May I have another go at this point? In the days when I was a civil servant, a bust company would arrive on the doorstep of the Minister. Since it was in the Industry Act that we had the power, and indeed a duty, to preserve jobs, the administrator would usually ask us, “How far do you want to go? I can keep this company going for another five weeks, while we look for a buyer, but I want an underwrite. My client, the bank, is not interested. It is going to close this company”. There is the same
problem here. Who authorises the administrator to go on putting the students’ interests first and to what end? The legislation is clear: the administrator puts the students’ interests first and tries to get a satisfactory answer. After two months, it becomes clear that nobody wants these students, nor this institution. I would not start out as the administrator without having a pretty clear view of what I had to do, when I was asked to stop and to whom I should go back and say, “This one is not going to work. May I now go back and satisfy the creditors?”. The process is worrying me. The words are all right, but I do not understand the process. I am sure we would all prefer not to have the process tested in practice, as it were, and have it come unglued there.