In the debate about the psychological workplace assessment for 2012, you said that it was important to link the administrative staff more closely to the researchers and students. What did you mean?

“We’re considering various ways of re-establishing more personal contact between researchers and teachers and our administrative staff, who have now all been transferred to AU Administration. For instance in the form of an HR partner offering one-to-one contact with users at the departments, or a team being linked with specific subject areas, or by administrative staff working for a day or even less for specific subject. We’re also considering many other ways to recreate the personal relationships between the administrative staff and the people for whom they provide services.”

So could the secretaries be returning to their departments?

“No, we aren’t going to change the current organisational structure. Functions like studies administration, HR and financial management, which used to be dealt with the department secretaries, will still be run by staff at the administrative centres. So the secretaries won’t be moving back to the departments. But it’s a different matter if the department management decide to employ a secretary or anyone else to deal with specific everyday tasks, because these won’t be tasks that are now dealt with by AU Administration.”

Are you saying that it’s up to heads of department to decide whether they need more secretaries?

“Yes, that’s up to them. But we aren’t going to change the fact that we now have a single HR department and a single studies administration department covering the entire university.”

When will you be announcing anything definite about your ideas for re-establishing closer relationships with the administrative staff?

“After the summer holiday we’ll be collecting all the specific ideas which could turn into proposals for implementation. And they’ll be included in the general plan for the entire university which is to be announced in November.”