Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
PROFESSOR ALASDAIR
SMITH, DR
GERRY LAWLESS
AND MR
STEVE EGAN
27 MARCH 2006
Q40 Chairman: We need another 3,500
of them?
Dr Lawless: If we are successful
in a five year roll out of that programme we will deliver almost
300 of them. You are going to get rid of a chemistry department
that may deliver 300 chemistry teachers.
Q41 Dr Turner: I take it from the
tenor of your remarks, Alasdair, that as far as departments are
concerned there is no difference between English, media studies,
a science department. They are all the same if they cannot pay
their way. Is that a fair thing to say?
Professor Smith: No. I think it
is not a fair thing to say. There are some areas of activity that
universities make very special efforts to maintain because they
see them as very desirable to having a balanced academic portfolio.
If universities wished to manage themselves on purely market criteria
and simply follow where the student market goes, we would all
specialise much more than we do. There are many institutions that
could fill up virtually all of their places with students doing
business and management studies or creative writing or whatever.
We do not do that because we have a view of the kind of institution
we want to be. We cannot fulfil that vision completely independently
of the world in which we live and decide this is what a university
is and this is what a university is going to be. It is much more
sensible to have a view of the kind that says Sussex wants to
be a university that is strong in a wide range of disciplines
covering the arts and sciences and work within that framework,
rather than say that means we must have disciplines X, Y, Z, A,
B and C.
Q42 Dr Turner: Immediately you went
public I understand that the academic registrar wrote to all the
student applicants who had accepted places. Am I right that even
at this early stage 33 applicants had accepted offers and they
were qualified with at least three straight A levels? We are talking
well qualified students. What response did you get when you wrote
to them? Are they going to consider coming under these circumstances?
Professor Smith: It was very important
for us to write to applicants because we knew it was very likely
that stories about chemistry in Sussex would appear in the newspapers
over the weekend, as indeed they did. We felt it essential to
get in touch with them in advance of that happening. I think there
were not 35 applicants sitting on unconfirmed offers. Sitting
on accepted offers I think it was more like ten. We got in touch
with them then and we are now continuing to keep in touch with
them, to keep them informed about the fact that there is a discussion
going on about the future of chemistry at Sussex because that
would be germane to their decisions. Since all the options are
open, we are doing our best and the chemistry department is doing
its best to keep these applicants warm as well as well informed.
I am not going to pretend to the Committee that everything is
done perfectly. In this kind of situation you do lots of things
that in retrospect you could have done better. I think we were
absolutely right to get in touch with the applicants on the Friday
afternoon when the initial proposal was announced. It would probably
have been better had we got the chemistry department involved
in that communication rather than it going from the Academic Registrar
of the University, but I know the academic registry are now working
with the chemistry department in the continuing communication
with these prospective students.
Q43 Dr Turner: Have you noticed any
effect on applicants for, say, biochemistry who this affects almost
equally?
Professor Smith: It does not affect
applicants for biochemistry almost equally. We have not noticed
a significant effect. No doubt other people have had information
from other sources but we do not have any indications currently
of significant adverse effect on other applicants. There was a
higher education fair on the Sussex campus, although not geared
to Sussex University, at the end of last week. My colleagues who
were involved in the fair said the interest in attending Sussex
was running at something like twice the level that we have seen
at previous events of that kind in previous years. In previous
years, applications for Sussex have been very strong. I think
there were four questions from the many, many hundreds of students
there about chemistry.
Q44 Chairman: They would not be going,
would they, if they thought the chemistry department was closed?
What on earth would they go for?
Professor Smith: This was a higher
education fair for students in Sussex schools and colleges interested
in higher education.
Q45 Chairman: They are hardly likely
to go asking about chemistry when they know from radio, television
and the newspapers that it is closing.
Professor Smith: A prospective
student interested in Sussex and coming up to the Sussex stand
might well, whatever the subject, say, "What is all this
I hear about chemistry in Sussex?" We had very little sense
of that.
Dr Turner: I was going to ask about the
Royal Society but it is obvious they have got under Alasdair's
skin already anyway.
Chairman: I do not think there is any
point in pursuing the Royal Society.
Q46 Dr Iddon: I want to bring Steve
Egan in because I want to deal with the relationships between
the Higher Education Institutes and HEFCE, if I may. I would like
to ask Professor Smith first at what point did he contact HEFCE
when he was thinking about the closure or changing the shape of
the chemistry department at Sussex.
Professor Smith: I have the letter
somewhere in my files but it was at the end of February when we
got in touch with HEFCE.
