It is the most reasonable suggestion in the sector, and it has been made continuously for thirty years. Two hundred institutions each running their own finance system, HR function, procurement team and student records platform is plainly inefficient. So why does it keep not happening?
Because the rules make becoming sensible expensive. Shared services between institutions can attract VAT that in-house provision does not, which is a tax on collaboration. Competition law puts tripwires around conversations that would obviously benefit students. Procurement rules add time and cost to the joint purchasing that was supposed to save both. Employment law makes staff transfers slow. Governance makes agreement slower still.
This chapter costs out the surcharge on doing the obvious thing — and looks at the small number of shared services that escaped the trap, and how.
The Collaboration Penalty is the surcharge on becoming sensible too late.
Regulated to Fail, Chapter 10
Where this goes next
This is the question the chapter opens with and the mechanism it identifies. What it concludes — and what follows from it — is in the book.
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