As part of the Scottish government’s 2025/26 spending plans, Finance Minister, Shona Robison, has proposed a real-terms spending cut for higher education.
Despite committing to increase investment by 3.5 per cent, Universities Scotland say that the overall budget for higher education will fall by 0.7 per cent if inflation is taken into account.
This comes on top of the increase in Employer’s National Insurance contribution (a tax employers pay in addition to wages) instituted by Westminster’s Labour government.
It is estimated that the increase in National Insurance will cost Scottish Universities an additional £45m.
Taking into account the £13m of additional funding from Holyrood, the sector will still need to make savings of over £30m in order to balance the books.
In November, University of Edinburgh Principal, Sir Peter Mathieson announced plans to combat financial challenges involving “selective voluntary and, if unavoidable, compulsory redundancies”.
Notably, the SNP reiterated its commitment to free tuition for Scottish students, despite fees rising to £9,535 for English students.
Other headline announcements included a £4.9bn commitment to green causes, and an ambition to, “mitigate, as far as possible, the impacts of the two child [benefit cap]”.
The two child benefit cap is a UK-wide measure that means families only receive universal credit payments, or child tax credit, for their first two children.
The cap, which saves the UK taxpayers an estimated £3.4bn a year, has been widely criticised by charities for its negative effect on child poverty.
However, the SNP does not have a majority in Holyrood and will need support from either the Liberal Democrats or Green party to pass this budget. This means the proposed budget may change before it is debated by and voted on by MSP in February 2025.
Image Scottish Government, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons