Student Support Services
Annual Report 2012/13
Vision for Service Excellence
The aim of Student Support Services is:
“To provide high quality professional support that enables students to make the best use of the academic and
personal developmental opportunities available to them at the University of York.” 1
The 2012/13 academic year saw Student Support Services (SSS) focussing on maintaining the quality
of its provision by delivering an increasingly visible set of services via the Student Support Hub
model. The challenge for the academic year was to maintain our services against a backdrop of
raising expectations from students (their parents) and our academic and professional colleagues
whilst managing various changes, challenges and opportunities which are outlined below.
Summary of Key Strands of the Service Improvement Strategy
Challenge
Demonstration of Success
Embarking on the first academic year in our
new locations- ensuring students and
colleagues are aware of these and experience
a benefit from these changes.
Footfall and interaction with the Student Support
Hub is demonstrably Higher with over 12,000
recorded interactions with students and
colleagues
Retirement and recruitment of Director with
Section Heads acting up on key projects –
with SSS as a whole overseen by the Deputy
Director to mitigate any potential impact on
students and departments.
All SSS teams maintained and developed as
planned with no reduction in provision or levels
of service.
Implementing the National Scholarship
Programme - systems and bursaries
developed in a short timeframe.
All eligible students received the various offerings
under the NSP in a reasonable timeframe.
Increasing case loads of the Special Cases
team having assimilated the Postgraduate
Taught Special Cases function.
In spite of a large increase in student cases the
special cases team delivered an ongoing and
sustained service.
National and International impacts of
'Austerity' and conflict - on students
Students from various conflict zones retained and
sustained. Welfare Advisers, ODT and SFSU
teams supported students impacted by financial
austerity and e.g. reduced mental health services.
Neuropartners undertaking the management
of non-medical helper support - for disabled
students
A successful transition of support with less than
10 complaints raised, all resolved.
1
Comprehensive list of Aims and objectives available at http://www.york.ac.uk/student-support-services/aims/
Supporting the pilot of a College Welfare
case management system - as SSS moves
towards an increasing and wider support
role.
Successful pilot achieved with case management
system rolled out to all colleges for 12/13
academic year.
Next academic year will see changes in the vision and strategy of Student Support Services which
will be taken forward by the new Director working closely with SSS Section Heads in collaboration
with professional and academic colleagues across the University of York community.
Summary of Service Usage Key Data (Highlighting Key data and key trends)
The following data highlights the impact Student Support Services currently has in its aim to
support student success. SSS will shortly publish a range of infographics to highlight the current
impact of the various services on the student experience.
SSS Service
Student Support Hub
Key Impact
12,724 recorded contacts
Autumn Term ~ 5064
Spring Term ~ 3321
Summer Term ~2300
Disability Services
1586 students registered
10% of all York students
Open Door Team
1616 students accessing the service
Over 10% of all York students
Student Financial Support Unit
Distributed £7.4 million to 3,676 students
Almost 1 in 4 York students benefitting
Use of Customer Feedback
Alongside qualitative comments from the National Student Survey results and other wider surveys
including those undertaken by YUSU and GSA the Open Door Team, Student Financial Support
Unit, International Student Support, Disability Services and Welfare Support all send a feedback
survey to students who have accessed their service. This feedback is then used for service
improvement or to confirm that current approaches are effective.
Business Challenges and Opportunities
A number of challenges and opportunities have become apparent or further apparent during the
2012/13 academic year. Some of these are applicable across the various teams and some are specific.
General challenges and opportunities:

With the exception of the Open Door Team and the Special Cases Team case management
systems are needed across the Student Support Services to improve the student experience
enabling interactions to be tracked, captured and analysed leading to continuous
improvements for students but also more efficient ways of working for student support
staff.
It is not evident that a 'one size fits all' case management system is available or viable at
present and other opportunities and other potentially available options must be explored
including exploring links with planned CRMs for use by Admissions and other External
Relations departments. The risks of developing systems that provide a smooth experience
transitioning students in to the University but then having no comparable system for the
transition through and out are various and are very likely to adversely impact on the student
experience in a variety of ways.
Specific Challenges and opportunities:

