Policy Paper
The Future of PDP
EXCELLENCE - CLARITY - SUPPORT - CONTRIBUTION
Ensuring the Professional Development Programme (PDP) system is fit for purpose is
vital in maintaining high standards of teaching and research, providing a respectful and
nurturing environment for staff, and enhancing the overall standing of the university.
Based on the experiences of members, the UCU at Exeter has expressed concerns about
PDP provisions for a number of years. 1 Those worries have extended beyond the final
Year 5 outcomes for individual staff’s probation. Deficiencies with the past and the
current versions of the PDP have negatively affected staff morale and well being,
academic cultures, and the overall university workplace environment.
What's Wrong with the Current System?
The short answer is that it is not a system, but instead a set of too often poorly
articulated, diverse practices that combine informal discretion with the appearance of
formal clarity. Below are some of the major points of concern for the UCU:
1. Confusing Evaluation Procedures: A central problem relates to the procedures for
evaluating whether staff have reached the specified stream targets. The relevant
background for this point is the review of the former PDP provisions that took
place in 2010/11. At the time, new criteria were forwarded by management that
required staff to meet a large number of specific targets. This represented a shift
away from the “balanced scorecard” approach to evaluating performance. In
response to concerns raised by the UCU and others, management agreed to
maintain a “balanced scorecard” approach. Frequent references to it are made in
PDP discussions today. And yet, the employment information for staff makes
no reference to this scorecard approach2 – and certainly provides no details that
would help staff understand how it might work. Instead the formal guidance to
staff indicates minimum requirements. As a result of this disjuncture between
formal guidance and general practice, both senior staff (acting in mentoring or
management roles) and junior staff who are in PDP face basic uncertainties in
knowing what ‘meeting the targets’ means.
2. Obscured Discretion: College Deans and DVCs have exercised considerable
discretion about when and how applications are assessed. In some cases, for
instance, senior staff in units have been told they can only put others up for early
promotion if “all the boxes have to be ticked” whereas the “balanced scorecard”
comes in at five years. This has not been the practice on other occasions. In
some cases, senior staff have taken account of individuals accomplishments
before formally starting at the university. This has not been the practice on other
occasions.
Then there is the additional complication of what happens if some of the PDP
targets are not met within the allotted time period. Again the procedures and
expectations for this are unclear and, on the basis of previous experiences of the
UCU, subject to varied treatment guided by largely indiscernible rationales within
senior management.
3. Unclear and Unrealistic Targets: Many of the current listed targets need revision.
The target that received most sustained criticism from academic staff is one
indicating that at the fifth year those on PDP should have secured research
funding at a level consistent with their College’s FTE income target. This is
neither realistic nor equitable across all Colleges. For many reasons, the pool of
funds available to junior scholars is shrinking and funding agencies have made it
clear that, while all funded research will be of top quality, not all top quality
research will receive funding -- there is simply not enough money for that. This
target also places an exceptional burden on junior staff, one that typically exceeds
what is expected from senior staff.
Reflecting the discretionary manner in which criteria are evaluated, experience
suggests that it is only on some occasions that the target for income is treated as
a requirement. Within many Colleges, for instance, figures of average FTE
income targets are not even made known to staff.
On other occasions, staff have had 3 or 5 year target applications rejected in
relation to this criteria - even if they have brought in considerable sums of money
to the university (for instance through bringing with them successful postgraduate programmes, attracting significant PhD students, or securing deemed
'non-research' grants or non-FEC grants). Herein, it would appear that a certain
understanding of ‘external research income’ is often -- and more and more so
over time -- treated as the criteria. When this is done it diminishes the regard
given to other forms of contribution to the university – whether that relates to
publications or teaching. Staff have reported being reluctant to take on needed
duties within their units in order to direct their attention to this one target. The
securing of research grants might well be held as important, but this should not
be to the exclusion of other forms of excellence and contribution.
Uncertainty about the standing of this target leaves many probationary staff fearful that
their contracts will not be renewed after five years. Experience reported to the UCU
would suggest that the university has lost a very substantial number of excellent young
academics (often to universities ranked higher in national and international ratings)
because they were concerned they might not meet the PDP standards, though in fact
they would have done so. Experience reported to the UCU indicates some staff
currently at the university are looking for employment elsewhere because of the vagaries
of PDP practices.
