A memo obtained by Times Higher Education reveals Hefce boards lack of confidence in London Met's management.

"Hefce considered ‘nuclear option’ over London Met."

26 June 2009

By Melanie Newman

Dissolution was considered by funding chiefs as a ‘last resort’ Melanie Newman reports.

Funding chiefs considered plans to take the “nuclear option” and dissolve London Metropolitan University during the ongoing crisis engulfing the institution.

Times Higher Education has obtained copies of ministerial correspondence that show that the Higher Education Funding Council for England considered closure, albeit as the last resort.

The institution is being forced to repay £36.5 million paid to it on the basis of student completion figures that Hefce says were wildly inaccurate. A further £15 million has also been held back from its recurrent teaching funding.

Documents released to Times Higher Education under the Freedom of Information Act include a memo exchanged between two officials at the now-defunct Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

The author of the DIUS memo, whose identity is withheld, reveals that a Hefce-commissioned report provided by consultants BDO that scrutinised data handling at London Met was “extremely critical” of the institution’s processes and its governing body’s lack of oversight.

This report was considered so incendiary by London Met that lawyers acting for Brian Roper, its former vice-chancellor, and a number of the university’s governors threatened to sue Hefce for defamation if it was published, the documentation reveals.

The memo from the DIUS official, dated January this year, says the BDO report “will strengthen the [Hefce] board’s lack of confidence” in London Met’s management.

“What happens next is not entirely clear yet. The scale of the problem… is much greater than any precedent, so the ‘traditional’ solution of lining up some sort of merger isn’t in play.”

It says: “If all else fails, Hefce thinks that its only remaining option may be to ask the Secretary of State [John Denham] to dissolve London Met… Clearly this is a nuclear option… It would also be new ground for all involved.”

Another piece of correspondence details a Hefce board meeting in May 2008, stating that one attendee “was worried that Hefce would lose reputation if [London Met] stayed afloat”.

In the event, the “nuclear option” was not taken, and the university has agreed to pay back the money it over-claimed over the next five years. This will involve a restructuring exercise, including up to 550 job losses.

As late as January 2009 Hefce board papers were still noting that the “Secretary of State has powers to dissolve a higher education corporation”. The DIUS briefing responding to this paper said: “We do not have a HEC [higher education corporation] here. Hefce knows this.”

London Met is incorporated as a company rather than a higher education corporation and as such may be dissolved only under corporate insolvency legislation.

The documents also reveal that Hefce received legal advice saying that it could threaten to withhold funding from London Met unless Mr Roper resigned from his position.

An email exchange between DIUS officials shows that in December 2008, Hefce’s board concluded that it had “no confidence in [London Met’s] leadership”.

By January this year, the funding council was acting on legal advice to the effect that “there is a road that will take Hefce as far as being able to withhold funding until a named individual ceases to be [London Met’s] accounting officer”, a DIUS briefing note says.

The same month, John Denham, the then Universities Secretary, sought legal advice over whether he could direct the university’s governing board to remove Mr Roper, Peter Anwyl, the board’s chairman, or the entire board.

He was advised that this was impossible, but that Hefce’s powers over university funding could be used to “put considerable pressure” on the institution.

In the event, Mr Roper resigned as vice-chancellor in March 2009, although he will remain employed by the university until December.

The board of governors, including its chairman, remain in place. No other senior manager has been asked to leave.

Bob Aylett, deputy vice-chancellor, took up the role of acting vice-chancellor in the wake of Mr Roper’s resignation. In May, Alfred Morris was appointed as interim vice-chancellor.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=407156&c=2

Why the Policy Exchange report "Sink or Swim?" should worry everyone who wonders what higher Education will look like under a new Tory Government.

Photo taken from London Metropolitan University, Sir John Cass Department of Fine Art, Media and Design, Central House, Fine Art Studio Practice.


Policy Exchange, a conservative think tank group has written a report called "Sink or Swim? Facing up to failing universities" where they ask themselves whether Universities should be allowed to go bankrupt or not. The authors of the report Anna Fazackerly and Julian Chant, have particularly set their eyes on London Metropolitan University as an example of a 'failing university' that should be allowed to go to the wall.

