Chief Executive of the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council. Born September 16, 1938; Died March 22, 2008

Professor John Sizer, who has died aged 69, was a distinguished academic teacher, writer and public servant.

His early years in Grimsby were not easy. Failing his 11-plus school exam seemed an inauspicious start for someone who would later in life be appointed chief executive of the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council.

Characteristic aspiration and application, however, put early disappointments aside and led to the achievement of a BA degree from Nottingham University; evening study added membership of the (now) Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). In 1965, newly married to Claire, he won a teaching scholarship that brought him to Edinburgh University, where he remained until 1968, latterly as a lecturer.

Together, Claire and he explored and enjoyed Scotland and walked a lot - still recorded as his recreations in Who's Who. Their relationship became the foundation of a strong family with their three sons. That remained Sizer's anchor for life. He turned aside opportunities of senior appointments which would have disrupted family life and was dedicated more to his family and profession than to the pursuit of wealth.

From Edinburgh and a senior lectureship at London Graduate School of Business Studies, he was, in 1970, appointed to the chair of financial management at Loughborough University, which he held for 16 years followed by 10 as visiting professor. He was the founding head of the new department of management studies in 1971 (until 1984), 1973-76 dean of the School of Human and Environmental Studies and senior pro-vice-chancellor 1980-82. By then, he had published a number of books.

Throughout his career, he published and wrote extensively on financial and managerial topics, reflecting his advocacy of the relevance of financial information to inform decisions for the future as well as providing analysis of the past.

These interests, combined with his energy and enthusiasm, led to public service in the work of many external committees, advisory groups and boards concerned with issues of educational funding, management and practice. They included membership of the council of CIMA and chairmanship of its international and finance committees, of the university grants committee and chairmanship of its business and management studies subcommittee.

Sizer returned to Scotland in 1992 to join, as its chief executive, the new Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, created as a consequence of legislation removing the previous distinction between universities and the former polytechnics and other colleges. The council's initial responsibilities were to 25 institutions of which 13 were to be universities.

Sizer's experience, interests and personality fitted him ideally to establish and lead the new council in developing its authority and relationships with the institutions it funded. The council's principles sought to demonstrate openness and transparency plus respect for institutional autonomy, and to seek innovation and efficiency. Its publication of the basis for, and the individual results of, its grant allocations provoked challenging but constructive discussion. Under Sizer's guidance, systems to ensure institutional financial security and assurance on the quality of teaching and learning were sensitively introduced. His engagement with leading personalities facilitated integration that reduced the number of individual institutions to 17 by the time he retired in 2001.

He was responsible for representing the sector's interests to Scottish ministers and officials.

When, in 1999, a separate FE funding council was established, it shared the HE operational team led by Sizer, who joined it also as chief executive. The new responsibilities to the FE council, with demands or interests potentially conflicting with those of HE, were met with easy success that was a tribute to the ethos which Sizer's organisational and managerial skills had created. It also secured integration of tertiary education in Scotland, steps towards which had been taken by the HE council in stimulating collaboration with individual FE institutions and by encouraging provision of some HE in FE colleges.

Public recognition came in 1989 with the award of CBE and the degree of DLitt from Loughborough and later, in 2002, honorary degrees from St Andrews and from Abertay Dundee Universities, and in 2005 from Hull.

He and Claire had moved back south shortly after he retired. He engaged in consultancy work in the UK and abroad and continued writing, up to and during the onset of the cancer that ended his life prematurely.

He is survived by Claire, their three sons and five grandchildren.

Sir John Shaw