In the past year the University has begun implementing a transparent and comprehensive approach to costing, writes deputy principal Professor David Boxer. In 1998 the Government awarded higher education an extra £1.5bn on condition that the sector became more open on how public funds are spent. Greater accountability will lead to improved costing of our teaching, research and other activities. The sector's mechanism for improving the accountability of activities is the Transparency Review, and our costing and pricing working group which includes representatives from the faculties, chaired by myself, is organising the process here. The Transparency Review requires all institutions to estimate annually the total costs of teaching, research and other activities. We are a member of the Research-Intensive Universities Group which is treated separately in the process. As staff salaries are the largest element of cost to institutions the Transparency Review requires academic staff to allocate their time between teaching, research, other and support activities. Therefore, during the year each academic staff member will be asked to complete a time allocation schedule which estimates, as a percentage, time spent on each over a retrospective four months. Three schedules will be completed for the University's financial year, which runs from 1 August 2000 to 31 July 2001. I will shortly be in touch with deans and department heads to discuss with them how this information is to be obtained. Although it was a Treasury stipulation that the whole HE sector must participate in this review, there are some clear benefits to us in Dundee which include:
Transparency Review Your co-operation and help in this exercise will be greatly appreciated. If you think apportioning academic staff time is difficult, consider the next stage……. dividing up central services and administration into the same categories!
- improved management information leading to better allocation of resources.
- the ability to benchmark our activities with other comparable institutions.
- being better informed for negotiations with sponsors and Government regarding funding for teaching and research.
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