Memorandum 12
Submission from Professor G.R. Evans[18]
On "The responsibilities of the Government
and HEFCE in assuring (a) the quality of teaching provision and
learning opportunities in UK HEIs; and (b) the balance between
teaching and research in HEIs.
SUMMARY
1. The wording of the present question "joins"
the Government and HEFCE as though they stood together "over
against" UK HEIs. This takes the Funding Council to be an
arm of Government rather than a statutory buffer and appears not
to be in accordance with the intention of present legislation.
2. It is a Government "responsibility"
to ensure that policy is formed, continued or varied with express
reference to earlier policy-frameworks and in full consultation
with the sector, otherwise HEIs will unable to plan sensibly and
that will put taxpayers' money at risk.
3. There must be proper consultation if the "Robbins
Quadrilateral" is to be modified or abandoned as the foundation
of decisions in these areas.
4. There must be proper consultation a decade
on about the implementation of the Dearing principles relating
to these areas.
5. The expansion of targeted funding streams
affecting teaching and research is eroding both the "block
grant" and the "buffer" principles, without its
being established that this development is in the public interest.
The consequent uncertainties are compounded by HEI expectations
of special streams, and employer involvement.
6. The overarching Government and HEFCE
responsibility now is to consult widely on current trends in the
context of the history of policy-change, reviews and reports since
1992, so that the pros and cons of external intervention in these
areas may be considered calmly and objectively with reference
to the whole picture before any further initiatives are instigated.
EVIDENCE IN
DETAIL
Summary Point (1)
The wording of the present question "joins"
the Government and HEFCE as though they stood together "over
against" UK HEIs. This takes the Funding Council to be an
arm of Government rather than a statutory buffer and appears not
to be in accordance with the intention of present legislation.
7. The sole direct responsibility of Government
is to ensure good use of taxpayers' money in the public interest.
It has been an established principle for 90 years that this is
best achieved by funding universities through the allocation of
a block grant to each HEI, with broad restrictions which require
it to be used in support of teaching and research and the provision
of infrastructure to that end. Governments have not sought directly
to control the internal allocation of resources by HEIs.
8. For nearly a century a buffer, formerly the
UGC, now the statutory funding councils and research councils,
has stood between Government and the universities to ensure that
funding is not subject to political control.
9. There is protection to ensure that the money
is used for the purposes for which it is granted, in the form
of HEFCE's system of assurance and the backstop of a statutory
"conditions of grant" sanction. These principles are
embodied in statute under the FHEA 1992. "Conditions of grant"
sanctions have been used very conservatively by HEFCE and solely
where there was serious financial risk. To use such sanctions
to control academic activity in individual HEIs would take regulation
into new territory.
10. There are mechanisms within the sector
to allow a cause for concern to be brought to light. The Quality
Assurance Agency has provided one since 2007 and has strengthened
its provision and made it more "proactive" from August
2008. Research Councils UK is consulting on improving mechanisms
for raising concerns about research misconduct. Both bodies seek
to ensure that academic freedom and academic autonomy are respected
and that HEIs retain control of their academic affairs.
11. The weak point in the system lies not
at the juncture between Government/HEFCE on the one hand and the
HEIs on the other, but in the management structures of HEIs themselves
which have come into being as a result of the imposition of a
method of governance which largely separates a governing body
with a majority of external members from the academic work of
an HEI, and allows teaching and research to be managed top-down
by non-academics. There is an obvious analogy with the dangers
to patients of allowing NHS managers to take clinical decisions.
A review of the dangers to quality and standards inherent in this
trend is now overdue. It is here at "management" level
that HEIs have been taking decisions which have resulted in such
phenomena as rising proportions of first-class degrees and other
indications of "dumbing-down" by directive to academic
staff, though the frequency of such occurrences now needs to be
established on a more than anecdotal basis.
