QAA is accused of meddling in universities' autonomy

King's College London has disowned its quality assurance audit, joining a growing list of universities who have raised questions about the validity of Quality Assurance Agency inspections.

The college, part of the University of London, has accused the QAA of meddling in its institutional autonomy in an attempt to impose its preferred bureaucratic model on universities.

King's vice-principal, Barry Ife, told The THES that in an institution-wide audit undertaken last year, the QAA failed to "intellectually engage" with the institution and ignored evidence of teaching and research excellence.

Professor Ife said King's had made representations claiming a number of fundamental shortcomings in the audit.

He said: "We can't hide our disappointment that they didn't do a better job. We didn't learn anything from them. We felt that the auditors didn't understand what we were talking about."

Professor Ife said the QAA focused on central control, ignoring management models that employed a more devolved structure.

Oxford, Cambridge, York, Exeter, Southampton and Essex universities have all been criticised by the QAA auditors for quality management shortcomings, despite good teaching inspection results.