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The changing idea of university

autonomy
a b
E.R. Tapper & B.G. Salter
a
University of Sussex
b
University of Kent
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Studies in Higher Education, 20:1, 59-71, DOI: 10.1080/03075079512331381800

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 Studies in Higher Education Volume 20, No. I, 1995 59

The Changing Idea of University

Autonomy
E. R. TAPPER
University of Sussex

B. G. SALTER
University of Kent
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ABSTRACT Recent changes in the relationship between the state and the universities have caused
many to doubt the continuing aptness of describing British universities as autonomous institutions.
However, university autonomy was always exercised within a political context which, to varying
degrees, prescribed its boundaries. Furthermore, an analysis of autonomy should make a distinction
between the autonomy of the individual universities and of their academic staff. The argument is
that, in the past decade, the link between institutional and individual autonomy within the British
university system has been broken. A decline in the autonomy of the dons has been matched by an
actual enhancement of the autonomy of the universities as institutions. The state has established
parameters which are managed by the funding councils. It is within the framework of these
parameters, and the managerial strategies of the funding councils, that the universities now exercise
their autonomy.

Introduction
At the very heart of the contemporary debate about state-university relations is the question
of university autonomy. Can the universities retain their autonomy? Or have accountability
procedures become so extensive, detailed and demanding that autonomy is a dead letter? In
the words of Guy Neave, 'autonomy is contextually and politically defined' (1988, p. 31).
Inevitably, therefore, the meaning of autonomy will change over time. Our purposes are to
analyse the major shifts in the interpretation of the autonomy of British universities, to argue
that in recent years autonomy has not disappeared but rather has been reformulated, and to
present an analysis of the political and contextual variables which account for these develop-
ments.
Most dictionary definitions of autonomy refer to 'the right to self-government'. In British
institutions of higher education, Eustace (1982) has argued that after 1945 this right was
increasingly exercised by the academic faculty and domination spread its tentacles far and
wide. In complementary fashion, as the purposes of the institutions were internally con-
trolled, so their individual members determined the use of their own labour. This was
autonomy for both the universities (independent corporate bodies) and the dons who
controlled what was to be taught and researched. In concrete terms autonomy has been
perceived as the force which enables universities to appoint academic staff without external
interference, decide whom to admit as students, identify what they should teach and how it

0307-5079/95/010059-13 @ 1995 Societyfor Research into Higher Education

 60 E. R. Tapper & B. G. Salter

should be taught, control their own standards, establish their own academic priorities and
determine internally their patterns of future development (Farrant, 1987, p. 48).
In contrast, Russell (1993) has argued that university autonomy has been so far reduced
that there are no longer any institutions that could unreservedly be called universities. Our
claim is both more limited and more complex: the link between the autonomy of the
universities as institutions and the ability of the dons to control their working conditions has
been broken. As institutions universities are more autonomous, while their academic mem-
bers are increasingly less able to direct their working lives.
While inevitably there has been a relationship between the state (in whatever form it
took) and the universities since their foundation, we concentrate upon developments since
1919. The creation in 1919 of the University Grants Committee (UGC) established a
mechanism by which the state could make available to the universities a recurrent grant.
Because the belief that 'whoever pays the piper will call the tune' is so deeply rooted in our
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culture, the infusion of Treasury grants raised the spectre of the loss of the university
autonomy. In the imagery of Neave (1982) the boundary between the state and the
universities was changed by the creation of the UGC. What kind of link between the
universities and the state did the U G C create? Would, to use Moodie's terms (1983), it be
a buffer, coupling or broker? How have the boundaries and links changed over time, and
more particularly, since the creation of first the Universities Funding Council (UFC), and
then the Higher Education Funding Councils (HEFCs)? What has been the impact of such
changes upon university autonomy?