Summary Point (2)
It is a Government "responsibility"
to ensure that policy is formed, continued or varied with express
reference to earlier policy-frameworks and full consultation with
the sector, otherwise HEIs will unable to plan sensibly and that
will put taxpayers' money at risk.
12. The time-line of the work of HEIs is
fundamentally different from that of politics. There is a danger
of short-termism, or at best, a mismatch between the inherent
pace of the academic work itself and the thrust and time-frame
of a given initiative. This is wasteful of resources and cannot
constitute responsible Government in reference to higher education.
13. There is a history of lack of continuity
in Government thinking even in areas of policy where there has
been a relatively consistent thrust over a number of years. For
example, David Blunkett's "Skills" initiative of 1998,
involving several years' work, the publication of a series of
reports and no small expense, appeared to have been forgotten
about altogether only a few years later when the "Leitch"
skills agenda was published, adopted and acted upon in a matter
of months during 2006-8. Leitch makes no reference to this earlier
work.
Summary Point (3)
There must be proper consultation if the "Robbins
Quadrilateral" is to be modified or abandoned as the foundation
of decisions in these areas.
14. At the beginning of the 1960s the Robbins
Committee examined the questions which underlie the Select Committee's
(a) and (b). Robbins identifies a series of areas of activity
where the institutions must retain control, the making of appointments,
designing the curriculum and setting standards, admitting students,
striking a balance between teaching and research and deciding
their own directions of development ( Robbins, 711 ff.).
15. A similar summary was quoted from the University
of Capetown in the Standing Committee's discussion of the drafting
of the Education Reform Act 1988:
"the right to determine, on academic
grounds ( emphasis added), who may teach, who may be taught,
what may be taught and how it should be taught" (Standing
Committee J, col.1654).
16. The Robbins Committee also thought it
important to protect the right of the individual academic:
to teach according to his own conception
of fact and truth, rather than according to any pre-determined
orthodoxy [ and ] freedom to publish and,…to pursue what
personal studies or researches are congenial" (Robbins,
705).
This has been eroded by the introduction of
institutional research "strategies" and would be further
eroded by Government and Funding Council taking powers to direct
teaching and research, to determine the balance to be struck between
them in individual HEIs, or to concentrate research funding solely
in selected HEIs.
Summary Point (4)
There must be proper consultation a decade on
about the implementation of the Dearing principles relating to
these areas.
17. "A distinctive element in the
relationship between the Government, as a major source of funding,
and the higher education institutions, has been the inter-position
between the two of Funding Bodies, established under statute with
defined functions and responsibilities" (Dearing, 22.9)
18. On its fact-finding missions overseas the
Dearing Committee saw places where the making of academic and
senior administrative appointments did not rest with the universities:
" where academic salaries may be determined
by the government; where the addition of a professorial post may
require government approval; and where the government may have
powers to appoint some members of governing bodies."
19. Dearing decided to endorse the British
model:
"The independence, responsiveness and
effectiveness of UK higher education institutions owes much to
the well-established tradition of the government distancing itself
from institutions and entrusting the high-level administration
of the public financial to independent bodies of standing, the
Funding Councils" (Dearing, 22.10).
20. Indeed, Dearing supports the continuation
of this arrangement with some vigour:
" While the government can attach general
conditions to the funding it provides, it may not attach conditions
to the funding of individual institutions. We are wholly convinced
and firmly commend to the Government that there should continue
to be an arm's length relationship between government, both nationally
and regionally, and the higher education system, so as to assure
the autonomy of institutions within a broad framework of public
policy.
21. Dearing warned against creeping erosion
of the principle, citing the OECD's concern that:
"while no evidence was brought before
it of deliberate attempts to erode institutional autonomy",
"there are obvious pressures that individually may be slight
but collectively could impede the development of institutions
if left unchecked" (Dearing 22.11)."
Summary Point (5)
5. The expansion of targeted funding streams
affecting teaching and research is eroding both the "block
grant" and the "buffer" principles, without its
being established that this development is in the public interest.
