Department of Universities, Innovation, Skills, meeting 28th November 2007

DIUS Committee Meeting 28th Nov 07


Please find attached a link to the Real Player audio of this important meeting (the DIUS Minister for Lifelong Learning Bill Rammell, the Chairperson of Hefce, David Eastwood and various others.)

The relevant bit of the audio to which there is a link above, comes between about 13 minutes and 33 minutes into the piece. There are a series of very important questions being put to Bill Rammell and David Eastwood about the effect that the cuts in ELQ funding will have on the Open University and Birkbeck.

From what I have heard of the meeting, the protests and concerns that we have all been voicing have been having some effect, not perhaps much in the direction of policy travel but in the fine detail, it would appear that there has been a concentration on those who will suffer the worst "headline" fates, ie the Open University and Birkbeck.

There is reason to suppose that there will be various other measures in the pipeline that will save the Open University and Birkbeck; these hints are all a bit vague at the moment but according to what David Eastwood said, all will become a bit clearer in January 2008. I hazard a guess that there will be some special measures put in place which have not yet been crystallised. In addition to that we can also look forward to the part-time student funding review in 2009.

This is what I ascertain from reading between the lines. I am now not altogether convinced that the government is as trenchant in its views as it was when this process started and am of the opinion that our protests have had some effect. However we need to keep on protesting and making our views known, whilst looking very closely at what the government and Hefce are actually coming up with in the case of the Open University and Birkbeck.

I thus leave you on this optimistic note and will report any changes in the forthcoming weeks.