Q47 Chairman: This year?
Professor Smith: Yes.
Q48 Dr Iddon: That was before the
department were informed or even the Dean?
Professor Smith: No. It was long
after the Dean had been involved in the discussions.
Q49 Dr Iddon: What kind of response
did you get from HEFCE?
Professor Smith: We got a very
rapid response from HEFCE and we got into telephone discussion.
There was a meeting with the regional consultant within a very
few days to look at the issue of how HEFCE would respond if Sussex
withdrew from teaching a chemistry degree in 2007. I need to remind
the Committee that the proposal being put to the Senate was a
proposal to stop teaching chemistry at Sussex from 2007 onwards.
Q50 Dr Iddon: Mr Egan, did you feel
that the approach by Sussex was early enough for you to be able
to enter into constructive discussions with the university and
the department?
Mr Egan: We would like to have
been involved earlier and I made that point to Alasdair. Having
been involved, we were keen to ensure that the interests of the
students, current and prospective, were being catered for in the
proposals and we did that. We wanted to consider, if the proposals
were to go ahead, what we would need to do in order to do what
we can to protect the supply of chemistry in the south east region
in a similar way we did with the Exeter closure.
Q51 Dr Iddon: This Committee and
a lot of other organisations, professional or otherwise, have
been very concerned about the loss of the science base in the
way that we are discussing this afternoon. As you know, the Secretary
of State for Education, who was at the time the right honourable
Member for Norwich South, asked HEFCE to try and protect vulnerable
and strategic subjects in the universities. Is this the first
time that you have been approached for help with a strategic science
subject in a higher education institution?
Mr Egan: Since the Exeter closure,
this is the first time that an institution has come to us. We
have taken proactive measures which I can go through if you wish
to engage institutions to collaborate more with each other so
that they determine options before issues get to this point. For
instance, we have a feasibility study in the south east region
concerning physics and how physics providers in the south east
region can work together. We have a similar arrangement developing
in the east and west Midlands for physics and we are having discussions
through regional associations at all regions across all strategic
and vulnerable subjects as to how we can develop consensus around
what can be done and how collaboration can improve and protect
the supply. Here is another range of measures we are taking, but
we will be producing a report at the end of June that says exactly
what we have done since we have provided the advice to the Secretary
of State and the Secretary of State said, "Yes, go ahead
and do this."
Q52 Dr Iddon: HEFCE in the past has
taken the attitude that universities themselves as independent
organisations must determine their own future. Obviously, the
Secretary of State intervened, as I just mentioned. Do I detect
therefore that HEFCE is changing its strategy with respect to
vulnerable and strategic subjects? Have you a strategy now?
Mr Egan: We do have a strategy.
It is in our strategic plan that is going to be published in the
next week or so. We have a plan against which that strategy shall
be achieved and we will be reporting against that plan in June.
That will be a public document which we would be very happy for
the Committee to see and examine. We still respect the autonomy
of institutions and the way that they exercise that autonomy.
We believe that to be an important part in what Sir Gareth Roberts
called a healthy and vibrant higher education sector. However,
he also identified that there are times when there are supply
or demand side issues that demand intervention, in particular
on stem subjects. We have developed a series of interventions
that allow us to deal with demand side issues or, in this particular
case, supply side issues. There is quite a list of those and I
would be happy to go into those if you wish.
Q53 Dr Iddon: As everyone in this
room knows, I am sure the government is heading towards a 50%
participation rate in higher and further education. This Committee
is very concerned that in all areas of the country we have a department
which students can attend without being involved in too much travel.
In other words, it would be preferable if they lived at home.
We are also getting very worried about the strategic provision
of chemistry in the south and south east of England. One of the
Ministers in the DFES has made the point that students who would
attend locally to Sussex could go to Reading. Reading is a tremendous
distance away. Are you trying to preserve, as one of the funding
organisations on departments like chemistry at Sussex, the geographical
proximity so that students can study from home?
Mr Egan: There is only so much
we can do on geographical proximity because we are not a planning
body; we are a funding body. We can attempt to get institutions
to work together as we are doing with physics, to enable provision
to continue in places that do not have provision at the moment.
We are working with the Open University to ensure that there is
distance learning provision available for students in various
places. We are developing life-long learning networks connecting
further education colleges with higher education institutions
so that students both have access to education and in particular
access to progression routes into education. I do not think it
is possible to provide every individual in this country with easy
access to chemistry provision.
