Annual report : 2004-2005 Annual review / Higher Education Funding Council for England.

  • Higher Education Funding Council for England
Date:
2005
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Annual report : 2004-2005 Annual review / Higher Education Funding Council for England. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The key event in the period covered by this annual review was the Higher Education Bill gaining royal assent on 1 July 2004. This both capped a politically turbulent period for higher education and foreshadowed some significant challenges. The HE Bill also provides the backdrop for the work of HEFCE described in this annual review, and the goals we have sought to achieve. In March we announced the distribution of the 2005-06 recurrent grant to 130 higher education institutions, and 152 further education colleges. Our main objective was to provide stability and greater financial security as the higher education sector prepares for the introduction of variable fees in 2006-07. We have also begun thinking about the implications of this change in terms of the purpose of public funding, the role of the funding council and the future shape of higher education. We discussed these issues with heads of universities and colleges at our annual conference in April at St Anne’s College, Oxford. The HEFCE Board will now take forward these discussions as we develop our strategic plan for 2006-11, engaging with wider groups of stakeholders including regional partners and employers. We look forward to working with the Government to ensure higher education has the resources and policies to remain a major driver of social and economic development in our national life. We need to ensure that higher education receives its fair and deserved share of public funding. We are continuing our work from a good base. In January we were able to announce £1,453 million in capital funding allocations to higher education institutions for 2006-08, representing the most substantial capital funding announcement in recent years. We are also putting substantially more money into research, in keeping with the Government’s commitment to strengthen the research base through the dual support system. As we move forward, two commitments remain at the top of our agenda. While welcoming the promising start made by Sir Martin Harris and his team at the Office for Fair Access in securing funds for bursaries and outreach activities, we remain committed to working in partnership to increase and widen the participation of all students with the potential to benefit from higher education. The research report we published in January 2005 shows that this is still one of the biggest challenges facing the sector. Secondly, we must ensure that the unit of funding per student is not reduced in real terms — because to do so would be to sell all students a false prospectus. Our final achievement outlined in this review is the successful delivery of commitments in the Government’s White Paper ‘The future of higher education’. Here, as in other areas, I must pay particular tribute to the professionalism and dedication of HEFCE staff, as well as of the Board and committees and groups that support our work. AA Mon,
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