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The Comprehensive Spending Review's removal of a high proportion of university funding follows hard on the heels of the recommendations in the Browne Review, which go far beyond the terms of reference the panel was given.

If this goes through, universities will cede control to the government of the little state funding they have left. How was this contrived?

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service is among the many bodies that speedily published a response to Browne. It declares with pride that its board had resolved between July and September a number of the specific proposals about state control of admissions that have now appeared in the review.

This must whet the appetite for more information about what went on behind the scenes in the framing of the unexpected miniature successor to Robbins and Dearing in chapter six of the Browne Review.

G.R. Evans, University of Cambridge.