ALT The Open University UCU branch is organising this cross-sector survey about the redundancies. The main questions should take only 5-10 minutes, the optional ones depend on how much you want to write. If you are a current staff member in UKHE, or a former colleague who left the sector, please fill this in to give us a sense of the practices. It is open until 15 September.

ALT graph of wages and salaries in Higher Education, and especially the surplusses senior managers are making from them

ALT You report the new interim chair of the Office for Students, Sir David Behan, as saying that the “golden age” for English universities may be over and advocating mergers or partnerships as a possible means of sustaining the sector (Golden age of English universities could be over, says head of watchdog, 18 August). It would be interesting to know who is advising Sir David. There is substantial scholarly literature on mergers and partnerships in higher education. It shows that – while there may be some immediate savings – in the long run, any savings on duplicated services are offset by the increased costs of managing the larger and more complex organisation. Really substantial savings can be found only if there are valuable assets that can be disposed of – principally land and buildings. There is also a very real risk of a loss of institutional identity and therefore diversity and choice, as previously quite different providers are brigaded together and some socially vital missions di