Letter: 'Fame' rebuttal

While it is always healthy to make space for a Whistleblowers column, it surely behoves The THES to produce balanced research on its stories ("'Fame school' hit by crisis of management", THES, January 19).

I acknowledge that Phil Baty attempted to contact me for my observations, but unfortunately I was in Hong Kong and could not be reached.

As a chartered accountant and chairman of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts for some ten years until June 2000, both before and after its opening, I refute any implication that LIPA can be criticised for its accountability for funds received from public or private sources. Its annual accounts have been audited, without qualification, by Pannell Kerr Forster, and its responsibilities to the Higher Education Funding Council for England have been based all along on advice from Liverpool John Moores University, whose nominee appointed to the LIPA council has been present at all meetings, vested with responsibility as a trustee.

With my 30 years as a professor at the City University, teaching at Harvard and writing and lecturing at performing arts schools all over the world, I am well aware of universal difficulties between teaching staff and the financial and management teams. All responsible councils and trusts deal with these matters regularly in mature ways, and I see no particular difficulties in the present LIPA council continuing its success, as acknowledged by the vice-chancellor of LJMU.

Anthony Field
London EC2