Cooperation on shared services UvA-HvA under pressure due to HvA budget cuts
The Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA), with which the UvA cooperates in the area of support departments such as IT, the administrative centre and facility services, is set to make substantial budget cuts in the coming years. Whether these cuts are feasible depends in part on the UvA.
The UvA may also be affected by the HvA’s implementation of cost-cutting measures amounting to millions in its support services: both institutions collaborate within these support services and must agree on the cuts. This is no easy task, as only the HvA is required to make cuts; the UvA is not. This could well result in a bitter aftermath to the administrative collaboration between the UvA and the HvA, which never really came to fruition.
\The collaboration between the support services of the UvA and the HvA is a remnant from the period 2005–2017, when both institutions were administratively merged and had a joint Executive Board, including joint support services. That administrative merger ended in a complete fiasco and, after a few years, the institutions decided to go their separate ways after all. It was agreed at the time that the support services would remain together, as this offered ‘economies of scale’, as it was put then.
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Ten years on, the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA) is now having to make cuts to its share of these joint support services due to a lack of funds: 600 jobs are being lost, a problem that is currently affecting the HvA but which could just as easily have affected the UvA, and for which there is no easy solution. To put it in concrete terms: within these joint services, staff are employed on, for example, a HvA contract, but they carry out work for the University of Amsterdam (and vice versa).
If such a HvA contract is suddenly cut, the work that person carries out for the UvA will either no longer be done, or will have to be passed on to someone on a UvA contract. But that person is already swamped with work and cannot simply take on the extra load. “Tom Poes, come up with a plan,” as they sometimes say in politics. And that is exactly the situation here.
Exciting times
HvA Secretary John Maassen announced last week that “exciting times” are ahead, because every cut made by the HvA has consequences for the UvA. Whether this could lead to the support services eventually splitting up is a possibility, but for the time being it remains theoretical. “That is the worst-case scenario that we do not wish to explore,” said Maassen last week. “But in that case, we will each go our separate ways. And that is absolutely not the preferred option for either institution.”
Seventy million
University Secretary Leon van de Zande is remaining cautious for the time being. “It is still too early to run through all the scenarios. The current situation, with combined services, is the starting point, but the HvA simply has to save €70 million compared with this year’s budget. The reorganisation plan will set out how the joint support services will contribute to this and what that means for staff and their work. We will be discussing this with one another in the coming period. Much of the work within the services is so intertwined that savings at the HvA could also have consequences for the UvA. So we need to think this through carefully together.”