C o n v e n t i o n s a n d S o c i o - c u l t u r a l Ties: a u t o n o m y in the age o f b e n e v o l e n t g u i d a n c e

There is considerable scepticism of the opinion that the U G C was founded, and placed under
the auspices of the Treasury, tO act as a buffer between the state and the universities. Owen's
research into the origins of the U G C came to the conclusion that, 'The reason was, in the
end, purely practical' (1980, p. 258). If the U G C was to administer grants for the U K as a
whole, then it could hardly be made the responsibility of the Board of Education whose writ
ran only in England and Wales. But it can be fairly said that there was widespread political
concern to reassure the universities that there would not be government interference in their
affairs, that the autonomy of the universities would be respected. While it is difficult to
substantiate the claim that Treasury responsibility for the U G C enhanced university auton-
omy, the consensus of opinion is that the Treasury was more amenable to the demands of the
U G C than the Board of Education was ever likely to have been.
If the universities were to be reassured as to the intention of the state, it was essential that
once their grants from the Exchequer had been placed on a recurrent basis, a pattern of
state-university relations was established which mollified university interests. In particular,
the universities had to be convinced that the UGC would represent their interests in its
dealings with government. While the U G C could act, in Moodie's description, as a broker,
its purpose was not so much to strike an honest bargain, but rather one that would benefit
the universities to the maximum feasible extent. T o accommodate the UGC, and the
sensibilities of the universities, the state had to use its potential powers in a self-denying
manner. Furthermore, ff university autonomy was to be sustained, a number of conventions
had to be developed to act as supportive props.
As the key threat to university autonomy was the increased financial dependence of the
universities upon their annual grant, then that fear had to be mitigated by the grant assuming
a certain character. The grant was calculated on what was known as the 'deficiency principle',
that is, it was designed to meet all essential costs that the universities could not cover out of
 University Autonomy 61

their other resources (Carswell, 1985, p. 11). The grant was intended to provide approxi-
mately only one-third of university income, with one-third coming from endowments and
one-third from student fees. It was a block grant made on a quinquennial basis which meant
that the universities could engage in long-term planning. The lines of control, that is from the
state to the UGC, and from the U G C to the universities, came to be perceived--even ff that
was not the intention--as insulating the universities from state pressure. The U G C had no
statutory basis (its creation by a Treasury Minute gave it considerable flexibility over its
modus operandz), its books (like those of the universities) were not subject to the scrutiny of
the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), it could accumulate reserves, and it was under the
formal control of a department (that is, the Treasury) which was unlikely to have its own
views on university development.
It was the fear that the Board would develop its own view on university development,
and tie the universities into the Board's wider concerns, which bothered many dons. In effect
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the U G C came to represent a common university interest, acting as a two-way conduit

between the universities and the state. While this may have protected the university system
as a whole, it did mean that it curtailed the ability of individual institutions to make their own
political representations.
Evidently the links between the U G C and the universities were very informal. While the
U G C may have made official visitations to universities, the informal contacts were built
around extensive personal contacts. Although the U G C had a small secretariat, its key
members were active academics. There was a flow of personnel between the Treasury, the
U G C and the universities, with certain individuals acting as important bridges in the
institutional network. The individual universities may have been responsible for the develop-
ment of their own quinquennial plans, but they would have had an acute awareness of the
lines along which the U G C was thinking, that is those developments it was most likely to
favour and those which would be looked upon with the greatest scepticism. The flow of
paperwork may have been minimal, but the parties would have been aware of their respective
positions. Nothing could prevent a university from insisting upon its own priorities, but it was
a hazardous strategy given that the U G C had the formal responsibility of submitting to the
Treasury the figure for the annual grant, and obviously was in a position to state its own
priorities.
The control of university statutes was to come increasingly under the influence of the
UGC. Shinn's research shows that the institutions elevated to university status during the
inter-war years experienced a lengthy tutelage from the UGC, and that their requests to the
Privy Council for charters needed to be backed by the U G C if they were to be successful.
Moreover, amendments to charters from existing universities were also referred to the U G C
by the Privy Council (Shinn, 1986, p. 107).
The three potential forms of state influence over the universities were ceded, therefore,
by successive governments to the UGC. Firstly, the granting of a charter, and the approval
of statutes, represented the legal authority of the state; secondly, the making of an annual
grant, the block form of which Eustace (1982, p. 284) described as 'income not so different
from an endowment', composed the financial muscle of the state, and, thirdly, the institu-
tional arrangements for the administration of that grant, central to which was the state-
UGC-universities axis, comprised the formal control mechanisms. What, one may ask, did
the state receive in retum for these arrangements? As the universities were responsible for the
transmission and production of knowledge, they performed an essential function for the
modern state. It was important, therefore, that the university system developed in a manner
that was consistent with national needs. To some extent there was a tacit bargain between the
state and the universities, that in return for the Exchequer's recurrent grant the universities
 62 E. R. Tapper & B. G. Salter

would evolve in a manner that fulfilled national needs. That the U G C was m guide the
universities along this path was explicitly recognised in the 1946 changes to the Committee's
terms of reference:
to assist, in consultation with the universities and other bodies concerned, the
preparation and execution of such plans for the development of the universities as
may from time to time be required in order that they are fully adequate to national
needs. (quoted in Owen, 1980, p. 263)
Presumably, this was what the U G C believed it had done from its very inception. It could
scarcely operate with the premise that it was not obliged to consider national needs; but the
problem was how to discern those national needs. During the first 20 years of its existence,
the U G C had assumed this task, and accordingly encouraged a particular pattern of
university development, one that was consistent with its own interpretation of national needs.
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Given the strong socio-cultural links between the state and the UGC, there was no reason to
believe that there would not be 61ire consensus on reaching acceptable accommodations as to
how national needs were to be understood. However, as Shinn indicates in documenting the
demands that the U G C was prepared to make of institutions that aspired to be universities,
not all in higher education shared the same values.

P r o c e d u r e s and Bureaucratic Links: a u t o n o m y and the e m e r g e n c e o f a planning

model
If the key defence of university autonomy was the character of the financial relationship
between the state and the universities, then there was both continuity and change after 1945.
Both the 'deficiency principle', and the intention that the Exchequer's annual grant should
constitute no more than one-third of university income, were undermined by the almost
complete dependency of the universities upon state monies from 1945 onwards. And yet
those who wished to cling to the belief that universities remained autonomous institutions
could find comfort in the fact that by the early 1950s earmarked grants were on the decline,
and the principle of the block grant had been re-established by 1952.
More interestingly, the established perception that an over-dependence upon the Ex-
chequer posed a threat to autonomy was challenged. Thus a 1944 U G C memorandum
claimed that 'the acceptance of Exchequer money through the University Grants Committee
tends to be less injurious to academic independence than reliance on municipal contributions
and private benefactions' (quoted in Shinn, 1986, p. 277). As the system of quinquennial
planning had also persisted, it was possible to believe that, while the financial preconditions
had changed, they remained supportive of university autonomy.
Such a reassuring belief was harder to sustain given the changes in the lines of
administrative and political control. The transfer of responsibility for the U G C from the
Treasury to the Department of Education and Science (DES) in 1964 may not have brought
the full weight of the state apparatus to bear down upon the universities as some feared (or
pretended to fear), but it would have been difficult to interpret it as a move which actually
enhanced university autonomy. When the long struggle of the PAC to gain access to the
books of the UGC and the universities was finally successful, it did not lead to parliamentary
interference in the daily affairs of the universities, but it did mean that both the U G C and the
universities were somewhat more exposed to political scrutiny; a thin end of the wedge which
has assumed considerable importance as the universities in recent years have tried to cope
with financial constraints.
However, the potential long-term consequences of these changes were camouflaged by
 University Autonomy 63

