ABSTRACT
Roger Brown has written trenchantly on marketisation and regulation in higher education and this chapter focuses and elaborates on these themes. It examines the import of private sector models of governance and external quality assurance arrangements for universities and colleges, especially the utilisation of risk tools and techniques. The aim of risk-based regulation is that regulation should be proportionate to the problem in hand and, if at all possible, should reduce associated bureaucratic costs and stilted processes for both regulator and the regulated. It does so by focusing regulatory attention and resources predominantly on those riskier parts of the sector that the agency's methodologies have helped to identify. The appropriate risk management and regulatory approach should be based on instilling organisational resilience and building up the capacity of systems to respond quickly when an accident occurs. Uncertainty-based regulation emphasises quality enhancement and empowerment as much as quality control and assurance in the role to be played by external regulatory agencies.
