1. AUA Planning Forum
Ian Diamond
University of Aberdeen 9.2.12

2. Preliminaries
• University Planning is Critical
• All universities have a Strategic Plan
• BUT
Do all universities have goals and milestones?
• AND
Do all universities formally monitor these?

3. Preliminaries II
• All strategic plans focus on excellence
• Need to enunciate what we mean by
excellence
• Can we justify every penny is spent wisely
• Political and Social Imperative

4. Excellence : „Twas ever thus‟
1495
‘that both clerics and laymen would readily apply themselves to literary
studies and acquire the precious pearl of knowledge in such fashion
that the ignorant would become informed and the uneducated learned’
2011
‘to be recognised throughout the world as a renowned international
university, focussing on society’s future needs and challenges,
employing the best staff and delivering a unique and stimulating
intellectual experience for our students’

5. A Changing World
• Why do Universities need planning when
perhaps they didn’t always?
Aberdeen Students Staff Budget
1495 36 students & staff £12 6s
1980 5,934 1,800 £23m
2010 16,000 3,500 £225m

6. Complex organisations need
complex planning
• Income Sources:
Students - UG, PGT & PGR
Research
Commercialisation
Philanthropy

7. Role of Planners?
• Inform (Ensure?) evidence based policy making at all levels of the
university
• Lead analysis of performance against plan
 ‘own’ good management information
• Horizon Scanning
• Pushing Innovation
• Evidence to advise on extent to which market leading
• Risk Management

8. Informing Policy in a Changing
Environment
We live in a changing/unknown political context
Example: UGs in Scottish HEIs
University of Aberdeen Strategic Objective 1: A
Student Experience Second to None
Challenge: Scottish/EU Capped
RUK Uncapped
International Uncapped

9. Scottish/EU
• Maximise Entrance Grades
• Do not overshoot in a changing UK market
• Get balance of STEM/Non-STEM; controlled
subjects
• Consider WP – outcome agreements to be
negotiated

10. RUK
• Set Fees Understand Costs TRAC
• Maximise Subject to Maximise Grades/Retaining Quality
• Increasing need to understand market
• Strategies to maximise conversion
• Bursary strategy
• Consider WP
• Estimate future market potential
• Difficult, no data  need to understand market!!

11. International
• Understand Market
• Traditional, New, TNE, Distance
• Forecast Future Numbers
• Modelling a)must be integrated with strategy; b) must involve
academic structures

12. CIRCULARITY
Student Numbers Experience  Student Numbers
 Estimating future numbers requires an integrated
model of the University

13. ASSOCIATED DATA FOR
STUDENT EXPERIENCE
• Space eg Mealor Effect
• Accommodation
• Teaching Quality/Load
• Research Requirements and Needs
REQUIREMENTS FOR EVIDENCE BASED PLANNING
• An Intercollated Model of the Student Journey
• One version of the Truth (NTV)
• Knowledge & Evidence of Factors Driving Growth

14. Student Process
Pre-Application Application Registration Teaching & Learning
Graduation Alumni
Estates
ID Card Management
Pre-Entry
Marketing E-Payments Purchasing
Target:- Finance Budgeting &
Home Ugrad Advising
Management Forecasting
O’Seas Ugrad Application
Access 3rd party service
Key Learning Accommodation
PG Taught On-line
PG Research Application
E-Registration
Paper Portal
Application
Student Alumni
Admissions E-Graduation
Records Engagement.
Virtual Learning
Applicant
Environment
Portal
Student Student
Portal Progression
Programme &
Course Portal Student
TimeTable Monitoring
Curriculum Library Slide courtesy of
Management Systems
Mark Lewis
On-Line Human Resource STUDENT
Staff Recruitment & Payroll MAIL
Business Intelligence Reporting and Dashboards

15. MAINTAINING QUALITY OF
STUDENT EXPERIENCE
1) Resource Allocation  needs a clear
understanding of costs
2) Estates Planning  How often are
planners deeply entrenched in Estates
planning?

