The nanny assessors

I AGREE with the views of Roger Brown (THES, May 8) on the new Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. Over-auditing, apart from being an unnecessary overhead, also lowers competitive advantage and adds to the stress load on staff.

As a funding council contract assessor I observed plenty of home-grown examples of effective certificated lecturer training courses and enhancement measures to render other externally generated and imposed regimes nugatory. "Whatever next?" is a mild reaction to what might equally be "enough is enough".

Gerald Vinten, Associate dean and professor of management, Southampton Business School, Southampton Institute