to provide coordinated system and procedural support to the department teams, ensuring that the systems work adequately and are fit-for-purpose, providing effective liaison also with Professional Service Directorates. It will also undertake a range of functions for the faculty as a whole, including coordinating the faculty front desk for student enquiries.

v. To designate a Grade 9 (subject to re-grading) Faculty Manager post to head up the Faculty administration teams (currently this is undertaken by a 1.4 FTE job-share Faculty Administrator post at Grade 8 level). The purpose of this post will be to

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http://www.soas.ac.uk/hr/change/pastprop/


support consistency and coherence as required within the faculty and to facilitate strategic development of administrative support systems across the faculty.

vi. To increase the staff development and career progression opportunities of staff within the administrative structure by providing both department-focussed and faculty-focussed roles and by increasing the number of more senior roles, creating more opportunities for promotion and/or movement within the team.

vii. In view of the faculty’s continued growth in both student and staff numbers, it is important that the restructure is implemented during Academic Year 2013/14. The proposed structure will increase the faculty’s capacity to support the planned and future programme and student growth within the faculty, essential to the School’s success.

The proposal also includes (in Phase 2, 2016/17 onwards) additional Student Support Officer posts to enable focused UG and PGT support in each department (as currently provided in two of the departments, Law and Politics). In the departments where this division is currently provided there has been a noticeable improvement in the administrative support to both students and staff. Phase 2 would follow a period of embedding (14/15) and review (15/16) with each potential additional post reviewed individually to assess requirement.

6. School–wide Consultation Process

6.1 On Monday 8 April 2013, under Stage 2 of the School’s Management of Reorganisation and Change Policy, Executive Board considered the high-level business case relating to the proposed new administrative structure for the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences. EB approved moving to School-wide consultation with affected employees and the wider School community including presenting the proposals to the School’s recognised trade unions, UCU and UNISON.

6.2 Stage 3 briefing meetings with the trade unions were held on Friday 19 April and Friday 31 May 2013 where the Change Project Sponsor, Matt Craven, presented the proposed consultation documents. Matt was supported at the meeting by Cate Knowles, Change Project Manager, and Chris Byrne HR Manager (Change) who chaired the meetings.

6.3 The Stage 4 School-wide consultation commenced on Thursday 6 June 2013 with a separate briefing meeting for the administrative staff within the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences chaired by Carolyn Heath and Cate Knowles. An all-School email was issued in the afternoon of Thursday 6 July 2013 with a link to the consultation document and supporting annexes available via the Change section of the School’s HR webpages. A dedicated consultation email address was also available for contributors to send their comments to. The School-wide consultation closed on Monday 8 July 2013.

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7. Principles agreed by the Working Group at Consultation Stage (March 2013)

7.1 The Working Group’s discussions were informed by the following considerations:

i. That, in response to the faculty composition of large and fast-growing departments, there was a need to embed administrative support in the faculty’s departments, in order to involve them more fully in administrative decision making.

ii. That administrative staff should be involved more closely and creatively with the work of the faculty’s departments.

iii. That there was still a need for central services provided by the faculty, and that stripping this out would be undesirable.

iv. That cohesion and consistency within the faculty were essential, as was the value of continuing to work strongly together as a faculty.

7.2 The Working Group agreed to the following principles for the proposed new structure:

i. Greater emphasis on departmental support to facilitate and support the work of the departments, with operational oversight by Heads of Department.

ii. Faculty-wide roles, providing foundational under-pinning of procedures and systems to support each of the department teams.

iii. Support and coordination from the Faculty Managers to ensure a clear understanding of joint objectives and effective communication which enables both ‘sides’ of the structure to fully support each other and to work effectively with other parts of the School as required.

