Universities need government support to improve efficiencies within the cash-strapped sector, the head of a higher education task force has said, calling for the creation of a sector improvement agency and transformation fund.?

Nigel Carrington, chair of Universities UK¡¯s (UUK)?Transformation and Efficiency Taskforce, met with university leaders in London, where he outlined the group¡¯s emerging findings on how best to address inefficiencies in the sector, partially in response to ¡°massive pressure on public finances¡±.?

Carrington said a major barrier to improving efficiencies has been the disbanding of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) in 2018, replaced by the Office for Students (OfS), ¡°which has pushed the sector towards increased competition as an underlying goal¡±.?

¡°I think it¡¯s pretty self-evident to everybody that competition rarely encourages collaboration,¡± he said.?

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¡°It is also generally recognised that the abolition of Hefce meant that the sector lost an intermediary body which had the staff, resources and mandate to facilitate change,¡± the former University of the Arts London vice-chancellor continued.?

¡°Many members of the task force and others we¡¯ve spoken to believe that we need to find a way to reconstitute an intermediary to catalyse and support change in the sector.¡±

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Ahead of the publication of a full report later this month, he added that the task force was exploring the creation of a shared higher education business service provider and a broker to coordinate collaboration for priority subjects.

Carrington also said there were opportunities for ¡°sharing more services and infrastructure¡± as well as better ¡°leveraging of sector buying power¡±.?

He reiterated calls for a government-backed transformation fund, an idea first set out in a UUK sector blueprint?published in September 2024.

However, he caveated, ¡°all of this is underpinned by a new relationship with government¡±, referencing the ¡°angry, hysterical dialogue¡± that has ¡°sometimes characterised the conversation between the sector and government¡± in the past.?

¡°We have to find a way of analysing the legislative, regulatory and funding environment in order to get government to work with us in a very consensual, trusting way to help us to go further and faster,¡± Carrington said.?

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Speaking at the same event, Sally Mapstone, the UUK president and principal of the University of St Andrews, said the sense of universities operating within a wider system has become ¡°less and less pronounced¡±.?

She referenced subject ¡°cold spots¡± that have emerged as a result of institutions ¡°unilaterally¡± cutting humanities courses,?as mapped by the British Academy.??

While these decisions ¡°make a great deal of sense¡± at the university level, they may ¡°cause really regional problems in terms of what¡¯s available to those [students], particularly those from less advantaged backgrounds, who may wish to study particular subjects within their own area¡±, she continued.??

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Mapstone said a key role of the task force could be to give a ¡°much greater sense of¡­who is doing what¡± and ¡°where we can most effectively work together for ourselves as individuals but also¡­across the UK as a whole in terms of teaching provision and also in terms of research provision¡±.

David Langley, chief transformation officer at Cardiff University ¨C which in February?announced wide-scale cuts?to both jobs and courses ¨C said universities were likely to ¡°face resistance¡± to change.?

¡°We also need to recognise that much of this executive-level governing body conversation, to be blunt, has largely been irrelevant to many of our colleagues and the student body previously. That¡¯s no longer the case,¡± he said.?

¡°Everybody needs to understand what¡¯s going on, why we need to transform, what pace and why,¡± he continued, including ¡°understanding that you can¡¯t live off reserves¡±.

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helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com