Costs and Efficiency of Higher Education Institutions in England: A DEA Analysis

As student numbers in the UK's higher education sector have expanded substantially during the last 15 years, it has become increasingly important for government to understand the structure of costs in higher education, thus allowing it to evaluate the potential for expansion and associated cost implications. This study applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to higher education institutions (HEIs) in England in the period 2000/01-2002/03 to assess the cost structure and the performance of various HEI groups. The paper continues and complements an earlier study by Johnes, Johnes and Thanassoulis (forthcoming), who used parametric regression methods to analyse the same panel data. Interestingly, the DEA analysis provides estimates of subject-specific unit costs that are in the same ballpark as those provided by the parametric methods. We then extend the previous analysis by examining potential cost savings and output augmentations in different HEI groups using several different DEA models. The findings include a suggestion that substantial gains of the order of 20-27% are feasible if all potential savings are directed at raising student numbers so that each HEI exploits to the full not only operating and scale efficiency gains but also adjusts its student mix to maximise student numbers. Finally we use a Malmquist index approach to assess productivity change in UK HEIs. The results reveal that for a majority of HEIs productivity has actually decreased during the study period

University rankings:What do they really show?

University rankings as developed by the media are used by many stakeholders in higher education: students looking for university places; academics looking for university jobs; university managers who need to maintain standing in the competitive arena of student recruitment; and governments who want to know that public funds spent on universities are delivering a world class higher education system. Media rankings deliberately draw attention to the performance of each university relative to all others, and as such they are undeniably simple to use and interpret. But one danger is that they are potentially open to manipulation and gaming because many of the measures underlying the rankings are under the control of the institutions themselves. This paper examines media rankings (constructed from an amalgamation of variables representing performance across numerous dimensions) to reveal the problems with using a composite index to reflect overall performance. It ends with a proposal for an alternative methodology which leads to groupings rather than point estimates

Time to take a stand? The law on all-seated stadiums in England and Wales and the case for change

In June 2018, the UK Government announced a review of the ban on standing at football matches in the Premier League and Championship. Nearly 30 years since the Hillsborough disaster, there is growing interest in the introduction of safe-standing to football grounds in England and Wales. This paper considers official reports dating back to 1924 in an attempt to understand the woeful safety record of UK football grounds in the twentieth century, and the many missed opportunities to secure the safety of fans. The argument is made that Taylor LJ’s lack of trust in both the desire and ability of footballing authorities and clubs to ensure fan safety led him to make all-seating a cornerstone of his vision for football. The current law is then reviewed before considering how safe-standing differs from the crumbling and overcrowded terraces of the 1980s. The paper concludes that stadium and crowd management measures, backed up by a robust regulatory system which has the support of all stakeholders, are necessary to ensure the continuing safety of football fans in England and Wales

Higher education outcomes, graduate employment and university performance indicators

Official employment-related Performance Indicators in UK Higher Education are based on the population of students responding to the First Destination Supplement (FDS). This generates potentially biased performance indicators as this population of students is not necessarily representative of the full population of leavers from each institution. University leavers not obtaining qualifications and those not responding to the FDS are not included within the official analysis. We compare an employment-related performance indicator based on those students responding to the FDS with alternative approaches which address the potential non-random nature of this sub-group of university leavers

Using hysteresis analysis of high-resolution water quality monitoring data, including uncertainty, to infer controls on nutrient and sediment transfer in catchments

A large proportion of nutrients and sediment is mobilised in catchments during storm events. Therefore understanding a catchment's hydrological behaviour during storms and how this acts to mobilise and transport nutrients and sediment to nearby watercourses is extremely important for effective catchment management. The expansion of available in-situ sensors is allowing a wider range of water quality parameters to be monitored and at higher temporal resolution, meaning that the investigation of hydrochemical behaviours during storms is increasingly feasible. Studying the relationship between discharge and water quality parameters in storm events can provide a valuable research tool to infer the likely source areas and flow pathways contributing to nutrient and sediment transport. Therefore, this paper uses 2years of high temporal resolution (15/30min) discharge and water quality (nitrate-N, total phosphorus (TP) and turbidity) data to examine hysteretic behaviour during storm events in two contrasting catchments, in the Hampshire Avon catchment, UK. This paper provides one of the first examples of a study which comprehensively examines storm behaviours for up to 76 storm events and three water quality parameters. It also examines the observational uncertainties using a non-parametric approach. A range of metrics was used, such as loop direction, loop area and a hysteresis index (HI) to characterise and quantify the storm behaviour. With two years of high resolution information it was possible to see how transport mechanisms varied between parameters and through time. This study has also clearly shown the different transport regimes operating between a groundwater dominated chalk catchment versus a surface-water dominated clay catchment. This information, set within an uncertainty framework, means that confidence can be derived that the patterns and relationships thus identified are statistically robust. These insights can thus be used to provide information regarding transport processes and biogeochemical processing within river catchments

