Reimagining our professional services at a time of change

• The Strategic Review aims to improve how professional services are designed and delivered across the University, in support of our academic mission

• Following feedback from colleagues, the Registrar shares recommendations designed to address challenges identified in the review

• The recommendations have been developed to support wider changes across the University in a coordinated way

The University is investing in making the services and infrastructure that support teaching and research work better. We know that several elements have to come together to produce real and sustainable improvements.

Digital transformation is essential, as is the investment we are making to improve pay and conditions for our staff. Alongside this are other initiatives such as the EDI and Estates strategies, and the topic of today’s blog: the Strategic Review of Professional Services.

Reviewing our services

The Strategic Review aims to bring consistency and coherence to our various change programmes by setting principles and improving decisions for how professional services are designed, run and improved across the University – in pursuit of our Professional Services Together ambitions.

This time last year I explained that the review’s analysis phase had highlighted that while there are many strengths to our professional services (not least the expertise and dedication of our staff in all parts of the University) there were also widespread concerns about their overall effectiveness and efficiency felt by those providing and using services. 

Our diagnosis found a range of causes for these issues, including a lack of a consistent principles for how we should organise and deliver our services; uncertainty about responsibility and oversight; and fragmentation as to how services are delivered across the University.

Proposals for the future

After consulting with colleagues across the University, we are making three targeted recommendations designed to address the underlying causes of these challenges to improve services sustainably – without creating a new programme of work on top of the initiatives already underway.

The first is agreeing principles for how we deliver professional services. These principles are based on ensuring that services are delivered at the most local level as is sustainable and equitable for the University as a whole.

The second recommendation asks divisions to take on a greater leadership and coordination role for professional services across their departments to facilitate collective planning and action. This will enable the creation of ‘Shared Leadership Groups’ that bring together UAS and divisional colleagues to support effective planning, change coordination and staff development across end-to-end services. They will be chaired by the UAS Head of Service and will be designed to meet the needs of each service. The first such groups are already meeting and we are using their insights to roll out the approach more widely.

And finally, updating our Services Committee so that it is able to oversee end-to-end service provision more effectively, with appropriate academic input.

Supporting the wider change agenda

The recommendations have been developed to support lasting change. The principles will reduce confusion, ensure consistency and support the all-important dialogue between those providing and those using services.

While the Strategic Review sets out the necessary principles and governance for the services, it is other initiatives such as Digital Transformation projects and Service Reviews which will look at specific services and functions and determine how they should change, where efficiencies might be made and how processes be improved.

The Strategic Review principles will help ensure these projects align to prevent contradictions and disconnectedness which might occur from a piecemeal approach.

So the Strategic Review will improve the likelihood of success of other projects and help ensure that they are compatible with each other. In this way, the review is a change enabler – providing a framework for supporting and enhancing our professional services in the long term.

Services fit for the future

The recommendations of the Strategic Review are being shared with leadership teams and governance groups across the University during Michaelmas term 2024 before going to Council for approval early next year.

In fact we have already been piloting the principles in a number of projects since the summer. For example, incipient Shared Leadership Groups are proving their usefulness in IT Infrastructure, Research Services and HR.

I am confident that the recommendations will significantly enhance the effectiveness of our other initiatives and investments by ensuring that our professional services are resilient and responsive: delivered at the right level of the organisation; more consistently across the University; and in a way that supports the long-term needs of the University.

This is an exciting time to be at Oxford, and I look forward to working with colleagues across the University as we provide, develop and improve essential support to our academic mission.