Dearing on Governance –The Wrong Prescription

The Dearing Report takes a very active interest in questions of institutional governance but seems to have done so without taking into account the context of increased central controls which emerge from other recommendations. It recommends the recognition and encouragement of institutional diversity while at the same time urging the adoption of a model of institutional governance which rests heavily on the concept applied to the post-1992 universities. But the merits of this model against others is not discussed, merely asserted, nor is there evidence of any research into effective university governance that might have underpinned the recommendations. In fact, the implied parallel between university governance and the corporatist model deriving from business is seriously flawed: no company could be run in this way. The Report is highly prescriptive about governnance issues and recommends that a failure to comply should be reflected in financial penalties to be levied by the Funding Councils. This seems to contradict the Report’s stated support for institutional autonomy.