The last decade has seen an acceleration of change in the way British universities have been governed, led and managed. This has substantially been driven by the instability of the external environment, which has encouraged a greater centralisation of decision-making leading to less governance and more management, but it is also a consequence of…

This article argues that in moving from being self governed to being state governed the policy drivers for higher education are no longer those of the system itself but are derived from a set of policies designed for the reform and modernisation of the public sector of the economy. The formation of higher education policy therefore needs to be…

Where have been the main policy drivers for the development of British higher education over the last 50 years? This article argues that while higher education policy was once driven from the inside outwards, from the late 1970s it has been driven exclusively from the outside inwards. Policy decisions under either regime were rarely driven by…

The article explores the proposals put forward in the Lambert Report for reforms in university governance. It compares the recommendation for a Code with the analogue Combined Code which regulates corporate governance in companies and draws a distinction between attempts, from the Cadbury Report in 1992 to the Higgs Review in 2003, to create board…