I’ve launched an e-petition calling on the government to provide more protection to those taking out much higher loans from 2012. The petition is here.
Thanks to an FoI request, Hefce have released to me the membership of the panels overseeing the decisions on ‘bids to the margin’. Tenders for the extra 20 000 places were to be assessed on ‘quality, demand and price’. Hefce received applications for 35 811 additional places from 201 institutions (34 of which were higher education institutions, the rest were from FE colleges).
On the initial decisions made at the end of January, around half of those places went to the FE colleges.
I understand there are appeals in process by affected universities. Most appeals succeed by querying the process by which decisions were made. Here’s how Hefce did conducted the exercise.
An internal panel comprising a handful of Hefce officers made the initial sift of applications. Each bid was read by two assessors who operated a ‘triage’ system recommending ‘approve’, ‘reject’ or ‘further consideration by expert panel needed’.
An external met once on 16 December 2011, to review a ‘sample’ of the approvals and rejections “for validation purposes”. They also assessed the thirty-five applications that were considered borderline. The external panel split into two groups with one taking 18 and the other 17 of those cases. (Though all panel members received copies of all borderline bids.)
The two groups then convened to make final recommendations which were sent up to the Hefce board for approval. It is not clear from the document I have received how actual numbers were allocated against bids, but perhaps Hefce divided the places available amongst the bids approved?
Anyway, here’s what you are probably after: the names of those serving on the external panel.
Rob Douglas (Chair), Business Advisor, Douglas Associates Ltd, Hefce board member & Chair of Hefce audit committee
Sir Martin Harris, Director of Office for Fair Access
Stephen Jackson, Director of Reviews, Quality Assurance Agency
Craig Mahoney, Chief Executive of Higher Education Academy
Sir David Melville, Former vice-chancellor, University of Kent
Dominic Passfield, Student Engagement CO-ordinator, Quality Assurance Agency
Kim Thorneywork, Executive Director of Delivery, Skills Funding Agency, BIS
A lot of quangocrats. As such, are they really ‘external’? Or are they firmly in orbit around BIS and Hefce?
Moreover, there’s no input from active academics and so one might query their ability to assess ‘quality’.
If I were an institution unhappy with the outcome, I would have plenty of grounds to contest this exercise. Not least the implication that some of those rejected were only viewed by the internal panel.
Recently, there’s been a lot of hoo-ha over the appointment of Les Ebdon to lead Offa and warnings of the threat to the ‘excellence’ of our universities. But the margin and its tender process represent the kind of technocratic solution which is likely to be more pernicious: an attempt to execute the government’s hasty and ill-conceived schemes to drive down the cost of English higher education.
Updated 7 March 2012
Hefce have today announced the ‘margin’ results.
The big winners amongst universities are Anglia Ruskin (569 places), London Metropolitan (564), Nottingham Trent (558), Staffordshire (549). Amongst FE colleges Hartpury (352), Newham (294), Newcastle (260), Norwich (249) and Mid Kent (214) picked up more than some universities. Hefce has not yet published a break-down by subject.
Overall: “The 20,000 places have been divided between 190 universities and colleges: 9,643 places have been distributed between 35 higher education institutions (HEIs), and 10,354 places between 155 further education colleges (FECs).”
What appears to have happened is that bids were approved, the numbers in those bids tallied and then pro rata-ed to bring the numbers down to 20 000. Those who put in larger bids, got more places.
The 20 000 places were largely created by cutting places from universities.
At the end of February, it is worth returning to the question I posed back in December: where are we with respect to the government’s plans for higher education? Below I set out why I think we should expect primary legislation in 2013.
We have still had no formal response to the general ‘White Paper’ and ‘Technical’ consultations from last year (though the government has rejected the proposals in the separate consultation on levying additional tariffs on early loan repayments).
The Technical Consultation closed on 27 October 2011. According to the government’s own targets, a formal response should be produced within three months: we are now a month past the appropriate date. This has delayed the further the ‘Winter 2011’ consultation, which was supposed to look at allocations of teaching grant in 2013/14 and further liberalisation of student number controls.
If we look at the published ‘Higher Education Implementation Plan’, we can see another delay. We have seen no detail ‘on how and whether Government will proceed with a monetisation of the Student Loan Book’. (As I suggested in an article last year, I believe the main plans for monetisation through bonds securitised against graduate repayments are unviable – see ‘Into the Shadows’ Research Fortnight 381,14 December 2011.)
Delay to these measures entails delays to drafting the relevant paragraphs in any Bill (for example, ‘monetisation’ would require the creation of a new special purpose vehicle to create the bonds).
