CVCP focuses on Dearing

While its new corporate plan will emphasise the need to be proactive, the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals will be unavoidably reactive for much of its annual residential meeting at Sheffield University next week.

The conference will be dominated by the CVCP's submission to the Dearing Committee, in particular on funding.

The corporate plan describes the university system's financial crisis and long-term money problems as "the key issue underlying Dearing".

The submission, to be made in November, can be expected to reiterate the CVCP's now established funding policy, that "the direct beneficiaries of higher education must be asked to make an appropriate contribution to the cost of their education without deterring access".

The top-up levy on first-year students, threatened if the Government does not reverse last year's Budget cuts, will not be discussed until the CVCP's December meeting.

The corporate plan, covering the years 1996-99, will be published at the conference. It will emphasise the need to set out clear priorities for the organisation, arguing that the tendency to respond to every demand from members leads to a dilution of effectiveness.

Other issues to be discussed will include a final draft report of the joint planning group which is setting up a single quality agency.

The meeting will also discuss the report of an internal working party on appeals procedures, set up in response to the Nolan committee, and the Institute of Employment Studies report, published on August, on future student numbers.