Considering the influence Policy Exchange has amongst a Tory party in waiting and the way they influenced Boris Johnson's Mayoral campaign in London last year as well as being a continual influence on his ideological and political decisions in City Hall, this report should be read by everyone who is concerned about the state of higher Education in this country and how a new Tory government will regard the welfare of the University.


In the article "Think-Tank Doublethink", Cliff Snaith argues that Policy Exchange want to inflict a bankrupt ideology on London's students and communities. wall ("Bankruptcy should be a real option, argues think-tank", 23 April):


"Specifically, London institutions can be closed: by implication, London Metropolitan University is first in line. But I believe that the only bankruptcy exposed by Policy Exchange is that of the Right's higher education strategy.

The think-tank notes that there are a high number of higher education institutions (42) in London, but they serve the most diverse, densely packed and demanding demographic in Europe. Contrary to its opinion, the students and courses of a university such as London Met cannot be easily decanted to other institutions.

For example, London Met offers degrees in subjects as diverse as musical- instrument technology and furniture design, silversmithing and polymer science, low-energy architecture and aviation, community-orientated modules in human rights and Caribbean studies (currently threatened), and vocational qualifications in shortage areas such as social work, community nursing and early-years teaching. I could go on.

Policy Exchange's philosophy is "by the market live or die", but it is the state that primarily funds university degrees and the expertise that sustains them. This is just as well. The market currently gets those skills cheap. Where private institutions offer courses equivalent to those in state-funded universities, they often charge considerably more.

Arguably, the primary mission of London's post-1992 universities is to provide diverse and flexible academic and vocational opportunities to international and domestic students, most of whom must work and learn simultaneously in a city that rarely sleeps. Their primary aim is not to make profits or to satisfy auditors.

Policy Exchange chose London Met as a soft target and rightly identifies the problems witnessed from its inception. Its financial difficulties have been well aired, not least by Times Higher Education, and cry out for independent inquiry. In the University and College Union's view, it has always been too managerial. For example, there are now no elected academics on its academic board.

The UCU will welcome dialogue with the incoming interim vice-chancellor over institutional reform, the reversal of proposals to cut jobs, and persuasive reasons why the Higher Education Funding Council for England should reinvest in the institution. However, by focusing on which university should close first, Policy Exchange is diverting attention away from more fundamental funding questions.

Even it does not propose an end to state funding, merely that the market should enjoy a share of it. It proposes amendments to the Higher Education Act 2004 to permit private bodies (now granted degree-awarding powers) to bid for Hefce money directly or indirectly - so not fewer providers, merely different ones. This exposes a common right-wing doublethink: a demand for tight public sector fiscal accountability coupled with an insistence on hiving off public service to an unaccountable market.

Right-wing orthodoxy perceives no doublethink because the self-regulating market would, in its view, eventually achieve progressive and creative "goods" beyond those measured simply by economic advance or profit. The think-tank no doubt would argue that capitalism is protean and can always reinvent itself in a crisis. Having failed in the provision of financial services, it wants to move on to exploit a market that cannot so easily disappear - London's students.

Tellingly, the think-tank's report, Swim or Sink, states that "it is a broadly accepted fact that for a market to be successful, there must be an element of failure". Is this broadly accepted? Market failure has never been so visible, so where is the record of success that justifies Policy Exchange's market-orientated agenda? In higher education we need planning, not chaos.

The past year has exposed the bankruptcy at the heart of free-market ideology. But Policy Exchange would inflict the same ideas on universities and the communities they serve."
Postscript :

Cliff Snaith is a lecturer and UCU secretary for London Metropolitan University and the London Region.

This article was published 21st of May in Times Higher Education.

Whatever happened to MP David Lammy's promise of an independent inquiry into the failures and mismanagement of London Metropolitan University.