What’s substantively new since December are the noises about the planned 2012 Higher Education Bill being postponed. Though this has yet to be confirmed officially, the difficulties around the NHS Bill and changes to welfare benefits mean that tactical sense would point to leaving further contentious primary legislation alone at this stage; nor are the junior coalition partners in any rush to return to higher education debates.
Besides this ‘high politics’, there are other indications that the government is engaged in a tactical withdrawal: reculer pour mieux sauter.
First, there must be primary legislation before 2014/15: Hefce need the power to control access to the loan book else they will have no ability to control student numbers at that point. New powers mean new primary legislation. (Hefce controls grants, the purse strings exact compliance; from 2014/15, many institutions will be receiving no grant and hence have no reason to heed ‘core’ allocations). The Implementation Plan reads: “In 2012: Legislate to allow HEFCE the power to attach conditions to the receipt of grant and access to student loan funding, and to monitor institutions to ensure financial stability, and intervene if necessary.”
Further Developments
- The government has commissioned a survey of private providers offering higher education in the UK. The relevant tender was only published over the Christmas break. I suggest that this survey will be purely instrumental – designed to produce evidence that can rebut the successful campaigning against for-profits and sub-prime degrees, which has often been conducted through comparisons with the failures of the US market. Can the government find the ‘good news’ about how this sector works in the UK?
- The Cabinet Office has announced a comprehensive Review of the 2006 Charities Act. This consultation will close on 16 April 2012. Lord Hodgson, the conservative peer leading the review, has a background in finance and securities. He is seeking evidence on several topics including ‘exempt charities’, public benefit, and ‘mergers, restructuring and winding up’. These have particular relevance for English universities. Most interesting is the call for evidence on ‘organisational forms’. Within that document we find the following paragraph relating to charities with statutory and royal charters, a category which covers almost all English universities :
“A relatively small number of charities are constituted as corporations by legislation (statutory corporations) or by Royal Charter. Where these charities want to make constitutional changes there can be complex, lengthy and bureaucratic processes involved. The Law Commission will be considering issues that affect charities established by statute or Royal Charter as part of its Eleventh Programme of Law Reform, but it would be helpful if, as part of this Review, respondents pass on any comments they have on what they consider to be disproportionately burdensome requirements that affect such charities.” (my emphasis)
As you are no doubt aware, this is exactly the same theme as was addressed by both Question 21 of the Technical Consultation, (“Would you welcome legislative change to make the process of changing legal status easier?”) and paragraphs 4.35 and 4.36 of the White Paper which positioned this possibility in relation to freeing up universities to better attract private finance.
The Charity Commission responded to this clause by warning that any possibility of higher education institutions ditching their charitable status to attract equity investment would rewrite charity law. This review therefore prepares the groundwork for one of the main aims of the white paper – enabling private equity investment in established universities, and even enabling their buy-out.
- Michael Gove has played his hand. Orchestrating the press campaign against the appointment of Les Ebdon as Director of Offa, he demonstrated his powers as a political operator and seems to have David Cameron onside. He wants universities to be transferred to his Department of Education over the summer (and Willetts out).
Last week, Chuka Umunna tweeted “We are firmly of the view that higher education should stay within BIS but can Cable resist takeover attempts by Conservative colleagues?”. Malcolm Gillies, vice-chancellor at London Metropolitan, used his THE column to brown-nose the new boss. He needs whoever is in charge onside.
So where are we? I believe this all points to the following conclusion. The government intends to push through higher education legislation in 2013. If the charities review and the private providers survey produce the desired results, then it will look very like the agenda of the white paper. But, with Gove in charge, the Tories will have a more effective caudillo.
I am substituting for Stephen Shaw at tonight’s Cafe Curio: Systems at the Camden Arts Centre (7pm).
I’ll be giving a talk entitled, “Accounting for Loans: the financialisation of higher education”. I’ve only previously given it at UCL in December. It’s based on some hard to find articles I did for Research Fortnight last year.
The BBC is reporting that the Intellectual Property Office has objected to the original proposal by New College for the Humanities to register its name as a trademark. Though no official grounds have been given, the suggestion is that the successful registration by New College, Oxford before Christmas (over 600 years after its founding) may have something to do with it.
A bigger issue for NCH is that it does not appear on the UK Border Agency’s list of trusted sponsors and is therefore currently unable to bring overseas students to the UK.
