The latest on those 1,289 funded places in Scotland

Scotland’s universities have seen a cut in funded places of 1,289 for the next academic year – though as the dust settled on the Scottish government’s budget last December there were rumours that places would need to fall even further than just the removal of these temporary pandemic-era places.

When the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) did announce its provisional allocations back in April, there was surprise across the sector that these had fallen in an unexpected way, with eight universities seeing cuts in their assigned numbers, led by the University of the West of Scotland down more than 700 places. Other institutions saw places frozen, or in one case increased. But the headline number was 1,289 fewer funded places overall.

SFC chief executive Karen Watt told the Holyrood education committee today that SFC received a “late policy articulation” from the Scottish government saying that no more than 1,289 funded places could be removed for the coming academic year. This late government decision clearly contributed to the fact that, in Universities Scotland’s words, “the whole process suffered from an accelerated timescale and a critical lack of overall transparency.”

The decision to remove the places in a different pattern from that in which they had been introduced was made with a particular eye to those institutions “under-filling” (that is, not being able to recruit) funded places in particular years, which has been the Scottish government’s line in response to previous criticisms from those institutions affected. Watt estimated that “probably no more than a quarter of unfilled places” had been taken out across the board, leaving institutions with “headroom” for growth in intakes. SFC modelled various ways of removing the places, but in the end went for this one.

Elsewhere in the hearing – part of a short pre-budget inquiry into college and university funding – the committee seemed a bit disappointed with Universities Scotland convenor Iain Gillespie’s measured tone on the risk of institutional closure. He said that in his judgement there wasn’t an immediate risk of viability to any of Scotland’s universities, though this could change in the next year or more with no action to improve the unit of resource for home students. MSPs felt that, from what they had been told, the situation in both colleges and universities was currently “much more stark,” although were pleased to note that from their research England’s higher education institutions seem to be comparatively far more in debt.

The removal of temporary SFC funding to mitigate post-92 institutions’ increased pension costs has been another sore point of the recent funding settlement – Karen Watt said that this should not have been a surprise to the sector based on previous announcements, though it seems like it has been.