Bid to cut red tape could trim sector's bill by £15m a year

Cutting university bureaucracy could save enough money to pay for "one or two" extra academics in every institution in the UK, the head of Britain's red-tape watchdog said this week.

The Higher Education Regulation Review Group (HERRG) - set up by ministers a year ago - predicted that £15 million of public money could be saved by a more co-ordinated approach to data-gathering and the inspection regime.

The group reports that reform of the Quality Assurance Agency's approach to auditing in 2002-03 saved universities and colleges £13.5 million.

But the overall cost to institutions of meeting bureaucratic demands still stood at £210 million in 2004.

Dame Patricia Hodgson, chairwoman of the HERRG, told The Times Higher that academics and universities "should feel they are masters of their own fates".

Dame Patricia said: "A lot of the burden gets absorbed by universities appointing more administrators to talk to the central bureaucrats.

"When you do that, you remove resources that would otherwise be available for teaching and research - hence the importance of our assessment of £15 million worth of potential savings, which would be the equivalent of one or two extra posts in every college and university in the land."

Where universities were performing well, the emphasis should be on "intelligent self-evaluation", according to the HERRG report.

Regulating agencies should "place greater reliance" on the institution's own internal audit and management arrangements "unless or until an institution is at a risk of failure".

The report also recommends that a concordat be agreed by universities and the fundingand inspection bodies that would "abolish multiple data demands" during each year.

It also suggests that the Higher Education Statistics Agency should become the "the single source of base data" about institutions.

The HERRG and the Cabinet Office plan to commission a MORI poll of "perceptions of bureaucracy" across higher education - including canvassing the opinions of academics.

Dame Patricia said cutting bureaucracy would be a "win-win" initiative for the Government, the funding bodies and the universities.

But she added: "Think of the scale of it. We have half a million people working in higher education in 130 institutions, all with their different strengths and range of courses. There is £8 billion of public money going in.

"Of course there should be high-level assurances of standards, but that doesn't mean substituting centralised judgments for what's happening on the ground."

Ivor Crewe, president of Universities UK, said: "We very much support the reasoning behind the group's recommendations. Universities have made huge strides in improving their quality assurance arrangements, and we are sure our members will want to play their part in creating the conditions where a concordat can work effectively."

The HERRG report, particularly the recommendation for an agreement across the sector about data gathering and regulation, was also welcomed by the Government.

Bill Rammell, the Higher Education Minister, said: "The group has rightly set out a challenging agenda for the Government and its agencies, and for universities themselves.

"A concordat approach to securing savings without compromising quality standards should enable us to make real progress."

The HERRG report urges the sector as a whole to "be bolder and to go faster" in cutting red tape.