The following is an edited discussion had by a small group of professional service administrators (across different grades), all of whom agreed to share this discussion with the view that other colleagues who are going through the EASE process may learn something from it.
AB: In the Bartlett, the artificial divide between undergraduate and postgraduate taught teams isn’t working. From my perspective, it’s not working for academic staff, and it’s not working for the people in the senior teaching and learning role (now “education coordinator”). They’re being pulled into work that used to be done at Grade 8. It’s a bit of a disaster.
And it’s not just workload organisation – it’s the relationships. People are forced into strained negotiations: “Should this sit with me? With you? With your manager?”
BC: Before, we had goodwill. Everyone felt like one department. If the UG team wasn’t around, others would just do it because we were one team. Now there’s an artificial division. If we do work outside our area, it creates knock-on issues and resentment – everyone ends up feeling hard done by.
CD: How long has EASE been operationally live?
AB: Since 1 July. We’ve had one teaching term under the new organisational structure. The teams now report into Faculty. The structure is split into distinct undergrad and postgrad teams. For example, our PGT education manager at Grade 8 services six departments. The UG manager has three or four. Before, they were embedded in the department and were the point of contact for the Director of Education on “all things academic.”
That’s disappeared. Things go to education managers, then go back to the Departmental Manager (DM) because no one has an answer. The DM is doing more triage of education queries than ever.
CD: Previously the education managers would have handled that?
AB: Yes.
BC: And those Grade 8s are spread very thin – across different campuses and offices, trying to keep in touch with multiple departments. It feels inhuman. I can’t imagine trying to do that job.
AB: Exactly. And academics aren’t getting the same level of service, so more work lands on them. One example: professional accreditation in the School of Planning (Royal Town Planning Institute). Documentation had to be pulled together, but because it was split between UG and PGT, there was no single person at the top coordinating it. A lot fell back to the Director of Education.
EF: From the academic relationship side: during the consultation – which wasn’t really consultation – we tried to inform academics. We didn’t get academic support, because they felt it wasn’t worth it.
Since EASE came in, academics are doing more admin and there are gaps – but many academics don’t even know what happened to us. They still think we’re a teaching and learning team. We were left to explain it, which creates tension. Early on they promised to ‘manage expectations’ because they knew academics would take on more work, but they didn’t and there is till a gap where most academics aren’t aware.
CD: Does that work fall back on professional services staff?
EF: We would do it anyway, but because everyone feels burnt by this, the goodwill has gone.
The outcome is: it’s worse for students and worse for staff – both academics and professional services. We were told it would be better for students and staff, but we knew that wasn’t true because we would be spread thin with a bigger workload and required to get used to new systems and structures
Students won’t pick it up quickly. The decline in service is already visible, but it takes time to filter through committees. First years won’t have a baseline to compare. It will show too late.
AB: PhD students are the group we can galvanise because they’re used to close departmental relationships. Now support is remote. Last year a PhD student could come down a floor and speak to someone. Now PhD support is one team trying to cover eleven parts of the Bartlett – no matter how competent they are, they can’t keep up. That community can give concrete examples of how things have worsened.
DE: For PGT it’s also hard: they’re only here a year. By the time they notice, they’re nearly out the door. Feedback meetings were questionable already – now it will be worse.
CD: What about student wellbeing? Where does that workload go now? Students often go to administrators first because they’re the ones they recognise and trust.
AB: We used to have personal relationships with students – we were available by name. Now we have generic inboxes. Students don’t know who is reading. That changes willingness to reach out, especially with serious issues.
EF: Last year we received really serious emails. We supported students through very difficult circumstances. Now it’s generic: an inbox for multiple courses. Everyone looks in it. It’s less human. It’s not ticketed like other UCL systems yet, but it feels like it’s going that way. You can’t easily phone someone or email a named person. If I were a student struggling, I’d be less inclined to reach out.
AB: There are student advisors attached to governance/wellbeing, but they don’t have the same familiarity. Also, for “students of concern,” we used to have a complete picture: non-submission, attendance, tutor flags. Now we don’t see the whole picture. That process is split into governance side and it doesn’t fit with our teams.
CD: How do shared inboxes work? Is there triage?
EF: It’s a free-for-all. We’ve had to create our own labelling system. I preferred having my own students emailing me directly – when I felt like a person with a name.
EF: It feels like Faculty are letting it “bed down” and will look at gaps later.
AB: They’ve done “pulse checks” already. It feels like they’re asking, “Are you dead yet?” Feedback may have been collected, and in summer they’ll invite wider feedback across faculty.
CD: Are there any positives?
