This article comments on the relationship between British universities and government departments with special reference to the work of the University Grants Committee and the role of its Chairman. The extent to which universities are free to exercise discretion is delineated and the place of lay (i.e., non-academic) people in university government is described. The future would seem to call for increased political adroitness on the part of those who govern universities if the unusual freedom at present possessed by British universities is to be retained.
British universities, though largely dependent on Government money, are to a degree insulated from Government control by the interposition of the University Grants Committee (UGC), a body largely composed of academics from the universities themselves. This device is widely regarded as ingenious and desirable, and is particularly praised by our American friends, who perhaps see in it the academic equivalent of handing the State control of gambling to the Mafia. There are, however, certain myths about the UGC and its work, and the purpose of this article is to explain some aspects of the real relationships, and to look ahead to possible future problems in the relations of universities and the State.
The system by which Government does not itself run, or control in detail, institutions of higher education is not special to u/fiversities: it applies to almost all of British higher education. Indeed, the major part of the non-university sector, which is controlled by local authorities, is in an important sense under less control from the centre than the universities, for there is no limit to current expenditure which is as definite as the total grant which is given to the UGC to distribute. The non-university colleges are however subject to other central controls, and (an important point) it is easier to close *A lecture given at the University of Lancaster on May 28, 1979. Sir Charles Carter was formerly Vice Chancellor, University of Lancaster.