two critical variables. Firstly, the relations which bound the state, the U G C and the
universities continued to be based upon a considerable body of mutual trust. The socio-
cultural network may have been disturbed by the transfer of responsibility for the U G C from
the Treasury to the DES, and increasingly the lines of communication may have been
bureaucratic rather than personal, but there remained a large residue of 61ite consensus as to
both the nature of a university education and its benefits. Trust enabled the system to
function relatively harmoniously. Secondly, although the process was by no means smooth,
the system of higher education in Britain expanded from the end of the Second World War
until the early 1980s. With the creation of the 'plategtass' universities in the 1960s, and
strong evidence of a hankering after university status in the polytechnics (Eustace, 1982, p.
284), it seemed as if the age of confident self-development would go on for ever.
Not surprisingly it was the major economic crisis of the mid-1970s which brought
matters to a head. It generated pressures which made it impossible to sustain the established
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consensus about the traditional purpose of a university. In concrete terms the first victim was
the quinquennial cycle of university planning, for no government facing protracted public
expenditure deficits could commit itself to such long-term financial obligations, and an
orderly process of subventions degenerated into a shambles. In a comparatively short space
of time the idea that the U G C made representations to government on behalf of the
universities was supplanted by the introduction of government imposed cash limits within
which university development had to be constrained. Moreover, the U G C was to all intents
and purposes forced to adopt a formula funding model as it sought to distribute declining real
resources. Although formula funding was a convenient means of avoiding charges of bias, it
rather undermined the traditional role of the U G C which had supposedly existed to exercise
its considered judgement. If its central function, to distribute the Exchequer's grant, was to
be determined mechanically, what role was there for the U G C other than to manipulate the
formula?
Berdahl (1983, pp. 89-101) has described the period 1963-82 as signifying a move from
what he calls 'crypto-dirigisme' to the real thing. Although formally the U G C may have
always been part of the state, historically it had defended the idea of university autonomy. In
reality the U G C itself had accrued substantial authority to shape the university system in its
own image. In the 1963-82 period the U G C was steadily losing control of its ability to
determine the pattern of university development. Although the state apparatus and govern-
ment might not seek to impose directly their authority upon the universities, increasingly, the
U G C was given less discretion as to its own actions. To some, the U G C was becoming little
more than a conduit of government policy.
Perhaps the ultimate manifestation of this development was the Committee's decision to
implement the substantial cuts in recurrent grant imposed in 1981. The Committee could
have resigned en bloc as many argued, or imposed the cuts uniformly, rather than exercising
its discretion and imposing them selectively. Ironically, although it may have identified itself
too closely with government policy, its decision to make selective cuts meant that it reasserted
its traditional role of exercising judgements. Even if the basis of its judgements were not
readily discernible, there is no evidence that the government attempted to change them after
the U G C had arrived at its decisions Indeed, some have claimed (Maclure, 1987, p. 16) that
government dissatisfaction with the pattern of cuts imposed by the U G C in fact hastened its
demise.
It can be maintained, therefore, that although the U G C was implementing government
policy in the early 1980s, it did so in a manner which enabled it to sustain something of its
traditional role. T o have resigned may have resulted in the cuts being imposed in a manner
more inimical to university interests (as the U G C claimed), while to have imposed them
 64 E. R. Tapper & B. G. Salter

uniformly would have reduced the U G C ' s role to that of a mere cipher. What the cut in
recurrent grant initiated was a short period of time in which the U G C became something of
a planning agency on behalf of the state. During this period it had to respond to more explicit
pressure from the state, but as the pattern of the 1981 cuts reveals, it was still able to exercise
a measure of discretion.
Thus in a comparatively few years a framework of rather lax state-UGC controls
(continuous exhortation to increase student numbers in the sciences and more particularly
the applied sciences, control of overall student numbers and the operation of quotas for a
range of subjects, the raising of overseas student fees, and the issuing of memoranda of
guidance on university development) had become increasingly restrictive. What the U G C
was less able to do, and perhaps had increasingly less desire to do, was to make effective
representations on behalf of the universities. If the U G C was to continue to occupy the
middle ground between the state and the universities, it did so only on the understanding that
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it identified more closely with the interests of the state.

The real losers in this new situation were the universities most severely hit by the U G C ' s
pattern of cutbacks, and the prevailing idea of university autonomy. The increasing post-war
financial dependence of the universities upon the Exchequer could be interpreted as posing
little threat to university autonomy as long as the system continued to expand. As soon as
growth levelled off, then the precarious position in which this dependence had put the
universities was starkly revealed. The decline in the value of the recurrent grant necessitated
cutbacks, and the U G C tried to bring a semblance of order to a novel situation. While the
individual universities could decide for themselves where the axe was to fall, the wide range
of the U G C ' s suggested cuts strongly implied that some institutions were more desirable than
others.
Again, it could be argued, this was not of itself a direct threat to university autonomy,
but it was of little comfort to institutions to discover that they could choose their own
patterns of development as long as they were prepared to accept the fact that in hard times
the consequence might be the loss of official favour and even their possible demise. The
potential contextual constraints upon institutional autonomy were revealed in their sharpest
form. The UGC, though it protested repeatedly both the magnitude and length of the
squeeze on university finances, was able to give more tangible and forceful expression as to
what constituted a desirable pattern of university development.
The U G C ' s orchestration of the 1981 cuts in recurrent grant was followed by a number
of decisions which had tangible implications for university autonomy. Small departments in
several universities were closed, which in some cases meant a transfer of faculty to larger, and
allegedly more viable, departments. In its very death throes the U G C was considering the
rationalisation, to use the then contemporary jargon, of the provision of the major subjects of
physics and chemistry.
Central to the established idea of the university was the contention that there was a
symbiotic relationship between research and teaching. A university was an institution that
pursued both functions, and dons were persons who both taught and researched. In
conjunction with the Advisory Board for the Research Councils (ABRC, 1987), the U G C
challenged this idea. The assumption that all dons both taught and researched was jettisoned,
and the universities were to receive separate and identifiable amounts of funding for research
and teaching. Research evaluation exercises were conducted to determine the level of
research funding (to date funding for teaching has been based essentially on student
numbers, although this is likely to be modified), and it was expected that universities, in
reaching their decisions on the distribution of research funding, would be guided by these
evaluative exercises.
 University Auwnomy 65

If these were not sufficient intrusions upon university autonomy, the Government also
made resources available for the universities to mount particular programmes and to recruit
academics in areas which it wished to see expanded. Such programmes represent a form of
earmarked grants, and are a clear signal that the government was engaged in influencing in
the most concrete way possible--that is, with financial resources--the academic map of
higher education. In terms of the overall commitment of Exchequer resources to higher
education the sums involved may have been small, but they have to be seen in the context
of both general retrenchment and the wider restructuring process.
At one level the decisions about university development that the UGC, and the
individual universities, reached during this period can be seen as merely a rational response
to the financial parsimony of the government. Although there are highly significant implica-
tions for university autonomy in the move to amalgamate departments, or to separate the
funding of teaching from the funding of research, it could be argued that the motivation for
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such moves was essentially financial, that is, the wish to save resources and/or utilise them
more effectively. However, the initiatives to sponsor particular programmes influenced quite
explicitly the pattern of university development. The overwhelming bulk of these earmarked
resources were directed at the applied sciences--engineering, technology, and information
technology (Williams, 1992). Moreover, this was reinforced by an equally clear government
view that one of the central purposes, if not the central purpose, of higher education was to
meet the needs of the economy.
If the concept of university autonomy was integral to the traditional idea of the
university, a powerful counter-ideology has developed in which a university education is
perceived as an economic resource. There was always a potential conflict between university
autonomy and the recognition that in return for the Exchequer's input the universities would
meet national needs, but it was forestalled by the protracted willingness of successive
governments to permit the U G C to control the pattern of university development with
precious little input from the state. Besides helping to define national needs, the U G C
determined what pattern of university development would best meet those needs. Eventually
both political and bureaucratic elements in the state--driven by the idea of higher education
as an economic resource--were prepared to impose their own definitions of national needs
upon the UGC, and increasingly refined the mechanisms for ensuring the U G C ' s compliance
(Salter & Tapper, 1981, pp. 87-114; Salter & Tapper, 1994, pp. 12-18).

Autonomy and the Managed Market

It is ironic that the centralised control of the universities, and indeed of the system of higher
education in general, should have gathered momentum during the Thatcher administrations.
And it is perhaps even more ironic that the instrument of control should have been the UGC,
that erstwhile defender of university autonomy and donnish domination. While it is evident
that the Government needed the U G C in the short term, it was equally evident, given the
intense government hostility towards quangos apparently controlled by producer interests,
that the long-term survival of the U G C was, to put it mildly, precarious. Shattock & Berdahl
(1984, p. 496) had concluded that the U G C ' s management of the university system in the
early 1980s had ensured its immediate future, and that its prospects were bright if it
continued in this positive manner. Unlike Shattock & Berdahl, the Government had pre-
sumably been unconvinced by the U G C ' s performance in 1981, or was dissatisfied with its
subsequent decisions, or simply felt that the time had come to place the funding body on a
statutory basis. Regardless of the reasons, the U G C was replaced by the U F C as a result of
the Education Reform Act 1988, in its turn to be replaced in 1993 by the Higher Education
 66 E. R. Tapper & B. G. Salter

