Abolishing the Higher Education Funding Council for England would remove valuable ‘arm’s length’ regulation of the sectorOnce upon a time British public life was littered with so-called arm’s-length bodies – the BBC governors,the Arts Council and the University Grants Committee (UGC), whose successor, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce),is due to be abolished next year if the green paper proposals are accepted.
The thought was that there should be institutions that, although largely or entirely dependent on public money (the BBC licence fee is really a tax), and nevertheless should be protected from political interference. That is why,in the case of the UGC and then Hefce, they were also described as “buffer” bodies.
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Source: theguardian.com