Good Governance and Efficiency

The Federal Minister for Education, Julie Bishop, renewed her emphasis on good university governance, calling it the fifth pillar of higher education policy in her speech to the Australian Financial Review Higher Education Summit on 4 April 2007. Citing examples such as

• consultants working with one university have ‘found' $35 million that is being ‘wasted' through poor practices and processes;
• practice of transferring non-performing administration staff into its asset management team had resulted in that team growing to 250 people; and
• dozens of people being employed to reconcile invoices from across the university because of a failure to put in place coordinated and coherent purchasing policies.;

the Minister reiterated her and her predecessor's calls

In making the case for more funding, our universities need to ensure that governance arrangements are further improved and that universities can assure their stakeholders that the significant investments that are being made are being utilised effectively - through efficient business practices.