7.3 These proposals have been designed to engender the following:

i. Greater emphasis on departmental support to facilitate and support the work of the departments, with operational oversight by Heads of Department:a) Introduction of Department Manager posts (Grade 7). This role is to work with

each Head of Department to coordinate academic/student support staff and functions in relation to individual departments; posts will have a ‘dotted-line’ relationship with the relevant Head of Department, bridging the academic and administrative requirements in each case. This will include working proactively and reactively with the Head of Department to provide a greater quantity and quality of support to their responsibilities, in addition to providing an ‘institutional memory’ in the context of frequently changing Headships. This was particularly welcomed by the past and present Heads of Departments who were members of the working group.

b) The proposal also includes (in Phase 2, 2016/17 onwards) additional Student Support Officer posts to enable focused UG and PGT support in each department (as currently provided in two of the departments, Law and Politics). In the departments where this division is currently provided there has been a noticeable improvement in the administrative support to both students and staff.

c) The Development Studies department team will provide support to the Centre for Gender Studies (academic staff in Gender Studies are formally members of this department).

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ii. Faculty-wide coordinating roles, providing foundational under-pinning of procedures and systems to support each of the department teams. This will be delivered by:

a) The introduction of a new role of Faculty Support Coordinator (Grade 8 subject to re-grading - which was the status at consultation stage) and a small team of Faculty Officer (Grade 6 and 7) roles. These will help to provide consistency in the Faculty’s key student-facing procedures as well as in implementation of school-wide policies (e.g. Fractional contracts and online submission of coursework).

b) These posts will be able to forge good working relationships with the relevant Professional Service Directorates, ensuring single point-of-contact, short- and long-term development of systems, and enabling the department-facing staff to work more efficiently

c) The proposed new role of Faculty Officer Communication, Student Experience and QA will focus on providing clear, coordinated communication to students taking LSS programmes/courses throughout the whole academic cycle: welcome week, student support, graduation, changes to course submission arrangements, start-of-year issues, timetable etc. – a key objective of this post is to have somebody clearly responsible for ensuring that the student impact of decisions, procedures and events is considered as a priority in policy/procedural development, and to communicate these effectively to students. Additionally this post will also be responsible for supporting QA processes such as course and programme proposals.

d) Other posts within this team would focus on other aspects of administration that support the work of all LSS departments e.g. fractional contracts, budget monitoring, attendance monitoring, SharePoint, BLE, systems development, website.

e) The Department Manager and Department Officer posts will also each have a cross-faculty functional responsibility, supporting coordination and sharing good-practice within the faculty, in addition to providing a single point-of-contact for Professional Services Directorates. For example each Grade 7 post holder would have responsibility for a small number of faculty-wide issues/tasks, such as Secretary to faculty committees or coordination of Examination Board preparation.

iii. It is further proposed that the faculty should explore the possibility of offering regular job-rotation opportunities to all Grade 6 staff within the new structure. This would provide valuable career progression opportunities in that it would allow Grade 6 staff to widen their experience and develop their skills by giving them the opportunity to try out generalist and specialist roles for an agreed amount of time.

This idea was initially proposed by administrative staff in the faculty who feel that the opportunities to develop their skills are somewhat limited in the current structure. In addition to career progression, the scheme would also facilitate sharing good practice and ensure regular documentation and review of procedures. The development of such a scheme would need to be carried out in conjunction with administrative staff within the faculty, address relationships with current School HR policies and include formal consultation with the recognised trade unions.

7.4 All posts are shown as 1.0 FTE as this would be their ongoing status. However some staff currently have flexible working arrangements e.g. as 0.8 FTE.

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8. Consultation Feedback Received

8.1 23 contributions to the consultation were received of which 3 were from individual administrative staff directly affected by the proposals; 3 were from individual academic staff; 4 were combined contributions from academic departments; 1 was from a member of administrative staff in another faculty and 12 were from staff within professional services

8.2 There were only a very few responses from staff directly affected and these were in the main positive.

8.3 Both UCU and UNISON did not provide any written contributions to the formal consultation.

8.4 During the formal consultation over the summer, Directors of Professional Services (DoPS) expressed a range of concerns as regards the proposed new structure of the Faculty Administration. An initial response to these concerns had been written into the documents considered by Executive Board, but at its meeting on 22 July 2013, EB requested that the Project Sponsor and Joint Project Managers carry out further work with DoPS to discuss these concerns prior to a further reconsideration of the proposal by EB in September. A meeting was held in August between some of the DoPS and Cate Knowles (Joint Project Manager) to discuss the proposal and address the remaining concerns that had not previously been fully addressed.

