Scrutinising requests for new staffing

In light of the fact that the University currently has a voluntary severance scheme open, it's critical that any planned vacancies are reviewed further to ensure that all alternatives to recruitment have been considered and ruled out.

With this in mind, as of Monday, 20 May any existing unapproved requests for recruitment, direct appointments, secondments, contract extensions or switches of fixed-term staff to open contracts are being closed.

Requesters will be notified directly, along with notes on how they should review their staffing needs:

• Existing requests relating to academic posts may be reopened if the department is certain that it is still required but will need to document how all other alternatives have been considered
• Existing requests relating to professional services (PS) posts cannot be reopened. If a staffing need remains, requesters should work with their PSEB member — their Director of Faculty Operations in academic departments, or the service Director in a support department — on alternative resourcing options (see below). Only once these avenues have been exhausted should a new request be submitted.

Future staffing requests

Anyone making a future staffing request will be asked to provide details of how all other alternatives have been considered.

For academic staffing requests:

• What alternatives have been considered (eg by reducing modules) to reorganise to remove the work?
• What alternatives have been considered to cover the work by someone else?
• What alternatives have been considered to share teaching with other departments?
• In the context of running a VS scheme and 'changing the work', why should this recruitment be an exception?

Professional services staffing requests will now be reviewed in the context of shared resourcing models working across bigger groupings across the University, and how we can enable staff to move more flexibly if roles are at the same grade.

Any request made will need to provide information in relation to these points:

• Does this role meet one of the following criteria?
  • directly impact on income generation
  • directly impact on delivering significant savings
  • directly required for compliance reasons
• Why is this a specialist role that requires recruitment?
• What sharing has been considered to cover the role?
• In the context of running a VS scheme and 'changing the work', why should this recruitment be an exception?

If you make an appointment request, please be ready to provide this information when prompted to do so.