Phil McNaull on the Service Excellence Programme

As a world-leading centre of academic excellence, it is essential that the University of Edinburgh continually revolutionises and transforms the way it works, to maintain flexible and efficient professional services that can respond effectively to changing priorities and expectations.

The University is investing significantly in a Service Excellence Programme (SEP), a University-wide initiative designed to review and transform the professional services that we provide to our students and colleagues. Service Excellence is a five-year programme focusing specifically on the areas of student administration and support, human resources and finance. In parallel, we are upgrading the Core Systems technology which underpins these services by working closely with colleagues in the Digital Transformation Programme. 

The SEP Service Excellence will prioritise key journeys that our customers take with us and redesign them end to end to significantly improve their experience. Our transformation work will ensure our customers can interact with us anytime, anywhere and through the channels they choose. Service Excellence is now moving into its next phase of work. To implement best practice in how we provide and deliver professional services to support our core mission of research, learning and teaching.  It will deliver improved service quality levels to students, academics and professional services staff, unlock greater efficiency and effectiveness by removing duplication of effort and complexity and, wherever possible, freeing up capacity.

We are excited by the potential of new core IT systems for Human Resources, Finance, Payroll and Procurement to enhance the use of data, student systems and the online experience. By simplifying the way we do things and by focusing on the user experience of our systems, we are laying solid foundations for growth. We will invest significant resources and effort to support and develop our staff during the transition phase.