Dear colleagues,

It’s been a year since we introduced a single travel management provider at the University, and I wanted to write with an update on the first 12 months working with Clarity.

The appointment of a single provider was intended to:

• Help us reduce our overall expenditure on travel
• Help us support you in the event of problems while you are away
• Help us understand our global presence and potential risks to the University

Clarity has processed more than 16,000 transactions over the last 12 months, the vast majority through its online system.

For the first time, we have been able to get a real picture of our expenditure on travel. The extensive data that Clarity’s systems can produce shows that we are a University with a truly global reach and impact. Over the last year, our staff have travelled to 119 countries and 168 cities, flying 26 million miles with 143 different airlines.

The first year has not been without its hitches. In May and June our bookings increased by more than 50%, which put Clarity’s systems under pressure. As a result of this, and a considerable amount of feedback provided by colleagues, it is now implementing a number of changes, including:

• A two-hour turnaround target for all enquiries
• Improvements to the speed and functionality of the online system
• A new group of super-users (two per faculty) and a named contact at Clarity for our most frequent bookers

In our review meeting with Clarity last week, both parties agreed that there was a clear need for improvements to the online system, and they are working towards a step?change in the spring. It is worth noting that the response time will never be as fast as some as the online sites that you are used to, because these use stored or cached prices that may no longer be available. The Clarity system works off real time pricing and is therefore constantly seeking current, bookable prices.

We spent ?4.5m on travel through Clarity last year with an additional ?2m of travel spend still being put through our expenses system. A priority this year will be to see more of this expenditure put through Clarity so that we can access better fares and support you when things go wrong.

Spending more wisely on travel is one of the simplest ways that we can make better use of University funds, and I have asked all departments to look at where we can make savings. The research councils (now UKRI) are also keen for us to take action and rightly expect their grant conditions to be complied with. I’d ask you all to play your part in helping us to reduce travel costs, so that we can direct more money to the world-changing research and teaching taking place on our campuses.

Thank you.

Ian Dunn

Chief Operating Officer

Meet representatives from Clarity

Representatives from Clarity will be available in the Staff Club from 11:00 to 14:00 on Wednesday 31 October. Please feel free to drop-in if you have any questions for them about booking travel or using their system.

Need help accessing the Clarity system?

You can find Clarity’s online portal here and instructions for logging on here.

You can find FAQs about why we are using a single travel management provider here.

If you have any questions, you can email soton@clarity.co.uk