The higher education regulator has placed conditions on ANU’s registration as a university, a rarely-used expression of no-confidence in a provider.
The conditions cover Council governance and ethics oversight for management, but the significant requirement is a two-year review of core operational management, including academic and “financial stability plans.”
The extraordinary intervention follows TEQSA oversighting the appointment of the university’s new Chancellor, Gordon de Brouwer, earlier this year.
In an unprecedented assessment of a university with a global reputation, the regulator expresses doubts in detail on the competence of governance and states ANU does not meet registration standards including, “future directions in higher education have been determined, realistic performance targets have been established, progress against targets is monitored and action is taken to correct underperformance.”
Yesterday’s announcement follows months of speculation into findings of unreleased TEQSA-commissioned inquiries into the university’s governance and management. However the agency has now acted, requiring the university to nominate a TEQSA approved expert(s) to “undertake a governance and council strengthening programme,” to complete in two years.
This will include a “financial sustainability plan,” covering:
- Achieving financial sustainability, including ANU's academic and other units;
- Establishment of financial controls, accountabilities and reporting mechanisms as part of a management and performance reporting framework; and
- Reviews and updates to delegations to ensure effective budget controls.
TEQSA also specifies the plan must be informed by the recent Australian National Audit Office review of the university, which was critical of the planning underpinning previous Vice-Chancellor Genevieve Bell’s savings program and accompanying job cuts. However, the ANAO also warned that while, the university is “not at immediate financial risk,” there are “financial sustainability questions for ANU requiring active management.”
Australian Government grants for teaching, research and student fees, “have not been sufficient to cover expenses since 2018.” Plus “the gap between total expenses and total key income has been approximately 25% since 2020,” the Audit Office warned.
The campaign that drove Professor Bell out almost a year ago to the day, was based on a belief that the university’s finances were sound. But as of July, management had given up on the planned balanced budget for 2026, due to shortfalls in domestic and international recruitment and spending on “strategic priorities, compliance and student support.”
ANU is in the market for a new VC, with no public indication if Interim Vice-Chancellor Rebekah Brown is in the running. The question this morning is whether she, or anybody else, will want the job – for at least until the TEQSA-driven change planner has fixed whatever they decide needs fixing.
Reaction: ANU’s Council now includes no external appointments who supported Professor Bell, but existing members released a statement to ANU students last night that, “we cannot change the past, but we can learn from it. Trust is earned through transparency, accountability and consistent action over time, and that is the standard we will continue to hold ourselves to.”
Local National Tertiary Education Union leader Lachlan Clohesy was quick to attribute TEQSA’s intervention, “in large part to the the management, leadership and governance failures of the (previous chancellor Julie) Bishop-Bell regime.” And he offered a warning for the leadership of other universities. “There will be those who cry ‘regulatory overreach’ … I would suggest that university leaders across the country spend more time reflecting on why things have arrived at this point.”
But there was not a word last night from any of the university lobbies and ANU management was in silence, perhaps of the stunned sort.