8.5 The contributions fell mainly into two categories: staff within L&SS were generally positive about the proposed structure, however colleagues from outside the faculty, mainly DoPS, raised a number of concerns. The contributions can be grouped by theme as follows:

i. Clarification of responsibilities for specific tasks in job descriptions, such as Student Liaison, webpages/social media, budgetary responsibilities, HR responsibilities, course and programme approval processes, is needed.

ii. Co-location of academic and administrative staff in department groupings. There were divided views on this matter; some staff, mainly in departments, were firmly in favour of this while other staff, mainly in Professional Services, were against it. There was a concern that co-location would lead to student confusion due to different points of contact.

iii. The Implementation process. E.g. that assurance is needed that current staff will not lose their jobs; that there will be training for all posts; that HODs need to be involved in the appointment process of Department Managers.

iv. The role assumed by the Department Manager. E.g. the potential difficulty of dual line management, concern about the title ‘Manager’ leading to a lack of collegiality, concern that faculty responsibility will dilute focus on department support, concern that the rotation of faculty coordination responsibilities will lead to all too frequent changes. On the other hand it was recognized that the post will contribute to better communication to and within departments, and that the post will enable the Heads of Department to carry out their responsibilities more effectively.

v. Relative seniority of certain key posts. E.g. concern that the Faculty Support Coordinator post will not have sufficient voice within the team of Grade 7

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administrators and concern that the grade levels of the faculty support team posts do not allow sufficient authority to liaise with Professional Services

vi. Fragmentation of practice (silos) in procedures. Inconsistencies between faculties may increase leading to confusion for students and staff in professional services and the problematic nature of faculty support roles being available only in one faculty rather than across all three. There was a suggestion that a School-wide solution is required rather than a solution for one faculty. Additionally there was a suggestion that the increase in department-based support questions the role of the faculty structure. On the other hand, one response welcomed the strengthened character of the departments which is often the focus of student loyalty.

vii. Points of contact. There was a concern that Professional Services would be required to liaise with multiple administrative staff in the department and faculty teams leading to duplication of effort/liaison and concern that different departments would have different requirements of Professional Services.

viii. Size of teams. E.g. concern about single points of failure in the faculty support team and the lack of resilience/cover within the department teams because of their smaller size. There was also a concern that the starting position for department teams was based on current staffing levels rather than an equitable calculation based on staff/student FTE.

ix. Timing. E.g. Concern that there should be a thorough review of procedures School-wide before any restructuring and that the faculty should wait until decisions about the North Block Student Hub have been finalised.

x. A number of contributions indicated a lack of clarity about the reasons for the review – the nature of the difficulties of the current structure in L&SS.

9. Working Group Response to Feedback Received

Of these various points, the five most significant and most often repeated in the feedback were: 1) the question of dual line management; 2) the ‘silo’ question; 3) the relationship with professional services; 4) the question of inconsistency; and 5) the question of timing.

9.1 Dual line management of DM post (iv)

It is recognised that dual line management can be challenging and within an outline structure it is very difficult to enunciate effectively precisely how it will work on a daily basis. It is clear, however, that this is a key element to the proposed structure.

The aim of the Department Manager positions is to ensure that we have effective administrative support for each department and their staff and students, that such support is responsive to the particular needs of each department, and capable of supporting the HODs in the fulfilment of their (many) responsibilities. That they are to work under the supervision and guidance of the Faculty Manager is to ensure not merely that there is an adequate structure in place to support their professional development, but also to ensure that a core level of consistency across the faculty in working methods and processes, and in pursuit of that the Departmental Managers will have to work collaboratively as a team with the Faculty Support Coordinator as well as individually for their department.

There are clearly benefits to having such a position in terms of both improving communication and collegiality within the faculty, and in ensuring that administrative processes are adequately informed by detailed knowledge of department programmes and

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of the needs of students on different disciplinary programmes. Experience of the current administrative structure that supports CISD – which provides the model for the department manager position – suggests that it works very well. We acknowledge, however, that work will have to be undertaken to further detail and specify the nature and level of support provided by the DMs to Heads of Department, and to clarify those processes and functions which have to be treated as ‘core’ (and hence governed by a principle of consistency) and those in which local differentiation is appropriate.

