The financial health of higher education institutions in England : report / by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

  • National Audit Office
Date:
1994
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: The financial health of higher education institutions in England : report / by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    INSTITUTIONS IN ENGLAND (paragraphs 3.30 e Recent expansion has been accompanied by significant increases in and 3.36) student:staff ratios. (paragraphs 3.28 e Virtually all of the teaching provision in the four subjects assessed by the and 3.35) Funding Council to date has been rated as satisfactory or better. Only two institutions have had unsatisfactory ratings and may therefore be liable to have the relevant part of core funding withdrawn. (paragraphs 3.38 - 20 In accordance with Government policy, the Funding Council are allocating 3.49) research funds selectively to encourage institutions to concentrate on their 21 (paragraphs 3.37 - 3.39 and 3.48) (paragraphs 3.43, 3.44 and 3.49) (paragraphs 3.50 - 22 3.58) strengths, and thereby improve quality. The Funding Council’s research allocation formula gives greater weight to those departments receiving higher quality ratings in the periodic research assessment exercise. Between 1989 and 1992, overall quality ratings for institutions of the former old university sector showed an increase of 15 per cent, indicating an improvement in quality in that part of the sector. The National Audit Office survey found that most institutions intend to maintain or develop a broad research base, whilst allocating research funds more selectively to departments of recognised strength. The National Audit Office concluded that: e The Funding Council allocate research funds selectively to improve quality by encouraging institutions to concentrate on their research strengths. 94 per cent of the Council’s £0.6 billion funding for research in 1994-95 has been allocated by reference to quality criteria. e Most institutions are intending to maintain or develop a broad research base whilst allocating funds more selectively. The Funding Council believe that this is a matter for institutions to determine in accordance with their own policies and priorities. In 1994-95, the Funding Council are allocating £20 million of the £0.6 billion research funding to institutions weighted on the basis of successful overhead cost recovery on research contract work. This acts as an incentive to institutions to charge the full economic cost for commercially supported research. In the National Audit Office survey a quarter of all institutions said they had not determined the full overhead recovery rate and were therefore not in a position to know whether or not they were recovering their full costs. 10 out of the 89 institutions which had determined the full overhead recovery rate were recovering costs at this rate.
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