Not since the Child Support Agency has a state body got off to a worse start than the Office for Students. Engulfed by controversy and the resignation of Toby Young, it is virtually stillborn after only three weeks.

Controversy about the composition of the OfS board is not over. The further education sector and the National Union of Students are rightly angry that they are not represented on the new regulator and that good candidates have been discarded for political reasons, not least opposition to tuition fees of £9,250 a year among the student candidates.

There is also the position of Nicola Dandridge, the chief executive. As a former chief lobbyist for vice-chancellors, Dandridge was an inappropriate choice for the post. As one VC put it to me with a smile: “For us, this is far better than having a former VC: now we have got all 130 VCs as our regulator!”

Even before the then universities minister, Jo Johnson, attempted to smuggle out Young’s appointment at midnight on New Year’s Eve, Dandridge’s position was untenable. I doubt the OfS will be able to establish public confidence until it has a chief executive who is seen to be genuinely independent and not a friend and former close colleague of most of the people she is supposed to be regulating.

How did the OfS and the government get into this mess? For two reasons. First, Johnson, who was far too close to the vice-chancellors and acceded to almost every request they made for higher fees and more favourable regulation, wanted the new regulator to be vice-chancellor friendly. The criticism he had faced in the Lords, which is itself dominated by university chancellors and vice-chancellors, when the OfS legislation was being debated, reinforced this mistaken view that the regulator should be benign, not tough.

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The second, equally serious, error was Johnson’s decision to launch a culture war on the universities by appointing to the OfS board one of the most outrageous cultural warriors on the right wing of the Conservative party. Young has spent decades in the Spectator magazine seeking to shock liberals, especially on sex and misogyny, in the name of “free speech” and is a friend of Boris Johnson, Jo Johnson’s brother and the former editor of the Spectator, which explains a lot.

The warning sign was an odd speech by Jo Johnson at the end of December, claiming the suppression of free speech was a major issue facing universities. No sensible person believes this to be true.

Controversy over “shocking” speakers on campus is age-old. But compared with the crisis of student finance, and deep concern about top management pay and the value for money of student courses, this pales into insignificance.

Johnson had been notably silent on these issues. Even where he made vague criticisms, as on VC pay, he did not follow them with action. Any clued-up observer could see that the appointment of Young was an attempt to put cultural battles at the heart of the OfS, in place of the bread-and-butter concerns that ought to be top priority.

The new universities minister, Sam Gyimah, has an opportunity to set a fresh course. Early signs are that he is weak, as much in the pocket of the university chiefs as his predecessor. His remarks last week that high vice-chancellor pay had to be related to high performance – Johnson’s mantra – ignores the reality that, at an average of nearly £300,000 plus huge perks, vice-chancellor pay is out of control even where performance is good. The same is true of student fees and loans, particularly the deeply resented interest rate of 6.1% on student debt.

Sir Michael Barber, the OfS chair, is the only ray of hope. An effective operator, Barber must realise that the situation is too serious for him to continue humouring ministers and No 10 advisers when the OfS has vital functions laid down by parliament. But the situation may be irrecoverable and the OfS is drinking in the last chance saloon.

The Child Support Agency struggled on for a few years before it was abolished, unloved. I suspect the same will be true of the OfS. It will be remembered as the “Office Against Students”.

Andrew Adonis is a former education minister