Risk of ‘standardisation’ as ministers mull progression measures

I do think the External Examiner system needs some reform and should be made more professional and accountable (certainly less whimsical). Of course, if so then there would need to be some serious additional resource for those colleagues who act as external examiners with proper work loading, some form of training etc etc. The same goes for external examinerships of PhDs etc. These are essential and they need to be workload appropriately as a service to the community (reciprocal) or if not and are seen as supplementary then they should be professionally remunerated at proper rates with appropriate expenses and the expenses and remuneration paid in a reasonable time (not 6-8 months later!). This just looks like yet another attempt to add further burdens on to those colleagues who undertake such duties with actually very little reward. Maybe we should be paid at the same rates as all those endless and expensive consultants that our senior managers are so find of tasking to do the jobs they are paid to do themselves? But there is a whole raft of duties we take on, including program reviewers, external reviewers for which we are paid peanuts. I guess more colleagues are beginning to say no to these things and if so then the systems stop working. The senior managers pay themselves fortunes for their "professional" managerial activities (and their various moonlightings!), but we are just expected to absorb all this as "service to the community or things we do for the love of the discipline".

Us add insult to injury - the insult is the pathetic rates of remuneration for externals and for PhD examining; the injury is the egregious delays in making such payments as well as in reimbursing travel expenses. I hate having to keep putting in the Diary - ‘Paid by Barchester U yet?’…

If the external examiner system were that good, there wouldn't be grade inflation.