The University and College Union will turn to the Freedom of Information Act in a concerted campaign to hold university managers to account for "abusive management and financial practices".

Delegates to the lecturers' union Natfhe national conference this week carried a motion warning that "levels of accountability and transparency are at an all-time low in all parts of higher education".

The motion, from the London region, said that "the new union must prioritise improved governance throughout the sector as a key objective and, in particular, educate officials in the use of Freedom of Information actions to highlight abusive management and financial practices within any/all institutions".

The union will seek to obtain under the Fo... Act previously secret financial and management information to expose what is deemed to be poor management practice.

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The motion was one of four attacking universities' governance arrangements.

Another - from the East Midlands - criticised the "gross distortion of democratic accountability of governing boards" and said that the "current managerialist governance culture should be consigned to the dustbin of history".

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A third called for "the rejection of the current crass and insensitive corporate line-management model that has supplanted traditional notions of governance based upon consensual academic communities".

A fourth motion - from the Yorkshire and Humberside region - called for "reform of university governance to achieve greater collegiality and democracy".