The NSW Legislative Council inquiry into university governance goes the full Luther, calling for a complete reformation in university governance across the state’s public system. The message nailed to every chancellery door is that leaderships have lost moral authority.
“Universities derive their legitimacy not only from academic achievement, but from public trust. … It is clear to the committee that existing governance structures are not consistently operating in a manner that promotes transparency, accountability, collegial decision-making, stakeholder participation or public confidence,” the Committee reports.
“Nor do the legislation and other arrangements provide sufficient safeguards to ensure that institutional decisions are subject to meaningful scrutiny, transparent justification and appropriate stakeholder engagement.”
And it calls on the NSW State Government to “to reorient universities towards their public mission of education, research and service to the broader community,” by reviewing each of their establishing acts of Parliament,
The origins of the report were in Upper House Members’ concerns with a staff-cutting restructure at UTS and governance concerns at the University of Wollongong, vindicated by evidence presented to a State corruption commission inquiry into management and governance at UoW.
But the Parliamentary Inquiry, chaired by Labor MLC Sarah Kaine, went much further. In an extraordinary amount of work, the committee documents reports of failings in governance at each of the ten public universities The enquiry was an opportunity for the National Tertiary Education Union to set out management failings at each university and while the details differ, the overall finding is that the common operating model is failing students, staff and communities.
The inquiry identifies common failings, including revenue replacing civic mission, managements excluding staff from decision making, adopting corporate business practise, conflicts of interest in management and indifference to staff and student wellbeing.
Recommendations include;
- The Legislative Council holding annual inquiries into universities responsibilities
- “Clear and effective accountability mechanisms” for chancellors, vice chancellors and members of council
- An “independent mechanism” for university whistleblowers
- 50% of councils to be elected academics, general staff and students
- Elected representatives to be a majority on all council committee on senior staff remuneration, appointments to council and “senior leadership”
- Independent advice for councils, “to support independent oversight of management decisions”
- Reports on how staff and student feedback has informed major organisational change proposals “before decisions are finalised”
- “Ensure that academic boards and other collegial governance bodies have a meaningful role in significant academic, strategic and organisational decisions”
The State Government has the power to amend university acts to accomplish pretty much everything the committee calls for. But why would any premier want the grief? The answer depends on how big a political issue university performance is and how little community support universities have.