The government's funding watchdog will not confront Oxford and Cambridge universities over their failure to sign up to modernisation reforms, it emerged today.
But the prime minister in waiting, Gordon Brown, and his prickly relationship with the elite universities - which included him speaking out after an Oxford college refused a place to A-level state school student Laura Spence - may mean he is prepared to intervene in university governance practices where the Higher Education Funding Council England (Hefce) is not.
Oxford's chancellor and titular head, Lord Patten, has already warned that failure by the university and Cambridge to cooperate with the modernisation agenda may force the government to impose changes on them instead. The reforms proposed by the government and supported by Hefce, which holds the purse strings of higher education institutions, hinge on the make-up of university governing bodies.
Cambridge University and the University of Oxford are resisting pressure to fall in line with other universities and bring in a lay majority, mainly from the business sector. The UK's top universities are continuing to insist that their best interests are served by governing bodies which are controlled by academics.
Today Hefce said it had no plans to meet with Cambridge after it transpired that the university was prepared to increase the lay membership of its governing body from two to four, but would continue to keep the majority of places for academics. A spokesman for Hefce said it would take up the issue again with Cambridge when it was time for its governance review, which is scheduled for 2008 to 2009.
There were no plans to discuss the issue with the university ahead of the planned review, he said. "We do not normally intervene unless there is a particular problem or issue which needs (to be addressed) urgently". Asked whether Hefce had any power to take sanctions against a university, which did not take on the governance reforms, he said: "We do have the power to withhold funding but we would only do that in extreme cases." He said sanctions were "not the way forward".
The priority was to work with universities "to resolve any issues if there are any", he said. The funding council, he confirmed, was still in talks with Oxford about the membership of its ruling council after a ballot of university staff in January rejected a proposal, supported by its vice-chancellor, Dr John Hood, to abandon its academic majority. Those talks, he said, were a continuation of discussions which followed Hefce's last government review of the university. "We are still talking to Oxford. The discussions are part of the assurance review process."