Full Economic Costing

TAS - Introduction

What?

Time Allocation Survey (TAS) data is information collected from individual staff members on the proportions of their working time spent on different categories of work. Staff report hours worked, but it is the percentage of their time spent on an activity that determines the associated cost.

Why?

• TAS data is an essential input to determining and justifying the indirect costs in the costing and pricing of research grants and contracts; (the University was subject to a detailed audit by the Research Councils in 2008).
• TAS Data is an essential input to annual compulsory reporting to the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) on Teaching costs. How this will feed into Teaching funding has yet to be decided.
• Up-to-date data is required.

Importance of Accuracy

Inaccurate data will potentially lead to erroneous costings for Research and Teaching, for example:

• Overstating Teaching time will inflate Teaching costs (and consequently understate Research costs), resulting in an unjustifiable extra cost compared with FE.
• Understating Teaching time risks a future lowering of the Teaching Unit of Resource.
• The support element of Research feeds into the indirect costs on research grants or contracts. Under-reporting this means that full costs are not being recovered. Over-reporting makes GU expensive compared with other universities.