Consultancy, secondary employment and internal work

The University is committed to encouraging and enabling consultancy activities that are aligned with the core academic activities of UQ, and enhance prospects for future research partnerships with industry, government and other organisations.

Consultancy includes any work or services provided by UQ to an external party (e.g. industry, government or other organisations) in return for payment and involves the University providing:

• skills and expertise of University staff; and/or
• access to University resources name, property, equipment or facilities to work on a specific task or project with a specific end objective.

Any non-research work that utilises the University’s name, property, facilities or other resources must be transacted through the University as consultancy. Where a potential overlap between research and consultancy work occurs, the University’s preference is that work be conducted as research rather than consultancy.

Three types of consultancy that UQ staff engage in have been defined in the new Consultancy, Secondary Employment and Internal Work Policy: Standard, Teaching and Academic.

Standard consultancy

Standard consultancy includes professional services, expert opinion, advice, analysis, product testing, general testing services and process development. There are three distinct types of standard consultancy for academic staff:

• Type 1 is based on the operating model and strategic requirements of the organisational unit rather than the monetary value of the consultancy work. The primary purpose of Type 1 is to support the budget of the organisational unit. Type 1 is currently limited to the Sustainable Minerals Institute, Institute for Social Sciences Research, and any research infrastructure services.
• Type 2 is a contract or engagement that results in over $10,000 of direct costs to UQ and must be supported by a contract. The purpose of Type 2 is to develop external partnerships and/or receive discretionary research funds. All expert witness work, regardless of the value, is considered Type 2. Type 2 may be eligible for Consultancy Performance Payments (CPP). The Consulting and Research Expertise (CoRE) unit is responsible for providing advice and support for all Type 2.
• Type 3 is a contract or engagement that results in $10,000 or less of direct costs to UQ and should be supported by a contract. The purpose of Type 3 is to generate connections, discretionary research funds, or enhance the personal development of a staff member.

All professional staff consultancy work, regardless of value, is treated as Standard Consultancy Type 3, however, it is not eligible for Consultancy Performance Payments (CPP).

Teaching consultancy

Teaching consultancy involves the delivery of programs, courses and professional development to non-enrolled students. Two types of teaching consultancy are recognised:

• Type A is work of strategic importance to the organisational unit and is key to supporting its budget and core business. Type A typically utilises staff resources from other operational units and is work conducted outside the usual workload and may be eligible for Teaching Consultancy Payments (TCP). Type A is currently limited to the UQ Business School, Executive Education and the Institute of Continuing and TESOL Education, International Development.
• Type B is primarily to generate income for an organisational unit and to generate connections with industry and/or future students. Type B is work conducted within workload and is not eligible for Teaching Consultancy Payments (TCP). Examples include Continuing Professional Development (CPD) teaching and contract teaching to students from other universities.

Academic consultancy

Academic consultancy profiles the University through academic engagement and provides a service to the discipline. Academic consultancy involves services supplied to a government funding agency or another university, or solely supplied for the dissemination of knowledge.

Common services include honorariums, speaker’s fees, and payment for reviewing grants or theses, participation grant award and academic review panels, and journal editorships.

It may also include allowances or stipends received while on the Special Studies Program (SSP) from a host institution, or reimbursement of travel costs.

Academic consultancy work above the threshold value per transaction ($1,000) should be transacted through UQ’s financial and payroll systems. If the organisation will not make payment directly to UQ, prior approval may be provided to the staff member for payment via the payroll of the organisation (if the work is defined as academic consultancy).

Book royalties are excluded from academic consultancy in accordance with the Intellectual Property Policy and may be received by staff in their private capacity.

Staff can earn the proceeds of any work below the threshold value ($1,000) in their private capacity.

Example scenarios

These example scenarios represent situations that commonly occur at UQ. The examples are a guide only and do not cover every possible situation.

1. Type 3 Standard Consultancy (Academic Staff)

I have been approached by XYZ Trading to do a small piece of consultancy work for them. I will be doing the work myself as the CI (Academic level E), it is 40 hours’ worth of my time.

