A Career in Admissions and Regulation Leads to St Mary’s

Anthony McClaran, who steps down as vice-chancellor of St Mary’s University in south-west London, has spent a long career at the sharp end of UK and Australian higher education – first as chief executive of Ucas, then heading the Quality Assurance Agency and Australia’s Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Teqsa). His parting reflections offer a rare view of how regulation has swung from sector-led to interventionist, and how one small Catholic institution is carving out a future in a cost-pressured market.

McClaran argues that Teqsa’s early years taught a crucial lesson: regulators cannot – and should not – duplicate existing law when issues like sexual harassment or free speech arise. He urges the Office for Students (OfS) to heed that same proportionality as it resets under new joint chief executives Ruth Hannant and Polly Payne, both of whom he knows well. At the same time, he warns that a regulator’s focus on individual institutions often misses the bigger cross-cutting picture.

St Mary’s, a 5,000-student institution that marks its 175th anniversary last year, has not escaped sector-wide pressures and opened a mutual resignation scheme in 2024. Yet McClaran points to a systematic approach: regularly reviewing course portfolios against recruitment data, branching into physiotherapy and computer science, and preparing to open a School of Medicine in September. He insists the university will not shrink down to only its strongest subjects; instead, it has grown theology enrolments by moving that programme online and leveraging its Catholic identity to attract international students.

His successor, Norwegian Catholic priest Øystein Lund, inherits a university that McClaran sees as part of the sector’s diversity – and, potentially, a candidate for deeper cooperation with other UK Catholic institutions.

What the Teqsa Experience Means for UK Regulation and Smaller Universities

Regulatory Lessons from Australia

McClaran’s five years at Teqsa coincide with a period when Australian universities faced pressure to address sexual harassment and free speech on campus. He says Teqsa deliberately confined itself to its statutory quality remit and avoided creating parallel rules where criminal law applied. That stance, he believes, helped rebuild trust with universities. For the OfS, the implication is that a reset will require similar clarity about where its jurisdiction ends, especially as complaints about its free speech remit have mounted. However, McClaran acknowledges that regulators are often pushed by governments to intervene, making restraint a political challenge.

The Small University Playbook

St Mary’s strategy illustrates how a small institution can maintain breadth while chasing growth. The decision to add computer science and physiotherapy reflects a data-driven review of recruitment prospects, not just a drift towards vocationally attractive courses. Crucially, McClaran refused to drop declining subjects such as theology, instead redesigning delivery for the online market and capitalising on the university’s Vatican-recognised degrees. That imaginative approach mirrors a wider need: smaller institutions cannot compete on price or scale, but they can exploit distinctive traditions and nimble course design. The mention of service-sharing with other Catholic institutions points to a future of collaborative cost-saving that may become more common across the sector.

Practical Moves From McClaran’s Tenure for Small Institutions

  • Use recruitment data to review courses, not just cut them. St Mary’s regular portfolio reviews allowed targeted expansion into physiotherapy, computer science and medicine while sustaining theology through online delivery.
  • Turn a distinctive identity into an international recruitment advantage. The university’s Catholic character and Vatican-recognised qualifications attracted students and boosted satisfaction, a model for institutions with clear missions.
  • Explore shared services with peer institutions. McClaran flagged cooperation with other Catholic universities as a future step, offering a path to lower overheads without sacrificing autonomy.