The NCH website reads:
“We are currently able to accept EU and EEA or Swiss nationals only at the moment. While we welcome international students, it is not yet clear whether NCH will be able to sponsor students who require visas for entry in 2012. We expect to have further information by early 2012.”
Without a…
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I’ve confused myself recently on here with regard to dates of my upcoming talks.
Here’s a summary:
Thursday 17 February Cultures of Capitalism at the Whitechapel Gallery 7pm
Tuesday 21 February After the HE Bill at KCL 6.30pm
Saturday 17 March How it’s all kicking off (w. Paul Mason & Nathan Charlton) at Banner Repeater 1pm
There may be a couple of other events in late Feb/early March that have yet to be finalised.
A slight departure from normal.
I’ll be appearing at Banner Repeater on Saturday 17 March.
How it’s kicking off everywhere.
Discussion with Paul Mason, Nathan Charlton, and Andrew McGettigan.
1-3pm Saturday 17th March, 2012.Discussion between Paul Mason, financial journalist and economics editor for Newsnight and recent author of “Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere”, Nathan Charlton, technologist and director of Big Ideas, and Andrew McGettigan, author of the blog Critical Education and the book “The Great University Gamble” (Pluto, forthcoming)also of the Big Ideas team. We will be considering how the technology that facilitates the vast consumerism of capitalism is at some core level, implicit also in our ability to act politically, and how that affects our understanding of what it is to be politically engaged, with respect to older hierarchical structures and former traditions that may come into question as a result.
Defend the Right to Protest have announced two new events in March 2012.
The first is an open meeting, “Stand up for justice” to be held at Friends Meeting House, London on Monday 5 March at 7pm. Speakers include Imran Khan (lawyer), Liam Burns (NUS president), Alfie Meadows and others.
Alfie himself will face a trial beginning on 26 March at Kingston Crown Court despite being nearly killed by a blow from a police baton during the demonstrations outside parliament in December 2010. A protest in support is organised in front of the court at 9am on the 26th.
UCU policy people have alerted me to this document available from the Cabinet Office on dissolving public bodies. It contains a section on how to ‘surrender Royal Charters’.
3.1 A Charter can be revoked by an Act of Parliament or by the Sovereign. Technically, a Charter can also become forfeit through action in the Courts alleging impropriety, but this has not been used in modern times. In practice, a chartered body is normally dissolved through voluntary action culminating in a Petition for Surrender. This is done by the body petitioning The Queen in Council to accept the surrender of its Charter. The Petition is accompanied by an appropriate Deed of Surrender together with the original Charter bearing he Great Seal (and any Supplemental Charters). All these documents should be sent to the Privy Council Office. Acceptance of the surrender is signified by an Order in Council, which usually recites the terms of the Deed of Surrender. The chartered body ceases to exist from the date on which such an Order in Council is made.
This suggests that College of Law could faciliate an outright sale by first approaching the Queen directly to surrender its Royal Charter. This would be an alternative to the private Act of Parliament discussed in an earlier post.
What this document reinforces is the point that chartered corporations are in a different position to universities that have other corporate forms, such as ‘company limited by guarantee’ or ‘higher education corporation’. Those last two forms could become subisidiaries of for-profit companies. Chartered corporations would appear to have to dissolve themselves in entirety prior to a sale of assets etc.
The difference between the private College of Law and other universities can be seen in Section 11.
As a matter of general policy, when a non-Exchequer body disposes of assets (either tangible or intangible) which were wholly or partly funded by grants or grants-in-aid, the proceeds or an appropriate portion of them should be paid to the Exchequer.
College of Law does not have such assets. “Public” universities do but the matter would be resolved with a financial transaction. Paragraphs 4.35 & 4.36 of the 2011 White Paper should be read in this context: the ‘wider public interest’ is simply a fair price.
This Sunday will see an event in Cambridge Faculty of English organised by CDE and CACHE.
“Where next? Moving forward in the fight for higher education”
With talks from myself, Gurminder Bhambra, Diane Reay, John Holmwood,
Time: 12 to 5pm
Venue: GR 06/07, Cambridge Faculty of English, 9 West Road, Cambridge
In January, we learned that the government would not pursue a Higher Education Bill this year. This was a vindication and a victory for students, academics, and staff who have spent the last two years campaigning against the government’s destructive plans for universitie…s.
But while some of the proposals will have been dropped with the HE Bill, others, it has been noted, “can still be achieved without primary legislation.”
Without the clear chance to oppose government proposals in a Bill, what are the next steps for those who seek to challenge the privatisation, marketisation, and overall impoverishment of higher education?
Critical Education 