Meeting of the Parliament 14 January 2016
Thank you very much.
The third issue, which is crucial, is about governance and democratic accountability. Some commentators seem to argue that the universities criticise the relevant part of the bill because they cannot see beyond their ivory towers and are choosing to hide behind the convenient protection of autonomy because they do not want any change. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Indeed, universities have gone to great lengths to demonstrate why the bill would actually diminish rather than enhance democratic accountability, and to argue for the benefits of the code, which was designed by all stakeholders. They have explained to the Scottish Government many times why the crucial trust between a chair and the board might be compromised by the system of elected chairs that the Government is proposing. They ask why on earth a Government would want to legislate on the size of academic boards and the definition of academic freedom. They ask why there is a complete lack of clarity about how the post of rector fits into the new proposals. They ask about the nonsensical commitments to the stipulations about the size of governing bodies, which would mean that certain posts, which are elected by staff, would disappear. They have asked the Government to address concerns about whether a good range of candidates will come forward, given the experiences that have been flagged up by the NUS. Finally, they have asked, yet again, the Scottish Government to answer—with evidence—the Education and Culture Committee’s 17 concerns. To date, there has been an entirely unsatisfactory response. Indeed, with regard to the question about maintaining the strong link between chair and board, the Scottish Government woefully admits that it has
“not undertaken specific research in this area”,
and it seems that the Scottish Government thought to consult Ferdinand von Prondzynski on the academic boards only after the bill had been published and the stage 1 evidence sessions had taken place.