Wednesday 27th December 2006

Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork

“Why doesn’t UCU make more of a priority of tackling the vast amounts of useless administration we have to put up with? As the Xmas holidays approach I’ll be spending hours on paperwork that cannot possibly benefit me or my students.”

Ken – London South Bank University

I got this email before Xmas but read it on the day that the Guardian published a sharp commentary on the bureaucratic paperwork that consumes so much academic time. The article “Drowning in bureaucracy” by Suzanne Kord and Daniel Wilson prompted me to write a letter to the Guardian.

The authors focus on HE where things are bad enough but if anything it is even worse in FE and adult and community education.

The roots of this? A low trust culture where monitoring and counting takes the place of collegial working and delegated autonomy. Much of what is measured is pointless and most of the ways in which it is used are a mystery or are counter-productive – such as league tables or performance related pay. Ironically some of things that should be monitored rigorously, like progress towards equality, are not done effectively.

UCU needs to get a grip on this but can only do so by addressing the bean-counting low trust culture that underpins much of it. And we need to do that collectively within institutions and nationally, not individually. This ought to be a serious policy development area for the new union from which we develop a practical high profile campaign.

You can read my letter published in the Guardian on Thursday 27th December