Red tape hits disadvantaged student schemes hardest

VITAL support schemes for disadvantaged students have by far the highest red tape costs, a study of universities' reporting requirements revealed.

Higher Education

VITAL support schemes for disadvantaged students have by far the highest red tape costs, a study of universities' reporting requirements has revealed.

The report by education consultants PhillipsKPA found Australian universities expended $26 million and 66,000 staff days a year meeting just some of the red tape demands of one federal department.

The report suggests there has been no overall easing of universities' reporting burden since Labor came to office, despite then Education Minister Julia Gillard's 2008 declaration that she would be ``taking the foot of government off the throat of our universities''.

University of NSW vice-chancellor Fred Hilmer said universities' reporting burden was ``excessive'' and the report only revealed the tip of the iceberg.

"The heaviest compliance burdens are those made by agencies (it) didn't examine,'' he said.

Universities Australia chief executive Belinda Robinson said the "dead weight'' of reporting wasted resources and diverted substantial funds from teaching and research.

The report found universities faced average reporting bills of 91 cents for every $1000 they received under the main teaching funding schemes, and as little as 20 cents per $1000 of large-scale capital works grants.

But costs ballooned to $20 for the Indigenous Tutorial Assistance Scheme and over $30 for the Disability Support Program.

PhillipsKPA director David Phillips said this was partly a reflection of scale. The two programs allocated just $13m and $6m respectively in 2011, the year considered in the study.

But the costs had mushroomed because of "irritating definitional issues'' and because Innovation Department
bureaucrats demanded information that was available elsewhere.

"To their credit the department recognised that and it was a significant motivation in commissioning the review,'' he said.

Mr Phillips said the government had a "mixed'' record on red tape reform, improving the efficiency of some "core'' data collection but introducing new reporting requirements.

Opposition universities spokesman Brett Mason said the report confirmed the Opposition's long-held concerns.

"Not only have the government wrapped our universities up in red tape, they're compounding the regulatory burden by duplicating it.''

RMIT University policy analyst Gavin Moodie said governments typically increased reporting requirements and oppositions typically promised to reduce them.

But the Gillard administration had increased flexibility by removing caps on subsidised university places and allowing them to be transferred between fields of study.

The government said it would respond to the report later this year.