The crisis of academic assurance

Daniel Taylor on why universities are struggling and what needs to change

The English higher education sector is going through a governance stress test unlike anything in its recent history. Financial fragility, student outcomes regulation, international market volatility, partnership risks, and data quality pressures have all converged. Under this pressure, weaknesses in academic governance – once masked by benign conditions – have become visible, consequential, and sometimes existential.

This article offers a diagnosis of what has gone wrong and what must change if universities are to maintain academic integrity while satisfying the demands of regulators, students, and their own governing bodies.

The problems no one wants to name

Across dozens of governance reviews, the same patterns recur:

Problem 1: Councils don’t trust the academic assurance they receive

Assurance is often descriptive rather than analytical, delayed, partial, or overly optimistic. Councils worry they cannot meet OfS Conditions E1–E3 with the evidence they receive.

Problem 2: Senates are confused about their role.

Many behave like:

• discussion forums
• executive committees, or their foil
• academic parliaments
• or, occasionally, little more than rubber stamps

Very few operate as assurance bodies.

Problem 3: Executives mediate everything.

This blurs assurance lines. If the executive controls both the production and the interpretation of assurance, senate cannot speak independently.

Problem 4: Cultural drift is eroding academic governance.

After years of managerialism, financial pressure, compliance regimes, and restructuring, senate no longer carries the symbolic or practical authority it once did.

Problem 5: The sector has forgotten what senate is for.

This is the deepest problem. Without a shared understanding of senate’s purpose, governance becomes personality-dependent, reactive, and inconsistent.

Why this matters more than ever

Academic decisions now routinely have significant financial consequences, direct regulatory implications, contractual and litigation risks, reputational impacts, and operational dependencies.

In this environment, councils are rightly asking for stronger assurance. But stronger assurance does not mean council taking the decisions. That would destroy bicameralism and exacerbate risk.

What councils need is independent, expert academic assurance—and senate is the only body that can provide it.

The consequences of blurred roles

When senate is marginalised, confused, or dysfunctional:

• council cannot meet its legal duties, triggering regulatory action
• academic risks escalate unnoticed, sometimes catastrophically
• external examiners and PSRBs lose confidence, damaging reputation
• staff disengage, believing academic voice has collapsed
• executives face conflicting accountabilities, undermining leadership.

In the worst cases, governance failure becomes a causal factor in institutional decline.

What must change: re-establishing academic governance as a discipline

Universities need to treat academic governance not as a legacy structure but as a mission-critical system.

This requires the following:

• A clear articulation of senate’s purpose – not a procedural description but a statement of institutional philosophy.
• Rigorous assurance architecture – structured reporting, defined escalation mechanisms, evidence-rich analysis.
• Capability building – training for senate members, council members, and executives on academic assurance.
• Cultural renewal – re-legitimising senate as an authoritative academic voice, not a debating body.
• Structural connectivity – independent senate, but with strong and formalised linkages to council.

The turning point: why re-clarifying senate’s role is urgent

The regulatory environment is built on a core assumption: that institutions have functioning systems of academic governance capable of providing reliable assurance to their governing bodies.

If that assumption fails, everything else fails.

The remedy is not to strip senate of its independence, nor to retreat into nostalgic notions of academic collegiality. It is to rebuild academic governance so that senate once again provides:

• independent judgement
• clear accountability
• credible assurance
• academic integrity
• strategic insight.

This is not optional. It is foundational to institutional survival.

So, what is senate for in 2025?

Senate exists to ensure that academic judgement is exercised independently, expertly, and transparently, and that this judgement is translated into credible assurance that enables the council to fulfil its legal responsibilities without trespassing into academic decision-making.

• Senate protects the university’s academic core.
• It is the guardian of standards.
• It is the generator of assurance.
• It is the counterbalance that makes bicameral governance work.
• It is, fundamentally, the institutional expression of what makes a university different from any other kind of regulated organisation.

When senate works, the whole system works. When it fails, everything else becomes fragile.