I'm glad that an esteemed institution like Cambridge seems to agree with my fundamental critique of the HEFCE funding methodology, as presented at one of the early HEFCE workshops back in 1997!

The criticisms from Malcolm are absolutely valid. In my view HEFCE have gone down the wrong route in looking at cost centres as the basis of the funding methodology, rather than the student's qualification outcome. My argument is that a student studying for a degree in Engineering should be funded at the same rate regardless as to where they are taught and HOW they are taught!

Consider the following example:

Let's say. for the sake of illustration, an undergraduate engineering student does 80% engineering, 10% maths and 10% management, whatever institution they study in.

Institution A is organised on a 'traditional' basis. All the teaching is based in the engineering department, who employ specialist staff to teach 'maths for engineers' and 'management for engineers'. These may not even be in indentifiable modules, so the HESA return probably shows this student as 100% cost centre 16, subject H100.

The student in institution A is 100% Price Group B - standard resource in 2000-01, 2 x £2,731 = £5,462

Institution B is organised on a modular matrix basis. The 10% maths is taught in a maths department, the 10% management is taught in management school, the 80% Engineering in an engineering department. The student is 80% Price Group B, 10% Price Group C, 10% Price Group D
standard resource = .80 x (2 x 2731) + .10 x (1.5 x 2,731) + .1 x (1.0 x 2,731) = 5,052.35

So Institution B gets pounds 409.65 less (-7.5%) for teaching exactly the same student curriculum!

"Aha!" said HEFCE, "but it also works the other way." And so it does. A sociology student in Institution B who takes a statistics module is worth more than a sociology student in institution A who gets their statistics taught by staff of the sociology department. "So across the institution it will cancel out", is the argument.

"Doubtful" is my response. In my experience of 20+ years in modularised institutions, the likely pattern is that the lab based students gravitate towards classroom based components more than the other way round. (How many sociology students take some biology, compared to vice versa?).

So in 1997, I argued this system penalised the modularised institutions - typically the former polys. I didn't get much sympathy then, but I'm glad others can see it now!

HEFCE argued that they would monitor and audit this, and where departments were teaching a large proportion of subjects that were not in the same price group, HEFCE would pick up on it. This does assume that institutions like Institution A classify their 'maths for engineering' components as MATHS, and not engineering, in the HESA return. Since they have a vested interest in NOT doing this, I remain sceptical.

I understand that some of these issues may come out in the very near future when HEFCE review the price group structure.

However this critique is primarily about comparisons between institutions. The teaching of management is still a classroom based activity - so I don't have a problem in my own institution in funding the teaching of management at a lower level than the teaching of the lab/workshop based components of engineering. For a modularised institution it is easier to identify this and one of the reasons why such institutions tend to be better managed.

What we do have to watch out for is departments that accumulate subjects not part of their core discipline, and that ought to be taught more effectively elsewhere. The nigh universal teaching of IT everywhere however has already driven coach and horses through this, but I think holding the line on other disciplines is an important feature of introducing an income led methodology internally.

I don't know about an AUA session - there's enough stuff in here to run an entire conference around!

Mike

>>> [log in to unmask] 13 June 2001 12:59:18 >>>
Dear all,

We're not sufficiently far down the line yet to start noticing pitfalls at
Cambridge, but here are two that I've come across in previous institutions.
They both relate to service teaching. (I hope that they wont be recognised by
anyone other than my sucessors in those jobs!)

First: teaching maths to engineers. In one institution, there was reasonably
broad acceptance of the idea that, on academic grounds, maths should be taught
by mathematicians, who, for reasons of research 'critical mass' should be
employed in the mathematics department (there were some agreed exceptions to
this rule of thumb). Since the model had to implement agreed academic
strategy, we clearly had to come up with a way of encouraging departments such
as engineering to 'franchise out' their maths FTEs to maths. However, if you
follow the HEFCE methodology then, depending on how far you break departments
down into different cost centres, you find that maths taught by someone in an
engineering department is likely to be returned to an engineering cost centre,
and so be resourced at the engineering level. If we accept the argument
underlying the HEFCE T methodology, then maths is cheaper to teach than
engineering. So, by employing a mathematician 'in house' to do their maths
teaching, the engineers are able to make a profit on their HEFCE T funding
(income at Band B, but costs more similar to Band C). Two possible solutions:
either control such issues outside of the RAM, through an academic policy
committee (since the RAM is not a panacea); or fund by subject of study rather
than cost centre: then the decision whether to frnachise out or not is budget
neutral.

Second: teaching management to engineers. School of Management find it more
rewarding to teach their own students than to teach engineers. Consequently,
they demand a premium (e.g. they say that they want to receive band B funding,
since the students are engineers). Clearly, they dont understand how cost
centres work (they do now!). But in a highly devolved institution, where
Schools are very powerful, is there not some merit to their argument? Ought
the two Schools to be allowed to argue a transfer rate between themselves? (I
am not necessarily persuaded that they ought, but it is food for thought.)

In both cases, I think that a large part of the answer is that we should not
be afraid to use the freedom that we are given to apply HEFCE funds in the way
that we deem appropriate to institutional strategy, i.e. not necessarily in
accordance with the formula by which HEFCE determine our standard resource. In
this first case, by funding by subject not cost centre; in the second, by
adjusting the HEFCE weightings if this is agreeable to those concerned. I
think that it is of crucial importance that RAMs should reflect, and be a tool
for the implementation of, University strategy. And since the HEFCE model does
not include a direct link between activity and income (those extra students
just take you out of the tolerance band!), I have always found it possible to
persuade the relevant committees to diverge from the HEFCE methodology and
weightings (to greater or lesser extents) when designing local RAMs.

Malcolm Edwards

Malcolm S Edwards MA STM PhD,
Assistant Registrary,
General Board Division,
University Offices,
The Old Schools,
Trinity Lane,
Cambridge CB2 1TT

Telephone 01223 339665