The Response - UWA Staff - The University of Western Australia

have a plan to engage with all such professional bodies and the leading individuals within those professions, in
order to maintain and advance professional standards and receive acknowledgement or accreditation of their
courses from such bodies. These bodies could be engaged more fully through continuing contacts with their
appropriate School or department…’
5. Internal operations
‘I would like to see a stronger, more positive message here, that excellence in management, alongside and in
support of excellence in teaching and research, is a key component of institutional success, and should be
proclaimed as an objective of note. (Our last AUQA audit commended the University as well-managed which
attracted much interest from other universities, senators, bureaucrats, etc.)’
‘It is essential that the basic business operations (Finance, HR etc) understand the core business of the University,
and work positively to support teaching and research. While it is important that UWA complies with all appropriate
regulations, these are not the core activities of the University. In too many organisations, the bureaucracy can
develop its own “raison d’etre”, which may not align with the organisational needs and direction. Importantly, the
basic business operations are often a “shop front” to the outside world; therefore, they need to be aware of the
impact their interactions may have on perceptions of the University.’
‘I foresee a discussion (re)emerging around the subject of selectivity in the context of a low/no growth
environment. Research selectivity/concentration is well understood, but in other areas – educational, community,
services and support – we may struggle with comprehensivity against a high end/high cost research intensive
mission with its consequential impact on infrastructure, overheads and institutional management. In a tight
budget scenario, people will want to know what will give. The principal answer at the moment is – professional
staffing, capital and discretionary funding. Pressure for discussion around size/scale, student and discipline
mix, the physical campus(es), the array of community services/activities and institutional functions we can
sustain, beyond the scope of simple operating efficiency gains; seems likely for the next iteration of our strategic/
operational planning (2014–2018), as there is little confidence that there will be a significant (unrestricted) funding
improvement from either government or student contributions to pay for our aspirations.’
‘What about reinforcing the development of a high performance service culture for support areas? We need to be
open to all models of delivery and embrace efficiency and effectiveness through process re-engineering in order
to free up resources.’
‘I have been struck by the number of separate processes that create a very complex overall system. Some
examples are: numerous web-based systems that don’t integrate (or at least not well), which creates extra work;
reams of manuals but very little best practice guidance available (everyone seems to do things differently across
the Uni and therefore there is very little consistency between business units); a Web Office that is not connected
with the IT department, meaning that website support is irregular; and a general lack of communication between
the ‘support’ departments of the University so that, for example, Research Services is not clear on how HR or FS
operate even though their processes are connected from a School perspective. Proposal 13 of your discussion
paper will no doubt incorporate some of these issues, but I was hoping to see something more specific about
streamlining and potentially restructuring; perhaps this is implied, but I certainly hope that the University will be
analysed as a whole, rather than its separate parts. Too often at UWA individual problems are analysed and
resolved, without looking at the big picture.’
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