Formation

The New Zealand Universities Academic Audit Unit (NZUAAU) was established in 1993 as an independent body owned by the New Zealand Vice-Chancellors' Committee (NZVCC) to carry out audits of quality assurance and quality enhancement processes in the universities. The Unit's governing Board is appointed by the NZVCC but operationally independent of the NZVCC.

Legislative environment

The New Zealand Education Act, 1989, establishes the legislative environment in which universities operate. The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) has overall national responsibility for the accreditation of institutions and for educational qualifications and standards (including degrees) delivered by all providers other than the universities.

For the university sector the Education Act (section 260) invests the same responsibilities in the New Zealand Vice-Chancellors' Committee for the approval and quality assurance of university qualifications. The approval and oversight of the quality of new qualifications and substantial changes to academic programmes is undertaken by the Committee on University Academic Programmes (CUAP), a standing committee of the NZVCC. The New Zealand Universities Academic Audit Unit is responsible for the audit of processes and the enhancement of quality. Audit processes and the topics of academic audits are described in greater detail in the audit process section of this site.

Operations

Under the founding Director, Dr David Woodhouse, the first task of the new Unit in1993 was to establish a set of audit policies and procedures, and to form and train a panel of auditors. The new audit processes were refined by the experiences of pilot audits in two universities. The first formal audit cycle was undertaken from 1995 to 1998, and a second cycle from 2000 to 2001. The current third cycle began in 2003.

Dr Woodhouse left the Unit in 2001 to found the Australian Universities Quality Agency; Ms Robyn Harris, the Academic Audit Officer in the Unit, joined Dr Woodhouse in AUQA later in 2001. The present Director, Mr John M Jennings, took over at the beginning of 2002 and as one of his first tasks produced an overview of the cycle two audit round.

As well as conducting academic audits, the work of the Unit involves maintaining the register of auditors, running workshops for auditors, producing an occasional series of papers on quality (which includes summary reports of audit cycles) and undertaking post-audit, and intra-audit, discussions with universities. The Unit undertook a review of the Committee on University Academic Programmes in 1997 and again in 2000 and , and has itself been reviewed in 1998 and again in 2001.

An important aspect of the Unit's work is maintaining links with other agencies, in particular the New Zealand Qualifications Agency and the Tertiary Education Commission, and also bodies within wider the tertiary sector representing institutes of technology and polytechnics, colleges of education, and staff and student associations.

The Unit and the Board

The Unit enjoys a strong and supportive relationship with the governing Board. The Board appoints the Director and the members of the register of auditors, and issues reports on individual audits. Importantly, the Board provides a constructive forum for the development of Unit plans, policies and processes. The membership of the Board is drawn widely from the professions, business, unions, community and educational sectors and includes an overseas representative.

The Chair of the Board works closely with the Director in representing the Unit as an independent and respected entity. The present Chair is Professor David Mackay (since 2009); previous Chairs have been Professor Emeritus Les Holborow (2003-2009), Professor Emeritus Wilf Malcolm (2000 - 2003) and Dr Norman Kingsbury (1994 - 1999)

Terms of reference