Developing University Managers

This article reports the results of a study of the extent of management development programmes for managers of universities. The method used was a postal survey of all UK universities, which produced a response of over 60 per cent of universities. According to the responses received, about half of UK universities provide some organised management development for their managers with the other half doing nothing to develop their managers in any systematic way. On this basis, universities provide less management development for their managers than most other UK organisations. A few universities have achieved, and some are intending to seek, the Investors in People standard. Personnel managers within the universities are convinced of the need for management development for those who manage our universities. However, lack of resources and lack of commitment from vice-chancellors and other senior academics are the main barriers to the successful implementation of systematic management development.     

The Scottish Dimension

The Report of the Scottish Tertiary Education Advisory Council (STEAC), published in December 1985, has proposed that in the northern part of the United Kingdom there should be an alternative to the binary system of higher education, with both the universities and the public sector being planned for and financially controlled by the same body. That suggestion has been welcomed by many Scottish interests, but has raised fears in the majority of university staff, who see a danger of their being cut off from their counterparts elsewhere in the UK .
This article contends that the fears are not essentially Scottish in nature, and that the greatest danger to universities in any system of joint planning and finding is that the body responsible would be bound to take steps to reduce the inequalities which exist between the two sectors. What STEAC has proposed for Scotland should be considered for England and Wales too; the Scottish situation only presents an easier opportunity to achieve it .
The author is not wholly optimistic however. His analysis of the decisions taken in July 1986 by the Secretary of State for Scotland perceives political lobbying as having been of great influence on the outcome of the recommendations dealt with at that time. He wonders whether politicians will withstand the greater lobbying power of the universities against the main STEAC proposal .