ABSTRACT
During the 1980s and 1990s at least as much outrage has been generated within UK higher education institutions about the arrangements for institutional accountability and quality as about the funding crisis that, at the end of the day, led to Dearing. There is a huge paradox here, because the UK has (and arguably always has had) the most intensively scrutinized and hence ‘standardized’ approach to these matters in the world. What is more, this is an area in which the state has only recently taken a formal role in all but a small part.
