Two Year Old "Review of the Corporate Governance of Statutory Authorities and Office Holders" Surfaces to Disquiet the Australian Research Council. (July 6, 2005)

    In November of 2002 the Federal Coalition Government appointed John Uhrig AC, Chairman of Westpac in the early 1990s,  to conduct a review of the corporate governance of Commonwealth statutory authorities and office holders. The stated objects of the review were "to identify issues surrounding existing governance arrangements and to provide options for Government to improve the performance and get the best from statutory authorities and office holders, and their accountability frameworks." Mr Uhrig was also asked to provide broad "templates of governance principles and arrangements".

Mr Uhrig provided the final version of his 133 page report to the government in June 2003 and the Minister for Finance and Administration, Senator Nick Minchin, released the report 14 months later on August 12, 2004.

Of the six recommendations in the report five have been endorsed by the Government and the particular one which has suddenly gained the attention of The Australian's Dorothy Illing is

Recommendation 3: Governance boards should be utilised in statutory authorities only where they can be given the full power to act.

Government Response: Endorsed.

As Illing points out "The Uhrig Review recommended that ministers and their departments assess each of the statutory authorities within their portfolios against two templates - an executive management model and a board model," and "governance boards should only be used where they can be given the full power to act. Although the ARC has a board model, the board does not have full power to act independently of the minister: Dr Nelson must sign off on its recommendations for research grants."

Clearly the hybrid condition in which the ARC finds itself goes against Uhrig's Recommendation 3. Would Dr Nelson as the Minister for Education, Science and Training be prepared to relinquish his current power of final say?

Not bloody likely; remember when last year he vetoed the ARC's giving of  three grants in the humanities and social sciences.

It's little wonder then that the ARC board has got the wind up. As Illing points out, "The Australian Research Council board could be abolished and more control over research grants be handed to Education Minister Brendan Nelson."

Dr Nelson is hankering to get full control over the nation's public universities, why not abrogate peer review as well.