I accept that the intent of the Profiles and Charters Working Group was well-intended, but my main point is that we all were very naive about the implication of setting up a central agency with a ‘national strategy’: which is that you create an ongoing incentive for central intervention – which because more and more intrusive….

I mean no more than 6 pitched at a high level, otherwise it would be no different to having a plethora of funding streams and would generate the same creative responses.

Paul: was Karen Walker complaining that people who don’t understand sewing can’t design clothes properly….

Yes, that if you don’t know how to construct a garment, or more particularly how to construct thousands cost effectively, pretty pictures are of no value.

On the TEC, I guess I was expressing some sympathy for Dean’s position (not necessarily different from yours) that the key thing is to recognise that decisions are made elsewhere, not in the centre, and to design policy to reflect that.

Of course they were never meant to be centralised. That was never the intent. I specifically recall a comment from Jeremy Baker, then the BusNZ rep on the Kaye Turner-led charters working party, that charters and profiles should be signed off by regional and community bodies and that their endorsement of the focus of effort should be a critical factor in their approval by TEC. That was their intent and funding should have been allocated because institutions knew their stakeholder and could deliver support that was regionally relevant.

There would be no ‘rules’ manual, just a relatively short list of KPIs.

As much as your solution appeals as a way to avoid the gaming, the problem would likely be the length of the list of KPIs and the likelihood of their imcompatability.

That said, I certainly agree that the complexity of funding encourages the “innovations” and that a more simple approach would reduce these perverse incentives.

I’m trying to think whether the Australian approach offers any benefits… I could think about that further but I’m pretty certain the answer is no (since Commonwealth/State politics massively distorts things and there’s way more funding bodies than in NZ already).

The scenario goes along the lines of move by institutions and countermove by the funding agency. This goes on for a number of years until one of two things happen: (a) an instance of gaming moves from being an irritant to being a front page news story or (b) the move and countermove process gets to the point where the rules binding the funding system become too complex to manage. Ironically, the more complex the rules become, the more gaming opportuinites there are.

I do believe, however, that there is a solution (short of offering zero subsidies). The best way to avoid the tedious, endless cycle described above would be for institutions to be funded by way of a single line of funding which is formula-free. It would not be too dificult to calculate a reasonable amount of funding for any institution of a given size with a given profile. We now have twenty years of good data on every institution.

This funding could be negotiated on a rolling three year basis and delivered with a plus or minus 3% (say) tolerance. There would be clear expectations with respect to ‘deliverables’ by the institution and it would then be allowed to get on with its business.

There would be no ‘rules’ manual, just a relatively short list of KPIs.

The reality is that there is no ‘right amount’ with respect to funding and we shouldn’t be wasting time pretending that there is. There is, however, a ‘reasonable’ amount of funding but this can’t be arrived at by way of a formula that covers a wide range of situations. It can, however, be calculated on a case by case basis to achieve a fair and transparent result.

For sure, the system would have to transparent, well designed and skilfully managed by people of integrity. Surely we’re capable of that!

And on my “out there” comment amount about Graduate Tax I note that the LibDem/Cons coalition announced their higher education policy yesterday. I swear that I do not have any special connections to Whitehall . The full article is in today’s Guardian (amongst others). I highlight for your edification a couple of paragraphs (I do note that having a BP exec suggesting stuff is less helpful these days for some reason):

“Cable said he had asked Lord Browne, the former BP chief executive charged with reviewing student finance, to consider varying the contribution that graduates pay according to how much they earn, and possibly which university they attended.

This would mean those that go into highly-paid finance jobs and attended Oxford or Cambridge would prop up those that went into nursing at lesser-known universities.

The funds collected would go to the graduates’ universities. “We have impressed on Browne that [charging graduates different rates] is a very important priority,” he said.

Cable said he, the prime minister and the chancellor were all in favour of a graduate tax – or contribution – under which university-leavers would pay a higher rate of tax. It would be unlikely that graduates would have to pay this back for the whole of their lives”.

On the TEC, I guess I was expressing some sympathy for Dean’s position (not necessarily different from yours) that the key thing is to recognise that decisions are made elsewhere, not in the centre, and to design policy to reflect that.

On funding legislative roles, I’d be happy to either abolish them or fund those that exist, but just writing legislation that doesn’t mean anything is a waste of time.

Paul: was Karen Walker complaining that people who don’t understand sewing can’t design clothes properly….or was she complaining that she can’t get sewing techs/machinists in NZ? If the latter, then I have no sympathy; the jobs pay crap and are often the most vulnerable, because they are often the first to get outsourced to Asia. Students are just being rational.

Dave: isn’t the PBRF a good reason why the TEC is superfluous? – i.e. get the pricing signals right and you don’t need much else?

And I thought you believed in funding legislative functions (e.g. critic and conscience….)?