Funding Councils (HEFCs, with separate councils for England, Scotland and Wales) on the
amalgamation of the university and public sectors of higher education.
Legislation has enabled the Government to establish management bodies (first the U F C
and subsequently the HEFCs) somewhat less representative of university interests, and more
significantly, to draw to a close the conventions which had embalmed the operations of the
UGC. The very language of institutions creates an image of their cultural values and modus
operandi. Thus the U G C had a chairman and administered grants, whereas the HEFCs have
chief executives and are funding councils. More crucially still, legislation created the oppor-
tunity for the Government to structure a new relationship between the state and the
universities, one which was more in tune with its own values. It is highly probable that,
regardless of the political composition of the government of the day, the relationship between
the state and the universities would have changed radically from the 1960s onwards. The
severity of the economic crises of the 1970s, the increasing financial demands of an
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expanding system of higher education, and the pressures to integrate the development of
higher education into that of the wider educational system were all forces for change. But the
evolving relationship between the state and the universities could have taken a number of
different forms, each with its own implications for university autonomy.
In Tory circles many believed that the U G C had been hopelessly corrupted by the
producer interests it was meant to oversee. What was needed was a new funding body and
a different relationship between the state, the funding body and the universities. It is to the
Education Reform Act 1988, the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, and to the
subsequent work of the funding councils to create the mechanisms to implement the
pertinent clauses of these acts, that we have to look in order to understand this different
relationship and its implications for university autonomy.
The current relations between the state and the universities can best be described as an
attempt on the part of the Government to create a managed market: financed mainly by
public money, the universities retain control of their own affairs while operating within
centrally defined and regulated parameters that are managed by the funding agencies. There
are, therefore, three levels to the current relationship between the state and the universities:
(i) the parameters are under the control of the state; (ii) the management of those parameters
(which initially included translating them into precise operational procedures) is the responsi-
bility of the funding bodies; and (iii) the universities exercise their autonomy within the
framework of the previous two levels of control. It has been widely argued (Griffith, 1989;
Millar, 1992; Russell, 1993) that to all intents and purposes the funding bodies are little more
than creatures of the ministers and their departments, and that the discretion left to the
universities is so limited that university autonomy is a dead letter. But such an interpretation
depends upon the claim that the contextual controls are of a different order from those of the
past, with the consequence that what discretion is left to the universities is worthless.
What are the parameters that have been established by the state? The first is the level of
resources that governments are prepared to commit to the development of higher education.
But this has always been true. Moreover, it is naive to expect governments to abdicate their
financial responsibilities, especially in the context of a public sector borrowing crisis. Al-
though the very current government brake upon the expansion of student numbers consti-
pates an interference with university plans, the wider pressures make such a decision
inevitable. By way of precedents, the Geddes axe cut the size of the U G C ' s grant in the
Committee's early years, and the oil crises of the 1970s made it politically respectable to
abandon the quinquennial system of university funding. However, the decision to break down
the block grant into a number of separate categories, with periodic shifts in their relative
 University Autonomy 67

importance, requires the universities--if they are intent on maximizing their incomes--to be
ever more sensitive to such changes.
The second parameter is to obtain greater accountability for the performance of the two
central fimctions of teaching and research, and to ensure that funding decisions are tied into
the outcomes of the accountability procedures. The third parameter is to improve the quality
of financial management in the universities; to ensure as far as possible that universities act
with probity, and should they not, that there are procedures in place to deal with the
problem.
The funding councils are not required merely to categorise the varying grants that they
make available to the universities. In effect the universities receive income from the funding
councils for the performance of particular services, with the level of performance affecting the
size of the income. Although the universities have resisted the notion that there is a
contractual relationship between themselves and the state (i.e. income is received for the
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rendering of specific services as opposed to the receipt of a grant for functions the universities
determine), the funding councils have constructed operating procedures which make it
difficult to deny that the relationship between the state and the universities is best described
as a contract.
The first two parameters controlled by the state (the level of, and internal differentiation
within the councils' grants, and the pressure for the greater accountability of teaching and
research performances) have been closely interrelated in the funding procedures established
by the councils. Research funding is heavily dependent upon the research selectivity exercises
commenced by the U G C , and the councils have created procedures to assess, in the words
of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992: 'the quality of education provided in
institutions for whose activities they provide' (Clause 70 [1]). It is intended that funding
levels for teaching will be partially dependent upon these assessments, with a potential loss
of income for institutions which fail to deliver what is considered to be an acceptable level of
service. As the procedures established to evaluate research and teaching will help to shape the
academic maps established by the universities, so the funding mechanisms can be manipu-
lated to regulate the overall size of the student population. Examples are the U F C ' s failed
bidding system (that is the attempt to persuade the universities to bid for student numbers
at guide prices in the hope that many bids below guide price would be made), and the
successful stratagem of persuading universities to accept many 'fees-only' students with the
promise that such students would be 'fully funded' in subsequent years. Both these mecha-
nisms have to be analysed in the light of government decisions on the size of the student fee
element in the total income of the universities, and the determination to achieve expansion
without retaining the same level of resourcing for each additional student.
The financial monitoring takes the form of audit which is inevitably an after-the-event
accountability mechanism. But now each university is required to have a chief accounting
officer (should there be financial irregularities or incompetence it is clear where formal
responsibility lies), the audit procedures are clearly established, there are powers for the
funding councils to intervene in the affairs of individual institutions, and the Secretary of
State has, what best can be described as, reserve powers to act vis-d-vis both the funding
councils and individual universities. Parliament has weakened ministerial and funding council
hands by refusing to permit specific conditions to be attached to grants made to named
individual institutions; the feeling is that such a step would undermine any semblance of
university autonomy. Even if audit invariably leads to closing the stable door after the horse
has bolted, the new mechanisms locate responsibility and establish procedures for swifter
intervention. Whether they work in practice only time will tell.
Autonomy for the individual universities is, therefore, circumscribed by the broad
 68 E. R. Tapper & B. (Yr. Salter

