THEME THREE: THE ADMINISTRATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
From: Gary Chandler
State: Queensland
Could I please take this opportunity of suggesting that as part of your Enquiry you take a closer look at the extent of financial wastage arising from duplication where a city is served by more than one University. As you know, most of our capital cities have more than one University.
In Brisbane for instance, we have Griffith University, the Queensland University of Technology, and the University of Queensland (UQ), each enjoying a separate supportive administration hierarchy but often dispensing identical functions such as enrolments, finance (salaries, revenue & expenditure functions), mailroom and stores work, transport (carpooling), protection of property (Buildings and Grounds) and the planning of examinations etc.
I therefore suggest that where administrative duplication can be detected within a given city, savings might be achieved by instead introducing a single smaller centralised unit designed to serve all three universities for those more routine admin. Tasks where procedures, systems and aims are identical.
There is no reason why for example such functions as revenue work (receipt of tuition fees, gifts, grants and donations etc.) or expenditure tasks (of paying debtors), or the salaries function of paying staff could not be allocated to a single centralized unit, as all three functions are clearly known to be identical for the three Universities, and amenable as well to systems improvement.
Savings however, could also be readily extended to such other areas as enrolment, transport (carpooling), examinations planning, stores, personnel work, and building maintenance procedures, given the sameness of function and goal.
The major Brisbane teaching hospitals (including Royal Brisbane, Prince Charles and Princess Alexandra) seem to have already successfully centralized much of their routine accounts function. Such a model might also be useful at some stage to the University scene, given that hospitals and universities tend to have similar professional structures.
There would however naturally be much resistance to the above proposal, given the fact that staff reductions within a more centralized system would be significant.
As I’ve had many years within University administration, I know quite well that administrative reform (emanating from within Universities) will not come easily, given the territorial imperatives harboured by some institutions. Some, like myself, know all too well that only those funding the Universities or a Committee such as yours have the potential to bring about effective or rapid change, albeit largely by persuasion, given the autonomy and power of the modern tertiary sector.
If you or your staff would like further clarification of points above, I would be happy to supply it. This scheme could potentially be most efficient, save vasts amounts of money, and would I feel be administratively/politically popular in terms of being seen as an exercise in plain common sense.