16. SOME NOTES ON RESOURCE
ALLOCATION
• Space Models
• ‘Service’ Teaching
• Incentivisation
• Home v Away eg Engineer takes Sociology
• What are costs? (TRAC)
• Transparency does not mean shadowing income
streams

17. Research Process
Opportunity Pre-Award Post Award Output Commercialisation
Review & Project Commercialisation
Proposals
Approval Monitoring Relationship Mgt
PGR
Development Library
Systems
Funding Fund Publication Open Access
Costing
Application Management Management Repository
Financial
Accounting REF
Reporting
Slide Courtesy of Mark
Lewis

18. Data Needs for Research Model
• Planners/Finance integrated with Academics
• TRAC

19. UUK Task Force on Modernisation and Efficiencies
• Economic context
• Universities recognise the national imperative to reduce costs
• Global perspective
• Increasing competition within tighter resource constraints ‘Higher
Education in a world utterly changed: Doing more with less’
(OECD/IMHE, Sept 2010)
• Doing ........... with less!!
BUT
• A Continuing Agenda
• Eg in Scotland 2008/11 Universities and Colleges collectively
made over £123m of cash releasing savings

20. Maintaining this quality!
“Scotland is above average in terms of teaching
activity and with high levels of spend on research
relative to GDP, performs in the top quartile on
measures of research efficiency. This appears to
be consistent with quantitative findings from a
report to the EC that ranks the UK as the most
efficient higher education system in technical
terms.” (Tripartite Group, 2010)
Note: yellow highlight is my addition

21. Recommendations
• Interventions should fit longer term strategic aims rather than
short term
 Planning
• Cost reduction activities should be clear on savings and
benefits expected and based on robust data
 Planning
• The key area all HEIs can focus on is the development of better
and leaner internal processes

22. Student Process
Pre-Application Application Registration Teaching & Learning
Graduation Alumni
Estates
ID Card Management
Pre-Entry
Marketing E-Payments Purchasing
Target:- Finance Budgeting &
Home Ugrad Advising
Management Forecasting
O’Seas Ugrad Application
Access 3rd party service
Key Learning Accommodation
PG Taught On-line
PG Research Application
E-Registration
Paper Portal
Application
Student Alumni
Admissions E-Graduation
Records Engagement.
Virtual Learning
Applicant
Environment
Portal
Student Student
Portal Progression
Programme &
Course Portal Student
TimeTable Monitoring
Curriculum Library
Management Systems
On-Line Human Resource STUDENT
Staff Recruitment & Payroll MAIL
Business Intelligence Reporting and Dashboards

23. Recommendations II
Data & Benchmarking
• Develop better data on operation costs (finance, HR, IT etc) and
commodity costs (procurement).
• To enhance transparency around operational costs, indicators to be
developed to show progress on savings being made across
operational functions and reported annually.
• A common HE framework for developing benchmarks on operational
functions to be developed by UUK, linking to FSSG and HESA work
 links with ‘TRAC’
• Advice on implications of competition law should be developed.

24. Recommendations III
Shared services
• Models for developing shared services exist and good
practice should be disseminated
• HEIs should look to exploit existing services with a
track record of excellence rather than just looking to
develop new organisational structures; and to link
outside of the sector.

25. Recommendations IV
Regulation
• The govt should implement the mandatory VAT
exemption on shared services (DONE)
• The govt should clarify the position of HEIs in
relation to public sector regulations in light of the
new funding arrangements – balance between
public/private finance in HE
• The sector should engage with post-legislative
scrutiny of FoI and develop better understanding
of associated costs (ONGOING)

26. Recommendations V
Procurement
• Develop a national body to lead procurement in England
(follow Scottish APUC model)
• Set up a UK-wide strategic procurement group to lead
policy, promote good practice and guide the establishment
of a Centre of Excellence (CIPS/AUPO)
• Establish a minimum target for England of 30% non-pay
spend to be channelled through collaborative agreements
– to be revised upwards over time

27. The Future: A Continued Sense of
Urgency
• Leadership, Implementation and Monitoring
• Leading Strategic Change
• Monitoring and Evaluation Panel
• Efficiency and Innovation Hub
• Developing Data and Benchmarking
• Identifying Benchmarks
• Framework for Benchmarking
• Understanding Costs

28. A Continued Sense of Urgency II
• Embedding Recommendations
• Action Plans across all areas
• Process Improvement and Shared Services
• Academic Processes, practice and research
 Must involve planners and be evidence based

29. A Continued Sense of Urgency III
• Addressing regulatory challenges to
efficiency
• VAT Cost Sharing Exemption
• Regulatory Practice
• Competition Law and the HE Sector
• Developing Procurement

30. Pump Priming
• LFHE Fund to support initiatives
in Efficiency Innovation

31. Summary
• Universities are ever more large and complex
organisations
• Large and complex organisations need to have
evidence based plans
• Excellence must be the focus but efficiencies
are needed and should be celebrated
• Need to look for ways of doing things differently
• All this needs planners!!!