News

The latest on everything that matters to student life, from UCD’s campuses and from around the country

Otwo

The University Observer’s award-winning arts and culture supplement features the best in new music, film and fashion

Features

Peek behind the scenes of student life and gain a deeper insight into the matters shaping academic life

Science & Health

Thoughts, debate and commentary on the latest breakthroughs and discoveries about the wider world

Sport

Catch up with the latest UCD sports news and read opinion, debate and analysis on all things athletic

Home » News, Top Story

IUA expenditure rises amid universities’ financial crisis

Contributed by Amy Bracken on Tuesday, 15 February 20112 Comments

The Irish Universities Association (IUA), of which UCD is affiliated, had close to a €2 million increase in both income received and expenditure against a backdrop of education cutbacks between 2008 and 2009, The University Observer can reveal.

Based on its size, UCD is understood to be the largest university contributor to the IUA, a limited company with seven university presidents as its Board of Directors, in terms of financial contributions.

A representative from the UCD Academic Staff Association said: “I had no idea that the IUA had the type of budget that it has. Everyone I showed those figures to had assumed that the IUA was a relatively small organisation providing some form of secretarial support to the seven presidents.”

The representative added: “What exactly does the IUA do? That’s another question, which is why I was absolutely gob-smacked when I pulled down the numbers…they’re a fig leaf for anything the universities want to do.”

Official documents obtained by The University Observer show that funding received by the IUA rose from just under €3 million to €4,841,846, while expenditure rose from €2,912,894 to €4,517,503 from 2008 to 2009.

The IUA obtained in the region of €1.5 million in funding from the universities over the years 2008-10. A spokesperson for UCD said: “The UCD portion of this funding was €329,223 for 2008, 2009 and 2010.”

The official documents state: “The company is primarily dependent upon the universities for funding.”

A breakdown of figures provided to The University Observer by the IUA Chief Executive show that in 2009 the seven universities contributed €1,555,510 of the €4,841,586 income receivable stated in the documents.

This rise took place during the same period in which universities’ deficits became public and programmes of cutbacks were introduced.

Chief Executive Ned Costello said the work of the IUA includes “specifically sectoral projects involving all of the seven universities”. He stated that other income derives from the HEAR (Higher Education Access Route) and DARE (Disability Access Route to Education) projects and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation.

The company states on its website: “As an organisation in the public domain the action of the company and/or its members are open to public scrutiny… the organisation must be seen to operate on the most appropriate standards of governance, accountability and value for money.”

However, The University Observer understands that because of their status as a limited company, the company is protected from any requests made under the Freedom of Information Act.

General Secretary of the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT), Mike Jennings, said: “As I understand it, the IUA is an association of the presidents of the seven universities in the Republic of Ireland… they don’t have a statutory role. They don’t have a governing board which represents anybody other then the university presidents, as I understand it.”

The official documents also show that the IUA hired two extra administration staff in 2009. During that same period, the Higher Education Authority (HEA) imposed restrictions on hiring staff across the third-level sector, and also instructed universities to make several waves of cutbacks in all academic and non-academic areas. Costello confirmed that their office premises located in Merrion Square is rented but refused to comment on how much it cost per annum.

2 Comments »

  • Ned Costello said:

    In regard to the above article, the following facts are relevant:

    Subscriptions from the universities to IUA remained at a flat rate for the period 2008-2010. For 2011 has IUA reduced its subscriptions by 12.5%.

    Any implication that IUA spending rose in a way which was inconsistent with the pattern of spend in the universities themselves is incorrect and misleading for the following reasons:

    Along with core grant, Universities have also received funding under the Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) – a key resource for innovation, collaboration and modernisation in the universities.

    As is apparent from the data on subscriptions, the IUA increase in spend for 08 & 09 did not come from university finances. Rather, based on the agreed priorities of our members, IUA competed for and was awarded SIF funding to deliver a number of collaborative projects across the universities.

