Hoping to save money

Dialogue and engagement – these are the watchwords when a completely new governance and financing model for the Central Administration (GF) is now being introduced. It is clear that the faculties will have much more influence.

– Everyone will be affected, more or less, says project manager

Therese Johansson Przybylak.

THE PROJECT team has worked intensively for a year and expectations for the report that is now being presented are high. The problems are well known, says Therese Johansson Przybylak.

– In simple terms, you could say that faculties and departments feel that the administration costs too much and that we do not know what it does. The administration argues that they get more and more tasks to carry out with existing resources, while the organization's need for support and service is increasing. In the current model, there are several ambiguities that mean that the potential to manage and prioritize resources at an overarching level within the Central Administration are minimal, and we need to get to grips with that.

JOHAN JOHANSSON , University Director, points out that the new governance and financing model will make tougher demands on the Central Administration in terms of setting priorities.

– In order for it to work, we need to improve the dialogue around the Central Administration’s duties in relation to it needs to be sorted out and cleaned up a bit.

The proposal is to distribute all the costs based on three categories: Operation of the Central Administration, university-wide activities and investments. Each area will receive a total budget and must be discussed within spe- cial working committees. All the costs must be laid on the table, described and priced.

– The focus is to have the right conversation in the right team. You should not be negotiating everything with everyone. The purpose is to obtain greater control and clarify the assignments and the faculties and departments. It will be a challenge to find a good framework for this but I am convinced that it is necessary to provide appropriate and cost-effective support.

ACCORDING TO Johan Johansson, operational support at the Central Administration and out in the faculties and departments must be seen as an integrated whole.

– In order for us to be able to strengthen support for education and research, we must work together.

Therese Johansson Przybylak started last autumn as project manager and is new to the university world. She says it has been an educational journey, but it has been difficult to get an overview.

– It has been much more complex than you might imagine at first glance. My experience is that there are quite a lot of silos, both within the Central Administration and within the entire university. There are many small self-governing entities, which make it difficult to get an overall picture.

The current financing model means that the Central Administration has a budget of 6.4 percent of total turnover. But that is not the whole story. In addition, there are invoices for IT, service and campus.

– OTHER WAYS HAVE been found to finance activities that are in demand, but which do not fit within the basic financing of joint activities (the so-called GV invoice). Today, all the Central Administration's operations are in the same bag of money and compete for the same resources. For anyone who is not very familiar with the Central Administration's finances and operations, it can be very messy, and therefore mandates.

A key team is the heads of administration who it is proposed will be given the responsibility of preparing certain issues and obtaining support for them locally.

– IT HAS BEEN proposed that they will have significant influence over the various areas, above all those that deal with university-wide activities and new investments. Based on proposed content and allocation for the various operational groups in the project report, the largest operational group will be known as the administrative operation (approximately 819 million). The idea is that the faculties will get an insight into this operational group in their budget process, but when the budget has been established, it is up to the Central Administration to prioritize. The second largest is university-wide activities, with a budget of 235 million. It has been proposed that the faculties will have significant influence over this category.

ONE EXAMPLE IS the Swedish Scholastic Aptitude Test (SweSAT), which loses 9 million every year

–The Central Administration has very little ability to control the level of ambition for this operation, but it contributes to the deficit at the Central Administration. Examination activities and joint premises (such as accommodation for visiting researchers) are also running a deficit. These are examples of issues that need to be raised and discussed, it is not something upon which the Central Administration alone should determine.

THE THIRD CATEGORY involves new investments and is linked to a budget, which in the project team's proposal, will amount to almost 50 million. We are proposing obtaining extensive support here.

But not everything is included in the investigation. This applies, among other things, to IT costs and digitalization or how to handle the Central Administration's deficit of approximately SEK 73 million.

– We are very hopeful that we will solve the problem with the deficit, but it is an issue that must be handled in the right groups.

How hopeful are you that the new model will save money?

– That is, without a doubt, the expectation of the rest of the university. My view is that the dialogue that the new model entails will provide better conditions, but we must be clear that it will require a tremendous amount of work to achieve it.

In the model, where you combine a fixed framework with price and salary enumeration, could there be a risk that there are insufficient resources and that more work is instead outsourced to faculties and departments?

– We are aware of the risk and do not want it to happen. That is why we need to encourage dialogue so that the people making the decisions understand the consequences. New proposals that come up must be scrutinized and described by the heads of administration group, should they have unwanted consequences.

Could it lead to an economy of negotiation where the Central Administration decides to negotiate to get even more resources?

– Some things are already being negotiated today, but not in the right forum. It is about moving the negotiation to the right forum that can prioritize the right issues, i.e. for the people who are affected. Those who will be given the information must also have a mandate to set priorities, particularly concerning operations that are university-wide and new investments. The Central Administration must have a continued mandate to prioritize within its own operations (CA operations).

Is there a risk that the new way of working will be more time and cost-consuming than the current model?

– Yes, there is a risk, but the aim is to save both time and money in the long run. But we don't want to push the new model out into the organization. It all depends on the level of ambition and the targets that we have not yet set. Here, too, we need to create dialogue. Our aim is that the model and introduction should obtain broad support, something that will take time.

The university is complex, this also applies to all the different reporting relationships and informal power structures.

– Explaining the model will be a challenge. We can present a lot of information and figures, but if we can't explain it in a comprehensible way, that information has no value. It is only when there is insight into and an understanding of the Central Administration’s operations that we will have achieved a degree of transparency. It is something that we will have to work on constantly improving. We are getting there and will succeed somehow.

This autumn, the so-called implementation phase commences, which should be completed by February 2024. There is a strict deadline to get it ready in time for the budget in 2025.

– There remains a huge amount of work to get everything in place by then. Both in terms of the new forums that need to be created and the old ones that need to be adapted to the new model.

But work will continue even after that.

– We will probably work on developing and improving the new control and financing model in our day-to-day work for several years to come. And everyone will be affected because the activities are financed with joint funds, and that is precisely why they need to be clearly linked to the benefit it provides for the entire university. When times get tougher, tougher priorities will be required. Then it is important that we are prepared and have the ability, Therese Johansson Przybylak states.

Text: Allan Eriksson

Photo: Johan Wingborg

→In the summer of 2020, the University Board decided to review the funding model that has existed since 2013. In autumn 2020, Karin Röding was commissioned to review the Central Administration (CA) and in the report she presented 34 specific proposals based on the need for increased clarity and transparency. Part of that work has formed the basis of the project team's proposal for a new governance and financing model. It is based on the model used by the universities of Lund and Uppsala.

The project Ny styr- och finansieringsmodell för Gemensamma förvaltningen (New governance and financing model for the Central Administration) commenced in April 2022 and was presented in April 2023. The steering committee is led by Acting University Director Johan Johansson. Since September 2022, the project team has been led by Therese Johansson Przybylak, and there is a reference group for the project, which comprises heads of administration, amongst others.