UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

Introduction

These notes aim to provide Senate members with information about the University’s governance
and management structures.

Governance structure

One of the most significant features of the University’s governance structure (see attached
….. diagram) is that power and authority is very widely distributed in the University, via a range of
statutory and other formal delegations recorded in the University’s delegation schedules, so that
the Senate as the governing authority can discharge its responsibility under the UWA Act (to State
Parliament) for "the entire control and management of the affairs and concerns of the University".

The Senate’s brief would be impossible to achieve without substantial delegation, and the primary
ones are:

(i) the delegation (through Statutes 8 and 19) to Academic Board and the Faculties of
responsibility for all academic matters (curriculum content, course structure, admissions,
assessment); and

(ii) the delegation (through Statute 10) to the Vice-Chancellor as the University's Chief Executive
Officer, for the management of the University - specifically "for the academic,
administrative, financial and other business of the University".

The appointment of a Vice-Chancellor is probably Senate’s most significant responsibility, followed

by the manner in which it holds a Vice-Chancellor to account (largely through the Chancellor).

In practice then, the University's governance is a mix of 3 interacting systems:

- the Senate system - through which the Senate (and its standing committees) exercises its
custodial, legislative and strategic role

- the Academic system - through which Academic Board and the Faculties regulate the
academic activities of the University (NB the Academic Council is the Board's executive
committee and has no statutory authority of its own).

- the Executive system - through which the Vice-Chancellor as CEO exercises the delegated
authority of Senate to manage the University, with further delegations made to other
principal officers, such as the Executive and the Deans.

(Note: Schools have no statutory place in the formal governance structure of the University. Their
formal importance in governance comes largely from the delegations of the VC's authority in
staffing and financial matters through Deans to Heads of School, who also hold ex-officio
membership of the Academic Board and Faculties. Discipline groups have no formal place in
University governance; they are an informal element in the structure designed to foster academics’
interests.)

A key principle in the design of this system is to achieve maximum alignment between academic
and resource decision-making at as many points of contact as possible in the 3 sub-systems, as
indicated by the connecting lines on the governance structure chart.
 The development of these interacting systems has been influenced as follows:

- historically UWA has a very strong academic culture with a resulting strong ethos of
consultative and participatory decision-making. This is enshrined in the statutory place of
the Academic Board and the Faculties in our system, but also, for example, in the VC's
practice of reporting regularly to Academic Board on the budget (unusual in the Australian
….. system) (see attached diagram of the University’s principal committees).

- more recently the University has also developed a strong management system with increasing
reliance placed on individuals for both academic and resource management. The devolution
of financial authority to Deans of Faculties is a good example and the 2002 restructure also
had as one of its explicit objectives the strengthening of management at and below the
faculty level.

In UWA’s culture therefore a high value is placed on transparent, consultative decision-making with
staff having the opportunity to provide meaningful input into decisions that significantly affect
them. It relies on individual professional integrity and as such is a high performance culture rather
than a high compliance culture. UWA has a very collegial style of management by system
standards.

Management structure

The management structure is based on a portfolio system in which the members of the Executive
….. hold a mix of policy portfolios and line management responsibilities (see attached chart).

The Vice-Chancellor, as well as his general leadership role, holds the external relations and
planning and budget portfolios; the Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor, as well as the general deputy
role and line manager of the faculty deans, holds the staffing policy and cultural activities
portfolios. The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education)’s portfolio includes teaching and learning, the
student learning experience and international education policy; the Deputy Vice-Chancellor
(Research and Innovation) has research and research training, industry liaison and
commercialisation; the Executive Director (Academic Services) and Registrar is responsible for
academic services and is essentially the Chief Administrative Officer; and Executive Director
(Finance and Resources) covers finance and resources (including HR and IT) and is essentially the
Chief Financial Officer.

The most striking feature of these arrangements is the way in which policy portfolios held by Vice-
Chancellery members are coupled with line management responsibility held by the two Executive
Directors. This is a critical element of the UWA system with quite significant implications for
governance and management. The main principle is that institution-wide (horizontal) policy
portfolio management through the Vice-Chancellery is designed to complement the devolved
(vertical) line-management responsibility of faculties and the Central Administration, to achieve
institutional cohesion.

An important feature of the Executive structure is that it exemplifies the partnership between
academic and professional/general staff. The Vice-Chancellery comprises academic leaders who
have moved from being practising and prominent academics, to academic leader/managers;
whereas the two Executive Directors have come to their leadership positions as career
administrator/managers.

Another key feature of this system is collegiality. This model is highly collegial in that it relies on
individual academic leaders and administrators working closely with a wide range of University
committees and a wide cross-section staff, in a consultative and open manner. In addition
faculties and schools have in place advisory boards in order to gain an external perspective on their
strategic directions.
So how does it work?

The Research portfolio is provided as an example.

• The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) holds the overall portfolio
responsibility. This is a policy and leadership role but not, in the main, a line management
role. Individual researchers are line managed by Heads and Deans; individual research
administrators by the Registrar. The DVC role is strategic in focus aimed at positioning the
University to improve its research performance and standing nationally and internationally.
As such it involves working closely with Deans, Heads of School, the University's research
community, its research administrators, and external parties.

• The Director of Research Services is the principal professional research administrator and
operates within the Registrar's Office in the Central Administration. He works with the
DVC(R&I) in support of the University's research effort. It is an administrative and
management role that involves policy advice, interaction with the faculties and schools,
individual researchers, and external bodies. The job involves aligning the operations of the
Research Services division with the University's policies and priorities. The Director
therefore works closely with both the DVC(R&I) and the Registrar to achieve that.

• The Research Committee of Academic Council provides the academic policy input from the
formal committee system. The DVC(R&I) chairs the Research Committee, and the Director of
Research Services is its Executive Officer, effectively linking the three elements of executive
leadership, collegial input and professional administration.

• Deans of Faculties and Heads of Schools are responsible for individual researchers and
research activity across the University, and for working with the DVC(R&I) and Research
Services on encouraging research performance.

In the example above the Executive has a leadership role, working with the academic committee
system on policy, and the administration on policy and operations, and with Deans of Faculties, Heads
of Schools and key researchers around the University. In essence, therefore, it is a model which
embodies the distributed responsibility principle which permeates the whole University system.

This same system essentially operates in all the major portfolios - teaching and learning, staffing,
planning and budgeting, external relations and IT.
 UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE
Convocation
Guild of Undergraduates UWA Act, 1911
UWA Act, 1911 SENATE Statute Nos. 4, 9 and 12
Statute No. 20 UWA Act, 1911
Statute Nos. 1 and 25

VICE-CHANCELLOR SENATE
Statute No. 10 COMMITTEES

ACADEMIC BOARD
Statute No. 19

EXECUTIVE VICE CHANCELLOR’S

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor ADVISORY
Deputy Vice-Chancellors COMMITTEES
Statute No. 30

Executive Director ACADEMIC COUNCIL ACADEMIC COUNCIL

(Academic Services) COMMITTEES
and Registrar
Statute No. 23

Executive Director

FACULTIES FACULTY
DEANS Statute No. 8 COMMITTEES

HEADS SCHOOLS SCHOOL

COMMITTEES