Skills minister Jacqui Smith has claimed that “unproductive competition” is hindering the UK’s universities, but reiterated that higher education institutions will not receive further government support amid a mounting financial crisis.
In a conversation with University and College Union (UCU) general secretary Jo Grady, which the union posted online, Jacqui Smith described the UK’s further and higher education landscape as “incoherent” and “fragmented”, and said the government would aim to address this in a White Paper due to be released this summer.
“Too often [there are] people who aren’t able to take advantage of further or higher education, and therefore lose out on where that might be able to take them,” Smith said.
“The system has been designed to promote unproductive competition, as opposed to being coordinated and focusing on collaboration for the good of the institutions, [UCU] members, and actually the people who are wanting to benefit from them.”
The conversation, in which Grady put UCU members’ questions to the minister, came amid a mounting sense of crisis in the sector, with more than 1,000 roles put at risk at institutions including Cardiff, Durham and Newcastle universities, the University of Kent and Queen’s University Belfast.
While Smith acknowledged that universities were facing a “financial crisis”, saying that “we need to get this system on a sustainable financial footing”, she ruled out providing significant additional support for struggling institutions.
Smith said she had been “completely clear” that “there will not be a major reform of the way in which we fund higher education”.
“It is the case that we have inherited an enormously difficult fiscal position. We’ve got the spending review coming up, but it’s also very clear that there will not be an enormous amount of public investment to go anywhere, let alone into higher education,” she said.
The minister was also asked about executive remuneration, with a Times Higher Education analysis revealing that average vice-chancellor pay packages had now passed £340,000, having risen by £40,000 in just three years.
When asked whether it is fair that university leaders were paid more than the prime minister, Smith described it as a “false comparison”.
However, she added: “When we are in this financially challenging position, I think vice-chancellors should think very carefully about increases to their own pay, and the sort of packages that they are earning as well.”
Questioned on whether the government would consider lifting restrictions on student visas, particularly on dependants – blamed in part for the sector’s precarious financial position – Smith again stressed that Labour would not be reversing the previous Conservative government’s position.
Grady pushed back on this, saying that this would be “disappointing” to union members, adding that UCU views this “as continuing the kind of hostile environment ideology”.