parameters established by the state, and the mechanisms created by the funding councils to
establish those parameters in concrete terms. How much control over their development does
this leave in the hands of the universities? It makes sense to see the parameters as requiring
the universities to make choices, within a range of options, about their future development.
If research funding is heavily dependent upon evaluations received in the research selectivity
exercises, then an institution has to consider whether it can compete effectively for research
income. It may come to the conclusion, either that it has a research tradition which is unlikely
to be highly regarded by these particular evaluation exercises, or that it simply prefers to
concentrate its resources on teaching rather than research.
In recent years universities were able to increase their incomes by expanding student
numbers. Decisions had to be made as to whether the resources generated by 'fees only'
students were sufficient to justify the additional burdens they inevitably placed on facilities
and faculty. Because the Government decided to cut substantially the fees of the 1993 intake
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of students who were intending to read courses in the arts and social sciences, the universities
responded by restricting the number of available places. In each situation the decisions were
left to the individual universities, while the Government controlled the context in which those
decisions were made. In similar vein, although universities are required to prepare mission
statements which reveal their purposes and means, it is obvious that they require develop-
ment plans which wilt enable them to respond flexibly to changes in the controls exercised by
govemment and the funding councils. Indeed, with respect to the U F C ' s failed bidding
system, it was the response of the universities themselves which modified the boundaries in
which they functioned.
This new relationship between the state and the universities has evolved alongside a
rapid expansion in the number of institutions entitled to call themselves universities. The
Further and Higher Education Act 1992 empowered the Secretary of State to designate
institutions that were eligible to receive fimds from a higher education funding council
(Section 72), laid down certain guidelines on how they were to establish their instruments of
government (Section 73), and granted them the right to award degrees (Section 76).
Moreover, educational institutions deemed to be within the higher education sector could
apply to the Privy Council 'to include the word "university" in the name of the institution
and, if it is carried on by a body corporate, in the name of the body' (Section 77). Strongly
expressing his objection to these changes, Conrad Russell has written:
The title of 'university' is to be conferred only by changing its definition. Former
Polytechnics are not being given any of the rights and privileges which used to
define a University: instead those rights are to be taken from some former Univer-
sities. (1993, p. 106)
Russell's opposition to the extension of the label was based on the claim that it was being
granted to institutions that lacked a substantial research tradition, and 'An institution which
does not do research is not a University and a power which attempts to decree otherwise
discredits only itself' (1993, p. 106). This presupposes that Russell is one of the true
guardians of the idea of the university, and that others with different ideas are either
misguided or malevolent, or both. Moreover, he fails to appreciate the extent to which the
polytechnics succeeded in building a research tradition and, inexcusably for a historian,
appears to be unaware of the fact that a research tradition is not something that belongs
naturally to the idea of the university, but was established over time, often in the teeth of
opposition from established university interests.
While the ramifications of this conflict for the broad understanding of what is meant by
a university are enormous, the implications for the more specific question of university
 University Autonomy 69

autonomy are less certain. Historically university charters have been conferred either by an
act of Parliament or by the Privy Council acting on behalf of the Crown. The Privy Council
came to rely increasingly upon the advice of the U G C before reaching its decisions, which
had the consequence that entry to the university club was controlled by powerful insiders.
Furthermore, changes to the statutes of existing universities were invariably consequent upon
petitions to the Privy Council from the universities themselves. By appointing statutory
commissioners to change tenure clauses, the Education Reform Act 1988 challenged this
convention, to be followed in a few years by legislation that empowered the Secretary of State
to widen club membership, so taking control of entry out of the hands of the established
university interests. To act in this manner was not, although Russell clearly implies it was, an
abuse of power, but it did raise the spectre of the Government defining the relationship
between the state and the universities in any terms that it saw as appropriate.
Such developments can be seen as part of the process by which the state defines more
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precisely the parameters within which university autonomy will operate. There has been an
evident shift in the power relationship: increasingly the state imposes its parameters upon the
universities and is less willing to tolerate the conventions that were created by the universities.
From the Government's perspective the erosion of tenure has left the universities with a more
flexible labour force, one that can adapt more readily to changes in financial circumstances.
It has increased the ability of the universities to adjust to changed circumstances while
increasing the insecurity and loss of autonomy of its staff.
Control of the granting of statutes is simply the assertion of a right that has always
belonged to the state. The Privy Council is a formal part of the system of government and
its past genuflection to the U G C merely reflected the fact that successive governments were
prepared to tolerate it. What Section 77 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992
establishes is that university interests will not have the right to determine who will belong to
the club.

