Tax payer and the cost of Student Lifecycle Project

Dear Sir or Madam,

First of all I wish to provide you with a bit of background so that
you can give me an answer that I will be able to understand.

As a Scottish tax payer I am fully behind the Universities.

From entries on the whatdotheyknow.com website I have noticed that
the University of Glasgow has embarked on an initiative, the
Student Lifecycle Project, which will cost millions of pounds and
take years to complete.

To understand what this project is about I have studied various
documents and comments provided by the University.

What puzzles me is the absence of a clear justification for such a
huge investment particularly in the current economic climate. Your
literature related to this project appears to be a load of
management jargon that is meaningless to Joe Public. My real
concern is that for an investment of such magnitude, you seem to be
unable to provide any evidence of substantial financial or academic
returns. The amount of money involved could break the back of the
University and then we, the public, will have to bail the
University out. Even if the University can sustain this expenditure
without any concrete evidence of financial or academic returns, it
would lead me to feel that the University of Glasgow is being over
funded by our Government and I will be compelled to contact my MSP
and MP to express my concerns. As a tax payer I would like to be
sure that you are prudent with £13 million pounds of public money.
However, given the number of entries in the whatdotheyknow.com
website in relation to the University’s Finance System
implementation and your replies to them does not fill me with a
great deal of confidence.

I would be grateful if you could answer a few simple questions to
reassure me that you know what you are doing with our money.

Here are my questions:

a. What are the success criteria for the student lifecycle project?

b. For each of the success criteria, please send me details of when
each will be materialised and how the success will be measured?

c. Has an external and independent body assessed the viability of
this project? If so could I please see the report?

In your reply please refrain from using management jargon and get
straight to the point.

Yours faithfully,

Cameron Buchan