The consequent uncertainties are compounded by HEI expectations
of special streams, and employer involvement.
22. The block grant principle is being eroded
by the identification of a series of funding streams driven by
Government initiatives.' Strategically important and vulnerable
subjects' are one such class of these identified by HEFCE:
"The 'strategic importance' of these
subjects refers to the need for some kind of assistive intervention
to facilitate the subject's provision. Where such intervention
is necessary in order to address a mismatch between supply and
demand, the subject is designated as both strategically important
and vulnerable."
23. HEFCE has been allocating substantial
funding which ignores both the block grant and the buffer principle:
In response to the Government's request, we
have undertaken a £350 million programme of work to support
subjects that are strategically important and vulnerable.
24. Two classes of such subjects need to
be distinguished here. "Vulnerable" are the subjects
which attract small student numbers or are expensive to teach.
Here the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)
are particularly significant and it is argued to be in the national
economic interest to protect and foster the teaching of these.
The second class includes subjects deemed to be "strategically
important" for other reasons. The prime example here is "Islamic
Studies" in the curriculum development and teaching of which
HEFCE is encouraging direct intervention at Government instigation
.There are clearly important public policy questions here.
(http://www.hefce.ac.uk/aboutus/sis/islamic/,
http://www.hefce.ac.uk/aboutus/sis/islamic/conf/).
25. There is a further public policy question
about the mingling of these academic objectives with "social
engineering" objectives:
"To support HEFCE's strategic aim to
widen participation in higher education (HE), we have required
key connections with Aimhigher, as the main national programme
which aims to widen participation in HE by raising the aspirations
and developing the abilities of young people from under-represented
groups. By targeting the projects in this way, it is hoped that
the projects will have a further effect of increasing participation
more generally from all groups"—(http://www.hefce.ac.uk/aboutus/sis/,
http://www.hefce.ac.uk/aboutus/sis/stem.htm).
26. Higher Education Innovation Fund [HEIF]Third
Stream funding is another example of the dilution of block grant
funding through special funding which intervenes in the freedom
of HEIs to allocate public funding as they think best for educational
purposes. Again it may be helpful to glance at the history:
"The NCIHE [the Dearing Committee] felt
that 'against a background … in which it is Government policy
to encourage all industry, especially small and medium sized enterprises,
… it is appropriate to have a funding stream that actively
promotes collaboration between higher education and industry and
commerce',"
as the Select Committee on Science and Technology
commented in 1998.
(http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199798/cmselect/cmsctech/303i/st0102.htm)
27. Third stream funding began in 1999
with the Higher Education Reach Out to Business and the Community
(HEROBC) scheme and was followed by the HEIF. HEIF committed £265
million in rounds 1 and 2 over the years 2002-03 to 2005-06 and
a further £234 million was committed for HEIF 3 for 2006-07
to 2008-09. The total budget for CKEs was £40 million over
a four year period which—as a percentage of HEIF3 for example—represented
an additional 8% of funds for reach-out activities—(Centres
for Knowledge Exchange report to HEFCE November 2007).
28. The Government noted in its response
to the Dearing Report, that "higher education institutions
had a good record in developing research links with industry,"
but by 2003 it was pressing energetically for more. The Dearing
Report thus turned out to be a staging post between the New Framework
White Paper of 1991 and the White Paper of 2003.
(http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199798/cmselect/cmsctech/303i/st0102.htm)
29. The Lambert Review, reporting
in 2003, not only took it to be appropriate for public funding
to be used to direct universities generally towards more active
collaboration with business; it put forward detailed and dirigiste
plans driving far into matters of academic judgement. Lambert's
Recommendation 6.1 was that the collaborative research with industry
"or other users" should be valued equally with purely
academic research by funding rewards given through the Research
Assessment Exercise. This would not be an exercise of academic
peer-review but of Government policy. The academic peer-review
exercise would itself be artificially adjusted from outside to
make businessmen co-decision-makers with the academic community
("There should be significantly more business input into
the priority setting, decision-making and assessment panels of
both of the peer review processes").