EF: The only positive thing people say is they’ve met new colleagues and that most people are nice. I know why they’ve done it, but it doesn’t make sense to me.
CD: Why do you think they did it?
EF: Service simplification Save money by centralising and automating. We’re becoming a replaceable resource: if someone leaves, another person can slot in because roles are standardised. But every school and course has a different culture; it’s not one-size-fits-all.
AB: And the job descriptions are very generic and limiting. Previously our team developed projects and niches – wellbeing, disability, timetabling, operations – building a pathway for careers. Now they’re pigeonholed. Promotion becomes “dead man’s shoes.”
CD: In Brain Sciences, they justified restructure partly by claiming it would improve career progression.
AB: I can’t see that at all. Secondments and development routes feel closed.
In our faculty they’ve frozen accelerated increments for last year and this year. Where’s the reward for excellence? It’s demotivating. Appraisals have also been delayed.
DE: The increments were presented as a way to compensate for pay protection changes. Hearing this makes it worse.
What’s striking is how similar this sounds to what we feared would happen – and now it’s proving true. It feels intentional.
AB: It’s been about losing agency over how we organise resources. We warned people this would happen and were told it wouldn’t.
We created a strong counter-proposal framed as a risk assessment – student satisfaction, staff leaving, operational risks. We repeatedly asked, “Where is the risk assessment?” It wasn’t addressed.
EF: We had no redundancies technically, but roles were lost through attrition: when permanent staff left, jobs were not re-filled permanently; they were covered by agency/fixed term, then disappeared. So in effect the workload stayed but fewer people remained.
CD: That’s sly.
DE: It’s flabbergasting, but it also confirms it wasn’t just our imagination.
CD: The dishonesty is hard to stomach: the SharePoint site with sugar-coated stories; meaningless graphs without labels in consultation documents. In a university you’d expect evidence-led decision-making, but it feels infantilising.
AB: Infantilising – that’s the word.
EF: When pushed, they say the higher education sector is in trouble.
CD: So what advice would you give to colleagues just beginning consultation? Could anything have changed the outcome?
EF: We invested huge energy, did counter-proposals, tried to engage in good faith – they didn’t listen. In hindsight, I’d rather they’d been honest: “This is happening; we’ll try to make it as smooth as possible,” instead of a long process that exhausted everyone emotionally.
AB: It wasn’t real consultation. Meetings had chat turned off, people muted, no questions. We spent countless hours in workshops with consultants (Strive Higher) and it didn’t materially change things. One small change happened: a Grade 9 post was removed and replaced with a Grade 8 post; PhD team split into two.
CD: Have colleagues fallen out?
AB: Not majorly, but there’s tension about who does what. For example: before, education staff were in three days per week, so there was coverage. Under EASE contracts, people are compelled to be in only two days, so there’s no one in on Fridays. Ops staff are present, so they end up dealing with students in distress at the counter. They don’t want to, but they can’t ignore students.
CD: And tasks like room bookings?
AB: Those services have been pushed to “self-service.” Everyone can book rooms in CMIS so no one does the inherited support work anymore.
EF: That’s the culture shift: previously we pulled together, went the extra mile, covered each other. Now people don’t do anything unless it’s explicitly in their job description. Roles are narrower, teams are smaller, and people don’t feel part of a community.
BC: One concern is PGR admin: they’ve gone from administering one department to three or four overnight. In some cases the workload has tripled. People are too busy firefighting to engage with the union. In PGT, after the new structure was implemented, someone resigned and it took months for them to be replaced due to a recruitment freeze.
EF: There’s fatigue. In hindsight I wonder whether refusing to engage with the consultancy process might have made a stronger point.
CD: Academics weren’t directly affected, so many stayed out. But when academics do engage, it helps because they carry more clout.
So how do we go forward now and make life better for staff and students?
EF: Look after each other. Don’t give the change more emotional energy than it deserves. Accept what’s happening sooner, find workarounds, and protect your team. It depends on how much change you have: where there’s less change, it may be more bearable; where there’s more, it’s worse.
BC: Also: don’t let them use goodwill to fill Grade 7 gaps with Grade 6 labour. The system will try to push people to do more “above and beyond,” even though the restructure was meant to standardise roles.
CD: In Brain Sciences, many Grade 7 posts are being replaced with Grade 6. Some people opted out of competing and took Grade 6 with pay protection – but workloads may go up anyway. There’s an idea that Grade 6 staff will be moved around departments daily, which feels unworkable.
Let’s close for now. We’ll review the transcript and follow up by email about what to do with it. This conversation will resonate with many colleagues.
AB: One positive is meeting like-minded colleagues and gathering around a collective cause. If we can help people going through it and dispel myths, it’s worth doing.
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