There are expectations that the Professional Services Reset will abolish 151 positions

The PSR process was established last August as part of the university’s “pandemic reset.” The brief was to find ways of, “extending shared services so that we don’t have multiple ways of doing the same thing,” (CMM August 28).

PSR1 covered finance, data & reporting, occupational health and safety, facilities management, research outputs and post-award finance support.

An estimate of presently planned PSR2 staff changes puts the proposed net loss of positions at 46, however this is based on 167 new vacant positions being created and 49 vacant positions being abolished. But 151 positions would be redundant and 13 voluntary redundancies from PSR1 which were “deferred” would occur, according to plans now circulating in the university.

These figures do not include staff members transferring positions. Changes in HR, “are yet to be proposed.”

Operating areas to be covered by the new shared services approach in PSR2 include communications and marketing, advancement, and student recruitment and admissions. People in the 151 positions marked to go will have “priority access” to vacant positions.

The university is looking for $252m in overall savings this year, following $360m made last (CMM February 26).

Uni Melbourne states it will not comment until PSR2 is “finalised.”