Next year’s Scottish budget needs to deliver a “reliable, sustainable funding settlement” for universities to help with the country’s recovery from Covid-19, a representative body for the sector has said.
Universities Scotland said this week’s UK Government Spending Review failed to set out clearly how much money will be available for higher education north of the border via either additional money announced for research or the Shared Prosperity Fund.
With the end of the Brexit transition period also looming at the end of December, the organisation stressed the 2021-22 Scottish budget will be “critical” to higher education.
Professor Gerry McCormac, the convener of Universities Scotland and principal of the University of Stirling, said the draft budget – which will be unveiled by Finance Secretary Kate Forbes early next year – must make “rapid progress towards sustainable funding of every Scottish-domiciled student”.
He added: “If that cannot be achieved in one leap, we look at least for complete reversal of the £750 per student real-terms erosion in funding since 2014-15.”
The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) has already estimated the higher education sector will face an overall deficit of £176 million in 2020- 21.
It has estimated the public funding of university teaching in 2018-19 was £157 million below the full cost of providing this – with university research only funded at 80% of cost.
READ MORE: University of Glasgow named University of the Year.
Prof McCormac stressed “Scotland’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic will be education-led”.
He said: “We owe it to our young people to provide maximum support and ensure they have the best educational experience possible in the years ahead.
“To do this, universities need to recover from the financial shock and receive a reliable, sustainable funding settlement from the Scottish Government.
“We are ambitious for Scotland and want to fully contribute to the recovery but the next budget from the Scottish Government will be critical in terms of addressing the major gaps in higher education funding.”
Prof McCormac said it is “regrettable that with only days to go” until the the full impact of Brexit is felt when the transition period ends, universities “still have no clarity over our future research relationship with the EU, nor do we know if we will be members of the Erasmus student mobility scheme”.
He added: “Whilst we welcome the commitment that all EU funds will be covered, the lack of detail around the Shared Prosperity Fund is of concern.
“The value of university research has never been more evident than during this pandemic.
“We need further progress towards research being funded at full cost so that Scottish universities can continue the world-leading research and innovation that will build a sustainable recovery.”
READ MORE: Scottish Labour accuses SNP of defunding universities
He added: “As we move out of the deep crisis caused by the global pandemic, we need to rebuild our capability to create more jobs, enhance social services, restore living standards and build an even more inclusive society.
“Investment in universities does that.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The lack of clarity from the UK Government about whether there will or will not be a deal with the European Union and the lack of clarity about EU-related funding in this week’s UK Government Spending Review creates significant uncertainties for our universities and colleges.
“We remain clear and consistent in our position that we expect full replacement of EU funds to ensure no detriment to Scotland’s finances and we expect the UK Government to fully respect the devolution settlement in any future arrangement.
“We know our universities and colleges face significant challenges as a result of the pandemic and we are working closely with them to mitigate the effects of the crisis.”
He added: “Our Further and Higher Education Sustainability Plan highlighted the steps we have taken to support higher education, including allocating £75 million to protect world-leading research and £10 million for estates development.
“The Scottish Funding Council works closely with institutions to monitor their financial health.
“We are grateful to Universities Scotland for their thoughts on the funding needs of the university sector.
“This will help inform our thinking in relation to the needs of the university sector as part of the 2021-22 Scottish budget.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here