This post explains the backstory of the governance changes at ITPs, the second of a series on the issue. I agree with the changes taking place, which should improve sector performance.

Just before Xmas, the Government passed the Education (Polytechnic ) Amendment Act 2009, which will result in smaller Councils. Prior to that Act, all public tertiary education institutions (TEIs) had the same membership requirements:

• 4 Ministerial appointees;
• the CEO;
• 1-3 academic staff members, elected by them;
• 1-3 general staff members, elected by them;
• 1-3 students, elected by them;
• 1 person appointed by the Council after consultation with Business NZ;
• 1 person appointed by the Council after consultation with the CTU;
• 1 or more persons from professional bodies, if the Council wishes to do so; and
• as many more as the Council wants, as long as the final Council is between 12 and 20 members.

Hmm, where to start…well, I’ll run thru a few problems with that set-up.

1. The Council is so big and so diverse that the CEO ends up being in the box seat, and the Council does not always exercise strong oversight of them.
2. Internal stakeholders get to choose their representatives, but external stakeholders are only appointed at the discretion of the Council.
3. Staff and student representatives do have strong conflicts of  interest over pay, working conditions, fees and courses. There is also a challenge over how their oversight of the CEO is balanced against the CEO’s power over them outside the Council room. Finally, external Council members often do not respect their role and expertise (that’s not the student’s/staff member’s fault, just a factor).
4. Having the CEO on the Council by law is a bad idea – it should be a decision made by their employer, the Council.
5. The simple fact of a representative structure can distract from the real need to balance stakeholder interests – its easier to appoint someone from a group than measure whether you meet that group’s needs.
6. Without a strong coordinated appointment process, securing an effective mix of skills around the table relies upon luck, the ability to round out skills with discretionary appointments and those few Councils that have.
7. All of the problems above are exacerbated by the fact that ITPs do not have a clearly defined role, which makes it hard to appoint the right people and measure their work.

National looked at those reasons and others (including concerns about Council and ITP performance) and decided to cut Councils down in size. They started by suggesting 8 members, including 4 Ministerial appointees, the CEO, a staff rep, a student rep and a discretionary role. The Chair was also to be appointed by the Minister. After ITPs said that they wanted to ensure that Maori and others had a seat at the Council, the Government simply allowed Councils to determine who had the four non-Ministerial appointments. Roger Douglas apparently pushed strongly for this at the Select Committee. It was a smart political move, shifting the balancing decision to someone else, and making it a local decision.

The challenge for ITP Councils, and the Minister, is to get the right people onto Councils over the next few months, ready for the May 1 transition date. The rest of this series will look at the detailed issues – some great discussion has already occurred in the comments in the first post and I’ll draw on them.