1. What type of consultancy is this?
2. What do I have to do before I commence the work?
3. What price should I charge the client?
4. Do I have to pay indirect costs to UQ?
5. Can I receive a personal payment for this work?

If (5) is no, what can I use the money for?

Response

1. This is Type 3 standard consultancy as the direct costs (CI’s salary costs) which total $5,028 for this project are less than $10,000.
2. You would need to seek approval from your Head of School or Level 5 Authorised Officer prior to commencing work and you should agree contract terms with XYZ Trading, preferably using UQ’s standard contract. The contract will need to be approved in accordance with the Delegations Policy and Schedule of Contract Sub-Delegations.
3. The University will seek to price consultancy projects to recover, at minimum, all direct costs and indirect costs. The costing and pricing of the project must be calculated using the UQ Costing and Pricing Tool (Research and Consultancy Costing and Pricing Procedure 2.0). The minimum indirect cost recovery rate for consultancy funding is calculated as 40% of actual direct costs (Research and Consultancy Costing and Pricing Procedure 3.2).
   The minimum price in this case would be $7,039. Wherever possible staff must price consultancy work in line with market prices, thereby also recovering a margin on the project (Research and Consultancy Costing and Pricing Procedure 3.3). CoRE is available to seek advice on pricing, but a good commercial ‘rule of thumb’ is to price at 2 x direct costs. This would result in a contract price in this case of $10,000 of which $5,028 is direct costs, $2,011 is indirect costs and the remainder of $2,961 is the margin.
4. As this is Type 3 Standard Consultancy, no indirect costs are required to be distributed to UQ. You will be able to retain the indirect costs (and margin if applicable) recovered in the contract price from XYZ Trading in your consultancy account as a surplus (Consultancy Procedure Appendix).
5. As this is Type 3 Standard Consultancy, no personal payments are permitted (Consultancy Procedure 3.2 & Appendix).
6. Funds will be held in a restricted consultancy account and must be used for valid UQ business purposes, in compliance with requirements of all UQ policies and procedures, and with the primary objective of supporting research, teaching and academic-related service activities (Consultancy Procedure 3.3).

2. Academic Consultancy

I have been invited to speak at a conference. The conference organiser will be paying me a speaker’s fee and reimbursing my travel costs. The total payment will be in the region of $2,000.

What are the relevant requirements of the new policy or procedures that I need to be aware of?

Response

This work would fall under the definition of Academic Consultancy. As the amount involved is greater than the threshold value of $1,000, this work needs to be transacted through the University as consultancy and all of the principles of consultancy should apply to this work (Consultancy Procedure 2.0).

Indirect costs are not applied on academic consultancy (Research and Consultancy Costing and Pricing Procedure 3.2).

Receipt of funds > $1,000 payable to the University may be accomplished by:

• Requesting the financial professional services transactional team to send a UQ invoice to the organisation intending to pay the staff member, on the basis of
  • a purchase order from the organisation,
  • or a contract or agreement. 

Approved payment options and instructions are provided on every UQ invoice.

If, under unavoidable circumstances, a deposit to UQ’s bank account is required (without a UQ-issued invoice), the instructions are:

1. third-party reimbursement
2. money orders
3. credit cards.

For more details on using these methods see: Teaching and Academic Consultancy Standard Operating Procedure.

The following payment methods should not occur for academic consultancy funds > $1,000:

• cash payments
• cheques payable to individual staff members
• payments made to private bank accounts and
• invoices not generated from UniFi.

UQ strongly discourages the acceptance of cash by staff. However, any staff member who is unavoidably given cash, must contact UQ’s accounts receivable section as soon as practically possible on (07) 3346 7854 or cash@uq.edu.au to seek further advice.

If you are carrying cash, ensure that it is concealed and secure. UQ’s priority is staff safety and wellbeing. Foreign cash must be securely returned to Australia and converted to AUD before it can be banked.