9.2 Silos/fragmentation/move to department offices/small teams and resilience/students going to more than one place (ii, vi, vii)

The fear that the new structure will resolve itself in the fragmentation of procedure, and the creation of administrative silos over-estimates the extent to which the proposed structure represents a change from the current model, and under-estimates the role to be played by the Faculty Manager. In the first place, the existing structure already has department-facing teams within it, albeit the case organised under the leadership of two over-stretched team leaders. The move towards the abolition of the two generic teams in favour of a set of departmental-facing teams is in large measure merely a strengthening and re-organisation of the team management arrangements. As indicated above, furthermore, the Department Managers will be expected to be department and faculty facing, working collectively, sharing good practice, as well as supporting and guiding the HODs. The Department Managers and Faculty Support Coordinator together with the Faculty Manager form the senior administrative team. The role of the Faculty Manager, amongst other things, will be to ensure proper coordination between the Department Managers and Faculty Support Coordinator and ensure that there exists the necessary flexibility in the structure to ensure adequate resilience within each of the teams.

Some of the responses appeared to assume that the re-organisation would result in the physical fragmentation of the Faculty Office and the creation of co-located administrative teams as a consequence. Whilst some departments are clearly in favour of this idea, the proposal itself is not premised upon any change in the current space configuration given the uncertainty as to the implications of the North Block move. As a consequence, and pending any decision as to the location of departments in the aftermath of the North Block move, the student facing activities of the administration will remain largely as they are at present (e.g. with a single front desk). What students will appreciate is having a dedicated team of administrators with detailed knowledge of the programmes on which they are studying, all of whom will be able to provide effective advice and support.

LSS is not in a position to comment on the issue of departmental offices, as the issue of space is a School-wide policy issue and is not one that can be determined by one faculty alone. The review process itself deliberately left the question of space/location aside.

9.3 Faculty support structure/single point of contact for Professional Services (vii)

DoPS felt strongly that the ‘faculty side' of the structure needed more weight in order to ensure consistency across processes and that a lack of clarity might arise from having more than one point of contact within the faculty. The emphasis on team work between the Faculty Support Co-ordinator and Department Managers was welcomed but colleagues suggested:

that in a structure of this size there should be a Deputy Faculty Manager - in their view a Grade 8 Faculty Support Coordinator.

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that it would be better to have fewer - possibly two - higher graded (Grade 7?) staff on the faculty side rather than three grade 6s as these were key specialist areas.

that there should be a QA person in the central faculty team and that student support should be based in the central faculty rather than being

based in departments, i.e. divided by function UG/PGT/PGR in some way rather than by department. This was felt to be especially important to facilitate working relationships with the Registry.

There are certain advantages to reconfiguring the Faculty Support Coordinator role as a Grade 8 to allow that person also to function as a deputy faculty manager providing cover when the Faculty Managers are absent. This post has therefore been shown in the structure diagram and costing as a Grade 8 post, however it should be noted that some members of the Working Group felt that the role should remain a Grade 7 post. It is clear that having a central QA person in the faculty will be helpful, so the Communications and Student Experience post will be revised to include QA responsibilities and upgraded to Grade 7 level. The idea of having student support based in the central faculty team was discussed, but it is not apparent that this is appropriate for our faculty given the necessity of programme specific knowledge and would not offer the best possible support to staff and students.

The concern that the new structure would result in a multiplication of the points of contact for different administrative services is largely misplaced. The structure, in fact, was designed so as to retain all of the existing contact points, and strengthen them where necessary. It is clearly the case that different professional services require different points of contact – some of them departmental, some faculty-wide. Thus, whilst Estates, Library services, Finance and IT would normally want a single faculty point of contact (which will remain as at present), a number of others – including HR, Recruitment and Admissions, and Timetabling – routinely rely upon contact with department-facing SSOs or ASOs in the current structure as was acknowledged following discussion.

In the new structure, these existing links will again be retained albeit the case that it might be the Departmental Manager who is ensuring that communication is effective. It is important to note, furthermore, that the faculty support posts with responsibility for liaison with professional services are not intended to replicate or replace the specialist expertise of the professional services themselves. Rather, their role is one of coordination and to smooth channels of communication. Their location within the faculty is important not least to ensure that the needs of the faculty – staff and students alike – are properly communicated to professional service departments. Additionally responses suggested that additionally colleagues were not clear how the role of the Associate Deans and Faculty Tutor fitted into the proposed structure. At the moment the ADLT often works with the Team Leader Student Support and the ADR with the Team Leader Academic Support.

