{"id":3146,"date":"2026-01-22T08:25:56","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T08:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=3146"},"modified":"2026-01-24T13:33:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T13:33:13","slug":"cambridge-and-the-it-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=3146","title":{"rendered":"Cambridge and the IT Trap?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In our previous posting<\/a>, we raised the issue of the spending by departments and central administration at Cambridge University, based on the End of Year accounts here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As illustrated in the Figure, adjusting for inflation reveals that departmental budgets since 2016 are flat then fall. At the same time, the same restraint has not been applied centrally. Expenditure on central administration has surged across the same years, growing at a rate well above inflation and with little evident connection to the needs of teaching and research at the departmental level. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2025 central administration spending datapoint is anomalously high, so we checked whether it is correct. It is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is it so high? Maybe there is some one-off cost? If so, it is not explained in the accounts? It is also not explicable by inflation (already accounted for in our data), pay growth (staff costs don\u2019t match) or head-count growth (which has occurred but is too small to explain the jump). None seem right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A plausible answer has been provided by a helpful anonymous correspondent<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The areas that first come to mind when considering where increased funding may be directed are the three transformation programmes \u2014 HR, Finance, and Research \u2014 as well as the estates construction contracts planned for the coming years.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the software costs associated with the three transformation programmes are not publicly available, it is reasonable to assume they are significant. It is also fair to note that if these projects do not proceed as planned, costs could rise considerably \u2014 both due to the expense of implementing replacement systems and the need to maintain access to legacy platforms.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, these programmes have generated higher-graded temporary roles, consultancy fees, and substantial demands on the time of permanent staff required to be involved in the process.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With regard to construction contracts, I would refer you to the following<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 https:\/\/www.constructionenquirer.com\/2023\/11\/10\/cambridge-uni-shakes-up-builders-line-up-for-680m-spend\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a significant level of expenditure that I would expect to be recorded centrally. Although the costs are spread over several years, they appear to correspond closely with the pattern shown in your graph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep up the good work!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

An IT disaster seems very plausible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over-budget IT projects often happen in universities — normally because senior management has little insight into database or software engineering and so routinely underestimate the scale and complexity of the task. There is a recent example of a ~\u00a360m disaster from the University of Sheffield discussed here<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“The more you look into something, the more complex it becomes. And then the project leader felt like we needed to get more staff to look into that complexity, so we just snowballed the number of business analysts and spending started to go up so dramatically. Then we got in a lot of contractors and we started to have a lot of churn of those contractors, so they acquired a lot of knowledge and then they would leave,” the insider added [Quoted in The Register here<\/a>].<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Freedom of Information requests show that the University of Sheffield had allocated \u00a330.4m up to November 2021, and were forecasting a “worst-case scenario” total spend of \u00a359.2m on the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IT project was ultimately abandoned, though senior management at the University of Sheffield remained unabashed, saying “The investment in the programme has already delivered new systems that previously did not exist at the university and our work to date will be important as we develop our future plans.<\/em>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sheffield disaster was caused by difficulties with integration with legacy Oracle software, as reported here.<\/a> This is one of the causes of the delay with Cambridge University’s HR software transformation project (MyHR<\/em>), as noted in the Board of Scrutiny’s Report.<\/a> MyHR<\/em> has been postponed to an uncertain date in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Huge over-runs on software projects are known to be one of the principal causes of financial problems at the University of Nottingham and Kent as well (see here<\/a> and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When university senior management chases digital transformation without accountability, the result isn\u2019t usually innovation \u2014 it\u2019s high financial over-spending and institutional self-harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Cambridge University foolishly embarked on multiple digital transformations at the same time!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our previous posting, we raised the issue of the spending by departments and central administration at Cambridge University, based on the End of Year accounts here. As illustrated in the Figure, adjusting for inflation reveals that departmental budgets since 2016 are flat then fall. At the same time, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3146"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3166,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146\/revisions\/3166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}