Autonomy Redefined
Neave has claimed that the state-university relationship in Britain changed rapidly in the
1980s from a situation in which the universities were autonomous, to one in which they
exercised no more than conditional autonomy. In view of the economic and political
developments, coupled with the protracted erosion of the preconditions of the established
understanding of autonomy, the apparent rapidity of the change should have come as no
surprise. More significant is his understanding of conditional autonomy:

Autonomy can be exercised only on condition that the individual institute or depart-
ment fulfils national or establishment norms which are continually to be renegoti-
ated in the light of public policy. (1988, p. 46, his emphasis)

As Neave himself pointed out, and as we have reiterated repeatedly, university autonomy has
always been conditional upon the political context. Neave is describing a form of autonomy
which is more applicable to the circumstances prevailing after, rather than immediately prior
to, the passage of the Education Reform Act 1988, and the Further and Higher Education
Act 1992. With the important exception of the research selectivity exercises (the second
exercise was well advanced when the U G C was replaced by the UFC), the U G C did not
construct funding mechanisms which led to norm setting and institutional competition.
Rather it established criteria, clearly influenced by public policy, to determine the reorganis-
afion of the British university system. It was a planning approach as opposed to a strategy
 70 E. R. Tapper & B. G. Salter

designed to evaluate, to reward and to punish, and perhaps even to change institutional
behaviour.
We have argued that the corporate a u t o n o m y of universities has always been exercised
within externally imposed boundaries. At one time those boundaries were imposed by a
powerful segment of university opinion and led "to a university system that was 61itist (both
in terms of its pedagogical values and those w h o m it was prepared to admit), high in cost, and
lacking in diversity. In recent years the state has reclaimed the control of those boundaries,
and has insisted u p o n managerial strategies which will result in a system which is more
diverse in character, has lower unit costs and is overall far less 6litist. In the process o f this
change, university a u t o n o m y has evolved markedly: from the idea o f development initiated
from below, to the idea that once granted their resources the universities were responsible for
spending them~ to the idea that universities need to make choices within boundaries that
discriminate against some decisions while encouraging others.
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T h e most important area in which universities have greater freedom for manoeuvre is in
the employment of their staff. In the past, the a u t o n o m y of the institution and of the faculty
was perceived as a symbiotic relationship. Now, one could argue that universities are
autonomous of their staff. T h e most symbolic manifestation of this crucial change is the rapid
erosion of academic tenure but there are a n u m b e r of significant related matters: the ability
to make more discretionary rewards, the ability to vary more widely conditions of service, the
instigation of more tightly monitored probationary procedures, the abolition of a fixed ratio
of senior to junior faculty, and the abolition of 'the professorial average' salary. At the same
time, although the concern to ensure financial probity has never been greater, universities are
now better placed to dispose o f their capital assets and use the proceeds as they see fit, and
to borrow in the market-place.
T h e state may d e m a n d greater financial accountability, and the universities to demon-
strate that it has received value-for-money, but it is also keen to encourage diversity. Such a
strategy has increased the range of choices available to universities, while decreasing the job
security of academics. In the process it has redistributed power within the universities,
reversing the seemingly ever-expanding authority of the dons. W h a t may bother many dons
is the apparent decline in their influence u p o n institutional decision-making, that in its
current form autonomy appears to be more dependent on the judgement of university
officials than on the wisdom of university academics. T h u s university autonomy has been
reconstituted while donnish domination has declined. In the process, the link between
institutional and individual autonomy that Neave argued was integral to the British interpret-
ation (1988, p. 37) has been broken.

Correspondence: Dr T e d Tapper. School of English and American Studies, Arts Building,

University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QN, UK.

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