We have made a submission to the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People as part of their post-budget scrutiny, following the publication of the draft Scottish Government on 4 December.

In our submission, we highlight the funding settlement that universities have received;

• the higher education (HE) resource settlement delivers a 0.7% real-terms cut, leaving universities in an immensely difficult place. It falls short of our original bid for a 1% real terms increase.
• We asked for a 3% cash increase to HE capital, which primarily funds research and innovation. This was delivered.
• The Scottish Government also responded to our suggestion that the 2,500 “SQA places” that are graduating in 25/26 should be allowed to exit and the £14.5m of HE resource attached to those (already in the 24/25 HE resource baseline) be redirected to the price per place invested in every other Scottish-domiciled student.
• The Finance Secretary spoke of a 3.5% (cash) increase to total HE funding. A 3.5% cash terms increase to the SFC resource budget would have resulted in a £27.4m uplift to the HE resource budget line. Instead, we saw a £12.9m uplift. This has been combined with the £14.5m of funding for SQA places, if the funding is to be repurposed into one direction.

We have included our calls to action for the Scottish Government which include confirming the removal of the 2,500 ‘SQA places’ and retention of the funding, scope to honour the wording of the Finance Secretary’s wording of an increase of 3.5% of total investment and providing financial sustainability.

Our submission also details the difficulties institutions face, including the inability to absorb the rise in Employer National Insurance Contributions (ENIC). Our ask for an additional 3% real terms increase in November (£49 million) to cover this, on top of our 1% real terms increase ask in October has not been met.

You can read our full submission to the Committee here.