On Wednesday the 20th of May, during an adjournment debate in Parliament about the situation at London Metropolitan University, David Lammy announced that there would be an independent inquiry into the crisis that is unfolding at the University.
At the end of the session he concluded that:

"There will, of course, be an independent inquiry, and an inquiry by the National Audit Office into the financial arrangements for universities, which will have particular regard to the London Met situation."

The day after the parliamentary debate, Times Higher Education, had picked up on the news and
in an article with the title "Government announces inquiry into London Met Crisis", Melanie Newman writes that the announcement by Lammy followed a debate "in which Diane Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, accused Hefce of colluding with the university over its inaccurate data returns.

“There was a degree of collusion between the funding council and the university in misreporting for years before the former finally decided to pull the plug,” she said. “That may be the responsibility of management, but it is also the responsibility of the funding council, which could and should have addressed the issue in a much more measured way, much earlier.”

Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North, who called the debate, asked: "When was the department [for Innovation, Universities and Skills] first informed of these problems? What was its response to Hefce and to the university? Why did the governors apparently keep this information secret from many people until this January?”

The news about a coming inquiry that quite justly would have placed the critical focus on the role of the Board of Governors, the University Management and Hefce's role in this, felt like a great victory for students, members of staff and the unions, who has fought a long and hard battle for an independent inquiry into the wrongdoings since the crisis started almost a year ago.

However, already the next day, the promise of an independent inquiry seemed to a have been a bit too optimistic when Melanie Newman could reveal that the promised London Met inquiry was only a Hefce-exercise: "Hefce revealed in May, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, that it had commissioned an “independent lessons-learnt exercise into our role” in the crisis." Newman further writes that

"The confusion has prompted MPs to demand an apology from the Higher Education Minister.

Diane Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, was one of those to suggest that there may have been a degree of collusion between Hefce and London Met.

She said: “I’m very disappointed that David Lammy misled the House, and I will be joining colleagues like Jeremy Corbyn [Labour MP for Islington North] in pressing for an apology.”

The University and College Union also accused the Government of misleading the public and shirking its responsibility over its refusal to conduct a fully independent inquiry.

Sally Hunt, the UCU general secretary, said: “We are quite astounded by the Government’s U-turn.

“On Wednesday, the minister said there will be an inquiry, not that there was one currently under way behind closed doors. He has either misled Parliament or performed an incredible about-turn; neither action is acceptable.”

Students meets with the management the 13th of May...just to be issued a court order the very next day.

On the 13th of May, the University management accepted to meet the students for talks. The student representatives who attended, had been given assurances during the meeting that their voices and concern in regards to course closures, and job cuts would be heard.
However, the meeting appeared to have taken place only as an attempt to stop the students from occupying parts of the University as the management issued a court order to end the occupation of the building already the next day.

In an official note, the students reactions were as follows:

"At 4pm today (14th of May 2009) management issued us with a court order to end the occupation of the building. Since we are trying as hard as possible to work with the management cooperatively and constructively (something that they have not been doing with us), we had to vacate the premises. Paul Lister told us face-to-face yesterday that they would begin court proceedings on Saturday if we were not out then, so clearly he was lying to us.

This is by no means a defeat- if anything it adds more fuel to our fire, and just goes to show even more that our management are incompetent, lying, untrustworthy bullies who are not fit to be entrusted with the future of our university.

This action has ignited rage in the university's members of staff and in the unions (UCU and UNISON), not to mention the students. As far as we are concerned, we knew that it was only a matter of time before we were issued a court order, but what surprised us is the fact that we were lied to about when it would occur. It has done nothing but strengthen our campaign.

The campaign is continuing valiantly and with great strength. We met today at the Houses of Parliament with George Galloway (City Campus MP) and Jeremy Corbyn (North Campus MP) who told us that they have no confidence whatsoever in the university management and that they supported our campaign 100%, promising us that they will take an active role in campaigning with us, and are currently pushing to help London Met in Parliament and with other MP's."

Waiting for some proper response from Management and Head of Department.

Day 2 continued

Day 2 Student Occupation continued.