Academic Consultancy personal payments from ACA accounts may be accessed on a transactional basis related to external income received, on written approval by appropriate Level 5 Authorised Officer or above (Consultancy Procedure 3.2).

3. Outside employment during work hours (Professional Staff)

I am a professional staff member (HEW 10) and have been asked to be a non-executive board member of a company that operates five fitness gyms on the Gold Coast.

I receive board fees of $10,000 per annum for this role. It requires me to attend board meetings quarterly during my normal UQ work hours. I always make up this time by working longer hours to make up for it.

1. Is this permitted under the new Policy?
2. Do I need to seek approval to do this work?
3. How do I treat the $10,000 earned?
4. Would the treatment differ if I were to take annual leave to attend the Board meetings?

Response

This is related to Consultancy, Secondary Employment and Inside Work Policy 1.0.

The policy applies to all University staff and affiliates unless stated otherwise:

• The definition of staff includes professional staff.
• For professional staff, the use of UQ resources includes work conducted within standard expected work hours as agreed with the supervisor for HEW 8 to 10 or within the standard span of hours for HEW 1 to 7.

Due to the use of UQ resources (time), this work meets the definition of consultancy and should be managed through UQ.

Approval from supervisor (Level 5 equivalent) is required, particularly as it will impact your work hours. Considerations would include benefit to UQ, extent of work, benefit to the individual etc.

The income of $10,000 should be billed and received by UQ and will be credited to the operating funds of the OU to which you report. It is up to the discretion of the OU as to how these funds will be used. An option would be to fund additional CPD/professional development for the staff member.

Professional staff are not permitted to hold consultancy accounts.

If you were to take annual leave to attend these meetings or attended the meetings outside of your standard expected UQ work hours, this would constitute secondary employment (secondary employment definition includes “during absences on approved leave”) and you would need to register this employment in the Secondary Employment Register as private practice (Secondary Employment and Internal Work Procedure). In this circumstance the company can pay you in your private capacity.

4. Subcontracts and collaborative research services (Academic Staff)

I require the services of Academic B (in the same organisational unit) to provide fieldwork into my research project funded by a large foundation. Academic B is a full-time UQ employee.

To complete this work, it is proposed that Academic B is engaged by UQ under a consultancy agreement with his personal company, under which he provides the services and for which the company receives payment.

The total value of consultancy fees payable to this company for the year will amount to $150K.

1. Is this arrangement permitted under the new policy?
2. What are the new policy requirements that I need to be aware of?

Response

1. This practice is not permitted under the new policy suite:
   1. Clients or counterparties to a UQ Consultancy agreement must be external to UQ. Staff (or external entities controlled by staff) are not permitted to be engaged, directly or indirectly, under a consultant agreement (Consultancy, Secondary Employment and Internal Work Policy 2.1.1).
   2. Staff (or external entities controlled by staff) are not permitted to be engaged and paid by UQ, directly or indirectly, under a subcontract or consultant agreement and are not permitted to charge their services to a project as an individual consultancy fee (Research and Consultancy Costing and Pricing Procedure 3.1.8).
2. The preferred method of apportionment of project income between UQ staff across organisational units is the Split Site Funding method where separate financial project accounts are created:
   1. Further guidance is also provided by Contract Research and Grants Financial Management Procedures: Where named UQ investigators on a research contract or grant span multiple organisational units and the project income needs to be apportioned, the preferred method of apportionment is the Split Site Funding method. When Split Site Funding is employed, the secondary gains from the distributed research income are attributed to the individual projects.
   2. Unless specifically budgeted for and contractually approved, UQ Researchers are not permitted to charge their services to a UQ research project as an individual consultancy fee. Services provided into a research project are deemed to be research services. Transfers of UQ research funds are therefore not permitted into individuals’ UQ Academic Consultancy & Award (ACA) accounts.

Relevant policy and procedures

• Consultancy, Secondary Employment and Internal Work Policy
• Consultancy Procedure.