I have felt these to be useful exchanges not least in attempting to clarify what the process at Surrey has been all about.
Trying to make sense of what happened, why and how is important. Articulating the reasoning and learning the lessons are helpful if such an exercise is to be repeated elsewhere.
My observations in no particular order are:
1. The reality of the fiscal pressures on Surrey (and other Universities ) is true.
But there are ways of dealing with this before severing staff, either voluntarily or as a compulsory redundancy. i.e. efficiency savings, unfilled vacancies, looking at associate budgets etc. It seemed to me not enough was done to examine these options fully before opting for the more Draconian severance. I regret more was not done to examine other ways. There was a lack of clarity between the amount of money that had to be saved and how this might translate into members of staff. Questions were not answered about the monetary calculations and costings.
3. Yes other Departments within the Faculty had been re-structured but in these instances some effort was spent in relocating staff in different Departments where they may actually fit better and developing new activity. Whilst this may have been disrupting and upsetting, as far as I am aware in this exercise no staff were required to leave.
2. In the case of Psychology it is of course about more than money. It was made clear that it was as much about performance and the proposed restructuring was presented as confronting Surrey's poor RAE return and NSS results.
3. It was also about "right sizing" the Department relative to other Departments in the Faculty. The Dean presented this as a stark choice between seeing one Department closed entirely or slimming down Psychology and he chose the latter option. Thus 7.2 FTE were identified as the required number of posts that had to go and all to be found in Psychology. This translated into 2 professors, 3 readers and 2 SLs. In the new structure as presented it was easy to see where the resources were being taken from and re-directed to. There were to be no applied areas explicitly covered (except the preservation of health psychology and allied clinical and counselling psychology as these fitted with University wide research and teaching, incidentally the same logic was not applied to forensic psychology which fitted into a pan university Crime & Justice initiative) and resources were to be put into two new areas Individual Differences and Research Methods and buttressing biological bases. Thus the undergraduate programme was the net winner at the potential expense of the masters programmes.
4. We can all argue whether this proposal was appropriate or whether we agreed or disagreed with the logic. It was certainly a surprising and a clever proposal. It looked radical and could be presented as such to the University's senior management. It was flexible enough to allow some MScs to survive and was fluid enough to allow research activity to seep through as individuals could fit a teaching area and have additional and different research interests. It was Draconian in any terms. The reduction of 43 to 36 posts by any standards is a considerable cut in staffing levels. The new job descriptions in effect wrote out several senior members of staff and they were sent emails to this effect. Thus decisions I and others have been faced with was could we re-invent ourselves as different kinds of psychologists as there were more people than posts available. Some posts were obvious, but the contested posts were ones in which some people clearly had a legitimate claim to expertise and reputation and for others this would be contrived and manufactured. It hardly looks credible to have occupants of named chairs of psychology when published research was patently in another area. So did this represented a fair choice to those who were potentially competing for the available posts. Management speak says yes. Others including myself say no.
5. It thus becomes a convenience for "management" to be able to say there were no compulsory redundancies and people made the voluntary choice to maximise their self interest. The inconvenient truth is that the choices were spiked and some people such as myself were designed out.
6. The other factor is of timing. The proposed structure is the subject of consultation. The Enhanced Voluntary Severence choices had to be made before the consultation period was completed and the actual structure confirmed or re-designed. This presented the horns of a dilemma. Making choices in terms of a proposed structure with the absence of certain areas of psychology or the actual, possibly re-designed , structure in which some of the proposed omissions might have been restored. EVS or redundancy? Making a choice under these circumstances was extremely difficult and taxed the integrity of those trying to make choices, actually out of concern for the Department, its credibility and recovery and not simply a maximising of self interest.
7. Yes the language in this exchange has been emotive. These are emotive issues. I regret the management by spreadsheet mentality which avoids and distances "the dark side" from the visceral reality of people's feelings and emotions. Disposing of colleagues' livelihoods and careers is not something to be undertaken casually or carelessly of individual's feelings. Compassionate judgements as well as strategic decision making is called for.
8. Will any of the comments made make a difference. No. Decisions have been made and are irrevocable. The Department of Psychology at Surrey will be slimmed down, it is not yet possible to say whether the consultation will result in any adjustment to the proposed structure or if there will actually be forced redundancies. Will our experience and this attempt to put a human face on the management speak help individuals or other Departments who may have to face this, I hope so.
Jennifer Brown
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