Scottish secretary Michael Forsyth has yielded to higher education institutions' pleas for a moratorium on further cuts in the coming year. This week's announcement of Scottish Office spending plans shows he has given the sector an extra Pounds 15 million, boosting the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council's allocation to Pounds 545 million.
Mr Forsyth said the extra cash would allow SHEFC to maintain its main grants for teaching and research at this year's levels in real terms.
"I recognise that institutions have had to make difficult decisions in order to become more cost-effective and so I have responded positively to their request for a moratorium on efficiency gains in 1997/98," he said.
Both the Committee of Scottish Higher Education Principals and the Association of University Teachers Scotland have welcomed the announcement.
The Scottish Office has stressed that the Scottish secretary will review the spending plans for 1998/99 and 1999/2000 in the light of the long-term recommendations of the Dearing inquiry into higher education. But planning figures imply a 5.5 per cent cut in real terms in coming years, which AUT assistant general secretary David Bleiman said "would clearly be disastrous".