The Higher Education Authority, HEA, welcomes the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the strategic innovation fund, SIF, which we consider to be very comprehensive and fair. It also endorses many of the findings of the independent review of the fund commissioned by the HEA and published last year, although it was necessary for the focus of the two reviews to be somewhat different.
Mr. Buckley has already addressed the background in the first few paragraphs of the statement I have circulated. Overall, and in a relatively short period, the strategic innovation fund has delivered substantial progress on all four stated policy objectives, as outlined by Mr. Buckley, and it should be borne in mind that this has been achieved in an environment of decreasing resources for higher education and increasing demand.
The review of the fund, commissioned by the HEA and conducted by Professor Gordon Davies, concluded that the achievements of the fund projects to date have been impressive with a wide range of direct and indirect benefits to the economy. Flexible course provision, the recognition of work-based learning and prior learning, the enhancement of engagement with enterprise and the development of regionally coherent approaches to improve access to higher education are among the achievements noted. The development and expansion of graduate schools has been significantly advanced through the fund and it has also made an important contribution to restructuring and change management within and between higher education institutions. The fund has facilitated the consolidation of partnerships at regional level and has led to the emergence of a number of truly national resources which enhance the collective identity and quality of the Irish higher education system as a whole.
The Comptroller and Auditor General review identifies a risk of overlap arising from the funding of similar projects in different locations. We fully accept that a number of similar projects were funded under SIF I, and I fully appreciate the issue raised, but duplication is not always wasteful of resources. There is value in seed funding a variety of approaches to common challenges to identify the best approaches. Also some issues are specific to individual institutions and require individually tailored and localised solutions; an example is in the access area, where particular regional conditions might apply.
That is not to deny the core point made in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report and the HEA, following the recommendation of Professor Davies, has undertaken a review of all projects based on the submission of progress reports and sustainability plans by fund consortia. This review sought to protect the projects ranked highly in the Davies report while also achieving a consolidation of the entire fund portfolio. As a result, a number of fund consortia merged in the interests of improved inter-institutional collaboration. One good example of this was the formation of a south west regional access alliance linking a range of projects in the areas of access, life-long learning and assistive technologies, allowing for the termination of the funding of eight lower-ranking projects.
The Comptroller and Auditor General comments that the identification of expected project outputs and outcomes in initial proposals and project plans was limited. Whereas specific objectives and deliverables were associated with each project, the HEA accepts that the sector could have done better and steps have been taken to counter the deficiencies. As the phase 1, SIF I, projects began it became apparent that more precise project plans would have helped to focus activity and offer a better measure of achievements over time. This experience led to enhanced monitoring and review of existing activities and also to a revised project planning process for the second phase, SIF II. The award and conditions letters issued in February 2008 in respect of the SIF II projects offered institutions a longer period for the development of project plans. The HEA also provided institutions with a revised and more detailed project planning template. The improved reporting processes and templates introduced under SIF II were simultaneously applied across SIF I to track project achievements. In addition, as part of the final reporting requirements for concluding the projects, the HEA is requiring institutions to submit a comprehensive statement of outputs and outcomes in respect of each project. We hope that will address some of the main concerns.
The Comptroller and Auditor General noted that the matched funding provided by institutions in respect of the fund projects mostly arises from internal staff resources and the recovery of overheads, and that the validity of some elements is questionable. However, there is another perspective. Given that the objective of the programme was to elicit innovation in how institutions carry out their mission, the transfer and reorientation of existing staff was precisely an outcome to be encouraged and supported. It should be borne in mind that institutional resources were applied to the fund in the context of a significant and sustained increase in student admissions and research outputs. In the latter stage, reduced resources were also a factor.
In respect of the monitoring of the programme, all SIF expenditure is subject to regular examination by the HEA, and SIF I funding included in European Regional Development Fund claims in 2007 and 2008 was subject to audit by Mazars and to spot checks by the Department of Education and Skills. The original programme specification, the call text and the letters of contract have always made it clear that ex post financial audits would be carried out on SIF projects. In HEA letters to institutions of 27 August 2010, they were reminded that, as per the terms and conditions of SIF awards, full audits of the expenditure of concluding projects are required.
On receipt of institutions' financial reports for the period ending 31 August 2010, the HEA undertook a comprehensive review of matched funding contributions and in a letter last December in respect of the SIF fourth quarter payments reminded those institutions with a shortfall in their contribution of their obligations; that is, they must have matched funding of at least 50% by the conclusion of projects.
