Examination of Witness (Questions 440-459)
8 NOVEMBER 2004
DR KIM
HOWELLS MP
Q440 Mr Chaytor: It would be useful to
know also if there had been any previous discussions between Sir
Brian Fender and Sun Microsystems or between the department and
Sun Microsystems. It would be very helpful if we could understand
exactly what the relationship was and whether it was an open process
or a preferred bidder or whatever.
Dr Howells: I have found in the
blue sector, which relates to the year 2001, "19 October,
strategic alliance signed with Sun Microsystems". That is
19 October 2001. On 28 November Sir Anthony Cleaver was appointed
Chair of UKeU after being interviewed by non-executive directors.
Also, UUK, the SCOP and all HE funding councils appointed "hold
co", which was the holding company, so they all had a hand
in that, and Brian Fender was elected chair for the entire holding
company board at the first meeting.
Q441 Mr Chaytor: So the strategic alliance
was signed in October 2001 but it does not tell us on your—can
we have a copy of that flow chart because it would save a lot
of time?[2]
Dr Howells: Yes, of course. It
is the kind of thing that is needed, I think. I cannot see anything
else on here about—
Q442 Mr Chaytor: The question that interests
me is how was it decided and by whom, that a strategic alliance
should be signed with one company rather than having an open tendering
process.
Dr Howells: They might have been
the only company that came forward. I really do not know.
Q443 Mr Chaytor: It is unlikely they
would suddenly have emerged out of the blue in October without
some previous contact with either HEFCE or the department or ministers.
That is my point.
Dr Howells: I will certainly try
to find out.
Q444 Mr Chaytor: Can I ask one further
question on accountability, or rather the accounts? Do we have
a breakdown—I cannot recall if we were told this in the
previous evidence session—of how the £50 million was
ultimately spent because obviously some went to the e-China project,
some went to bonuses to the Chief Executive and the staff, but
we are assuming the bulk of that was spent on the development
of the platform with Sun Microsystems. Is that right?
Dr Howells: Would it help the
committee, Mr Chairman, if I read out the main headings and where
the money went?
Q445 Chairman: Carry on.
Dr Howells: This is a document
which I will gladly share with the committee[3]It
says that £62 million was allocated to the eUniversity's
project for the period 2001-2004. "Of this amount HEFCE anticipates
spending a total of around £50 million", and they have
indicated the breakdown as follows, first, that what are called
the public good activities; e-China £3 million; eLearning
Research Centre £1 million; research studies and other disseminations,
including the HEFCE contribution to the borderless education report
which I mentioned earlier, £2 million pounds; advisers, legal
and business, £1 million pounds; and then on the commercial
side, the technology platform development £13.9 million;
the learning programmes development £11 million; sales and
marketing, including overseas, £4.2 million; and UKeU operating
costs £13.4 million. According to this arithmetic the total
is £49.5 million. I will hand this over.
Q446 Mr Chaytor: Thanks very much. We
are told that the Chief Executive and the Chairman met with the
Minister every six months from the date of the launch of the company.
Presumably those meetings were minuted and the question is therefore,
in the minutes of those meetings was the full scale of the difficulties
clearly reported by the Chairman and the Chief Executive?
Dr Howells: I assume they would
be minuted, Mr Chaytor. Just about every meeting I have ever been
in has been minuted. I do not know what happens to those minutes,
I have to say. I am sure there must be some record of the nature
of the discussion.
Q447 Chairman: Can we have the minutes?
Dr Howells: I will have to check
on that. I do not know what the protocol is but I will check.
Q448 Chairman: I think we are allowed
to have papers and persons, are we not?
Dr Howells: You know I am a very
generous person and if I can get them to you I will. Mr Chaytor,
it was an open process by which Sun was chosen. There was a general
call for private sector partners made in late 2000 and lengthy
negotiations with potential partners, and it was narrowed to Sun
by October 2001.
Q449 Mr Chaytor: We have asked if we
can see the minutes because if the company was established in
late 2001 and it was all folded in mid 2004 there must have been
at least four meetings between the Chief Executive and the Chairman
and the Minister if they took place every six months, must there
not?
Dr Howells: I shall take the message
back to the Secretary of State, Mr Chairman.
Q450 Chairman: Minister, who is the most
senior person you have met at Sun Microsystems since you came
to the job?
Dr Howells: I have not met Sun
Microsystems.
Q451 Chairman: Are you going to?
Dr Howells: I had not thought
about it, to be honest.
Q452 Chairman: If you bought a new car
and something was fundamentally wrong with it, or a computer or
a hi-fi system (if you can still call them hi-fi systems), you
would be very keen to see the manager of the place that sold it
to you, would you not?
Dr Howells: Yes, I probably would.
Q453 Chairman: So if this chap has taken
£13.5 million, or his or her company has, would it not be
sensible for someone senior somewhere to talk to Sun Microsystems
and say, "This is an awful lot of money and the platform
seems to have problems and we cannot even sell it second-hand.
