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Quango cuts put Hefce in danger
9 July 2009
Talk of abolition has provoked a spirited defence of the funding council, says Melanie Newman
A cull of quangos is being planned, raising speculation that the Higher Education Funding Council for England could be among those in the line of fire.
Liam Byrne, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has asked Whitehall departments to review all their quangos with a view to possible merger or abolition.
The Conservative leader, David Cameron, also pledged this week to cut the number of quangos - and their executives' pay - if he comes to power.
Andrew Haldenby, director of the think-tank Reform, said that responsibility for how much money universities should be given was a "fundamentally political question".
Writing on 6 July, he argued that Hefce "should be taken back in-house, into a government department, so that ministers are fully accountable for its decisions".
However, David Willetts, the Tory Shadow Universities Secretary, said it was not Conservative policy to scrap Hefce, which had a "constitutionally essential role" in standing between ministers and universities.
The Liberal Democrats have indicated that they would replace Hefce and the Learning and Skills Council with a single Council for Adult Skills and Higher Education.
With Hefce's future under scrutiny, others have leapt to its defence.
Bahram Bekhradnia, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said scrapping it would save little money and would create a "major governance issue".
He said: "This would go against a worldwide trend for governments to try to create distances between themselves and universities. Personally, I would see Hefce's abolition as a very serious and retrograde step."
Anna Fazackerley, head of education at the think-tank Policy Exchange, said she was "unconvinced" that scrapping Hefce would be a good idea. "Should a government department be concentrating its efforts on calculating funding formulae for teaching different subjects? I don't think so," she said.
However, she suggested that other sector bodies were ripe for the plucking. "Top of my list would be the Quality Assurance Agency, which seems to monitor paper trails and not quality," she said.
Terence Kealey, vice-chancellor of the private University of Buckingham, said that "as quangos go, Hefce is among the best". He said: "It genuinely tries to provide money to universities according to academic and objective criteria, and the idea that it should be replaced by direct funding ... and so render universities even more vulnerable to governmental direction is appalling."
melanie.newman@tsleducation.com.
Readers' comments
"Top of my list would be the Quality Assurance Agency, which seems to monitor paper trails and not quality." Yes! Yes! And yes again! Not fit for purpose and its audits are a vacuous and pointless waste of time and resource. I'd be happy to get rid of HEFCW though and subsume under HEFCE. It too doesn't deliver on quality. For example, Wales is not part of the National Teaching Fellowship scheme, and appears to have nothing separate of its own of this nature, which rather sends a signal about its view towards recognising and rewarding teaching excellence...
Get rid of all of these quangos. HEFCE, QAA, the whole lot. Let MPs become directly responsible and accountable for policy decisions and cover-ups of quality issues, misappropriation of funds, and workplace bullying. See how long they last in office.
Yes lets get rid of the useless QAA it is a monster out of control full of timeserving bureacrats who couldn't teach a lecture of any quality themselves. It has also led to inflated bureacracy at Universities with admin people jumping about to create more and more paper, more and more useless committees and useless policies just because the QAA police wants this and that. So yes lets get rid of the misnamed Quality Assurance Agency the sooner the better. Then tens of millions can be freed up to employ academic staff that do all the real work in Universities.
risible! you remove lines of defence and evaluation between universities and the government and what will happen? Inspection by the minisitries themselves and an HMI for universities - -fine. if we want to be closed down, have our degree awarding powers removed, be forced to address the contact hours question and have a register of external exminers and be publically divided into "divisions" of universities. Regrettably the public distrusts the universities themselves, not HEFCE or QAA - a suggestion of removal of such organs will make us look even more culpable. Surely the answer is clear: don't vote for Cameron.
But be careful what you wish for - the demise of the QAA doesn't mean Universities won't be held accountable. The most likely scenario would be OFSTED taking over instead and they don't really do light touch. If that happens, I would expect the pressure and bureaucracy at Universities to increase. Some Universities will probably be allowed to go private and they are likely to be the last bastions of certain subjects, with the remainder of the sector scrambling to deliver poorly defined 'skills' that employers won't want by the time they actually get them. Of course, I may be being overly pessimistic.
Crysanthemum you are not being overly pessimistic. Judging by the recent comments of David Willets and others the future is increasingly bleak for Higher Education in the U.K. But HEFCE should be abolished in my opinion, along with a large slice of the Department of 'Business Innovation and Skills'. All forms of education, whether they be Higher, Further or School should be completely removed from central government interference and receive a guaranteed settlement from the tax base. We need democratic governance, autonomy, and free education for all from 0 to earthly demise - AND WE SHOULD SETTLE FOR NOTHING LESS.
Free education for life? And why not a pony too? Anyway, educating yourself is free - until they shut the library. Getting qualifications, on the other hand, is about economic function, and it costs money.
do remember QAA is owned by the Universities it is not a QUANGO
A trite remark, Dave, that does you no credit. Are you a member of the Conservative party? Treating qualifications as simply means to economic ends (and making the assumption that such instrumentalism is inherent within education systems) is perfomative rubbish. If that is the only world you think is possible, you demonstrate the poverty of your imagination. Unfortunately, your approach is the one encouraged by the government, the CBI and much of the union movement and is increasingly taken for granted by the public as the primary purpose of education. Doesn't look good for the future, does it, if the vast majority of the population are encouraged to think in purely instrumental terms.
Dear Business Balderdash & Bunkum "Perfomative" ? Pardon me ? Of course education for its own sake should be available to all. But is it really so evil to expect at least a contribution to the cost if it serves no economic prupose ?
Anna Fazackerley, head of education at the think-tank Policy Exchange, said .... "Top of my list would be the Quality Assurance Agency, which seems to monitor paper trails and not quality," she said. Funnily enough, top of my list is the think-tank Policy Exchange! Just for being an oxymoron and serving no discernible purpose or group.
Yes, Policy Exchange is also top of my list for cutting . Unfortunately, however, it is not a quango and therefore beyond the debate really. And I think they do have a malign purpose - to spout right wing reactionary nonsense upon which the Tory party can freely draw.