30. Lambert went further and suggested interfering
with the balance of public funding allocation between infrastructure
and project funding in the interests of promoting industrial outcomes
from academic research:
The Government should consider the relative
size of the Funding Council and Research Council funding streams
and whether the present system provides the appropriate balance
between giving institutions stable research funding and promoting
a dynamic and competitive research base.
31. A further steer came in Lambert Recommendation
6.2, which calls for a new stream of funding:
The Government should create a significant
new stream of business-relevant research funding, which would
be available to support university departments that can demonstrate
strong support from business.
32. Lambert had radical ideas about the
best way to administer this new funding. There were to continue
to be block grants, but these were to be given as "pots"
not to the universities but to bodies other than the statutory
funding councils , which could ensure that business-relevant activity
in directions favoured by the Government would be rewarded.
There are a number of possible ways to allocate
the new business-relevant research funding stream including an
expansion in the scope of Higher Education Innovation Fund, an
expansion of existing schemes such as LINK, or allocation through
the Regional Development Agencies and their equivalent bodies
in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Review's preferred
approach is to allocate the new funding stream to the RDAs through
their single pot allocation, and to provide them with targets
on promoting business-university (Lambert Recommendation 6.3).
33. HEIs have consequently renewed their
efforts to develop research strategy committees and to direct
the research of academics in ways which not much earlier had been
banned from consideration. It has therefore proved difficult to
achieve the objective stated in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise,
that:
"the RAE should not encourage or discourage
any particular type of activity or behaviour other than providing
a general stimulus to the improvement of research quality overall."
34. There are immensely important policy-questions
to be addressed about the desirability of the "Lambert drift"
since the influence of non-Government and HEFCE forces is not
envisaged in the framing of the questions addressed in this submission.
Summary Point (6)
The overarching Government and HEFCE responsibility
now is to consult widely on current trends in the context of the
history of policy-change, reviews and reports since 1992, so that
the pros and cons of external intervention in these areas may
be considered calmly and objectively with reference to the whole
picture before any further initiatives are instigated.
35. Elements in current policy are likely
to create a downward drag on quality and standards. For example:
36. The taxonomy of knowledge has been undergoing
huge changes in recent decades, both as a consequence of the advancement
of knowledge and because a wider range of studies is now considered
"degree-worthy". For Government and HEFCE to intervene
to steer change without reference to relevant expertise may be
dangerous to quality and the maintenance of standards.
37. Teachers at degree level should have
the ownership of their subjects which comes from active engagement
in research towards the advancement of knowledge. HEFCE has publicly
countenanced a re-definition of "scholarship" to allow
it to include merely "keeping up with reading" in a
subject-area.
38. Those teaching at higher education level
in further education colleges will not necessarily be qualified
or professionally competent to maintain the standard which has
traditionally been expected in HEIs under traditional "teaching-and-research"
academic contracts. Nor do their contracts allow them "research"
time in which to equip themselves for higher education teaching.
"Teaching-only" universities cannot offer students an
education of equivalent quality to teaching-and-research institutions.
39. The position of postgraduate students
engaged in research ( including PGT students doing short dissertations
) needs careful though in establishing a teaching-research balance
in each HEI. This cannot be satisfactorily achieved by directive
from Government or HEFCE
40. Employer-led engagement, by creating
courses of value only to particular employers, may diminish the
attractiveness of UK degrees to international students who are
looking for global portability.
41. There is urgent need for a review of
the principles governing "collaborative" and "partnership"
arrangements of all kinds, in the interests of ensuring that quality
and standards are not compromised.
January 2009
18 Project Leader , Improving Dispute Resolution (
HEFCE Leadership, Governance and Management Project). Back
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