Neverendum? Neverlegislatum!

Blimey! An extraordinary day yesterday in Scotland, and already an extraordinary morning in UK politics. Here’s a lesson from higher education, and a consequence for higher education.

David Cameron’s commitment to address, at the same fast pace, both further devolution to Scotland and the anomalies for the rest of the UK is quite a promise. Draft legislation by January to resolve the West Lothian question in ways which also take into account Wales and Northern Ireland is breakneck speed.

Less significantly, I’ve seen this kind of pace before in universities, when either a VC or a Council decides that committee structures are too cumbersome, and can’t we rationalise them. Quickly. What tends to happen is that some apparently big changes get identified quickly, but these are either found not quite to do the job necessary, or need further detailed work for some years. Or alternately some Registrarial sleight of hand gives the impression of change without the disruption. But neither approach really does what the VC/Council want.

The comparison might not be so out of place. Several reforms of university governance have required acts of parliament, or have stalled on a vote when put to the people. With confidence I can predict, based upon university experience, that there will be complications which either prevent the timetable being adhered to, or have in the footnotes and subsidiary clauses an argument which lasts for years. Not neverendum but neverlegislatum.

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That’s the lesson from higher education. What about the consequence?

The debate is squarely about what matters are UK-wide and what matters are devolved to a different level – nation, (city) region, county – within the UK. There’s also an incommensurable: maintaining the Barnett formula implies continued central state disbursement of money, if it is to be meaningful; against this is a commitment to devolve tax and spending decisions. It’ll be tricky to have both.

At the moment higher education is devolved, with one important caveat, which is the unified funding of research councils via the dual support mechanism. This has up to now been protected by intense lobbying of the relevant minister in Westminster. But will universities have a powerful voice to protect this? If there’s greater regionalism, isn’t it likely that some nations or regions will want to have control of all money for HE in their purview? The hubbub of the bigger question will be large, and it may be that universities complaints fall on ears which can’t hear: not deaf, but too busy. Watch this space!

Independent thinking

I posted recently on Scottish independence and what it might mean for students and universities. There’s a parallel question, of course, about research and what impact independence might have on this.  An important disclaimer – I’m not arguing for, or against, independence; just looking at what it might mean.

HESA data on research finance is one way into this question.  Funding for research comes from a number of sources – public, private, charitable, UK, EU, rest of the world, and so on.  The data lets us see how the Scottish picture compares with the rest of the UK.

Research funding makes up a higher proportion of funding for Scottish universities than it does for the rest of the UK – 21% against a UK wide proportion of 16%. Of course, that also reflects, in part, the different UK tuition fee systems – higher tuition fee income for English and Welsh universities inevitably changes the proportions of other types of funding.

HE funding; HESA 2012-13 data

Research funding is typically (although not universally) awarded by a competitive process involving peer review of specific projects.  Comparative performance at this level of detail does tell us something about the research strengths of the different UK nations.

Shares of UK Research Income by nation - HESA 2012-13 data

The highlighted cells show where a nation’s share of total UK funding in that category is higher than its overall national share. The right hand column shows what proportion of overall research funding come from that source.

So we can see that Scotland performs better than its average on the two largest income sources – Research Council (RCUK) funding, and UK charitable income from open competition.  These aren’t small sums of money, either: these two sources accounted for over £2.4 billion in 2012-13.

This is where the impact of independence may be felt. The Research Councils are UK-wide bodies. The large charities are UK-wide. If you redefine UK, then inevitably these funding streams cannot, without other things happening, carry on as they were.   And this is where you get into the unknowable: if Scotland votes yes, then there will be negotiations on a whole raft of things, and the continuation of the Research Councils on a pan-national basis is one of the desiderata of the SNP. Equally, how charities will react is a big question – some charities may have specific clauses that prevent them working across a border, although equally there may be a neat negotiated solution to this.

Another feature can be seen from the data. Both Wales and Northern Ireland have disproportionate shares of UK Government funding. One hypothesis here is that government funding is supporting universities in those nations as a matter of policy, and it would be open to a future Sottish government to do just that. Undoubtedly Scottish universities are one of Scotland’s very valuable assets, and probably have a longevity greater than oil.

The most that I think we can conclude here is that in the event of a yes vote there would be some hard questions about current pan-UK research funding, but it is too soon to say what the effect could be – it’s up for grabs.

Another way to look at this is the question of research culture. Research collaborations between universities are driven by many factors, but an important one is the research question being addressed. Teams working on the same area will know each other, from conferences and journals. They’ll work together if it helps the research question (bringing together expertise, or sharing equipment).

Scottish independence wouldn’t move it further away from the rest of the UK; the question would be whether there were barriers placed in the way of continued collaboration. Unintended consequences of broader negotiations or national policies would be critical here. If Scotland were to join the EU, barriers would be eased. If a good bilateral agreement were reached, then no doubt research collaboration could continue. But research funding may become a pawn in a bigger game.

Should I stay or should I go now?

Last night’s TV debate between Alec Salmond and Alastair Darling brought home to me that the prospect of Scottish independence is possibly very real.  I’m not foolish enough to prognosticate publicly on the rights and wrongs of the question, but it is worth looking at what Scottish independence might do to higher education in the UK.  For this post I’ll look at the student side; research comes another day.

It’s a moot point as to whether there is a single UK higher education sector.  Funding and oversight has been through national funding councils (or similar mechanisms) for some time. And being a devolved matter, quite different approaches to funding of institutions and students have developed in the four UK nations – England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.  On the other hand, the mission groups (the Russell Group, Million+, University Alliance and the now-departed 1994 Group) and Universities UK, the sector umbrella body, have always worked on a UK-wide basis.  

HESA publish data on undergraduate student mobility between the four nations (the raw data is in a table at the end of this post), and these show what looks like a politically and sociologically interesting pattern.  For starters, here’s the absolute numbers (2012-13 data) in each of the four nations who choose to study in their home country (‘stay’) or study in one of the other UK nations (‘go’):

2012-13 HESA data; first degree students only

The disparity in scale between the four nations is clear here: England has 85% of student numbers. Not surprising really: it has more universities and more people anyway.

But when you look at percentages a striking picture emerges:

2012-13 HESA data, first degree students only

On this view, England and Scotland are very similar: 95% of students from England and Scotland stay in their home nation.  And Northern Ireland and Wales are also similar: about two in three students from Wales and Northern Ireland stay in their home, but one in three go elsewhere (mostly to England, by the way.)

It’s possible to make broad historico-political points here, about Scotland and England being sustainable polities, and Wales and Northern Ireland being places from which that some people see the need to leave to thrive. But I’m going to refrain from that. 

The balance of trade is interesting too (that is, the difference between total numbers of students from the nation studying the UK, and total number of places taken by UK students in that nation). England and Northern Ireland are net exporters of students, and Wales and Scotland net importers. Also, despite the vastly different sizes of the sectors, the actual numbers have a very similar order of absolute magnitude – between 11,000 and 13,500 for each of the four nations.

Balance of trade	Students:
	From	In	Balance
England	924,680	912,615	12,065
Wales	51,095	62,180	-11,085
Scotland	95,930	109,450	-13,520
Northern Ireland	41,370	28,830	12,540

Overall, if Scotland left the UK, the HE sectors in England, Wales and Northern Ireland probably wouldn’t be much affected. The blunt truth is that compared to the whole, not many Scottish students leave (a short 5,000), and most of these go to England, where their number is but a drop in the ocean. Scotland might notice a change more: 16% of home students at Scottish universities – over 18,000 - come from other UK nations.

I don’t imagine that the vote on 18 September will be swayed by the impact on the university sectors. Nor, by these data, should it.

Here’s the raw data I promised:

	Nation of institution
Origin of students	England	Wales	Scotland	NI	Total
England	880,210	29,610	14,195	665	924,680
Wales	18,725	31,955	400	15	51,095
Scotland	4,515	165	91,200	50	95,930
Northern Ireland	9,165	450	3,655	28,100	41,370
Total	912,615	62,180	109,450	28,830

The numbers are from 2012-13 HESA data (did I mention this?) and refer to first degree students only.