THE majority of staff at one of Scotland's oldest universities do not believe a radical overhaul of its structures has led to improvements, according to a survey which reveals the full scale of concern over the changes.

A poll of staff at Glasgow University found some 60% were unconvinced the revamp had been beneficial and half of academics said they were unclear of what is expected of them.

Last month, officials from the university admitted over-reaching themselves in implementing the biggest shake-up of the institution for decades.

An internal report by Andrea Nolan, the university's senior vice-principal, said the move to replace nine academic faculties with four colleges in one year was "over-ambitious".

Problems were compounded due to the financial climate, with the university seeking £20 million of cuts through voluntary redundancies, which led to 264 staff leaving.

In addition, there were other significant challenges facing academics, including the development of 58 new master's degree programmes to attract overseas students.

Significant numbers of staff were also tied up developing a controversial £14m student enrolment website called MyCampus. When the site was launched much of it did not work, putting an even greater workload on staff.

The university has also had to deal with the fallout from the occupation of the Hetherington Research Club by students and a botched attempt to evict them.

The survey following the changes found only 36% of staff felt they could cope with their current workload, while just 30% said they felt "empowered to perform effectively in their current role".

Only 29% said decisions taken were "generally effective", while just 10% agreed with the statement the new structure "has improved decision-making within Glasgow University".

While staff felt they communicated well with each other, only 14% said there was effective communication between them and the senior management group.

Although 37% of employees believe there has been some improvement under the new structure, the majority of staff believe the changes have not yet led to improvements.

A separate analysis of staff views also highlighted concerns over a lack of administrative staff.

"There was a widespread theme throughout the report of an urgent need for general administrative support, in particular more administrative staff," it concludes.

"Respondents complained that lack of administrative support caused them to become stressed and to rush work, resulting in poor delivery quality."

A Glasgow University spokeswoman said: "The report on the restructure of the university is an honest assessment, not only of the considerable progress made over the past year, but also of the challenges that have arisen, and how the university aims to address these.

"Our staff have worked tremendously hard and it is because of them our new structure is now delivering real success in areas such as new teaching and research collaborations.

"We are deeply grateful and appreciative of how staff coped in what was an incredibly challenging 12 months and many of the report's recommendations reflect their feedback and concerns.

"We are confident the University of Glasgow is now well placed academically and financially and will continue to deliver world-class teaching and research and the best all-round experience for our students."

Under the restructuring moves unveiled in 2009, some of the university's oldest faculties were merged or renamed.

The four new colleges cover arts, biomedicine, engineering and physical sciences, and law, business, social sciences and education.

A paper prepared for the university's Court in 2009 stressed the importance of streamlining university management to ensure money was spent improving the university's performance.

The paper said a step-change was needed in areas to achieve the university's ambition to be in the world's top 50.

"Compared to those universities currently in the world's top 50 we have relatively poor international and postgraduate student numbers, our research is not published consistently in journals, and our research capability is not regarded as highly by our peers," it said.

"This paper proposes a restructuring of faculties and departments as part of the next phase of the university's actions to reach its ambitions."