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Who we are
The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university based in Norwich, England. UEA is a registered data controller of your information, which means we collect, use and store personal information about academic staff time allocation for the Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC).
We do our utmost to protect your privacy. We have security systems and procedures to protect information from unauthorised disclosure, misuse, or destruction.
What information we collect about you
During your involvement with UEA, the following personal information is collected, used, and stored securely by us:
IP Address
Name
How and when we collect this information
UEA will collect information about you during the collection of this data from the TAS survey you have completed. This is a data return that higher education institutions in the UK need to submit to their regulator or funder every year. It is based on the audited financial statements of the institution plus an economic adjustment that is used to determine the full economic cost (fEC) of activities.
Why we collect and how we use this information
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we consider that we need to use it for another related reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your data for an unrelated purpose, we will seek your consent to use it for that new purpose.
UEA collects personal information from you to perform its statutory authority as a provider of higher education and research and uses it:
Academic staff costs represent a significant amount of expenditure and these need to be allocated to the Teaching, Research and Other activities in the TRAC return. The time allocation survey is therefore needed to allocate these costs, as no other data exists on the use of academic staff time.
To complete the TRAC return, costs from the audited financial statements of the institution need to be allocated to the categories of Teaching, Research and Other activities. Some costs, for example catering costs, can be identifiable and directly allocated to the Other activity in TRAC, but many costs support a combination of the TRAC activities and are therefore allocated through a cost allocation model. To enable this, cost drivers are needed, and the academic staff time survey provides the data for one of these cost drivers.
Academic staff costs typically account for around 25-30% of an institution’s cost base. However, as each academic has their own unique role, it is highly unlikely that time is only spent on a single activity. Therefore, a process is needed to capture, at a high level, how time has been spent. The least burdensome way to understand how academics have spent their time is to ask for the completion of ‘time allocation surveys’. This includes colleagues who work part time.
UEA may use your information:
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) requires institutions to submit many research bids on a TRAC basis. TRAC includes a number of charge-out rates for research that enable the cost of overheads to be recovered, and these are used to determine the funding provided to institutions. This means that the time allocation data has a direct impact in the funding received by our institution.
Who we may share your information with
UEA may share your information with ERP-Apps and Unit4 where there is a legitimate or legal reason to do so or because you asked us to.
Third party providers of good or services
ERP-Apps, a partner of Arribatec, for the collection of data for your time allocation survey return. Unit4 as the provider of UERP, the UEA’s finance system for processing of your return to submit the TRAC return.
We will not normally disclose your personal information to other external organisations without your consent unless it is in the event of a medical emergency.
Only those members of the finance team who are responsible for producing the TRAC return will see your individual data. Summarised data may be presented to the TRAC Oversight Group and may be reviewed by Heads of Departments/ Schools/ Faculties, but data is presented so individual colleagues cannot be identified.
Data from individuals is NOT submitted to regulators and funders as part of the TRAC return. It is NOT used as part of any appraisal process or promotions process.
How long we keep your information
We will keep your personal information only as long as it is necessary for the purpose it was collected and in accordance with UEA’s records retention schedule. This means that, in normal circumstances, your full data will be kept for 30 days by ERP-Apps to be processed and 7 years in UERP.
UEA will always store your personal information safely and will never disclose it to any other person unlawfully.
Changes to this privacy notice
We keep our privacy notices under regular review.
This privacy notice was last updated on 01/10/2025