FOI_26-204 Staff surveys
Date of response: 25 September 2026
We have now considered your request of 31 August 2026 and your clarification of 03 September 2026 for the following information:
Re your staff surveys:
Question 1. The questions you asked. A copy of the questionnaire, or simply a list of the questions, from every staff survey you have run, or that a supplier ran for you, since 1 January 2022, with the date each one ran.
Please include shorter surveys run during the year, often called pulse surveys, and any survey issued to part of your staff rather than all of them. I would like all of them rather than a single example. Please also tell me whether every member of staff is asked the same questions, or whether they vary by role, grade or staff group.
Question 2. The answers. I would like both of the following.
a. For the three most recent surveys, the result for each question, whether that is the average score, the percentage answering positively, or scores against grouped themes, in whatever form you report it. I have kept this one to three surveys because it is the only part of this request likely to mean real work.
b. Any report or summary setting out what the survey found, for each survey since 1 January 2022. This might be an annual staff survey report, a results presentation, or a write-up of the key themes and findings. I would like these whether or not part a can be answered.
Question 3. The provider and the cost. If a company runs the survey for you, please tell me which one. If you run it in-house, please tell me what you run it on, whether that is a tool such as Microsoft Forms or Google Forms, or a survey platform you pay for. In either case, the amount you paid in your last financial year and the contract start and end dates.
If this is already published, on your contracts register or a public award notice, please include the link. An approximate range is fine if you would rather not give an exact figure, and if you cannot give the cost at all, please still name the provider. Please also say briefly what that amount covers, for example the annual survey alone, or pulse surveys, platform licences and analysis as well. And please tell me whether your survey results are brought together with other people data, such as turnover, absence or exit interviews, in any regular report or dashboard. One sentence on each is plenty.
Question 4. What followed. Any action plan or "you said, we did" summary produced after the survey, and any template or guidance issued to managers to help them act on their own team's results.
I am asking for the institution-wide plan, and for any produced by individual Schools, Directorates or teams as well, if those exist. If there are a great many, a representative handful is fine.
Question 5. Anonymous or confidential.
Are responses to your staff survey anonymous, so that nobody can identify who said what, or confidential, so that responses are identifiable but protected? One sentence is plenty.
Question 6. The response rate and the headline score. The response rate for the last three surveys, with the number of staff invited and the number who replied each time.
If you hold it, please also split those counts by staff group, however you divide them, whether academic and professional services or another arrangement.
Please leave out any staff group small enough to identify someone and send the rest.
Most surveys also produce a single headline figure, whether an engagement score, an employee Net Promoter Score or a wellbeing score. I would like that figure for the last two surveys.
Clarification received 03 September 2026:
Thank you for the advice, and yes, I would be glad to receive the response for the People Survey from October 2025 to the present, in full:
the questions asked,
the results,
the action plans,
who provides it or what it runs on
Our response:
For questions asked ad results, please see our-people-survey-whole-uea-results-2025.pdf
The University internal staff from our People and Culture Division run and maintain the staff People Survey.
On this occasion it is not possible to provide all of the requested information. In line with your rights under section 1(1)(a) of the Act to be informed whether information is held, we confirm that the University does not hold any recorded information for full action plan for the People Survey undertaken in October 2025.
The University undertook initial sessions with all Faculty and Divisions to gauge their views on what actions might be taken following the People Survey. This work is not as yet concluded, and therefore there is no central full action plan held by the University.
what it cost in your last financial year,
Our response:
On this occasion it is not possible to provide any of the requested information. In line with your rights under section 1(1)(a) of the Act to be informed whether information is held, we confirm that the University does not hold any recorded information for what the People Survey cost in the last financial year. Staff within our People and Culture Division are not paid specifically for their time spent in creating, running or managing the staff surveys. We do not record what the People Survey ‘cost’ the University in staff time. We do not contract out to any external party either, therefore we do not hold any information on what the survey cost the University in the last financial year.
whether responses are anonymous or confidential,
Our response:
All responses are anonymous and confidential.
and the number of staff invited and the number who responded.
Our response:
Total, 1,642 colleagues participated, which was 39% of our total workforce.
Three smaller things from the period before October 2025 would also help:
A list of any other staff surveys run centrally since 1 January 2022, giving the name, the month it ran and who was asked, for example a survey of academic staff only, or one on a particular topic such as the menopause or wellbeing.
Names and months only, no questionnaires or results.
Our response:
Since 01 January 2022, the University ran an all staff ‘Pulse’ Survey on a quarterly basis. The last survey was completed in July 2024.
This survey ran in:
July 2024
April 2024
January 2024
October 2023
July 2023
March 2023
December 2022
September 2922
June 2022
March 2022
All staff were invited to participate.
The questionnaire from the final run of the quarterly survey.
Our response:
For July 2024, please see FOI_26-204 Appendix A.
Any report or summary that was produced for each of the last four runs of the quarterly survey, its final year, where one exists.
Reports only, not questionnaires or underlying figures.
Our response:
Please see accompanying documents noted below for summary reports produced for each section of our Pulse Survey, for the last four runs. These summaries are included with the questions from each section; therefore, we have included them also for context.
We have also included within FOI_26-204 Appendix E results summary from the same period.
Wellbeing – FOI_26-204 Appendix B
Here and Now – FOI_26-204 Appendix C
Organisational Culture – FOI_26-204 Appendix D
Responses - FOI_26-204 Appendix E.