Could we have some of our money back?", with, in parenthesis—"And,
of course, you get a lot of other business from government departments
and we want to continue in a good relationship". If you could
get £10 million pounds back you would be assured of a place
in the Cabinet, would you not?
Dr Howells: I doubt it!
Q454 Chairman: Seriously.
Dr Howells: I am sure it would
be an interesting meeting. I can remember when I was working on
the Computers for Schools programme back in 1997-98 I met a number
of companies because there were lots of fears around, and you
will remember this, Mr Chairman, that there was not enough competition
about, that certain companies were being favoured above others
and so on because of existing reputations, and they were very
interesting meetings because you got a very different perspective,
of course. I had not planned to meet Sun Microsystems. It sounds
like a good idea to me, and if I can get £10 million back
for the nation, well—
Chairman: If you get it back I will have
some for Huddersfield and you can have some for Pontypridd. Mr
Jackson is going to take us now into the future of eLearning.
Q455 Mr Jackson: I guess the Minister
has already answered the question about the web-based learning
platform that cost over £20 million. Can any public funds
be reclaimed through the sale of this platform? Would you like
to say a bit more about this?
Dr Howells: I did try to explain,
Mr Jackson, about the difficulty that they had with selling this.
As you know, because you dealt very much with this, the whole
business of the value of intellectual property is that it is never
easy. I certainly think there must be a residual worth in this
but what it is exactly I have absolutely no idea. Whether that
platform as it exists at the moment can be taken by someone else
I also do not know, but I do know that there are a number of universities
who are very interested in seeing whether or not that platform
or the model on which it was based might enhance their own efforts
to promote eLearning.
Q456 Mr Jackson: Perhaps I might ask
the Minister to keep in touch with the committee about the progress
that the department makes in getting some value for the taxpayer
from this. What about the eLearning Research Centre? What is happening
on that front?
Dr Howells: The eLearning Research
Centre aims to identify and investigate research problems in the
field of eLearning. They, of course, have strategic importance
for the sector as a whole. Originally it was set up as part of
the eUniversity's programme within UKeU and it will now operate
under the guidance of the HE Academy. One of its objectives will
be to ensure that the HE sector benefits from the work of UK eUniversities
worldwide. It is based across two locations, the University of
Manchester and the University of Southampton. They will work closely
together to ensure that their activities are aligned and to this
end their work will include a number of joint projects and research
activities. If I could just expand a little on that, the focus
of Manchester will be in the area of process modelling based on
the concept of an end-to-end process for design development, evaluation,
delivery and maintenance of eLearning, and the focus at Southampton
will be on the pedagogic aspects of eLearning in the end-to-end
process of development.
Q457 Mr Jackson: I wonder if the Minister
has any comments in the light of this whole fiasco on the question
whether the Research Centre, as he has described, is going to
be learner centred rather than technology driven because I think
part of the problem in all of this was being over-excited by the
technological possibilities and under-informed about the potential
interest amongst learners. Is that lesson going to be learned
in this context?
Dr Howells: I think it has been
learned and it is a very important lesson. We know, for example,
from failures in other countries as well that what people want
is not simply to be able to access information and programmes
on their screens; they also want face-to-face meetings and they
want to be part of something that people of our generation called
a university.
Q458 Mr Jackson: The Minister used the
phrase "blended learning" earlier. I thought at first
it was "blinded learning". I wonder if he could tell
us a little bit about the DfES's efforts to promote blended learning.
He might begin by explaining what it is.
Dr Howells: It is a very good
question. I have just come across this phrase myself. It is a
process which the OU has been very good at, for example, of being
able to access some part of the course by, in the early days,
radio and television, now via PCs and other technologies, and
also making sure that people get to meet their tutors and their
lecturers at some stage and each other. That is what I understand
by "blended learning"; it is a blending of more traditional
methods with using new technological platforms.
Mr Jackson: Chairman, the government
have a general commitment and the DfES has a specific commitment
within that to "embed eLearning" and e-processes over
the next 10 years. Could the Minister tell us a little bit about
the progress that has been made in that direction?
The Committee suspended from 5.35 pm to 5.46
pm for a division in the House
Q459 Chairman: Minister,
thanks for coming back with such alacrity. We were talking about
blended learning. You are absolutely right. It goes back to the
lessons that were learned in the Open University, that television
and radio programmes did not do it all. You had to have excellent
quality published material, tutor marked assignments and human
beings to tutor you because it did not work without it. Blended
learning is nothing new, but you were surprised that certain people
in this organisation did not seem to understand that there were
problems.
Dr Howells: Yes, I was very surprised
by that because the experience of mixing with other people and
of speaking face to face with tutors and lecturers and so on is
a key part of university experience and of the learning experience
in general. I worry about it beyond this project. There are also
tensions which can arise with some of the universities that a
lot of people in this country aspire to which receive an enormous
amount of research funding but where I suspect there are some
students who might be very brilliant (they probably have to be
to get in there) but who perhaps do not always receive the attention
they should receive as part of that learning experience. It is
something we have got to look at.
Chairman: An interesting one for another
inquiry.
2 Ev 68 Back
3
Ev 68 Back
| 
