The right to say no to the auditors

As chair of the British Association for American Studies I have been pressing the Quality Assurance Agency to take account of the view of Americanists in their new plans for subject expert teams (Dearing recommendation 25), now apparently called subject benchmarking teams.

It was good to receive an invitation to be briefed by the QAA on the latest developments in their post-Dearing work on subject standards and to be provided with an opportunity "to contribute to the consideration and refinement of the methodology of the subject expert teams". It was not so good to discover that we would be charged Pounds 45 for the privilege. Shouldn't it be the other way round?

Judie Newman

British Association for American Studies University of Newcastle upon Tyne