Changes to the leadership structure in IT Services
27 May 2021
Proposed changes to leadership roles in the Directorate of IT Services
A message from Angus Hearmon, Director of IT Services
The IT Services Strategic Plan sets out priorities over the next three years that address the needs of staff, students and partners by focusing on a series of changes across people, processes and technology. It describes what IT Services aims to achieve by 2024, by which time we will have a new operating model, clearly defined services and an excellent experience for all who interact with us.
To deliver this plan for our University, we are proposing changes to the IT Strategic Leadership Team and the wider IT Leadership Team resulting in a change to the number and nature of the leadership roles required.
There are 20 leadership roles in scope of the change, of which four are grade 9 and 16 (including two vacant posts and three posts covered by fixed term contracts/secondments) are grade 8.
There will be 15 leadership opportunities created, two at grade 9 and 13 at grade 8, though the skills required for the new posts will be different in some cases to existing posts.
This results in a proposed net reduction of five posts.
The Board of Governors of our University has approved entering into formal consultation with the trade unions about the proposed changes which would affect four areas of IT Services. These areas are:
- The Office of the Director of IT (ODIT)
- Strategy, Delivery and Architecture (SDA)
- Technology and Infrastructure Operations (TIO)
- Service and Integration Management (SIAM)
The benefits from the proposed changes are:
- Improved staff and student experience and increased satisfaction in service delivery leading to a stronger relationship with stakeholders and partners.
- Strengthened trusted leadership capability, clarifying accountability, removing overlaps and allowing for wider operational decision making.
- Provision of clarity and direction for IT Services colleagues in line with the IT Services Strategic Plan, driving forward the required culture change to enable a motivated, skilled and engaged workforce.
- Better service availability and reliability, ensuring services are robust and accessible anywhere on any device.
- Improved security and compliance.
- Improved processes and management of third party partners.
- Demonstrated clear value for money and transparency in costs.
- Investment in new roles to provide greater capacity to meet workload demands and reduce areas of single points of failure.
A voluntary severance (VS) scheme will be offered to those colleagues in scope and at risk. If the required reduction in roles is not achieved through VS or redeployment into new roles, then the University will seek approval from the Board of Governors to implement a compulsory redundancy process.
As always, we are committed to ensuring that this process is conducted fairly and transparently in line with our policies and procedures. We will seek to explore opportunities for the avoidance of compulsory redundancy where possible, including redeployment and retraining.
All changes involving people that are undertaken by our University are given very careful and serious consideration, supported by an equality impact assessment and a wellbeing assessment. We recognise that this is an anxious time for those colleagues affected by the proposals and plans are in place to support them through the process.
I will continue to have regular conversations with colleagues who are affected by the changes.
Angus Hearmon
Director of IT Services
Further information
More information about the proposed changes is available: