The national interest(s)

The UK has four separate national higher education policies. It’s a devolved matter, so the governments in Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh set the policies in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland independently of policies determined by BIS in London for England. But it is also the case that there’s a single higher education system in the UK – at least when viewed from the perspectives of staff, students and research funders. Staff move freely between the different nations; there’s plenty of student mobility between nations, and research funders look for the best research, which often spans the UK’s internal borders. So there’s two contrary facts on the go at the same time.

Universities Wales, the local franchise of UUK in Wales, has today published a manifesto which speaks to the tension which arises because of this. The manifesto, which aims to help shape party policies in May 2016’s assembly elections, sets out six ‘fundamental commitments’ for universities in Wales. Let’s take a look.

The first of these fundamental commitments addresses access to maintenance funding for students: “Provide means-tested maintenance grants for Welsh students from foundation through to postgraduate level to ensure that everyone in Wales has access to the life changing opportunities provided through higher education.”

There’s two things going on here. Firstly, a recognition that access to money to live on whilst studying is a major factor in widening access and enabling students to succeed. Future fee repayments are much less of an inhibiting factor than cash for food, rent and clothes. Secondly, the range of the funding – undergraduates are not the only students, and with postgraduate loans available in England, Welsh universities and Welsh students are disadvantaged if similar funding is not available.

The second commitment addresses affordability: “Prioritise university funding towards the policies that both provide opportunities to access an internationally competitive, high quality university education and deliver economic and social benefits for individuals, government and businesses in Wales.”

At the moment the Welsh Government provides a direct fee subsidy for all Welsh-domiciled (ie, living in Wales before they went to university) students, no matter where they attend university. So, Welsh government HE money is being spent to pay fees at universities in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland (although in practical terms the vast majority of Welsh students who study outside Wales do so in England.) And the plain truth is that this commitment places great pressure on other Welsh HE priorities. The Diamond Commission is currently looking at HE funding issues (and is due to report after the election – where have we heard that before?), and Universities Wales is aiming to help change policy. Welsh Labour has previously made a clear anti-fee commitment, so all policy help will be important. And it’s clearly tied in with the maintenance grants point in the first ‘fundamental commitment’: give something good to students before taking something else away.

The third commitment speaks to a very real concern for the larger universities in Wales: “Maintain in real terms the quality-related (QR) research budget that underpins Wales’ world leading research.” The size of the sector in Wales means that government can be far more selective in research funding, and REF 2014 showed that the quality of research in Wales as measured by GPA was high. What is also important that scale factors aren’t used as a reason for the Welsh government to reduce QR funding as a response to financial pressures.

The fourth commitment speaks to the variety of access to higher education: “Continue investment in part-time provision both to widen access to higher education and develop crucial skills within the Welsh workforce, mindful that part-time provision requires distinct support and investment in order to deliver for Wales.” This is an area where the English funding model has hit universities hard, with significant declines in part-time study.

The fifth ‘fundamental commitment’ relates to HEFCW: “Retain a funding and oversight body for higher education in Wales to manage risk and provide stability to the sector, provide assurance to Government and enable universities to continue delivering for Wales.”

The proposed changes in English HE would see the abolition of HEFCE. English universities value the buffer HEFCE provides between government and any individual university, and a removal of that buffer, with the more explicit possibility of government choosing which subjects and universities to fund, causes concerns. In Wales the issues are magnified: in a small country it’s easier for government to interfere.

And finally, Europe: “Actively support Wales remaining a member of the European Union.” Wales gets a great deal out of Europe – in terms of funding for economic regeneration, for instance – and it’s a matter of concern for Welsh universities that access to research funding, as well as staff and student mobility, should continue. In practical terms, Welsh government commitment to membership of the EU will mean little in the event of a referendum ‘out’ vote, but the ‘fundamental commitment’ helps emphasise the significance of the EU to universities.

So of the six commitments, the first five – maintenance grants, access to funding for all levels of study, research funding, part-time funding, and regulation – seek directly to counter, address, or improve upon, the changes which have or will happen in England. Welsh Universities know that if their part of the HE system isn’t finely tuned with respect to that in England, they’ll suffer the consequences.

A capital week

I write at the end of a long week which saw me in each of the three capital cities on the UK mainland: Cardiff on Monday and Thursday; London on Tuesday and Friday; and Edinburgh on Wednesday. Plenty of opportunity for reflection.

Cardiff, London, Edinburgh: and some other places too

One strand of this reflection was about the changes which are occurring in the UK through devolution, and the unequal parts into which the UK is divided. Universities’ behaviour is being affected by this.

Firstly, with respect to students. Each of the nations has its own policy around student support and student tuition fees, but England, as the largest in volume and wealth, is clearly setting a tone. With each student paying £9k per year, funded through the SLC; and now without any cap on student numbers, English universities can seek to recruit (they might not succeed) as many as they like, from wherever they like.

In Wales, the government subsidises students’ fees, so that they pay only about £3,600 per year, wherever in the UK they study. Welsh universities have a financial cap on how many Welsh-domiciled students they can admit (although I understand that in practice this doesn’t constrain recruitment of Welsh students) and the net effect of this is that Welsh universities do best, financially, when they recruit plenty of students from England, creating a net inwards flow of state funding for universities.

In Scotland, universities cannot charge fees for home (or non-UK EU students), but can charge for students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland. They are grant funded in respect of the costs of educating Scottish students. This means that for Scottish universities, students from the rest of the UK are valuable, bringing fee income. But, universities are not funded at the same fee per student basis as in England and Wales, so competing with their counterparts elsewhere in the UK is tricky.

In research things are different (for now): the principal of dual support (through the block grant and, in competition, from Research Councils) is so far safe. This means that every university will get some funds for research, dependent upon their baseline quality assessed through REF. But how long will this last? As national governments (ie Scotland, Wales, NI) gain more power, will they wish to include their ‘share’ of research council funding in their allocations? Will experiments in devolution in England, like that in Manchester, lead to regional university funding?

It is an uncertain time, and each university is also having to plot its own sustainability, with uncertainties about future state/fee funding arrangements, the prospect of further cuts in the coming years, and no real confidence that post-election things will be any clearer.

There’s no moral to this reflection. But there is an obvious truth that the future for university funding and system behaviour won’t be stable for a while yet.

Wake up!

Higher Education is becoming more and more of an election issue, and universities don’t seem to be waking up to the seriousness of this.

I blogged last week on Labour’s supposed £6,000 fee plan, UUK’s response, and the numbers behind this. Martin McQuillian blogged persuasively on wonkhe arguing that UUK had scored an own goal. And now a private members’ bill in the House of Commons seems set to keep the issue live.

The Bill was introduced by Oliver Colvile – MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport – on 10 February, and seeks to require university Vice-Chancellors and governing bodies to write annually to students setting out in detail what their tuition fees are spent on. The text of the bill is not yet published, and in any case there’s no chance that it will become law before the election, so it’s the politics which are interesting here.

Let’s have a look at the introductory speech made by Oliver Colvile.

The aim is that letters should be sent by vice-chancellors and governors explaining in detail how they spend their students’ tuition fees. We have to remember that students are the universities’ clients and customers. They are paying a significant amount of money to receive a service. I firmly believe that students deserve accountability from their institutions.

This argument is a straightforward value-for-money argument. The key point: £9k per year seem like an awful lot of money to many people, and if a family has no prior experience of university it isn’t obvious what they get for the money. And, conversely, for universities any individual student’s £9k fee is a relative drop in the ocean. There’s a clear mismatch between the cost felt by the customer/client and the benefit felt by the provider.

In last year’s annual grant letter, my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and my right hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr Willetts), who was then Minister for Universities and Science, expressed concern about the substantial upward drift of the salaries of some top managements at our universities. I believe that if universities were more accountable to their students, they would ensure that they could justify that expenditure.

