My Reply to John Denham - 8th November 2007

I have written again to John Denham in the following manner:-

Dear John Denham

First of all, thank you for your response to my email of 11th October. I must put to you some other supplementary points which I am sure will be cogent and will also be of concern to the government, as well as the Open University and Birkbeck College.


I will quote from what you have just said to me as follows:-

____________________________________

We are only planning to re-distribute about 0.2% of the total income HE providers generate. I do not accept that, across the system as a whole, there will be insufficient capacity or infrastructure to deliver more opportunities for the additional students we want to attract. But of course, the changes imply that all 250+ providers will have to compete to maximise their share of the £100 million we are re-distributing. So at the level of individual programmes or departments, there could be changes. I make no apology for that. It depends on how well providers respond to the new incentives we are putting in place.

________________________

This would be fair enough were it to be a fair distribution of the deduction across the board. But somehow or the other, your designers at Hefce have decided that £40 million of this amount should come out of the budgets of Open University and Birkbeck College. These are the two leading proponents of Lifelong Learning, which I am sure you will appreciate is one of the government's avowed aims. Would you agree with me that this is not a fair reward for what the Open University has done for the United Kingdom in terms of lifelong and distance learning. I would also include my colleagues at Birkbeck College in the same sentiment.

40% of the total redistribution is being taken from the very people who stand a chance of delivering lifelong learning within the United Kingdom. I find that very hard to believe.

I believe that you are sincere when you say that the government believes in the redistribution: I dont have any quibble with that. But what I am saying is that the redistribution of resources in this way is unfair and inequitable and goes against the avowed intent of the government to promote lifelong leearning.

I would therefore agree with the Vice Chancellor of the Open University that you should seriously reconsider your decision to take so much money from the distance learning universities and put that particular decision on hold until the spending review of part-time HE provision in 2009. I look forward to your considered reply on this.


Sincerely,
Donald Hedges, BA(Hons)(Solent), Dip Eng Law(Open)