Technical note: testing an improved index for analysing storm discharge-concentration hysteresis

Analysis of hydrochemical behaviour during storm events can provide new insights into the process controls on nutrient transport in catchments. The examination of storm behaviours using hysteresis analysis has increased in recent years, partly due to the increased availability of high temporal resolution data sets for discharge and water quality parameters. A number of these analyses involve the use of an index to describe the characteristics of a hysteresis loop in order to compare storm behaviours both within and between catchments. This technical note reviews the methods for calculation of the hysteresis index (HI) and explores a new more effective methodology. Each method is systematically tested and the impact of the chosen calculation on the results is examined. Recommendations are made regarding the most effective method of calculating a HI which can be used for comparing data between storms and between different water quality parameters and catchments

High-frequency monitoring of nitrogen and phosphorus response in three rural catchments to the end of the 2011–2012 drought in England

This paper uses high-frequency bankside measurements from three catchments selected as part of the UK government-funded Demonstration Test Catchments (DTC) project. We compare the hydrological and hydrochemical patterns during the water year 2011–2012 from the Wylye tributary of the River Avon with mixed land use, the Blackwater tributary of the River Wensum with arable land use and the Newby Beck tributary of the River Eden with grassland land use. The beginning of the hydrological year was unusually dry and all three catchments were in states of drought. A sudden change to a wet summer occurred in April 2012 when a heavy rainfall event affected all three catchments. The year-long time series and the individual storm responses captured by in situ nutrient measurements of nitrate and phosphorus (total phosphorus and total reactive phosphorus) concentrations at each site reveal different pollutant sources and pathways operating in each catchment. Large storm-induced nutrient transfers of nitrogen and or phosphorus to each stream were recorded at all three sites during the late April rainfall event. Hysteresis loops suggested transport-limited delivery of nitrate in the Blackwater and of total phosphorus in the Wylye and Newby Beck, which was thought to be exacerbated by the dry antecedent conditions prior to the storm. The high rate of nutrient transport in each system highlights the scale of the challenges faced by environmental managers when designing mitigation measures to reduce the flux of nutrients to rivers from diffuse agricultural sources. It also highlights the scale of the challenge in adapting to future extreme weather events under a changing climate

Short-term biotic removal of dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) compounds from soil solution and subsequent mineralisation in contrasting grassland soils

Cycling of low molecular weight dissolved organic nitrogen compounds constitutes an important component of soil organic matter turnover in soils. We determined how rapidly grassland soils can cycle urea, compared to the amino acid l-alanine, and the peptide l-trialanine. Using naturally occurring concentrations of 14C-labelled compounds the rates of removal from soil solution and subsequent mineralisation were measured. Biotic removal of all three compounds and subsequent mineralisation to CO2 occurred within minutes. This research has demonstrated, for the first time, the potential for rapid removal of urea at low concentrations by the soil microbial biomass

Impact of microbial activity on the leaching of soluble N forms in soil

The hydrological transport of low-molecular weight organic nitrogen (LMWON) compounds has received little attention in the literature, particularly relative to inorganic nitrogen (N), with less attention given to the decoupling of the carbon (C) and N cycles following rainfall events. We determined the impacts of the soil biota on the transport of N compounds in a loam soil, using 15N and 13C to trace the vertical transport of 15N13C-urea, 15N13C-amino acids, 15NO3, and 15NH4 through the soil profile, following simulated rainfall events. This research has demonstrated that biotic assimilation leads to rapid decoupling of the C and N cycles during leaching, with C transport limited to the soil surface (< 2 cm), whereas N which was stored within the soil profile during a single rainfall event could be remobilised and leached (a further 2–6 cm) following an additional rainfall event