Sector norms are bad news

With all Oxbridge colleges in the process of registering with the Charity Commission, the Charities Act is ever before my mind (Letters, 23 April). And I yield to nobody in my anxiety that the Higher Education Funding Council for England will misuse its powers as the regulator for higher education. But the present nonsense is retrospective: it is all about the Lambert report and the usual rubbish about "sector norms". My point was simply that the sector norms are out of date, destructive of academic self-government and inimical to higher education's values. Otherwise, no doubt, they are fine.

Alan Ryan, Warden, New College, Oxford.