Now we can see the politics. And it gets stronger:

According to Times Higher Education, the best-paid 10 vice-chancellors of English universities earned between £365,432 and £480,000 in 2012-13. … Members may wish to compare those academic fat cats’ salaries with the £142,500—including his parliamentary salary—that I understand the Prime Minister earns for running the whole country, rather than just one university.

Not comfortable reading for Vice-Chancellors. Although universities consider themselves to be autonomous and charitable organisations, the public funds spent on universities mean that this debate is fairly and squarely regarded as being about public spending. And Vice-Chancellors’ salaries make them amongst the highest paid public servants in the country.

There is a local dimension to this., The travails of Plymouth University, with suspensions, resignations and very expensive furniture, contribute towards this.  But the bigger picture betrays a different narrative to that pursued by universities, and the politics behind this – about shared pain, austerity and standing up for the rights of the individual – are a long way from serious discussion about the benefits and mechanisms to fund a world class university system. At election time universities must realise that the political arguments will always hold sway, and there’s a real danger that hard questions will be answered in glib ways, with damaging consequences.

Will the sector wake up to this in time?

Class action

The Department for Education released this week data on the destinations of key stage 4 and 5 school leavers in England, in 2012-13. The BBC picked up this story in relation to the proportion of schools which send few (or zero) pupils to Oxbridge, but there’s more to the data than that.

Included in the data was an analysis broken down by parliamentary constituency. I added to this data on the political party which currently holds the seats, and the resulting data set shows some interesting patterns.

Before the excitement of seeing the patterns, some caveats. Firstly, the data relate to England only: education is a devolved matter. Secondly, remember that this isn’t about the voting of the student themselves, or their families: it is simply the party which won in 2010 (or at a subsequent by-election) in the constituency in which schools are based. Thirdly, a few constituencies are omitted: either because they have an MP of a different stripe (Green, Respect, UKIP) or because there are no schools with Key Stage 5 leavers in them.

Just to show a modicum of thoroughness, the sample is 519 seats, of which 293 elected a Conservative MP; 184 a Labour MP and 42 a Liberal Democrat MP.

Who goes to university? School leavers in Labour seats are more likely to do so: 51.7% compared to 48.7% in Conservative seats and 46.6% in Lib Dem seats. But the population demographics are the other way round: the average Lib Dem seat saw 413 go to university, as compared to 362 in Conservative seats and 333 in Labour seats. Labour seats have fewer young people in key stage 5.

The data also tell us what sort of university they went to. DfE identify three groups here: the top third most selective, based on entry tariff (this is pretty much Russell Group plus old 1994 Group plus a few odd others); the Russell Group; and Oxbridge. Did the same pattern hold here? Hint: No!

20.1% of school leavers in English Conservative seats went to the top-third most selective universities. Slightly fewer (19.7%) from Lib Dem seats; and noticeably fewer – 15.5% - from Labour seats.

For Russell Group entry, Lib Dem constituencies nose ahead to first place: 14.6% of school leavers from Lib Dem constituencies go to a Russell Group university; 13.9% of school leavers from Conservative seats; and 11.5% of school leavers from Labour seats. 

And this patterns seems more extreme, when looking at Oxbridge. 1.4% of school leavers from Lib Dem constituencies went to Oxbridge; 1.2% from Conservative seats, and 0.8% from Labour seats.

What conclusions to draw? I think a couple of big points can be argued from the data. 

Firstly, in relation to HE policy and manifestoes: all MPs have constituents with offspring at university; and at all types of university, But for Labour MPs, the non-elite universities are more prominent; for Conservatives and (especially) Lib Dems, more elite universities are more of a concern. But for all MPs, most of the young people in their constituency who go to university go to non-elite universities.

This is the opposite of what one might expect from reading THES. University culture continues to be defined by the research elite. This is an important point for universities when lobbying MPs. The concerns of research intensive, elite, universities, will not be the most common issue raised about higher education by constituents.

