Annual report to use! - Prospects

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Information Development Department: Claire Basinger, Manager review of the year This year has seen the second year of operating under the Service Level Agreements agreed with AGCAS for the provision of the information which Graduate Prospects manages and publishes, in paper and on prospects.ac.uk. The second year has passed more smoothly than the first, with the process for the majority of products going well. The establishment of good working relationships at the operational level is facilitating this. A major success is that the complete database of the Occupational Profiles used in Prospects Planner was updated by the end of the year. The Law Careers Advice Network site, which is managed by Graduate Prospects on behalf of the consortium, has been transferred into the content management system, redesigned and restructured during the summer of 2003. It was relaunched in September ready for the AGCAS Biennial Conference. IDD staff played an active role in organising and managing the usability testing undertaken on prospects.ac.uk this year. Given the volume of IDDmanaged content on the site, 50% of the recommendations affected IDD content, the majority of which have now been implemented. Work has continued transferring prospects.ac.uk content into the content management system from other databases and systems. This has enhanced the way the content is presented, made it more consistent across the site and improved usability. The labour market information that is delivered to our various customers has been evaluated this year. The information published on prospects.ac.uk has become more student focused, and the more in-depth information transferred onto the Careers Services' Desk. The Careers Services' Desk itself – the website for our member services – has also been transferred into the content management system, redesigned and restructured, and was relaunched in March 2003. Information Technology: Mark Watts, Head of IT IT continued to expand and play a key role in supporting Graduate Prospects’ strategic and business goals as well as supporting the work of the careers services. A major aspect of the department’s work has involved rolling out the ProspectsNet administration system for careers services to c.40 institutions. The system allows careers services to administer online their employers, contacts, vacancies and events information. Students and graduates can access and interact with the information directly on their careers service website. Another major landmark was the release of the latest version of STATuS, the FDS desktop programme, which allows careers services to use it for their DLHE requirements. Our computer services infrastructure has expanded considerably, with our systems now running on loadbalanced, failsafe web application and database servers. We doubled the size of the dedicated, secure server room, with improved detection, monitoring, air conditioning and fire suppression systems. Last year, we provided continual 24/7 emergency call out technical support. The department has worked on many other significant areas during the year including: • Our in-house content management system that continues to be used and developed for prospects.ac.uk and other Graduate Prospects and third party websites • Rolling out PG online applications systems and email advice systems for institutions • Supporting the NICEC careers services templates, Prospects Planner, chat rooms, and bulletin boards. • Supporting, developing and hosting third party web based systems for Moving Online (www.mol.ac.uk), Centrica, Gradsouthwest (www.gradsouthwest.com), the UK Grad Programme (www.grad.ac.uk), AHUA (www.ahua.ac.uk) and Fedora (www.fedora.eu.org) • Implementing and supporting the MarketFirst bulk email system now used for much of our communications to students and graduates and careers services staff The department is at the forefront of implementing the use of project management techniques at Graduate Prospects, essential to continue to ensure that we deliver the right systems on time. 10 annual report - review of the year
Personnel: Mildred Ross, Personnel Manager Personnel has benefited from stable membership in its team in 2003. Operationally, the growth in staff numbers has slowed in the last year with the number of staff employed standing at c.114 (including four work placement students). Investor in People accreditation has been high on the agenda and our initial diagnostic assessment highlighted some areas where internal communication mechanisms could be improved. This feedback was acted upon with a view to formal assessment in 2004. A major review of all job roles within the organisation was undertaken to ensure that the salary structure was still effective in recruiting and retaining high quality staff. The results of the review were implemented in August 2003. Other significant areas of work have involved performance management issues and better reporting on absence from work. Both of these are intended to assist our managers in supporting their team members. The transfer of most staff from employment with HECSU to employment with Graduate Prospects Ltd has involved both a Trade Union and staff consultation exercise, which has been successfully completed. A culture of Health and Safety Awareness was reinforced through various events involving all staff and will be built upon for the future. review of the year Careers Services’ Liaison Team: Christine Tomkinson, Manager During the year, the CSLT became a cross-departmental team meeting on a monthly basis. Departmental representatives provided the CSLT officers – the visiting team – with current information about publications and Prospects.ac.uk to disseminate to staff in member services. This format also enabled the visiting team to provide more effective feedback to Graduate Prospects. The visiting team was reorganised and expanded to one full-time and three part-time members, which enabled full regional coverage: all members now receive at least one visit per year. The map indicates the visit areas. The team was successful in keeping careers staff abreast of developments at Graduate Prospects, encouraging them to promote publications and services. Collecting their views on products and services has enabled us to improve customer services. The introduction of a fortnightly e-mail update newsletter and a termly paper update were well received by services. The team established the agenda for each visit and the major areas that the team focused on during the year were: • Explaining major changes to the website that resulted from the usability review • Introducing Prospects Net to individual services and to larger groups at demonstration days • Encouraging services to provide customised Prospects Planner screens to direct students to their careers service • Providing feedback from services to better understand the MORI report findings • Identifying what type of publicity material would be most useful to services The introduction of a temporary Access reporting system for visits allowed feedback to be widely disseminated within Graduate Prospects. The team has been involved with and looks forward to the introduction of a webbased system in the near future. annual report - review of the year 11
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Page 6 and 7: chief executive’s statement forwo
Page 8 and 9: Advertising Sales: Allan Brown, Hea
Page 10 and 11: National Council for Work Experienc
Page 14 and 15: E-Guidance Services: Lucy Madahar,
Page 16 and 17: Trustees report The trustees presen
Page 18 and 19: Auditors report Independent auditor
Page 20 and 21: Consolidated balance sheet at 31 Ja
Page 22 and 23: Reconciliation of net cash flow to
Page 24 and 25: 3 Net income from trading activitie
Page 26 and 27: 6 Staff numbers and costs The avera
Page 28 and 29: 11 Tangible fixed assets (continued
Page 30 and 31: 13 Stocks Group 2004 2003 £ £ Wor
Page 32 and 33: The assumptions used by the actuary
Page 34 and 35: Subscriber List subscriber list Uni
Page 36: HECSU Prospects House Booth Street

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