ABSTRACT
The neo-liberal right argued that professionally dominated services were relatively impervious to consumer criticism. Even without the neo-liberal assault on public services, critical questions about the performance of public sector professionals have been asked in the last decade. Pennington argues that there are powerful reasons why continuous professional development of University teachers is essential in the context of 'the half-life of knowledge, the changing profile of students, the demands of lifelong learning and the potential of information technology'. In common with other public sector professionals, University teachers face a struggle to retain some of the traditional aspects of autonomy but within a framework of accountability that is probably inescapable. The post-Dearing agenda, driven by the Quality Assurance Agency has number of aspects, to which all University teachers are required to respond. At the 'grass roots' university teachers have grumbled about the burden of Research Assessment Exercise and Teaching Quality Assessment but when it came to the crunch there was compliance.