Secondly, there’s a story to be read here about fair access. If the politics of the constituency MP can be taken as a proxy for economic and social wellbeing of an area (which is a defensible assumption), then it is clear that access to universities is not fair. And it isn’t only Oxbridge and the Russell Group that need to take action: the top third most selective don’t do too well here.

Food for thought, I think.

Scottish Governance

Recently the Scottish Government released a consultation document on University Governance. The BBC and other media picked up on this, headlining the proposals for elected chairs of governing bodies. (You can see the BBC story here, and the Scottish Government consultation document here.) The proposals are interesting and worth a bit of reflection. And certainly exciting for policy and governance wonks.

There are six specific proposals for consultation.

The first is the replacement of Privy Council functions, in respect of university governance, by a committee accountable to the Scottish Parliament, and comprising the same individuals who are consulted by the Privy Council currently on university governance matters.

The rationale is that this will speed things up and introduce an element of public scrutiny. In university folklore the Privy Council is very slow indeed and a reason often cited why universities can never change their charters and statutes or instrument and articles of government. In practice the Privy Council is now pretty quick on straightforward changes, but it’s a fair observation that previous changes in approach have not been subject to the same scrutiny. (My recollection is that the relaxation of regulation which enabled universities to slim down their charters was as a result of ministerial fiat, and not legislation, but I may be wrong).

The second proposal is for an expanded definition of academic freedom, building on the current UK definition (academic staff shall have freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges) by adding that academic freedom includes “the freedom to encourage the exploration of new ideas”.

I find this a little odd. Is this a bid to make enterprise feel a bit more normal as part of the academic endeavour, and encourage income from inventions, patents and the like? That might be a fine thing, but it's hardly an issue of academic freedom. If the Scottish Parliament really wanted to secure academic freedom then they could look at the legislation in New Zealand. I'll post on academic freedom another time.

The third proposal seeks to confirm the role of the Principal as Chief Executive Officer. This looks like a tidying up provision, bringing clarity to who should be accountable for public funds. But it also asks what title should be used, if not Principal, for this role. To my mind, if it looks like a Vice-Chancellor and sounds like a Vice-Chancellor, then it probably is a Vice-Chancellor. Are they hoping to make Principals into Presidents on the US model? Or is this just a distraction?

The fourth proposal is what got the headlines. And it isn't half as exciting as it sounds: the idea is not for popular (or in fact unpopular) election, like Police and Crime Commissioners. It is for a process of job description, search, shortlisting by interview and then election by academic staff and perhaps external stakeholders. Having been involved in the appointment of chairs of governing bodies, I know that it's tough to find the right person and persuade them to do the job. I'm not sure that adding a public election will lead to better outcomes.

The fifth proposal is for governing bodies to include two students, two staff members, two members nominated by Trades' Unions (one from academic and related staff; one from administrative, technical or support staff);and two alumni. The Trades' Union category is, I believe, novel; it will be interesting to see the reaction to this.

Finally, the sixth proposal is for academic boards to be confirmed as the supreme academic decision making body in a university (echoing the bicameral approach typical of chartered universities); that other than the Principal and Heads of School, all other members should be elected from amongst the university’s staff; that elected members must be a majority; and that the total size should not exceed 120.

This is, I think, quite radical. Combined with the other measures, it makes the Principal the CEO but builds in an academic check-and-balance against a university drifting from an academic mission as perceived by its academic staff. This might be seen as a move to reinforce standards, but could also be a way to guarantee conservatism within a university. Universities have found many ways to resist change. Read the Microcosmographia Academica if you need convincing of this.

FM Cornford - he of the Microcosmographia Academica

How will these proposals go down? Universities Scotland is against them:

We urge careful appraisal of whether government action now will enhance universities' implementation of the principles which are at the heart of our autonomy and success.

Which I read as a circumlocutory way of saying 'get stuffed'.

Whereas Ferdinand von Prondzynski, Principal of Robert Gordon University and chair of the 2012 Review of Higher Education Governance in Scotland welcomed the report, according to Chris Havergal in the Times Higher, as completing the work of the review.

Watch this space for next steps.