This report includes an overview of the way that 16 regulatory agencies throughout the world review governance issues and an analysis of 12 interviews undertaken with private providers.
Summary
This report describes corporate governance practice in a small sample of English alternative providers (APs) of higher education, examines the regulatory context for governance in a number of countries and suggests some indicators of good practice. It does not make recommendations, but describes governance practices and suggests some areas where both publicly funded providers and APs can learn from each other. The report has been written in the light of the work of the Corporate Forms and Structures Group of the Regulatory Partnership Group. We recognise that the English higher education system has been in a state of flux and subject to significant changes in the last three years and this continues. Hence this report presents only a snapshot of the position at the end of 2013 when the research was undertaken.
Our desk research studied the way that 16 regulatory agencies throughout the world review governance issues. Particular attention has been given to the regulation of for-profit providers in the USA in view of the controversies surrounding them in recent years. Five areas of corporate governance are reviewed as possible indicators of good practice.