Exeter UCU PDP Principles
In relation to the finding of the recent Task & Finish Group on PDP as well as future
initiatives within the university, the UCU advocates the following principles:
EXCELLENCE: Achieving academic excellence is an important goal in itself as well as
vital in ensuring the University of Exeter meets the current challenges facing HE. The
UCU believes the university should seek to move the PDP and promotion criteria away
from ‘performance management’ models, which require the individual to match their
activity against ‘university targets’ (often meaningless in their generic quality and prone to
fluctuate according to managerial ‘fashion’), towards the achievement of the wellestablished academic goals in teaching and research which form the basis of a successful
long-term academic career and which are recognised both by the staff themselves and by
potential peer reviewers both within and outside the institution.
CLARITY: New members of staff should have a clear idea of what probation and
progression entail when they sign their contract. They should also have a sense of the
process and possible outcomes in the case they are judged not to have met the targets.
To date, many staff have expended much energy and time seeking clarification about
their individual situation, too often without success. It is the responsibility of
management to ensure staff have a reasonable understanding of the expectations for
performance, not the responsibility of (especially junior) staff to make sense of unclear
targets and confused procedures.
Likewise staff currently at Exeter that started at the university believing their overall
contribution would be judged by a 'balanced scorecard' should not have this changed
without notification through discretionary (informal) policies adopted by individuals
within management. It is a failure of PDP provisions to date that staff have joined the
university under one set of expectations, only to find the goalposts have shifted without
notification after they arrived.
Transparency for new staff in their progress towards confirmation/promotion (whether
or not we keep the current PDP model) should be paramount then, as also in later
promotion systems, with heavy emphasis on peer review both internally and externally
(requiring proper input from colleagues, especially regarding teaching and organisational
achievements, not merely a top-down judgement).
SUPPORT: The UCU recognises that decisions about promotion and probation cannot
be reduced to a box ticking exercise. What is therefore imperative is to ensure robust
and responsive process of discussion between PDP staff, senior discipline academic staff,
and College level management. At minimum, PDP staff should receive yearly updates
(more frequently if needed) regarding their progression. Heads of Disciplines and
College Deans should provide written feedback about what target areas need
improvement and outline general expectations about what kind of activities would be
needed for staff to progress. What, if any, role Academic Leads should play in assessing
performance should be clear.
CONTRIBUTION: Attempts at individual performance management and reward which
are not experienced by staff as appropriate and supportive even to their individual
expertise and career ambitions, much less their work as part of teams. Whether or not
this has helped Exeter in its recent improvements (and we would argue that these
improvements have occurred despite, not because of, these developments, largely
through staff effort), we maintain that such an emphasis is definitely inappropriate to
meeting the challenges Exeter now faces. Therefore, it is of vital importance all the
contributions of staff be considered when making probation and promotion decisions.
Decisions to reject applications on the basis of not having met the 'College’s FTE
income target' should be revised.
On this issue of future expectations for external research income, the UCU maintains
that as a general rule, staff should be evaluated on the basis of their submitted grants, not
on the grounds on whether they actually receive funding. In other words, the grounds
should be academic quality (as is the case with publications). Otherwise, in light of
current funding provisions, probation will be tantamount to a lottery. In those units
where significant levels of external income is absolutely essential, receipt of research
grant might be justified. However, this should be the exception rather than the rule and
expectations should be clear to staff from the time they are appointed.
18 January 2014
Notes
See as well the The 2012 Staff Survey Group Report identified significant concerns in commenting:
Some junior academic staff on the 5-year probation programme (PDP) (longer than at other
universities) report finding the process very stressful, particularly when the completion of the
probationary period is not managed well, or if it involves unclear and inconsistent target criteria.
This can leave staff feeling isolated and uncertain about their future. Some expressed the view
that the institution is fundamentally exploitative of younger staff members (pg. 12).
2 At
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/staff/employment/academicroles/youteachandresearch/lecturer/professionalde
velopmentprogrammepdp/
1