Management wants to introduce a shared services model, which worries people who worry they will end up where they have been before

Staff in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education fear the Shared Services Model for administration risks a loss of local knowledge and could increase workloads for academic and professional staff in the school.

University top management says the shared services approach is not about centralising support, but collaboration, so “we don’t have multiple ways of doing the same thing,” (CMM August 28).

However, MGSE professional staff tell school leaders that many of them went through the university’s Business Improvement Plan in 2013-14, (more tech, less people, lower paid positions, they say) and are “not convinced … the Shared Services Model will be beneficial”.

Specifically, they fear; “a cut to the quality and quantity of services, which professional staff at MGSE have spent years developing and maintaining,” and more admin for academics, plus, an undermining of academic – professional staff collaboration.