Universities fined for hoarding funds

Danish higher education institutions, which are complaining that they have too little money for research and tutors, are risking fines for accumulating government funds paid to them for teaching.

Figures released by the ministry of education show that they had amassed DKr 345 million (Pounds 36 million) of the grant funding for teaching issued under the so-called taximeter principle, where fund allocation is on the basis of the number of students who pass their finals.

The University of Copenhagen has accumulated DKr 81 million, or 12.7 per cent of its taximeter grants, whereas the Danish College of Pharmacy has "saved" 36 per cent of its teaching funding, or DKr 15.7 million.

The "saved" funds remained untouched in the universities' accounts with Danmarks Nationalbank, the Danish central bank, at the end of 1994. The institutions receive a lump sum that they must administer and use rationally.

Mogens Lykketoft, the minister of finance, is so dissatisfied with the way the universities have amassed funds that he will enforce a fine of 10 per cent of those bank accounts exceeding DKr 5 million. This sanction was included in the 1995 state budget.

"Some places have amassed too much money," admits Hans Peter Jensen, vice chancellor of the Technical University of Denmark and the chairman of Rektorkollegiet, the association of vice chancellors. "But it is completely idiotic that an institution such as DTU, with an annual turnover of about DKr 900 million, may not accumulate more than DKr 5 million."

Minister of education Ole Vig Jensen says: "The idea behind the state granting funds for certain purposes is that those funds are used."

He proposes a limit of 10 per cent of the individual establishment's teaching funding, and a fine of 10 per cent of accumulated funds exceeding this limit.