Special Cases: As identified in this year's report to Senate by the Special Cases team the
current volume of complaints and the process of handling these are unsustainable within the
current resource in spite of attempts to remedy the various systemic and resource challenges
that arise. Regulatory change is urgently required and an independent evaluation of the
current approach could be a useful approach to plan a way forward. A process that is
prompt, fair and meets the needs of students and departments should be achievable.

International Student Support: having established good visibility and success in the delivery
of orientation and ongoing advice a more strategic development should be explored to add
value to the international student experience and the support of departments in ensuring a
positive student experience from a variety of international student perspectives.

Student Support Hub: frontline staff have adapted well to the hub model. The raised
expectations of students, parents and colleagues provides the opportunity of developing a
more customer focussed approach to service delivery alongside promoting resilience and
well-being strategies to students by demonstrating (modelling) such practice in their work.

Student Financial Support Unit: the rapidly changing and shifting landscape in Higher
Education has exposed fragilities in the SFSU systems and their interface with the wider
university systems which need urgent attention so the student experience is not adversely
impacted by systemic deficits and as a result of historical ad-hoc system development which
can now no longer easily adapt to the rapid and various financial changes in bursary and
hardship funding as well as scholarship provision.

Disability Services: Staffing levels are low in comparison to other Russell Group universities
and the current way of informing departments of reasonable adjustments is not a best
practice model. Opportunities exist to improve systems and ways of working by operating
in a more proactive and collaborative way learning from other successful university
approaches.
Future Plans and Developments
The move to the Student Support Hub in Market Square with the satellite teams in Sally Baldwin
and in the Careers building has produced some challenges which have been well managed by the
teams. The whole SSS team should be congratulated for managing this transition alongside the
additional challenge of the long serving Director retiring.
Interim arrangements, led by the Deputy Director, have been successful. The contact data collected
over our 3 locations (see Appendix 1) over the last year demonstrates an increased footfall via the
SSS Hub in Market Square and that the 'one stop shop' model would appear to be working well.
SSS must now consolidate and capitalise on this by:

using data to plan services as effectively as possible,

becoming more visible,

becoming more proactive rather than the current reactive approach,

communicating better and working more collaboratively with academic and professional
departments in order to improve our student's experience whilst at York and beyond.

helping them develop (or improve) their resilience, employability and helping them
challenge circumstances that impact on their academic success.
To be successful SSS needs to model some of the resilience we are trying to foster in our students
and aspire to be exemplary in serving the needs (but not necessarily the wants) of our students and
their academic departments.
We will aim to achieve this using a strategy based on the following operational objectives in the key
areas listed i.e.:

Data,

Case Management,

The College Pilots,

Collaboration and Networks,

Communications (including social media),

Employee Engagement.
To achieve the above a Strategy and set of Operational Objectives have been developed and are
available to view at http://prezi.com/ur1cml_ffe2m/student-support-services-strategy-ay-201314/
Future Challenges
We aim to meet the needs of our students in a rapidly changing world whether they be primarily
based on campus or elsewhere (including online students).
SSS must continue to develop services that underpin all our students’ success by collaborating with
academic departments, colleges and other support services.
Moving forward on this will require an evaluation by the Director of:
• current resources and expertise,
• routines and processes,
• appropriate expertise and competence
• responsibility and capability
Some branding work will need to be undertaken to ensure all students and colleagues are aware of
what SSS is and can offer. As a management team within SSS we will need to work together to
ensure we progress forward and up-skill ourselves and our teams to achieve our aims of being more
public, collaborative and proactive to ensure a continually improved student experience.
Jill Ellis and Peter Quinn
Deputy Director and Director, Student Support Services
January 2014