David Cooke: Restructuring Polytech Governance

Restructuring is contagious. Polytechnic councils have spent years presiding over the restructuring of their institutions, but now Government is doing it to them, in decisive style. The result will be governance by the few, so we should look hard at National’s Bill to downsize polytechnic councils.

Since there’s too much safety in numbers, the Minister of Tertiary Education proposes reducing council membership from as much as twenty down to eight, and, to reinforce the process, intervening directly in council action. Some legislative moves may seem inconsequential, but these are dangerous and destructive to more than just the polytechnics.

To make sure who calls the shots, the Minister would appoint four members, including chair and deputy chair. In addition, councils would include the Chief Executive, a student rep, an academic staff member, and a member appointed by council.

What is there to worry about from these bold moves?

policy wonks like to talk about stakeholders, but this Bill cheerfully ignores them. The proposed councils would no longer feature their communities or industry or professional fields, which were major factors in establishing polytechnics. Instead, they would represent government interests, especially as the majority Ministerial appointees would have the numbers to make the final council appointee

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it might seem easier to make decisions with fewer people, but that calls for a lot of faith in the few. One of the current strengths of councils is the number and variety of members from different sectors of society who provide scrutiny of council business

to judge from the Bill, the Treaty is clearly not a living document to Government, so there is no mention of Maori representation

Government obviously values performance and doesn’t trust councils. Accordingly, the Minister could sack any council member, supposedly “for just cause,” which is open to many kinds of interpretation and manipulation

under the legislation, the Chief Executive of the Tertiary Education Commission can force a council to use “specialist help” and demand “a draft performance improvement plan for its polytechnic”: i.e. the TEC can intervene drastically in the life of tertiaries

councils would need to earn their keep, so they should be ready to work hard. With only a few members, they’d all have to sit on the necessary sub-committees (e.g., Finance; Development; Audit & Risk), then report back to themselves

the polytech chief executive would be a voting member of council, and therefore no longer an ex officio employee of the council. The line between governance (council) and management (CE and senior administration) is always challenging, but the legislation succeeds in blurring it further. So the CE would get to play in both sandpits

the legislation specifies an academic staff member appointed by the Academic Board, and thereby not an elected representative. The distinction is important, since there are very few elected reps on existing councils, and only one (the student) on the proposed councils

there is no place in the legislation for an allied or general staff member; yet as everyone knows, tertiary institutions would grind to a halt without them

The legislation should worry society. Given the powerful Government intervention built in, the whole legislation is anti-democratic. It doesn’t just reduce democratic action, it sabotages it, part of a general undermining of democratic process in other sectors of society, such as the Auckland Super City decision.

The legislation should worry the tertiary institutions. Government intrusion through the bill threatens their autonomy. Significantly, the Minister’s press release refers to “meeting the changing needs of employers,” which could easily be the spur for promoting particular programmes at the expense of others. The bill also threatens academic freedom: lop-sided Government councils could pressure senior managements to rein in out-spoken staff. As a result, any polytechnics exercising their role as “critic and conscience of society” would quickly drop it, even though it is endorsed by the Education Act.

The legislation should worry the councils. The new councils would be the worst of worlds: government-controlled on one hand, and narrowed corporate structure on the other, both totally unsuited to education, inquiry and the construction of knowledge. And as noted, councils wouldn’t even be able to elect their own chair and deputy.

Councils and polytechnics would do us all a favour by strongly resisting this disturbing legislation. So could the stakeholders and members of communities affected, who would no longer appear on councils. And it would pay the universities to make common cause with the polytechnics. They’ll be next.

David Cooke, Honorary Research Associate, Unitec

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