Governance of Scottish Higher Education Institutions: Consultative Paper on HE Bill

This article was previously published on the Leadership Foundation website.

The Scottish Government has published a consultation paper setting out its intention to introduce new legislation aimed at modernising and strengthening the governance of Scottish higher education institutions. The government states that it does not wish to increase ministerial control of institutions, but is seeking to modernise aspects of institutional governance and embed democracy and accountability.

The Scottish higher education system includes ancient and chartered institutions, as well as post-92 institutions. The existing legislation attaching to the different constitutional forms will not be repealed. Rather the new legislation with focus on a number of specific aspects of governance. These include:

• Selecting the Chair of an institution’s court/governing body: institutions currently use a variety of processes to select their Chair. It is suggested that in some cases the current processes are not helpful in attracting a pool of candidates with different backgrounds and expertise. The Consultation paper proposes that the selection process should be ‘rigorous and transparent’ and that to make the position more accessible to a wider group of prospective candidates there should be the opportunity to offer ‘reasonable’ remuneration.
• Ensuring the composition and membership of the governing bodies is fully representative: the paper advocates a strengthening of the representation of internal stakeholders and prescribes minimum levels of student and staff members of a governing body, and members drawn from the institution’s alumni.

Interested parties are invited to submit their written responses on the consultation paper to the Scottish Government by 30 January 2015.