The primary objective of the IT E2E service is to provide staff (and in some departments, PGR students) with the desktop IT equipment they need to work. This is achieved through centralising budgets for desktop into a single E2E budget.
In August 2023, the Faculties of Sciences and Arts & Humanities joined the rest of the University and started using the E2E service. Since then, demand on the service has increased significantly and far exceeded forecast spend. Several factors have contributed to this demand, but the most significant issues appear to be high numbers of requests for replacement devices and higher than expected numbers of new starters.
In order to attempt to keep spending on E2E within the budget set by Finance, it will be necessary to introduce changes to the terms of service for the remainder of the financial year, specifically: E2E will only provide devices for - New starters, where there is no device to inherit from a previous post-holder
- Staff that don’t have access to any University supplied device (those who are currently relying solely on a personal device / BYOD)
- Staff whose only University supplied device is broken and not cost effective to repair
E2E will not attempt any routine replacements for the remainder of the financial year, so if the device in use is still functioning, it will not be replaced this year.
E2E will not provide a laptop if the staff member has access to a functioning University supplied desktop computer.
Staff are permitted to use secondary BYOD/personal devices at home as long as confidential data is not downloaded to the device. The VDS (Virtual Desktop Service) can be used in conjunction with a BYOD/personal device if access to confidential data/University information systems is required.
Directors of Faculty Operations (DFOs) will be provided with an overall quota for their Faculties and monthly statements showing the number of requests and expenditure. If the above changes do not bring demand for the service down, or if the monthly statements reveal a spike in requests for a particular Faculty, it may be necessary to introduce a Faculty based quota system to further manage demand.
As we approach the end of this financial year any underutilisation of funds may allow the service to continue with routine replacements.
Whilst these measures are not desirable they should prevent a significant overspend in the E2E budget and still allow all staff to have access to a managed device by September 2024. IT will look to reinstate the original terms of service as soon as the financial situation improves.
The E2E IT Service will keep offering equipment that is reusable and has been returned by former employees or for other reasons. We urge you to make requests that do not satisfy criteria 1 above if they are affecting the end user’s work, such as obsolete equipment that is slow, incompatible with different desk or office settings, or running on unsupported OS. We will look at these on a case by case basis. |