Recommendation 22

Audit Scotland found that although Scottish Government funding to the SFC for universities increased by 0.1% in cash terms from £1.116 billion in 2014–15 to £1.117 billion in 2017–18, this equated to a real terms reduction of 5%.38 Taken together with a 7% reduction between 2010–11 and 2014–15, this represented a real terms reduction in Scottish Government funding of 12% over seven years.39 Alastair Sim, Director of Universities Scotland, told us that with teaching funded at about 90% of the actual cost of provision for Scottish students, and with research projects typically funded at 80% or under of the cost of doing the project, universities are entirely reliant on entrepreneurial activity, principally international activity, to fill that gap and enable universities to do those things at the core of supporting the common good and the charitable mission.40 In the view of Professor James Conroy, University of Glasgow: 34 Audit Scotland, Finances of Scottish universities, September 2019, p 13 ‘Exhibit 2’ [Note: lighter shading indicates public funding] 35 The Scottish Parliament (Research Briefings), ‘The impact of Coronavirus (Covid-19) on university funding In Scotland’, accessed 24 January 2021 36 Q60 37 Q60 38 Audit Scotland, Finances of Scottish universities, September 2019, para 21 39 Audit Scotland, Finances of Scottish universities, September 2019, para 21 40 Q2 Universities and Scotland 13 It is unsustainable to have fee levels where they are at the moment. To put it in perspective, in a previous incarnation I was dean of the faculty of education, where we got at the time £8,400 roughly per capita. It is £2,000 less today, and that is something like 12 years later. The present levels of funding are unsustainable to maintain a world-class university system.41