The 1992 Further and Higher Education Act that turned polytechnics into universities and privatised further education colleges must be repealed, the general secretary of lecturers' union Natfhe will demand this weekend.
Paul Mackney will tell delegates at the union's conference in Torquay that the landmark act, which removed local control of the former polytechnics and created layers of bureaucracy for colleges, has been a failure.
He told The THES before the conference that he did not want to reinstate polytechnics as things had moved on too much, but he said the act had been a disaster in many ways.
The college system is blighted by thousands of passive "viewers" - in college management, in the civil service and in the Learning and Skills Council - who do little other than "irritate the hell out of the doers", he is expected to say.
"We must repeal the 1992 act, restore democratic accountability, and make it compulsory to apply national pay awards. Let us get on with the job."
He told The THES that democracy should be reintroduced in new universities. "If the selling point for new universities is that they are local, then the local community should have more democratic control over them." The emerging regional assemblies should have a role in running universities, he said.
Mr Mackney will also launch a scathing attack on the inequalities between old universities and former polytechnics. "It was right to designate polytechnics as universities, but the sector needs a degree of coherence.
"Last year's special premiums for widening access did not go to the universities that widened participation, but to the Russell Group (of elite universities), which does next to nothing for social inclusion. New students require special tutorial support, but the special funding for tutorials goes to Oxbridge."
Speaking after Natfhe's two-day nationwide strike in further education colleges, Mr Mackney warned that similar trouble may be coming in higher education. Union research had showed that university students were facing increasing class sizes, less lecturer contact time and stressed teachers.
Almost 80 per cent of lecturers report a large increase in their workload, while a third rate excessive workloads as their biggest concern, above even pay.
The union, which is calling for a 15 per cent pay increase, is expected to carry a motion at the conference rejecting the government's target of ensuring that half of under-30s experience higher education by 2010.
"Natfhe has solidly supported expansion and the broadening of access, but lecturers are overburdened and cannot take on more. It will be impossible to support further expansion if academic standards are suffering and students from working class and ethnic minorities are the victims of under-resourced expansion."