    The projects (which have been cited by the HEA and its independent programme evaluator as highly valuable sectorally and nationally) include: a national portal for open-access research (RIAN.ie); the national roll out of two new admissions routes (DARE and HEAR), a major full economic costing project; and the acquisition by the universities of a set of bibliometric tools to capture research citations & outputs.

    For a full list of all IUA SIF sectoral projects see http://www.iua.ie/iua-activities/strategic-innovation-fund.html.

    In relation to SIF funding overall, the table below shows the total disbursements from the SIF to Higher Education Institutions by year and the total amounts paid to IUA in the same period. The table also shows what percentage of total spend each years’ drawdown represents.

    It will be seen that SIF funding for Higher Education as a whole trended upwards in the years 2008 and 2009. Therefore, in the period when IUA’s SIF-related spend increased, University spending in this area increased in similar proportion also. In addition, it should be noted that the majority of the IUA SIF funding was spent directly in the universities and supported a number of additional staff hires in the universities themselves.

    For the record, there has been no increase in core IUA staffing in the period in question.

    TABLE

    SIF funds released by year in €m

    TOTAL IUA
    Year SIF I & II SIF I & II
    2006 15.00 19.5% 1.27 20.5%
    2007 0.00 0.0% 0.00 0.0%
    2008 15.98 20.8% 1.52 24.5%
    2009 26.98 35.1% 2.22 35.8%
    2010 18.90 24.6% 1.19 19.3%
    Total 76.86 100.0% 6.20 100.0%

    - 18 February 2011 at 10:56 am
  • Quinton O'Reilly, Copy Editor said:

    I think that the biggest concern is the running costs which haven’t been properly explained. Regarding your comment on staff numbers, the documents we acquired state that the IUA’s administrative expenses increased from €2,893,100 in 2008 to €4,842,846 in 2009.

    Now I’m sure everyone would find it difficult not to recognise the benefits of projects such as HEAR and DARE in helping those who are unable to access third-level education by normal means. However on the other side, there are very few projects that focus on the universities themselves, either academically or socially. Ask any staff member or student in any of the universities, there have been cuts experienced in services such as the libraries, staff and grants for students, projects and societies.

    Furthermore, you have instances where extra fees or expenses have been introduced; the most obvious one would be the rise in college fees which increased from roughly €900 to €1,500 to €2,000 between 2009-2011 and the health service charge introduced in UCD in the 2009/2010 term.

    By dedicating this funding towards costing projects, I am sure that staff and students of all the universities in the country, not just UCD, would question why so much funding would need to go into these areas, especially with the large jump in expenditure. They would also wonder why some of this funding is not directed towards essential services such as the ones mentioned above.

    That’s not to say the services you provide aren’t essential, but in your comment you never mentioned the SIF funded projects such as Attracting International Students, Open Access to Research output, 4th level Support network, PhD Quality Assurance, HE Leadership Academy and Student Feedback system just to name a few.

    Matching the figures you provided below with the above figures suggest that the SIF funds allocated to those projects are separate from the funding the IUA receives directly. Also, your funding receivable figure jumped from €2,893,100 in 2008 to 4,841,846 in 2009. Had the funding from the SIF that you included been incorporated into these documents, you would imagine that the cost and expenditure figures for your end of year would have been much higher.

    This is perhaps a problem that all the Irish universities have and to single out the IUA for this would be unfair. But either way, there seems to an unhealthy focus on those students and staff who could be coming in instead of those who are already there. (For example, one of the IUA projects funded by the HEA includes attracting international students who increase the academic standard in our universities, but also pay full fees and therefore could be seen as a more lucrative proposition, since EU students are covered by the free fees scheme.)

    Also in the table that you provide, may I ask why the figures for 2007 are 0.0? It seems odd that the SIF would stop or not offer funding considering that every other year, they’ve provided the company €15 million minimum and cease it for a year. Maybe what I’ve mentioned does not fully address the role of the IUA. However since it is a university-focused company and one that champions transparency and honesty, it’s not entirely unreasonable to ask these questions if we are to uphold these standards.

    - 19 February 2011 at 1:55 pm