Higher education institutions are accountable to Parliament and the public for the public funds that they use. The regulatory framework operated by HEFCE and the other funding bodies sets down what institutions are expected to do to discharge their accountability obligations. Institutions have to demonstrate that they use public funds for the purpose intended and with propriety; that value for money is achieved; that they are sustainable organisations and that quality standards are met.
There was a significant growth in regulation in the 1980s when the government set about privatising a number of the nationalised industries. Given their monopoly position these utility companies had to be regulated to protect consumers, so powerful utility regulators were established. While traditional regulators had been largely administrative, deriving their authority from parliamentary decisions, these new regulators were to have wider and different powers. As Dame Patricia Hodgson, the first chair of the Higher Education Regulation Review Group, puts it: “a new kind of regulator was born, exercising economic and standards judgements across whole sectors, with powers that had previously been in the hands of government alone.” These were super regulators.
Higher education institutions are now subject to a range of regulatory requirements and conditions, reflecting the scope and diversity of their activities. Many of these requirements are general regulations, which apply to many types of organisations, eg those relating to health & safety, planning or equal opportunities; others are specifically related to their roles as providers of higher education.
A report following a study commissioned by HEFCE in 2000, in response to growing concerns in higher education about the growth in the accountability burden:
In 2002 the Government’s Better Regulation Task Force (BRTF) published a report: Higher Education: Easing the Burden. That report led to the establishment by the then Department for Education and Skills of the Better Regulation Review Group (BRRG).The BRRG report of November 2003 prompted the creation of the Higher Education Regulation Review Group in 2004.