As the proposed structure does not come fully into effect until September 2014, there is time to clarify the relevant faculty contacts for various functions/professional services. Over the next year LSS will work to provide a list of roles (including Associate Deans and Faculty Tutor), functions and the relevant contacts so it is clear for all concerned who the contact is for those functions and for that single point of contact for particular tasks/functions to be at appropriate levels.

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9.4 Inconsistency between faculties/different structures confusing for students/review should be school-wide not faculty wide (vi)

It is very clear that the current proposal would result in a certain level of inconsistency in the internal administrative structures of the three faculties. Externally the differences would be minimal for the reasons set out above (9.3). Four considerations need to be kept in mind, however:

First, it would be wrong to suppose that there was an existing commonality of internal structure. L&C's SSO roles are divided by UG/PGT across all departments, whilst L&SS and A&H are divided by departments ; the Academic Support Team in A&H work across all departments whereas in L&SS it is divided by department; L&SS and A&H have a G7 Project Leader, L&C does not. The tasks undertaken by the teams in the three faculties are not the same. There is no reason to suspect that if FLSS were to move to a different internal model it would have any particular negative consequences for school-wide systems and processes (if anything it will help to improve them).

In the second place, it is also clear that the faculties are not the same. FLSS has half of the students at SOAS mainly within five strong disciplinary-focused departments, each of which has both a substantial undergraduate and postgraduate programme and a very distinct identity the strength of which is important not only for student recruitment, but also for research. There are few other departments of that kind at SOAS, and it may therefore be the case that one model is not necessarily best for all.

Thirdly, even if there were to be a case for having a common structure across all faculties (which is by no means an obvious starting point) it does not follow that the proposal here is wrong. The creation of a uniform solution for its own sake is likely to benefit no-one.

Finally, if there may be some disquiet as to the differential levels of support across the faculties, it might be worth drawing attention to the fact that the ratio of administrative staff to on-campus students is currently lower in FLSS than it is in FAH. This may change somewhat with the programmatic expansion envisaged, but that expansion is part of a very conscious effort on the part of the faculty to improve working methods and the level of both staff and student support.

9.5 Timing/relationship to other processes, north block student hub process fix etc. (ix)

It has been variously suggested that the review of the Faculty Administrative Structure should await the outcome of one or more other processes – whether that be the North Block, the student hub, process fix, programme reviews etc. All of these processes, of course, will impinge upon the work of the faculty office in one way or another (whether or not the internal structure changes) and subsequent adjustments may have to ensue. The question, however, is whether these changes are individually or cumulatively so significant that make it implausible to proceed with the re-structuring process within the faculty. And the answer is no, for three reasons:

Firstly it is not at all clear that any of the processes in question will substantially change the day-to-day activity of the faculties. A student hub, for example, might remove some of the need for a permanently occupied front desk in the faculty, but is very unlikely to eliminate its need entirely.

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Secondly it is equally clear that on-going processes of change within SOAS, like any other HE institution in the current climate, will always provide cause for deferring another decision. There will, in other words, never be an ideal time for undertaking a process of this kind. But that is not to say that there is not a need for it.

Thirdly, the alternative to moving ahead with this process appears to be an injunction to continue to operate under a current structure that is universally recognised within the Faculty to be no longer fit for purpose. The very clear view within the faculty is that if we are to move ahead in improving the level of professional administration of programmes and departments (and hence starts to make some headway on NSS etc.), we need to do so now. The proposed administrative structure is an important element in making that possible.

As the structure will not be fully in place until the start of academic year 2014/15, it will be possible to tie its development into the North Block developments as much as necessary. Cate Knowles has been asked to join the Student Hub (SOAS working title) Project Board and will be in a position to have input into that process.

9.6 Overall costFollowing discussions with EB members who had expressed concern as to the overall costs, we re-examined the phasing of the restructure to reduce the initial costs and to build in a stage for re-evaluation and reflection before the real expansion in Phase 2.

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