Q54 Dr Iddon: Would you look again
at the proposal in one of our recent reports on strategic science
provision, the hub and spoke model that this Committee proposed?
Mr Egan: The answer Sir Howard
gave this Committee still stands. That is one of recognising the
importance of the collaborative ethos that you propose, emphasising
that we will pursue that. We have tried to do that already in
physics. We will try to do that in other subjects.
Q55 Chairman: That does not square
with me with the remit of HEFCE, in terms of trying to preserve
stem subjects. Sir Howard was quite keen about that. He did talk
to us about a collaborative model but if a university does not
even tell you that its chemistry is in difficulty until it rings
you up to say, "I want to close this department" how
on earth is that back seat driving, as Sir Howard once described
it? Is it now out of the car or are you out of the car? I know
he is out of the car.
Mr Egan: I have said that we were
disappointed with the fact that the university did not tell us
ahead of the one week notice that we had. We will be asking Universities
UK, who provide advice to institutions, to reiterate that advice,
that we would require earlier notification. Our assessment of
individual institutions would include our confidence in their
strategic planning processes. We are privy to what is going on
in the institutions and we take account of the turn of events
in this particular case.
Dr Iddon: You are one arm of the dual
funding mechanism. Is there going to be in future a strategic
approach to university which would involved yourselves, universities,
the government and the research councils as the other major arm
of dual funding provision, because it seems to me at the moment
as if we are adopting an approach of letting the market take its
course, laissez faire, if you like, which is very detrimental
to the science base in this country. We have a Chancellor of the
Exchequer standing up in Parliament quite regularly, including
last week, saying, "I am putting more money into science.
Science and innovation are the future for this country" and
yet the dual funding mechanisms of the universities do not seem
to be cooperating with one another to protect the science base.
Q56 Chairman: Is it just the market?
We just have the market now and that is it?
Mr Egan: We do have a market but
we are making interventions to try to address the very serious
issues which this Committee is concerned with. We are making interventions
in the demand and the supply side and we are working with the
research councils to ensure that there is capacity in order to
carry out the research and produce the postgruaduates that this
country needs. That is a joint scheme between ourselves and the
research councils based on an analysis of the situation which
we both agree on, so we are intervening. Yes, there is a market.
There always will be a market but that is not enough.
Chairman: You can only intervene if somebody
tells you something needs intervening on. You have no mechanism
for doing that. We are very frustrated.
Q57 Dr Iddon: Do you have adequate
intelligence together with the research councils about the strengths
of all the departments you are funding in the universities? Do
you do some horizon scanning to see where and which departments
might be under such pressure that they may be announcing closures?
Mr Egan: We do not do analysis
of the sort which says which are the likely departments to close.
We do have regular meetings with universities and talk these subjects
through and we expect a response on those lines. In this case,
we did not receive that and that is something we need to look
at to strengthen that process. I accept that criticism. There
is analysis on a forward looking basis that we carried out with
the research councils, for instance, looking at the age profile
and demographics of academic staff within each of the discipline
areas, saying, "What will happen if nothing happens to improve
that?" We have a look at the trends in demand for particular
subjects and say, "What will happen if we do not do anything
to alter that?" Then we take action accordingly. We do not
take action on our own. We work with partners. We have worked
with the Chemistry Learned Society, the Institute of Physics and
others so that we can develop schemes, for instance, that make
interventions on the demand side.
Dr Lawless: I would like to present
some intelligence on the market. I am a chemist and I have studied
our market very well in the last two years. The market is for
hard core chemistry programmes. We have slashed the number of
degrees we provide to a fraction of what we provided—about
four—and we have seen a sustained increase despite the slashing
of these programmes. Applications for chemistry have increased
45% from 2003 to 2004, 27% for 2005 and 40% for 2006. Our market
share of the national applications for chemistry has increased
from 1.2 to 1.4 to now 1.8%. Overall, our university only has
a market share of 0.8%. We are attracting high quality chemists
to Sussex. It is not a question of supply; it is a question of
demand now.
Q58 Dr Harris: On the issue of the
market, you only intervene, I am told, in cases of gross market
failure.
Mr Egan: Yes.
Q59 Dr Harris: Gross market failure
sounds like something that is gross rather than something that
is just a failure. You said you would intervene in the market.
I am suggesting you should have made it clear that you only intervene
in "cases of gross market failure". Is that a very high
threshold?
Mr Egan: It is, because we believe
that the higher education sector has performed well overall and
that intervention carries risks as well as potential benefits.
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