The Comptroller and Auditor General observed that the programme would have benefited from more defined processes for sharing of good practice and lessons learned from project activity. I assure the committee that this is a priority for the HEA. However, SIF projects must reach a certain stage of maturity before the sharing of good practice can be meaningfully pursued. Projects, especially those funded under SIF I, are now at this stage. During the last year there has been considerable activity in the sharing of good practice through a range of meetings, publications, conferences and online resources. The HEA website includes links to SIF project websites, as well as project abstracts and thematic groupings, to facilitate the exchange of "best practice" between SIF consortia. The HEA will continue to prioritise this area as it is a major objective of the fund.
Some of the key programme outputs that have emerged from the SIF to date illustrate its very positive impact upon the development of the higher education sector as a whole. These include the Irish University Association's national online repository for Irish research; the Institute of Technologies of Ireland's portal, BlueBrick, for courses offered on a flexible basis in the institutes of technology; and the development of an integrated regional multiagency approach to educational disadvantage within the Shannon consortium. They provide a good sense of the achievements of the SIF. However, in my view the whole, in terms of impact, is greater than the sum of the contribution of each project. A key system-wide outcome has been the deepening of inter-institutional collaboration, a trend first supported by the programme for research in third level institutions, and now a central feature of the strategy for higher education.
The Comptroller and Auditor General is correct in noting that the full impact of collaboration in the SIF in terms of improved efficiencies and shared resources has yet to materialise but SIF collaborations provide a valuable blueprint for the development of regional clusters, which are also an important recommendation in the strategy. Such collaboration will ensure more and better identification of system-level efficiencies, rationalisation of course provision and joint development and delivery of programmes.
A particularly strong contribution that the SIF has made to the future shape and role of higher education lies in the development of teaching and learning. New and innovative approaches are needed as the sector seeks to cater for the unprecedented level of participation and to bring increasing numbers of citizens up to the skill and competence levels associated with the knowledge economy.
The SIF has laid some strong foundations with projects such as the National Academy for Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning, NAIRTL. This project has made a significant contribution to strengthening the interrelationship between teaching and research. Rather than viewing the teaching and research missions as opposing dimensions of higher education, the priority for the future will be to strengthen the connection between research and teaching to the mutual enhancement of both.
The SIF has also supported an increasingly important but to date relatively underdeveloped feature of Irish higher education, namely, the external engagement of higher education institutions with wider society. As envisaged in the national strategy, this "third mission" of the sector - which embraces engagement with enterprise, with the community and with other providers of education - will become more firmly embedded in the work of institutions. A number of SIF projects have made significant headway in achieving this goal, a number of which are listed in the document circulated to members.
The HEA shares the Comptroller and Auditor General's expressed concern regarding the sustainability of SIF projects in light of the contractions in institutions' core operating budgets. On a positive note, however, much of the SIF activity in areas such as institutional restructuring and graduate education has already been mainstreamed successfully. Moreover, the HEA is determined to ensure that maximum benefit for the higher education sector is extracted from SIF investment. We are, therefore, currently exploring ways in which nascent national platforms emerging from the SIF - platforms relating to teaching and learning, widening access, flexible course delivery, and postgraduate education - can be financially supported in the future. It is also my view that, notwithstanding resource difficulties, a SIF-type approach should form a continuing element in higher education funding, enhanced by the constructive review and observations of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The final observation I would make in respect of this part of my contribution is that in his report on the evaluation of SIF, Dr. Gordon K. Davies stated, "The revolution initiated by SIF is the critical move from doing just what is wanted by institutions to doing what is needed by the people."
Before concluding, I wish to return to matters identified in the Comptroller and Auditor General's Special Report 75: Irish Universities - Resource Management and Performance, which was the subject of discussion at this committee on 23 September last. A particular issue raised at that meeting was the recoupment of unauthorised allowances and other payments made by universities. The appropriate and most effective way in which that matter can be addressed is through the annual grant allocations to the universities. This will take place at the meeting of the board of the HEA on 1 February. It is my intention to seek the approval of the board to the withholding of a portion of the grant payable to each university concerned. The eventual use, during 2011, of the moneys withheld will then be the subject of consultation with the Departments of Education and Skills and Finance and a further decision of the board of the HEA. I assure the committee that I will keep it informed of developments.