A distressing number of reports and people who should really know better have been recommending that we merge HEFCE, QAA, OFFA and Uncle Tom Cobleigh into a single Higher Education Council (HEC) because, I guess, efficiency LOLs. This pernicious trend started with the Browne Review, and like nearly everything else in the Browne Review it is utter nonsense.
That didn’t stop the IPPR repeating it (remember “A Critical Path“? No, me neither…), and now certain parts of the Liberal Democrats are proposing it as party policy (motion 15.25)
So, for hopefully the last time, you can’t merge the QAA into HEFCE because:
- The QAA has a UK-wide remit, HEFCE is England-only.
- The Government doesn’t own the QAA, so couldn’t force them to merge.
So, to merge the QAA into HEFCE you would have to invent a new organisation that does the quality assurance stuff in England that the independent and respected QAA currently does, and then merge that organisation into HEFCE. This would require legislation, and there would still be a QAA at the end of it because Scotland, Wales and NI would still be contracting with them.
For non-specialists, you can assume that any statement about HE that includes the recommendation that the QAA is merged with HEFCE is written by someone who does not understand HE policy and can safely be disregarded.
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