Peer observation is widely used within UK Higher Education (HE) institutions as a means of improving teaching standards. Interest in processes such as peer observation has risen as a result of an increasingly prevalent audit culture. Policies aimed at increasing levels of accountability in public Institutions have contributed to the commercialisation of education and have been accompanied by an increasingly dominant managerialist hegemony. The Dearing Report (1997) is widely recognised for advocating increasingly professional approaches to teaching within HE and recommended a greater emphasis on both standards and monitoring.